She was kissing his chest and his nipples, and running her tongue through his hair and to his navel, and then lower still until she found his full, ready member. He closed his eyes when he felt her warm mouth cover him, letting the feeling fill him as she moved up and down, creating suction along the way. He had taught her, ash e had been taught, the ways to please each other. For a moment he thought of Zelandoni, when she was young and known as Zolena, remembering when he thought he'd never find a woman like her. But he had, and suddenly he was so overwhelmed, he sent a thought of gratitude to the Great Earth Mother. What would he do if he ever lost Ayla?
His mood suddenly changed. He had enjoyed being playful, but now he wanted the woman. He sat up, pulled her up on her knees to face him, and sat her on his lap with her legs on either side of him. He took her in his arms and kissed her with an intensity that surprised her, then held her tight. She didn't know what had changed his mood, but her love for him was as strong and she responded in kind.
Then he was kissing her shoulders and neck, and caressing her breasts. She felt his need upon him so hard, it almost raised her up. He was nuzzling her breasts, trying to find her nipples. She lifted up a bit, arched her back, and felt the sensations race through her as he suckled and nibbled. She felt his hard, fiery rod under her and raised up a little higher, and without thinking, she found herself guiding him into her.
It was almost more than he could bear as she lowered herself on him, taking him into her warm, wet, eager embrace. She lifted again, leaned back, while he held her close with one arm to keep one nipple in his mouth while he massaged her other one, as though he couldn't quite get enough of her full womanness.
She was guiding herself on him, feeling the Pleasure fill her with every stroke, breathing hard and crying out. Suddenly the need was stronger upon him, building with each lift and plunge. He let go of her breasts, leaned back on his hands, and raised up, lowered, and raised again. Both cried out as waves of intense Pleasure grew with each thrust, until with a glorious flood of shuddering release, they peaked in a culmination of delight.
A few more strokes and he lay back on the grass, felt a small stone under his shoulder and ignored it. Ayla lay forward, on top of him, her head resting on his chest, and stayed there for a while. Finally she sat up again. He smiled at her as she rose up and disengaged. He would have liked to stay close longer, but they did have to get back. She walked the few feet to the small stream and squatted down to rinse off. Jondalar rinsed off as well.
"We are going to be swimming and washing as soon as we get there," he said.
"I know. That's why I'm not being too careful."
For Ayla, cleansing herself, if it was at all possible, was a ritual taught to her by Iza, her Clan mother, though the woman had wondered if her strange daughter, so tall and unattractive, would ever have reason to use it. Because Ayla was so meticulous about it, even using freezing icy streams, it had become a habit for Jondalar as well, though he hadn't always been so fastidious.
When she went to get her clothes, Wolf approached her, head lowered and tail wagging. When he was young, she'd had to train him to stay away from them when they shared Pleasures on their Journey. It had annoyed Jondalar to have the wolf bother them, and she hadn't liked being interrupted, either. When it wasn't enough to tell Wolf, quite forcefully, to go away when he came sniffing around to see what they were doing, Ayla had been required to tie a rope around his neck to keep him away, sometimes quite a distance away. Eventually he had learned, but he always approached her cautiously afterward until she signaled him that it was all right.
The horses, patiently grazing nearby, came at their whistles. They rode to the edge of the plateau and stopped again to look down at the valleys of the primary river and its tributary, and the complement of limestone cliffs that paralleled their courses. From the high field they could see the confluence of the small river flowing from the northwest and the main stream as it approached from the east. The smaller river flowed into the primary just before the larger river turned south, while it was still moving down a west-flowing section of its course. To the south, at the end of a series of cliffs, they saw the geologic block of limestone that contained the tremendous overhanging ledge of the Ninth Cave, with its long front terrace. But as Ayla looked down at the home of the Ninth Cave, it was not the remarkable size of its overhanging shelter that held her attention, but another most unusual formation.
Long before, during a formative orogeny, a period of mountain building when impressive peaks were folded and raised at the leisurely pace of geologic time, a pillar of igneous rock broke away from the place of its volcanic birth and fell into a stream. The wall of stone from which the pillar had come had taken the shape of its crystal structure as fiery magma cooled into basalt, forming itself into great columns with flat sides meeting at angles.
As the rock that broke loose was moved along, pushed by torrential floods and dragged by glacial ice, the columnar piece of basalt, though bashed and battered, retained its basic shape. The pillar of stone was eventually deposited on the floor of an inland sea, along with deep layers of accumulated sediments of marine life that were creating limestone. Later earth movements raised the sea floor, which eventually became a land of rounded hills and cliffs along river valleys. As water, weather, and wind eroded the great faces of vertical limestone into the shelters and caves used by the Zelandonii, they also exposed the erratic, the battered piece of basalt from a distant location shaped like a column.
As if its sheer size weren't enough to make the site unique, the huge abri was made even more unusual by the strange long stone embedded near the top and jutting out of the front of the huge limestone overhang. Though buried deeply into the cliff at one end, it was weathering out at such an angle that it seemed about to fall, making a distinctive landmark that added a striking element to the extraordinary rock shelter of the Ninth Cave. Ayla had seen it when she first arrived and, with a shiver of recognition, felt she had seen it before. "Does that stone have a name?" she asked, pointing to it. "It's called the Falling Stone," Jondalar said. "That's a good name for it," she said. "And didn't your mother mention names for those rivers?"
"The main river doesn't really have a name," Jondalar said. "Everyone just calls it The River. Most people think of it as the most important river in the region, even though it's not the biggest. It flows into a much larger one south of here-in fact, we call that one Big River-but many of the Zelandonii Caves live near this one, and everyone knows it's the one that's meant when someone says The River.
"The little tributary down there is called Wood River," Jondalar continued. "Many trees grow near it, and there is more wood in that valley than in most. It's not used by hunters much." Ayla nodded in tacit understanding.
The valley of the feeder stream, flanked on the right by limestone cliffs and on the left by steep hills, was not like most of the open grassy valleys of the main river and its other nearby tributaries. It was dense with trees and vegetation, especially upstream. Unlike more open areas, woodlands were not prized by hunters, because hunting was more difficult. Animals were harder to see with trees and brush to hide behind and use for camouflage, and those that migrated in large herds tended to prefer valleys with sizable fields of grass. On the other hand, the valley did provide wood, for constructions, and implements, and for fire. Fruits and nuts were also collected, and several other plants that were gathered for food and other uses, along with smaller animals that fell to snares and traps. In a land of relatively few trees, no one disdained the value of Wood River Valley's contributions.