30
Love walks backward while drawing Andrew through the woods, her hands fisting his collar. He follows her lead with a ravenous expression, the glint in his eyes stirring her blood. He sees nothing but her, wants nothing but her, worships nothing but her. For once in Love’s primal life, she truly feels like a goddess.
Within his mortal gaze, she is invincible. And in reciprocation, Love perceives nothing but this man.
The late afternoon sun has disappeared, eventide descending fully. Fresh moonlight casts them in pearlescent light, its ambience eclipsed by the blaze in Andrew’s pupils. She tugs him past the evergreens, their foreheads pressing, and he backhands a needle shrub, swiping it out of their way.
The corner of Love’s mouth tips upward. Andrew mirrors the gesture, his mouth curling like a deviant thing. Right then, he could be an immortal. A god of fiction, as she once imagined. She cannot fathom him representing any single emotion though, for he embodies them all, redefining the meanings of anger, wonder, sorrow, and envy. Those, as well as fear, joy, guilt, and bliss.
They grin, their panting breaths playing a heavy staccato through the wilderness. Sauntering backward, she mutters against his lips, “I like making noise with you.”
“Be careful giving me ideas,” he warns. “Or I’m liable to get even more noises out of you .”
“That is not a warning.”
“No.” Andrew’s fingers grasp her coat and yank it apart. “It’s fucking not.”
It’s a promise. The most enticing of predictions.
Love gasps happily into his mouth, the material splitting to expose her tiny dress, the tips of her nipples poking through the bodice. She wrestles herself out of the mantle; at the same time, Andrew wrenches the sleeves down her arms, the vestment thudding to the snow.
Because his coat is next, Andrew flattens his palms over Love’s tailbone and hums into her lips, “Help me.”
This tenacious mortal does not require assistance. Yet the flirtatious invitation plies her with shivers, the request its own brand of foreplay.
Love, I need you to help me.
I need you.
Help me.
She enjoys this erotic game, how Andrew beseeches her for such a simple thing, and she wants him to demand more, in a dozen ways before the night is over.
With a dominating pull, Love strips the longbow from his broad shoulders, then moves to his coat.
“Perhaps we should pace ourselves,” she utters while fighting with the garment. “We should retire indoors, take this slowly.”
“We will,” Andrew rasps, shedding the vestment from his body. “But much later. I’m going to savor you all night, in every location, from every angle, and at every speed until you can’t tell slow-fucking from fast.”
“I’ve been taught to expect little from humans. My kind says your skills fail to exceed those of deities. Care to prove this theory wrong?”
“Watch me.” He jerks her into him. “Watch this human fuck up your assumptions.”
The crease between her thighs slickens. “Then you have my permission.”
True, they don’t need to be slow. These touches have long since been earned, for they have waited so long, been denied one another for too many days. Also, the night is young, the hours stretching before them like a gift.
Or perhaps a vice. Surely, a guilty pleasure.
It had been marvelous, satisfying to use words and objects to achieve rapture. But the moment their fingers had brushed, the second their mouths had crushed together on that pond, had been transcendent. Indeed, it had blown Love’s expectations to dust.
Although they carry their archery, the skates have been abandoned at the pond, discarded by their wearers in haste, in exchange for boots with undone laces. They’ve barely traveled fifty yards into the wilderness, their mouths clamped. This makes for a hectic journey home, with each of them taking turns shoving the other against a tree, their tongues going mad.
No. They are not making it to the cottage.
Little else changes once they reach this unspoken agreement. Rather, everything progresses with greater intensity.
Love rips through Andrew’s sweater and the layer beneath, the frayed material landing atop their coats. At last, his chest expands into view. Toned slabs of muscle flex before her, from the sculpted clavicles to the smooth pectorals and the hard stack of abs leading to the band of his pants. His waist tapers into the belted material, a line of fine dark hair—in contrast to his pale layers—trickling between the ramps of his hipbones.
Stars eternal. The thick groove beneath his pants outlines his cock, which stands tall against the fabric. Love wants to brand herself against him, claim every bit of skin and sinew. Until the thirteenth day, this magnificent human belongs to her.
“Touch me like you once said you would,” she implores.
Andrew groans, dips his head to the crook of her neck, and speaks into her pulse point. “My pleasure, Selfish Myth.”
He snatches Love’s ass and backs her toward a high stump. “Hold onto me,” he commands, then hauls Love off her feet and drops her atop the surface. Grabbing her knees, Andrew gives a firm tug, jolting her to the stump’s edge, her spread thighs flanking his waist. Piles of snow and pinecones fall from the rim, tumbling across the ground.
“First, your mouth,” Andrew husks, running his pinkie over her lips. “Then your shoulders.” Dragging his hands down her throat, he slides down the straps of her dress, mapping her skin along the way. “Then your arms.” He traces each bicep with the backs of his knuckles, every touch inciting mayhem between her limbs, the folds of her pussy clenching.
His decadent ministrations overwhelm her. From Love’s shoulders, Andrew palms her breasts, her nipples surfacing beneath his thumbs, the studs aching when he circles them, the skin ruching through her dress.
Love trembles in his arms. She buries her fingernails into his shoulder blades, her body surrounded by him, enveloped by him. This alone causes her eyes to roll back, the contact surreal, like a fever dream.
Next, her stomach, then the dip of her spine, then her legs and ankles. Her cunt pulsates, leaking onto the stump. Aggravation and need assault the supple flesh, her walls straining for his hand.
Love shimmies closer. The motion splays her wider, her bare walls smearing his pants.
Andrew must feel the heat of her, because his eyelids hood. “Play fair.”
“If I must obey, I shall not play at all,” she declares. “Or are you intimidated to try—”
Her bravado is cut short, her words ending on a stunned moan when his fingers strike a path up her inner thighs, then the tip of one finger rows up and down her slit. From the wet opening to the peak of her clit, Andrew swabs his digit lightly, coaxing more liquid from Love’s passage, which glosses his finger.
“Ah,” she keens, flattening one palm behind her on the stump, the other strapping around his nape for balance.
The mortal groans. “Say it again. Intimidated to try what?”
“Andrew,” she mewls, parting her limbs farther. “Never mind.”
“There’s a good goddess.”
“Bad,” she amends. “Never good.”
With a guttural chuckle, Andrew thumbs her clit, presses down, and circles the dainty skin. Love’s mouth falls open. Her hips rock into his hand, blood surging to the cleft of her pussy, her nerves about to combust.
Andrew cups one cheek of her backside and gently tows her into him. Deliberately, he refuses to slip those fingers inside Love, the tension wrecking her. She cries out, on the brink of unraveling, the straps of her dress slumping down her arms, the tops of her breasts swelling. He could make her come, but instead he prolongs the agony, then does something drastic.
On the brink of her crescendo, Andrew withdraws, depriving Love of the release. Instead, he brushes his soaked fingers over her whining mouth. Unhinged, she straightens and sucks on the digits, the flavor of her arousal seeping into her palate. While locking eyes with him, she tastes his touch.
Andrew’s pupils engulf his irises. Pulling from Love’s lips, he splays his fingers over her sternum, fingers spreading over a certain pounding organ. “Then”—he leans in and kisses her lips—“your heart.”
Yes. There’s her heart. He’s found it for her.
Love wheezes, her pulse erratic. She would rage against the denied orgasm, if not for the softness that eclipses her sexual appetite. He has disarmed her once again, proving the powerful effect of human touch.
They go still, feeling her pulse sprint under his palm, losing themselves in the rhythm, falling into it. Suddenly, Love craves nothing more than to give Andrew the same thrill.
Deities rarely ask permission. Yet he’s always been her exception, her broken rule, her greatest failure.
“May I?” she purrs.
“I’m yours,” Andrew growls. “Do whatever you’d like with me.”
Love does not wait to be permitted twice. She takes what she wants, her greedy hands racing over his skin, flattening atop his chest and relishing the drumbeat of his heart.
For her. All for her.
The pads of Love’s fingers rake across his abs and nipples. With every inch she explores, his cock widens, and his eyes flare like platinum flames. Fates, she needs the pants off, gone, obliterated.
Starving for his flesh, Love rushes her lips over his throat, scrapes along his collarbones, and nips the top of one shoulder. A low hiss shakes from his lungs. At the jagged sound, Love smiles into his torso. Her tongue comes out to join the fun, licking over the ridges and sweeping across his left nipple.
Andrew makes another feral sound, his hands imprinting into her ass, urging Love firmer against him. Her breasts heave into his chest, her pussy skims the ledge of his cock, and her senses explode. With a mewl, she curls her tongue over the other nipple, then descends farther.
Grunting, Andrew seizes her cheeks and hoists her gaze to his. “Not a good idea.”
“You said I could do whatever I wished,” she taunts.
“Only if you want me to survive. You’ll kill me quickly if you wrap your lips around my cock.”
Love fixes him with a sly look, but the blue tint of his fingernails claims her attention. “You’re cold.”
“Not possible,” he pants.
Except she’s right. Although temperature is obscure to her, Love is aware of the drastic shifts in climate at nightfall, the air’s change in density indicating how many degrees it has dropped. Yet Andrew’s orbs kindle like bonfires, as if what he sees is enough to keep him warm… keep him alive.
He is not freezing in the slightest. But if Love cannot be human, she wants to be irreplaceable, a female he’d be unsuccessful in finding anywhere else.
She urges him backward and hops off the stump, adjusting the hem of her dress. The action is intentionally coy. It drives Andrew to mutter a curse between his teeth and prowl closer.
She stamps a hand on his chest. “Wait.”
In the mood to show off, Love closes her eyes and beseeches The Stars. When the hemisphere flickers, a fur blanket appears behind her, the material covering the stump and hanging over the ledge.
Fascinated, Andrew peers over her shoulder at the blanket. “Impressive.”
“Of course,” Love boasts, pleased by his response. “And do not fret. It isn’t from an animal. Celestials create textiles without taking from the fauna.”
“Perceptive too.”
“I do enjoy anticipating your objections.”
“If only to defy them.”
“Usually, but not at the moment. Now then—”
Reaching behind her shoulder, Love retrieves an arrow from her quiver, flipping it between her digits and then stalling the tip at his zipper. Using the weapon’s blade, she sketches the fabric concealing his cock. At this juncture, any other mortal male would be afraid, but Andrew’s pupils enlarge as swiftly as his erection.
He has no idea how much Love appreciates this penchant. What a titillating creature he’s turned out to be.
Andrew does not inquire about conception since she has already made it clear—during their first talk in the cottage—that deities cannot conceive. Blessedly, this will not be a problem for them.
When she cuts through the belt loops, a gritty noise rises from Andrew’s chest. The accessory falls, adding to the pile of garments in the snow.
“Off,” she instructs.
His mouth crooks. “Help.”
She just did. Yet there’s that sexy word again. Help.
Andrew kicks off the unlaced boots. Without looking away, he swipes her arrow and chucks it aside, daring her to reprimand him for this transgression. Instead, her eager fingers go to work, caressing the silhouette of his phallus, dragging down the zipper—helping.
The panels spread. Love’s exhalations quicken, her hands trembling so that it becomes difficult to continue. Andrew takes over, sliding the pants from his waist while she watches. The material slumps from his hips, the bridge of his cock springing free.
Love’s mouth waters. Her pulse accelerates, to say nothing of what the vision does to her equilibrium. Nor how it wets her cunt.
His cock is glorious. The solid flesh stands high, its length shaped to perfection, the veins slender and the bloated head flushed. It’s pale like marble, apart from the crown, where the blood flows. A thin line cuts through the top, a drop of cum rising from the slit like a delicacy that beckons her tongue. As for the sac, it’s heavy between Andrew’s thighs, likely emitting heat that Love wishes she could feel.
It’s a thrill to discover he’s naked under the pants. Like her, Andrew has omitted any extra layers, as in the manner of deities.
He strips, divesting himself of the garment and dropping it to the ground. Love’s eyes touch each thick inch of his cock, then memorizes the curve of his ass and the steep V of his hips.
A primitive sound grates from Andrew. Her eyes scroll upward to find him staring at her as if she’ll disappear, as if he wants to eat her alive, consume her before she gets the chance to vanish.
Her hands tingle, itching for contact. Her pussy drips, yearning for that cock.
While he towers nude before her, Love steps around Andrew, circling like a huntress and prompting him to twist with her. Once she has coerced the mortal to switch positions, Love narrows her eyes. Then she plants her hands on his torso and shoves him onto the protrusion.
A grunt rumbles from Andrew’s throat as he lands, muscles jumping with the motion, clouds of frost vacating his lungs. Lifting one leg and propping a booted foot on the rim beside his ass, she leans in and commands, “Be an obedient mortal and do not move.”
White locks drape across his forehead. “Or?”
She quirks her eyebrow. The hem of her dress flaps like bait, and she accentuates the movements of her hips for good measure while sidling onto his lap. The tormented, masculine groan that follows elicits a smirk from Love, and she splays her thighs around his waist.
Astride him, Love’s bare cunt grazes the smooth pome of his cock. The friction tears a low whimper from her lips, an undercurrent streaking up her limbs. Stars almighty, the sensation is extraordinary.
Andrew’s eyes darken like black stars, and his fists crush the back of her skirt, using the leverage to heave Love closer. Their stunted breaths blast together. Seated on him, her soaked folds rest against his erection, her arousal combining with his, the effect painful yet sublime.
“Oh, Fates,” she pants. “This feeling cannot be real.”
“Then make it real,” Andrew seethes. “Make it yours.”
“Mine.”
“Yours.”
Mine.
Wanting more, she pivots her waist. The seam of her pussy gyrates up and down his cock, more fluid pooling from her body and lathering him. The prow of Andrew’s cock twitches, widening in girth, expanding farther. With each languid pass, her nerve-endings scatter, the result staggering.
Chasing after the sensation, she slowly grinds herself on his lap. Short sobs gust from her lungs, her body taking on a life of its own.
While she rolls her waist, Andrew swoops his lips to her throat, sucking on her pulse until it hurts. So good. So much. His insolent mouth scours down her flesh, along her clavicle to her breasts. With a free hand, he tugs down the bodice, one nipple peeking into view.
“Fuck,” he growls before latching his mouth around the bud.
Love whines, her spine arching, her hair in disarray around her face. She clasps his nape and swats her hips, moaning harder when his teeth nick the peak.
She had intended to arrange the fur around them, but with his mouth feasting on her and the column of his erection pressing into her folds, she can barely think coherently, lacking the strength to do more than release a splintered cry.
“Christ,” Andrew mutters against her breast. “Love.”
Her name ripping from his mouth is a benediction, a rite of passage. It’s all she wants. Ultimately, it’s all she will ever have.
The utterance snaps something within her. Love flips her head down to his, catching Andrew’s gaze in the net of hers. Their pupils fasten, the impact thrusting a jolt through her, like stars colliding.
Somehow, he knows what she’ll do. Snaring her ass, Andrew hoists her forward, leveling his cock with her entrance. At the same time, Love jostles atop his lap, positioning herself.
His gaze cements with her own. Like two pieces soldering into one, she lowers herself, the flanks of her pussy sealing around him, her flesh grabbing his length, his cock filling every crevice, flaring her wide.
Oh. Fucking. Stars.
Love’s mouth hangs open. Her flesh crackles like dynamite. This, merely from his penetration, his skin welding to hers, touching as closely as possible.
Her awed features reflect in Andrew’s gaze. Cupping her scalp with a free hand, Andrew brings her lips to his. Only then does his growl break apart, as if he’d anticipated this and needed a place for his voice to land.
Overwhelmed, she brings herself down on his cock fully. Its firmness closes a hollow inside her, flooding it with a maelstrom of devastating sensations. For a moment, they pause, the woodland frozen around them.
Andrew runs his palm from Love’s scalp to her jaw, clasping it while his other hand palms her backside. Fixing her in place, he pivots his hips, skids out of Love, and hisses, “Selfish Little Myth.” Then he gently whips his cock upward again. “You have just ruined me.”
Afflicted, Love grits her teeth. She swivels her hips, gyrating in sync with his cock, her drenched cunt gripping him. Yet the abrasion grows worse instead of better, as if what they need is out of range. The result steals her breath, whisks it away into the night.
Love rises and falls onto her mortal, bobbing above his lap while her skirt quivers. Andrew groans with every fluid pass, her walls clutching him tighter. They fling themselves into one another, waists undulating, moans cutting into the forest.
The rest of their bodies participate, the muscles of his abdomen contracting as his waist snaps upward, his cock lurching. Love’s own body coils back and forth in serpentine motions, enhancing the pleasure.
A guttural noise carves from Andrew’s throat, and Love grins through her cries. Mortals fuck well; he’s proof of that. Whereas deities rut with vigor and magic flowing in their veins. For a human, the ecstasy is heightened to an immeasurable degree.
But although Love worries she’ll eviscerate him and frets whether to stop this, Andrew expels a low, velveteen laugh as if she should know better. He pumps in slowly. “You’ve forgotten what I write for a living. I’m very creative when I want to be.” He pulls back out. “So now I’m going to fuck you—” then in, “—like no god ever will.” And out. “I’m going to fuck you—” and in, “—like a mortal.”
Releasing her jaw, Andrew grabs the stump’s rim, leans back, and lashes his hips. He charges forth, opening her pussy with keen thrusts, soaking her thoroughly, matching Love’s vitality as though they’ve created an energy of their own.
Straddling his cock, Love weeps aloud. “Andrew!”
“That’s it,” he encourages, palming her ass in one hand and rocking her forward. “Ride your human. Feel my cock touching your pussy.”
He’s right. How could she have overlooked the carnal scenes she’s read in his books? This man fucks as if he’s made partners come a thousand times, in a thousand ways, using a thousand otherworldly tactics. His experience includes the pages he’s composed, therefore he knows how to make a goddess scream.
The head of his erection strikes a narrow place that has Love shouting in despair. Beset, she meets his stamina with her own, and they surge into motion. Angry at the universe for placing a barrier between them, sorrowful for what they’ll inevitably lose, envious of the others who don’t suffer this fate, and wondrous for what they’ve found nevertheless. It’s forbidden consummation, passionate fucking, and defiant lovemaking.
Love flays her waist, and Andrew pistons his cock. Her quiver rattles, arrows in danger of toppling, and the velocity pulls the dress’s bodice down farther. Both breasts spill into the eventide, the nipples flushed and puckered.
Andrew straightens, kissing the cleft between her breasts. Never losing pace, the mortal plucks Love’s skirt and peels the garment from her skin, bunching it under the quiver’s harness. She pauses only long enough to draw her arms overhead, enabling him to divest her of the fabric.
The dress lands in the snow, where their shadows writhe. The mortal grins through his lust, rapt by the vision of Love mounting him in nothing but her archery. Then his smirk dissolves into another growl. Resuming his posture, he reclines at an angle, holding the stump and her buttocks, the leverage intensifying every snap of his cock.
Love clasps his nape, tilting her frame away, the position offering an unhampered view of her mortal. He’s on the brink of climax but holding back. She drives herself into him, pushing him harder, their hips slamming at an excessive rate.
Sobs pour from her lungs, her pussy clenches around his cock, and she gushes onto him. Under beams of starlight, this man fucks her back. More than that, he makes love while holding her gaze—claiming, endearing, cherishing her.
The world is reduced to frost, nightfall, and this human. The resonance of his groans, the sensuous flex of his torso, the way he looks at Love. Her vision stings, because it’s clear now.
It’s not the touch that matters. It’s the bond.
Whether rough and fast, gentle and slow, the rapture is the same. So long as it occurs with the right soul.
Love’s heart scatters into a million stars, a solar system forming within her. No one will ever come close to this.
To him.
Andrew changes their position, seizing her thighs and looping them over his shoulders. This alters the slant of his cock. He strikes a narrow spot that makes her shriek, her body jolting under the magnitude of his thrusts.
Beneath the surface, her wings thrash. Pleasure ripples through the fringes, vibrates along the feathers’ stems, the wild sensation is beyond comprehension. She’s never felt it reach the panels before, hadn’t known it was possible.
She hunches, pressing her forehead to his own while her hips flay against his. Andrew straightens, bands one arm around her middle and dives his fingers into her hair, securing the roots. Anchored, braced like two branches of a fortress, they pound into one another.
Love’s limbs drape down his back, thighs falling wider. Her breasts rush against his chest, her pussy clings to his cock, and her spirit flies into the ether. Ramming together, they hurl themselves after the climax, fucking into each other. Her cries build, pleading, demanding.
“Come for me,” she cries.
“Come with me,” he grunts. “Come like a goddess. Come on.”
Then he slams his mouth onto hers. A dozen rapid strikes of his cock, and her world goes black. Love bellows into his kiss, their tongues entangled, her body rupturing.
Andrew’s mouth quakes, a growl of release wracking his frame, the noise shattering through Love. The muscles of his cock convulse with her pussy, both pulsating and pouring into one another, cum streaming inside her.
Her wings bat against her skin, the plumes frantic to rip free. Somehow, Love finds the fortitude to repress them, all the while howling to The Stars. Mutinous sounds of ecstasy amplify through the wilderness, where they shall remain, echoing for eternity.
Andrew sweeps his hips, tenderly plying her cunt, drawing out the final orgasm until she’s depleted. Love collapses into his arms, which encase her like iron, their hearts thumping in tandem.
For a while, they regain their breaths. So now Love knows. This is what she’s been missing.
This mortal caresses every inch of her skin—other than her spine, which is blocked by the quiver and longbow. Yet Love feels the touch down to her plumage, the feathers quivering just under the surface. While she came, the wings had nearly burst free. And for the first time, Love wishes she had let them.