40
One Year Later
The stars are out. They’re quiet in the darkness, blooming with light as though they have minds of their own. Staring up at them, Iris grins to herself. Strange notions such as these tend to preoccupy her at the most unexpected times.
A gust blows through the woods, dousing the air with the scent of pine. Standing at the forest bridge, she trains her gaze from the celestials to the towering trees, the urge to scale a particular trunk overwhelming her. She won’t make it far without scraping a knee or twisting an ankle—again. It happened to her once before, when she attempted to master those heights.
Her beloved fondly calls her stubborn. She has the scars to prove it: nick marks on one elbow, courtesy of ceramic shards when she’d thrown a tremendous fit and swiped dishes off his dining table, all because they’d been debating a random subject—she cannot recall the topic, only that it had riled her up.
For his part, her beloved had responded to Iris’s temper by grabbing the only surviving plate off the table and nonchalantly tossing it over his shoulder, cracking the dish in half. Afterward, they’d doubled over, laughing hysterically. For all their mutual cravings and passions, their bond is also sportive and snarky.
Iris’s other scars are mysteries. One is a slash across the inside of her palm, though she doesn’t know where she got it. A vague image flashes in Iris’s mind of another female with scarred hands, the marks resembling wildflowers. However, the picture vanishes a second later. Something had happened in the past to wipe her mind clean, like a snowplow pushing through slush. She’d lost her memory from some traumatic event but had met her beloved shortly after, when she’d beat him in a round of archery, in the abandoned training range at the edge of the village.
Since then, they’ve been restoring that building with the help of their friend, Griffin, who is courting another friend, Holly. Iris plans on giving lessons once the renovations are complete. Already, she has an extensive waitlist for clients.
As for the rest—where she comes from and who her family had once been—none of those details have returned. The past is a murky pit, equally distressing and reassuring.
Iris snuggles into the black scarf Georgie had gifted her. When her beloved had introduced them, the woman had been flabbergasted.
“You’re Iris?” Georgie had asked.
Nevertheless, the matriarch had recovered quickly, accepting some private assumption she must have gotten wrong. “Well, my guy has good taste,” she’d said, linking arms with Iris in a motherly fashion.
While planning her forthcoming archery business, Iris works on the details from home. Her office is down the hall from Andrew’s, located on the first floor of his house.
Their house, he insists.
In the beginning, Iris had avoided the people in Evershire, overwhelmed by their attention, inexplicably afraid of couples who seemed familiar but couldn’t be. Her behavior had been awkward back then. However, she no longer feels apprehensive.
Every once in a while, people in the village even approach Iris for relationship advice. She has a rather staunch opinion, drawing others to her with their dilemmas, but what each person does with the advice is up to them.
Iris suspects this won’t end when she opens the archery range. Truly, she doesn’t mind. Helping people with their romantic entanglements feels right, as if she’s playing impartial matchmaker.
She recalls debating the subject with her lover sometime prior, while they’d been firing arrows at each other in the woods. It had been a heated debate, which had riled her up. To this day, Iris is uncertain why she’d taken a random subject personally. They’d talked about whether fate exists and if people control their destinies.
Her beloved had said, “A real bond is an imperfect one.”
Layers of snow glimmer through the forest. The temperature drops, and Iris closes her eyes to savor it.
Snow crunches beneath a pair of boots. Her eyelids flip open, focusing on the powdered branches. There’s a distinct scent, masculine and close.
How curious. She recognizes this moment as though reliving it, except on the ground this time instead of… Where?
A pair of toned arms slip around her waist from behind. Hot puffs of breath caress her neck. The atmosphere smells of cedarwood and eucalyptus.
“Up to trouble, are you?” he teases.
“The trees are lovely at night,” she conspires. “They don’t look as tall in the dark.”
“In other words, you’ve been thinking about climbing one.”
She never fools him. These woods, and this bridge where they stand, are special places. At least according to the journal they’d found a while back, which chronicles bits and pieces of their relationship yet remains cryptic about many other details. Certain perplexing passages seem as though they’d been deliberately hidden. Much like a code.
Her beloved spins Iris to face him. Ah, there he is.
White hair. Pewter eyes. Impish features.
Andrew combs through her tresses. He looks tired from a day of editing his upcoming release, a spin-off from a prior series about a war between outcast gods and their sovereigns.
Iris winds her arms around his shoulders. She loves his body, loves the word love , and loves attaching that word to him. She may be a simple woman who cannot climb trees, but she can love.
“Hello, my beloved,” she flirts.
“Hey, my selfish one,” he husks. “What are you thinking about?”
“The fact that you never stop asking questions.”
“Because I never want to stop knowing you. But if I’m wearing you out one way, let me wear you out in another.” His eyes gleam like liquid mercury. “Give me your mouth.”
She laughs. Who’s the selfish one now?
Andrew swoops down, claiming her lips and stealing her breath. His hot tongue entwines with hers, pulling a moan from the back of Iris’s throat.
Her toes curl. The crease of her pussy aches, as it routinely does with him. The desire never wanes; rather, it ignites swiftly. And frequently.
With another moan, Iris inches back before her concentration breaks and she ends up dragging him into the forest. It would not be the first time they’ve fucked against a tree.
“I was thinking about this bridge,” she confides, scraping her fingers lightly over the front of his coat. “It could have been a secret place once, where people from different worlds met and crossed the threshold to each other. Might that have been possible?”
Andrew runs his mouth over hers. “In my head, anything’s possible.”
“Good,” she says, pleased.
With a naughty smirk, he bites her lip, then tugs her forward. “Come. I have a surprise for you.”
Iris hopes that surprise involves their bed. She’s about to follow, but the air shifts. The force sweeps through and grows thicker, colder. The sensation comes from some distance behind her, and she wants to turn and look, but the hairs along her arms stand up, warning her not to.
Then again. When has she ever listened to reason?
Iris cranes her head over her shoulder. But there’s nothing there. Just a dome of stars, a vista of trees, and snow embossed in silver.
Except something is different. A presence lingers nearby, as if she and her beloved are being watched by a figment. Someone with a temperamental heartbeat—a pulse that races like a firestorm—is watching her.
Yet the breeze isn’t dangerous. It’s lonely.
Lost. Protective.
The wind strokes her cheek. Sympathy floods her chest for whoever’s out there alone and yearning, looking out for her. Iris wishes she could answer them, touch them back with her fingers, if only to offer comfort. Somehow, she knows the specter had once offered the same to her.
“Iris,” Andrew says. “You okay?”
“I am now,” she says to the forest, hoping the figure hears her.
Just in case, Iris raises her free hand toward the woods, not quite a wave but hopefully an assurance. Perhaps they’ve encountered one another before.
With her other hand clasped in Andrew’s, she steps with him toward the village, suspecting she won’t feel that rush again. Eventually, she might even forget it.
***
Andrew covers Iris’s eyes as he guides them into her office. Her arms extend in front of her, grasping nothing but air. With a grudge, she stumbles forward, trying to wrestle his hands from her face.
“Release me,” she demands.
“Keep walking,” he orders. “I’m going to surprise you with something you’ll like. Then after that…” He lets the sentence hang for a moment, provoking an influx of wicked thoughts. “I’ll touch your fiendish mouth, beautiful tits, and sweet pussy until—”
“Let me go. Let me go this instant!”
Chuckling, Andrew removes his palms from her eyelids. “Selfish creature.”
Indeed. Thankfully, Ulrik isn’t home. The man is tolerable most days and approves of Iris’s “give-no-fucks” attitude, but because Andrew is skilled at sex, this makes it impossible for her to come quietly. Iris has lost count of the times her beloved has covered her shouting mouth while she convulsed around his cock, to the point where she’s bitten his palm and drawn blood. And despite the size of this house, Ulrik has rebuked them on more than one occasion to “dial that shit down.”
But tonight, Ulrik is working late. Therefore, Iris and Andrew can holler to the stars if they wish. Better yet, she will make her beloved roar.
Iris is about to flip around and attack Andrew when she notices what he’s done. A telescope tied with a silver ribbon stands beside the high windows, its neck pointed to the hemisphere. She had mentioned wanting one after they’d read an enigmatic passage in the journal archiving their relationship. Something about the stars and how there’s one that refuses to shine. Perhaps she can locate it.
That is not all. A mural of the night sky is painted on the ceiling, constellations branching out from the reeded ceiling lamp and extending to the crown molding. Andrew must have done this while she’d been idling beside the woods.
One of the constellations consists of five stars. Yet another oddity that feels familiar.
Unexpected homesickness overwhelms Iris. It’s a bittersweet pain. Although she cannot recall where this feeling comes from, it proves she had something in the past worth remembering.
Iris shall add these gifts to the relics stored in a trunk at the foot of their bed, the contents of which include a handwritten note folded like a star, the oversized coat she wears from time to time, a set of silken loungewear, and a black plume. In addition to the archery mounted beside Andrew’s longbow, these items chronicle their life together so far, memories that exist like vignettes, a trail of breadcrumbs to pursue.
Andrew’s heat radiates behind her. “Do you like it?”
She whirls toward him. “It’s otherworldly.”
“Then it suits you. You’re an otherworldly goddess.”
The endearment casts a spell over Iris. A goddess. She likes the sound of that. In fact—
Iris snatches his jacket collars. Jolting him into her, she hisses, “Goddesses can be mischievous.”
Which is why, two minutes later, their clothes have been stripped, and she’s riding Andrew atop her desk. Limbs clamping around his waist, Iris bucks up and down on his turgid cock, both of them watching the thick column disappear repeatedly into her cunt. His flesh is hard, ruddy, and glazed in Iris’s arousal. It’s a wondrous sight and a marvelous feeling, pleasure searing through her veins.
Everywhere, she feels the heat of him. His hand grasping her ass and bobbing her on his erection, his breath on her throat, his free fingers tracing the lines carved into her shoulder blades.
Yes. The other peculiar scars with no explanation—two incisions running down the backs of her shoulders, as if something had been cut from her. From time to time, they ache like a phantom pain.
Yet tonight, his touch soothes them, and the snap of his cock replaces the pang with tingles. Iris cries out, jutting her waist, thighs spreading wider around his hips. Andrew presses his forehead to hers and groans, his gaze a blowtorch that sets her aflame. With endurance, he lashes into her, the friction elevating her to unfathomable heights.
Her pussy clutches his cock, sweat laminates their flesh, and Andrew’s cobbled torso is the stuff of mythical legends. He belongs to her, and she to him. Yet they fuck as if searching, probing for the root of their love, as if the key to their past is just out of reach, and making each other come hard will solve the mystery.
It never does. But they try.
Oh. How vigorously they try.
The desk rocks with their movements. Sitting on the edge, Andrew burrows his fingernails into her ass, and she slices her own digits through his hair. With each pound of their waists, her tits scrape against his pectorals.
“Ah,” she moans, swiveling her pussy faster. “Andrew!”
“Yeah,” he growls, lancing his cock higher. “Come on, my Little Myth.”
Little Myth. He calls her that, though they cannot remember where the endearment comes from.
Iris arches, her eyes rolling back, her nipples erect. Andrew rumbles in approval; he loves seeing her like this, as if she’s about to launch into the sky. As if it’s truly possible.
Astride his cock, she whips her body back and forth. Her lover’s groan deepens, as does his fucking. They buck into one another, crashing like shooting stars, while draped in moonlight shadows from the windows.
Above them, the star mural hovers like an observant force.
She reels upright and pants, “The stars are watching.”
It’s less a warning and more a defiance. Andrew knows this because the ledge of his mouth curls upward. “Then let’s show off.”
He pumps up into her, the solid width of his cock filling her cunt, plying her to the hilt. Keening, Iris grinds on Andrew harder. Together, they charge, climbing that pinnacle, their bare bodies racing.
Her inner muscles constrict, his erection tenses, and they shatter as one. With a roar, Andrew clasps one hand behind Iris’s scalp, then heaves her mouth to his own, his tongue driving inside at the same rate as his body. Fastened like this, they come hard and loud, Iris’s fractured cry joining his gritty shout. She wets him to the sac, her release spilling with his, and the world spins off its axis.
Andrew pistons languidly, the gentle roll of his waist accompanying the final tremors until Iris slumps in his arms. Always, he catches her. Panting for oxygen, he tightens his grip around her, and Iris clings back, their faces burying in one another’s necks.
They’ve discovered touch in its many facets, such as when he squeezes her hand to calm her down, or when she sweeps the unruly locks from his forehead to tease him.
Kisses that sizzle, leaving a delectable aftertaste. He’s learned that goosebumps shimmy across her skin when he licks the seam of her lips. She has learned that sucking on his tongue will make him groan into her mouth.
And fucking. Their bodies have learned the pleasurable suffering of slow and the frantic rush of quick . She knows that clasping Andrew’s ass will make his hips snap harder. Whereas he knows the precise, sinuous rhythm to render her helpless.
Tonight, it continues with his hands. He slides them beneath her thighs, then leans back to give her a playful smirk. Iris gasps, chuckling as he stands with his cock still inside her and strides from the room.
“Not done,” he murmurs.
“Never done,” she agrees.
His office is next. In the dark, Andrew flings out one arm, swatting notes and paper weights and a dozen other inanimate objects off the surface. Items strike the floor while he unfurls Iris’s body across the writing desk.
Scissoring her legs wide, Andrew stalks between them and hitches Iris’s thighs over his waist. His finger presses the inflated flesh of her clit, and her body ignites once more. Her eyes fall shut and—one, then two, then Gods yes, three—his fingers circle the peak of flesh, drawing and teasing. He picks up on the signs, on her noises and the writhing motions of her buttocks.
Then he yanks her ass to the rim, pulls out a few inches, and slams back into her. Splitting Iris apart, Andrew slings his cock, his flesh soaked from her recent orgasm. Grunting, he follows the moans ripping from her lips, working her cunt into a glorious frenzy.
She grips his narrow waist and bows off the desk like a string pulled taut, her body sliding across the polish wood top. Rivulets of her dark hair pour across the furnishing like ink from his pen, an instrument he’d once used on her in a kinky manner. Neither of them remembers exactly what he’d done, but they know the erotic incident had involved her clit and occurred somewhere public.
Andrew’s white hair glints like snow. He gazes down at Iris, his features sharp and riveted, as if she is the only being in this universe. The only one he sees.
Iris extends her limbs vertically, resting her ankles on his shoulders. Andrew grins, kisses the arch of one foot, and rocks his ass. The force splays her thighs farther, his firm cock pushing her toward another crescendo, her cunt rippling.
Heat blasts through Iris, her pussy gushing and contracting around him. She tenses, then shouts yet again, her body shaking. Andrew hunches over her, gives one more powerful thrust of his cock, and roars, coming with his open mouth against hers. They detonate, vocal cords emptying into the room.
Andrew rams his palms onto the desk, keeping himself aloft, his head bowing to hers. “Love,” he groans. “I love you.”
Her breath hitches, as does his. The word had sounded like a name rather than an utterance. However, the notion abandons them a moment later.
Love is not a name. It’s an emotion—one they have discovered together.
They’ve made love, had sex, and fucked endless times. A dwelling in the woods, a tree stump, an indoor fire pit, an overflowing tub, and a frozen pond come to mind, among other settings. Though, most of the recollections flash by too quickly to process.
There’s more. Two longbows aimed at one another in the forest. An archery range, glass walls, and bookshelves. Words scripted across a page, a bleeding hand, and a snowstorm. Her bed, their bodies, and his growls. Somehow, Iris knows their bond had begun quickly, deeply, painfully, sensuously, and remarkably. Perhaps it had been fated.
Starlight beyond the window glosses their damp bodies. The luminescence kindles brighter—like crystal flames—as Andrew resumes where they left off, the craving between them eternal.
For a third time, he laps his cock into that dark, soaked place inside her. He maintains an exquisite pace, her legs quivering around his hips, drawing him deeper, riding the motions.
This is it. This is a loving touch.
It’s their chests sliding, their heartbeats racing, their bodies fucking. It’s her fingers combing through his hair and his feverish mouth seizing her lips. It’s the wild sounds they make, gaining momentum and then hardening into more shouts throughout the night. It’s her hand clasping Andrew’s, holding tight while they let go. It’s them lying together after they come, Iris’s leg slinging over his waist, his arms encasing her, their bodies sprawling across the office floor—the room where stories materialize into being—and both of them gazing through the window at midnight stars.
Andrew’s mouth tilts into a sexy grin, then speaks against the crown of her head. “You once said you wanted to sleep beneath them.”
“You listened,” Iris whispers.
He does. He listens. He sees her.
And that’s the loveliest part. Because now she knows what that feels like.