33
Jeryn
I knew she was there. If the scents of salt, sun rays, and wildflowers hadn’t given Flare away, the tempo of her breathing did. Stunted. Shallow. The beastly little minx sounded as if her lungs had collapsed.
Fuck me to hell. I wanted to grab her.
My insubordinate cock agreed, hardening like a cursed pipe, as though welded that way. The stem lifted painfully, the crest’s circumference expanded, and my foreskin darkened.
Condemnation, but I needed to rid myself of this incessant thing. If she didn’t leave in ten seconds, cum would bead from the cleft, and a growl would carve a path up my throat.
Arrested in the water, I locked my muscles, wrestling to keep still. I could wait her out. I could be patient. I could be. But if I turned and met her gaze, it would be over. She had witnessed too much already. One more exhibition, plus one more look, and I would have no barrier left. The sight of her would bury me under its weight, and I would willingly suffocate.
If semen didn’t spill from my phallus first, blood would ooze from my pours. I fixated on the glistening water and endured the anguish as heat rushed from my sac to the tip. After what happened in the medical chamber, the little beast had claimed all the power, the ability to rip me open.
Her flesh materializing from the ripped nightgown. Her body arching toward me.
Those hands braced overhead. Those cries lurching from her mouth, inexplicably loud in my ears.
Flare’s thighs astride my mouth. Her pussy convulsing and wetting my tongue. The beast’s glorious face lost in rapture. I had never witnessed anything more exquisite.
After I had tasted Flare’s body, she had wanted me to kiss her. An entreaty which I had rejected, telling her I couldn’t take it. Her mouth would have destroyed me.
My molars compressed hard enough to shatter a bone. With supreme effort, I resumed bathing. Except the chore became laborious, as if I were moving through tar. Those combustible eyes made contact without trying, the heat of her attention burning my veins. Any longer, and I’d turn to give her the uncensored look she wanted.
If that happened, it wouldn’t end there. Putting it mildly, the sensation of her eyes on my bare cock would have the opposite effect. I would snatch Flare from her hiding spot and fuck her into the nearest wall until she was convulsing.
This avid gaze of hers might fucking kill me.
At last, her breathing faded. Next, the brushfire of her stare vanished. Then the familiar fragrance evaporated like an illusion. As if cognizant of my thoughts, she had fled.
I should have been relieved, yet my head fell forward. My eyes cinched shut, her absence creating worse chaos—an exponential loss. One that exceeded my longing for Winter and everything I’d left behind.
Fuck. I sloshed from the water, but instead of prowling after her, I threw on my clothes and cut in the opposite direction. More distance. I required more distance, lest I should change my mind, catch the little beast, and destroy us both.
I shoved past the old stone doors, slammed down the ruin steps, and struck into the wild. The aftermath of what happened propelled me forward as I took refuge in the vegetation, stalking into the tangle of trees.
Perhaps she had realized her error. Perhaps the notion of spying on her former oppressor had disgusted Flare. Perhaps she’d had time to remember that.
I hoped she did. It would be best.
Charging through the understory, I traveled from one spot to another, my calloused soles resistant to the hard soil. Since I’d forgotten my satchel, I gathered what specimens my hands could carry. My fingers tore stems by their roots, dirt spitting from the ground as I pulled.
Tugged. Yanked.
This pitiful attempt at productivity failed to placate my body. My cock stiffened like a piece of iron, making it difficult to navigate the rainforest on solid limbs. Dispatching the bundles onto the forest floor, I slouched against a tree while visions of Flare infiltrated my head.
Long before she’d craved me, I had coveted her. The addiction had begun within moments of that dungeon in Autumn. Or perhaps before then, back when she hadn’t known I existed.
For all my attempts to hide these impulses, I had succumbed eons prior to her own descent. This woman had ruined me from the start. Her eyes had been the first culprits, stinging me with their light. After that, those enduring hands had pushed me to the edge.
Inevitably came the nights I had lost control with her. First, the lightning rainstorm. Then I’d awakened in a debilitating fit of anxiety, and Flare had come to me. The moment her hands had landed on my flesh, I’d lost all fucking sense.
Flare in my arms, comforting me. My panicked state running the gamut from ramblings to a forbidden embrace that broke my restraint and unleashed my tongue.
Presently, my cock strained. The head bloated, the distended length widened, and the entire goddamn ligament shoved against my pants. I picked open the clasps, my dick springing from the flaps and stretching against my abdomen. The stifling air coated my aching flesh, the glaze consuming my attention.
The sight brought more figments into stark relief. Illusions of her arousal slickening my cock, her desire seeping down my skin.
The roof of my crown darkened. Fluid pressed through the incision across the top.
I strapped my fingers around the base and dealt with the frustration. Helpless. Bewitched. Hissing, I siphoned my hand up and down, from the seat to the tip, each motion punctuated by my stifled groans. The commotion pressed against my teeth, but I held back. In this forsaken forest, who knew what would happen if the noises became airborne. The wilderness might carry them off to wherever Flare had gone. Comically, avians might imitate the fucking sounds to her.
Not going to happen. I clamped my mouth shut, squeezed the radius of my cock, pumped the skin with measured strokes. Moisture permeated the air, lubricating me down to my testicles, which hung heavily.
Blood surged across my fingers and inundated the glans of my cock. Chuffing oxygen, I recalled every second with Flare. Her hips grinding into my lap during the lightning rainstorm, her pussy saturating the fabric of my pants. Then my teeth on her salted throat on the night I’d panicked, my mouth sucking on her pulse point, my tongue laving her collar tattoo.
I had wanted to rinse the inked sunbursts clean. I had sought to purge her of those infernal symbols.
And later. How I’d sank to my knees, prostrating myself and lapping at the soaked crease of her thighs. Her response, pure and pleasured. Her orgasms and the sweet taste of her cunt. I had been the one plying Flare, but she’d been the one to finish me off.
I had lied. Blatantly. Flagrantly. It hadn’t been a mistake.
Embers scorched a path from my balls to the line of my crown. Fluid rose, prompting a muffled growl. Swiping my thumb over the drops, I smeared myself and lunged my hips faster.
It would be easy to shut my eyes. I could pretend she was here, watching me. To that end, I could delude myself. Instead, I fixated on my dick and let it serve as a reminder. I would only ever indulge alone and had no right to more.
Flare deserved an actual prince. Not a cruel one. Not a mad one. She hadn’t been timid when I licked her pussy, and she hadn’t moved as though pleasure was utterly foreign to her.
Thoughts of Flare mindless, sweating, and crying out beneath the rhythmic thrusts of a lover caused my retinas to burn. Envious growls launched up my throat. My erection broadened, deepening to an angry reddish shade, and veins inflated from the skin.
A single word leaped to the forefront. Mine.
I gripped my cock harder, flung my hips faster. Wrathful, I vaulted my ass forward, jutting my cock into my fist.
I envisioned skewering that lover with a pronged blade and shearing them in half. I fantasized about Flare reaching for me instead. Her head slumped back, her mouth open, sounds only I could hear pouring from her lips. I imagined her arching in my medical chamber, with her limbs splayed around my flexing waist, sharing a new type of madness with me.
Fluid rushed up the length my cock and pushed into the head. My sac heated. My vertebrae tingled. I slung my dick until the pressure hit its breaking point and then tensed, my body so tight it might crack in half. Then I licked my lips, tasting the residue of her climax. Then I replayed the cacophony of her orgasm. Then I recalled those hands on me, that mouth yearning for my own.
With a violent shudder, my cock spasmed. I mashed my lips, blocking out the ragged groans that tore from my chest. I came hard and long, oblivion wracking me to the bone. Hot jets of cum spurted down my knuckles as I bobbed my hand, drawing out the final drops.
Not mine. She would never be mine.
My greatest error? Her name on my lips.
“Flare,” I rasped into the forest.
***
Instead of mending the chasm between us, time enhanced it. I could be standing a thousand leagues from Flare, and she would still dominate my thoughts. I could be standing even farther away, and my cock would still twitch at the briefest thought of her. To cope, we relied on buffers.
Work. Progress. Industry.
Cloistered in the medical chamber, I struggled to keep my mind off Flare’s thighs straddling my head and her cries of pleasure. An impending migraine brewed as I surveyed the botanicals and other natural resources I’d been cultivating. The blue fig I’d eaten with Flare—back when she’d restrained me on the beach—alleviated pain when combined with the juice of a chameleon leaf.
The mangoes also obtained by Flare—when she had cracked her ribs—decreased fever and nausea if boiled into a tea.
The sour-sweet flesh of recognizable guavas assisted with digestion.
The pulp of plantain stems treated abrasions.
The leaves I’d discovered on that first day exploring the ruins did well for infections.
Yet other cures had to exist, advantageous against sicknesses in The Dark Seasons. Though, such restoratives would never circulate if I remained here.
Prior to the night I had panicked, the reality of this place had already been haunting me. My disappearance could have had drastic effects on my parents. Either they believed me dead, or they were dead themselves.
The plausibility blunted my concentration. I strode to the opposite wall that had once housed a series of windows but now only brandished columns. Overlooking the rainforest, I gripped the pillars on either side, fighting to steady my respirations.
They were alive. They must be.
As were my grandaunts. Though, Silvia and Doria must have been forced to consider a new successor by now. I detested that notion, however imperative. I would not desert Winter without vetting my substitute. I wouldn’t leave the court vulnerable to an alternate heir—a sloppy ruler like Rhys, who exercised about as much restraint as a brutish lion and might disregard the people’s welfare.
The prospect set my jaw. Naturally, my grandaunts would not appoint someone like that. I’d do well not to underestimate their judgment.
Nonetheless. How quickly the mind overtook rationality. How powerfully the amygdala seized control of one’s faculties. If I dwelled, I would resort to hysteria. If the rainforest were compassionate, it would provide me with an ingredient for sedation.
Anything to keep from reaching for the safety of Flare’s arms again.
***
After the siren shark, I avoided the grotto. Although I did not say why I’d chosen an alternative cave pool in which to wash, I insisted Flare do the same. Because this woman was not obtuse, she guessed why and made no argument. Not even when I kept watch as she bathed.
While disrobing one morning, her shoulder strap dropped low. Like a tease, the material flashed the arc of a nipple, reawakening the memory of that disk quivering between my lips.
I swerved away, my life dependent on this motion. Narrowing my eyes, I scanned the pool’s depth, searching for a striped dorsal fin despite this being a different water source. No matter what, the creature would not get near her.
The whole time, my pulse hammered. But I could not say whether the palpitations escalated because of the shark, the flash of naked limbs in my periphery, or the deafening sound of Flare splashing naked into the deep.
***
When Flare rode that jaguar across the bridge to the ruins, the sight had drained my lungs. Fear came first. Protectiveness next, until I witnessed how the animal moved loyally beneath her.
Then came another extraordinary reaction. Deference. Mounted on the feline, with a viper around her throat like a necklace, she transformed into a ruler of this wild.
A queen of her own making.
So perhaps … perhaps this place had indeed chosen her. Or perhaps she was a greater force than even she gave herself credit for, beyond whatever the forest dictated.
***
When Flare had fractured her rib, I checked on her more than necessary, monitoring her as she slept.
Staring. Watching.
Purely to make sure. No other reason.
Though, keeping my impulses platonic became increasingly difficult. With regular nourishment, Flare’s body filled out, endowing her with wider curves. Tits that pumped with each breath. A shapely ass that bent over. Hips that swayed from side to side as she danced in a sandstorm, a performance that incited predatory instincts, the need to pursue her.
No matter how I sought to purge these cravings from my system, they persisted. The antidote for such a chronic condition didn’t fucking exist. At the very least, something to dilute my sex drive would have been welcome.
Weeks became a month, then another month, then another. These clustered feelings pulled on my chest like stitches, tight and straining to break free. I tried organizing them, then refuting them.
I fucking tried.
Yet her impassioned words uprooted me, her musings and opinions no longer irrelevant or infuriating. At some point before the siren shark’s attack, I had ceased talking with Flare merely out of obligation. On the contrary, I’d met her halfway, wanting to hear her thoughts. Somewhere along the way, ours had become a partnership.
Then it became something else. Except I had no right to need her, obsess over her, want her. Much less to have her.
That was the mistake. Not touching or tasting Flare, but believing I had earned that privilege.
The second she’d broken my vial, I had despised Flare. I’d loathed her for destroying that which was precious to me. And thus, for betraying the one memory I still kept from her.
Then in Summer’s tower, I had wrapped my hand around her neck. How I wanted to mutilate myself for those crimes. How I longed to pare the cartilage from my bones, torture myself the way I would torture anyone who laid a finger on her.
No. I had not earned Flare’s affection. No monster ever could.
***
We stumbled across a jungle in the south. A break in the canopy allowed light to flood the ground, burying the environment in dense plant life, the route barely passable.
Undeterred by the labyrinth of greenery, Flare played a game of hide-and-seek with her fauna pack, including the reptile and—for fuck’s sake—the saber-toothed jaguar. As they slipped through cavities of foliage, the beast’s eyes sparkled, her laughter chiming through the brush. Her joy was a vibrant thing, penetrating the shadows, impervious to them.
I stared. This was how Flare looked when she was happy.
No one had found us. We hadn’t been rescued. Despite that … when I looked at her now … when I saw and thought of nobody but this woman … I hardly gave a fuck. In moments like this, I viewed this realm through her eyes.
Beauty. Freedom. Sanctuary.
Regardless, losing sight of each other in the forest was a constant gamble. To calm myself, I inspected a hedge of prickled vines. When I got too close, one of the threads snatched my hands. The confounded thing tightened with each of my attempts to move, thus stifling my circulation. Superb. It figured I would tread cautiously and then encounter a nefarious plant, whereas the little beast pranced about yet remained unscathed.
Soon after, the object of my envy and desire popped from the shrubbery. Registering my predicament, she used her dagger to extract me from the snare. When her digits traced the welts around my wrists, the blood rushed back in.
“See?” Flare beamed. “The rainforest can trap or heal.”
Seasons flay me. The sight of those hands grabbing things, claiming them, healing them. By some miracle, I refused to yield, to let my baser instincts take over.
But I wanted to. And I wanted to. And I fucking wanted to.
More than that, a new ambition veered my thoughts into uncharted terrain. I would like to do something nice for her.
My fingers stole out and tucked a wavy lock behind Flare’s ear. To my satisfaction, a shiver passed through her.
The words dropped from my mouth. “Have dinner with me.”