49
Jeryn
Standing at the mouth of the dining hall fireplace, I glared at the iron cauldron hanging over a flame. Petals and leaves swam in the concoction. Flare had expressed her love for their flavors, but although they smelled fragrant individually, blending them had been an unwise idea. Scents akin to overripe raisins and distilled vinegar clashed, which could not bode well for the taste.
If I had stuck to making her favorite hand salve, this morning would have been fruitful. But no, I’d insisted on trying something new, without guaranteed success. The woman sleeping in my bed tended to have this impulsive effect on me.
While Flare loved delicacies, we’d tasted nearly every option available to us here. Picturing her excited face after sipping a customized blend, my logic had gone rogue. Yet for all my knowledge, I was shit at this. Ladling a spoonful, I waited for the fluid to cool. Sampling this atrocity would tell me more.
In the interim, I scowled. Years of medical training. Transplanting organs, eliminating pathogens, treating illnesses, creating remedies. If I could do that, I could fucking make tea.
The weight of someone’s presence warmed my naked spine. Two slender arms flanked my waist from behind and crossed over my abdomen. Her wildflower scent drugged my senses, mingling with the aroma of Winter. The tempting little beast must be wearing one of my shirts. And likely nothing else.
The knowledge worked on me like an intoxicant, the buzz fueling straight to my cock. Despite how I’d exhausted her last night, she had not overslept.
Flare spoke against the gap between my shoulder blades. “You didn’t wake me.”
“Because if I had, I would not have left our bed,” I supplied. “Not for a very long time.”
“That doesn’t sound like a problem.”
“I wore you out last night. You needed your rest.” My lips tilted. “Doctor’s orders.”
“Cruel man.”
“Insatiable enchantress. And yes, to the cruel part.”
Flare smiled against my skin, producing a ripple effect down my vertebrae. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” I returned, taking her hand and massaging it.
We stood listening to the cauldron gurgle. Finally, she inquired, “What is that? It smells foul.”
“An experiment,” I lied to save face. “For … vitamin supplementation.”
Prolonged silence. Shit, she’d heard something in my voice.
“Was it for me?” she asked softly.
With anyone else, I would have said no. With anyone else, I would have sounded convincing.
Her head swung toward the dining table, where I’d laid out priceless plates, her beloved figs along with an assortment of berries and melon wedges, and stone chalices for the tea. Breakfast was her favorite meal of the day, and I had meant for this to be a commemorative one.
She swerved back to me and brushed her mouth over my bicep. “Will you let me try it?”
I winced, then ladled a spoonful and tested the fluid. The taste confused my palate, too sweet and too acidic. “I don’t think—”
But before I could dissuade her, she plucked the spoon—“Flare,” I growled—and presumably brought it to her mouth. With my back to her and one arm still wrapped around me, I pinched the bridge of my nose and waited.
She sampled the disaster, her breasts jiggling as she coughed in mirthful surprise. “That’s … um, delicious.”
Twisting slightly in her direction, I arched an eyebrow. “Try again.”
Faking it would not get past me. Because she’d learned this long ago, Flare broke into chagrined laughter, and my mouth slanted with humor.
The flames crackled, echoing through the dining hall with its restored table and chairs, newly swept floor, a display of ancient serving ware that Flare had discovered in an old hutch, and an urn of hibiscus flowers situated atop the mantel. A year later, this woman had transformed the ruins into more than a hideaway.
So much more. So much better.
Flare’s fingernails burrowed into my abs. “Happy anniversary.”
I skated my fingers over hers. “Is that what this is?”
I felt her nodding and smiling into me, a combination impossible to resist. “Well then.” I retrieved the lid with a cloth and covered the cauldron, then turned to face her. “Let’s have an anniversary.”
I gave myself three seconds to fetishize her just-fucked hair, golden eyes, and my shirt hanging inches past her hips. Rumpled. Edible. I grabbed the backs of her thighs and hoisted her off the ground. Beaming, Flare connected her forehead with my own as I walked us to the table. She made a noise of delight as I set her atop the surface, stood between her open legs, and picked a fig from the bowl.
Sketching the fruit across her mouth, I deepened my voice. “Open.”
Flare scooted closer, the tail of my shirt riding up to her buttocks, the heat of her cunt rubbing against my pants. “Or what?”
“Or I’ll repeat myself more clearly,” I deadpanned.
My oversized shirt sleeves hung low as she wrapped her arms around my bare shoulders, the delectable seam of her lips splitting for me and biting into the bulb. I watched her chew, the sight doing critical things to my pulse. “The Prince of Winter, forced to repeat himself?” she quipped after swallowing. “What a scandal.”
“A transgression indeed,” I concurred with a tilted head.
Flare stole the rest of the fig and urged it against my own mouth. “In that case, I might as well keep provoking you.”
I bore my gaze into hers. “Who says you ever stopped?”
Then I sank my incisors into the orb, consumed it in one gulp, and relished her dilated pupils. Disheveled, flushed from sleep, and half naked, we proceeded to feed each other. Taking turns, each of us selected from the arrangement of fruits and watched the other consume them to the final droplet of nectar. I lapped the remnants from beneath her jaw while she chuckled, then sucked on that spot until she gasped.
In turn, Flare drew her tongue over my fingers to mop up the juice, producing a jagged noise from me. Between bites and taunting maneuvers, we spoke of random things or lapsed into comfortable silence. Familiar. Intimate.
Pressing her to me, I sneaked my palms under the shirt and ran them over the tops of her ass. “What else are you hungry for?”
A blush stained her cheeks. “The one thing I can never get enough of.”
The hiss I’d been withholding sliced from my throat. “Fuck the food.”
My arm whipped across the table. Dishes and their contents flew off the edge, ceramic, silver, and stone crashing to the floor. Flare yelped, her irises gleaming. She liked disorder, preferring to call it “beautiful chaos,” especially when inciting it from me. Only this woman held such power.
My little beast. My beautiful chaos.
Seizing her face, I braced her head, giving my tongue the leverage to lick the rebellious mirth from her lips. Fuck it. Fuck everything but this. My mouth gripped her own, my tongue spearing against Flare’s.
Her elated chuckle disintegrated into a whimper, the noise activating every carnal impulse I possessed. Cupping her ass with my free hand, I hauled her against me. My cock thickened, rising against the flap of my pants and caressing her clit. Seasons flay me.
Flare kissed back, lashing her tongue with mine and scraping the ridges of my back. She tasted of figs and fire. Sweet. Scorching. My mouth loathed to remain still, breaking from her swollen lips and charging down her throat.
The momentum kicked her body backward. I roped my arm around Flare’s waist to protect her from hitting the tabletop, and she flung out her hand to brace herself. Hooking her thighs to my hips, she bowed at a steep angle, granting me unhampered access to her pulse.
I could swallow that pounding button. I could devour her heartbeat.
“Jeryn … ahh,” Flare moaned as I glided my teeth up her ear. “You know … ‘Fuck the food’ isn’t exactly … healthy for a doctor to say.” She flung her head farther back. “What happened to … all those lectures … about nourishment?”
“I’ll nourish you,” I professed into her skin.
“And eating properly?”
“I’ll eat you.”
So help me, I would splay her out like a banquet. I would dine on every inch of flesh. I would feast on her wet pussy until she came across this table. I would make a fucking meal out of her. And in doing so, she would consume me whole.
“Eating me might hurt,” Flare cautioned, breathless.
I launched upright, pulled her flush against my chest, and thumbed her chin. “I will never hurt you.” My lips quirked. “Unless you want me to.”
“Mmm. I might like a side of pain with my climax. Though the pleasure might be so good, it’ll become agonizing.”
“I’m a physician. I’ll lick your wounds.”
“Now that you mention it, I do feel some curious tingles. Maybe I need to be checked, to make sure I have the strength to handle you.”
Oh, she could fucking handle me more than anyone on this continent. Nevertheless, my mouth ticked sideways. Doctor-patient kink. We’d done this before, except presently I had none of my tools within arm’s reach.
“Sensible,” I agreed, stalking my mouth over hers. “You are due for a general exam.”
Technically, I had conducted one of these on her already. Or rather, several of them purely for my peace of mind. This forest would not harm my little beast, or I would pull every tree from its roots. In any case, those sessions had been in earnest, not out of foreplay.
I braced one of her feet on the table’s edge, the position exposing the glistening seam of her labia. Fucking hell.
My fingertips skidded across her toes. “Phalanges,” I murmured as though checking off a list.
Flare panted as I traced along her shin. “Tibia,” I continued.
My scalpel knife was the only medical apparatus currently in my possession. I withdrew the weapon, flicked out a pronged lever, and used it to sketch the knee of her dangling limb. “Patella.” She yipped as I lightly tapped the flat against that spot, her leg kicking upward in response. “Reflexes.”
From there, I skimmed up her thigh. “Femur.”
The lever grazed from her hips to her stomach. Then across the center of her chest. “Sternum.” Then to her hands, where I kissed her fingers. “Phalanges again.”
Pausing for effect, I ducked the tool between her legs, the edge brushing through the curls of her pussy. “Pelvis,” I groaned, observing her slit getting wetter. “Slick and flushed.”
“Is that good?” Flare husked.
With a jerk of my wrist, I closed the instrument and chucked it aside. “Very good.”
She keened as I reclined her backward and splayed her limbs wide. Her heels rested on the ledge, all of her spread out for me. A study in eroticism and stimulation. “Relax,” I said while picking open the closures of her shirt. “Ease your muscles for me.”
On another moan, she went slack. Her tits spilled from the neckline, the nipples ruching, followed by curves and hips. The sight of Flare’s parted mouth, beauty-marked by a single fleck of sand in the crook of her lips, robbed me of breath. She fucking suffocated me without so much as brushing my throat.
On a groan, I dove in. Hunching over her, I devoured each place I’d examined. Kissing, sucking, biting. She shook across the table, her whines cementing into cries when I stretched fully onto the table, whipped her upright above me, sat her on my face, and dipped between her thighs.
Holding her legs astride my head, I plied the tip of my tongue up her cunt and ended at her clit. Repeatedly, I laved her until she was drenching my mouth. Then I latched onto the sensitive crest of skin and sucked like a deprived creature.
Flare crushed my hair in her fists and writhed above the table, the volume of her sobs escalating. Sucking her clit raw, I eased my tongue back to her crease and pumped my tongue between her flanks, soaking her thoroughly.
Yes, I could make it hurt if she wanted. Yes, she could take it.
No, I would not survive this.
“Divine Seasons!” Flare shrieked, her body tensing like a coil. “I can’t.”
You will.
I doubled my efforts, applying all my reserves to the act. My tongue pistoned and drank her arousal, then returned to her clit and patted the delicate flesh until her joints ruptured.
She came with a cry hard enough to split granite. I groaned against her pussy, the flesh quivering like a leaf against my lips. Only when she slumped did I start again.
No sooner did I release her clitoris than we launched off the table. I vaulted upright, yanked the oversized shirt from Flare’s body, and tore her off the table.
Hoisting her off the ground and striding from the dining hall, I made quick work of the distance. Crossing hallways and up stairways, I growled into Flare’s chortling mouth. While carrying her through the ruins, I kissed her to within an inch of our lives.
With the flat of my palm, I rammed open the ancient door to our suite. We still shared adjoining quarters, though now we occupied the same bed, alternating between rooms.
In Flare’s chamber, I dropped her onto the mattress so hard she bounced. As she crawled backward, I crawled forward, the bed creaking. I knocked pillows out of the way, and she wrestled with my pants, shoving them from my frame.
We’d had each other up against every surface. The walls. The floor. The furnishings. To say nothing of the locations in and out of the ruins.
Today, I did not give a shit about variety. I wanted her only in this bed.
Heat and sweat filled the room. Sheer drapes billowed from the posts.
Flare spread herself again, the span of my hips shearing her limbs apart. I snatched her wrists, tacked them overhead, and sought her mouth again. Flare moaned into the kiss, our tongues thrashing.
Yet a smaller noise also squeezed past her lungs, the sound watery. Like she might weep.
I lurched back, but she shook her head before I could ask. “You didn’t hurt me. I just …” Her gaze crumbled. “I don’t want this to end.”
Fuck. The entreaty stabbed me through the ribcage.
The tidefarer we’d finally built had completed numerous successful trips around the island. Transport would be ready whenever Flare was. Likewise, I had plotted my return to Winter, with every detail in order.
After Flare set out on her boat, I would sail to the mainland with the jester and princess, where they would deposit me at the docks. There, I would pretend to have been rescued by anonymous seafarers after having been stranded on a remote peninsula.
Flare would embark on her mission through Summer. I would return to Winter.
Even so, it would not end after parting ways. Despite the distance, we would send secret letters and return to each other, reuniting here whenever we could. That was the plan.
Yet. The key to her quest still evaded her, regardless of how vastly she’d been searching.
Until then, I wasn’t going anywhere. Neither was she.
I hissed into her mouth. “It won’t end.” Flare released a pleasured noise as I snapped my hips, the head of my dick nocking at her warm cleft. “We’re not leaving this room until I’ve fucked every sigh, moan, and cry from your mouth.”
“Then make it last,” she urged, whining as I flexed my waist and pitched my cock.
Tight heat sealed me to the balls. My growl tangled with her moan, our bodies quaking from the impact. I had breached her pussy before she’d finished that sentence.
Thus, I slammed into her again. And again. And fucking again.
I hammered my ass, the brunt of my cock jostling Flare across the mattress. Her tits swayed, and she bowed into me, her knees lifting toward my biceps and engulfing me deeper.
The motion nudged a softer sound from her. There was the first sigh.
Motivated by that, I rolled my erection out of her and whipped into those soaked folds once more, hitting a narrow place that she particularly enjoyed. This pulled a pliant noise from Flare. There was the first moan.
Crushing her to me, I snapped my hips, filling her cunt to the brink. To which, she exhaled fire against my skin. There was the first cry.
And more came. And more.
Releasing her wrists, I clamped onto her buttocks. Fastening her to the bed, I struck in and out. Hard. Slow. Our groans collided, the octaves heightening. The stem of my cock broadened, her desire coated me to the sac, and our hips locked.
Fucking became lovemaking.
Lovemaking became fucking.
With her, there was no difference. I felt it all.
Circulation. Palpitations. Vertigo.
This madness. This normalcy.
Flare wiggled her hips and twisted. I reeled my dick from her body as she flipped onto her stomach and grappled the mattress’s edge. With a growl, I snared her hips and hefted them upright, angling her body and rising on my knees. Then I lunged into her again.
She chanted and belted her waist backward, meeting my thrusts halfway. I fucked into her at a new slant, the rhythm vigorous. She arched. Balanced vertically, I lashed forward and savored the view of her backside bobbing, the split of her limbs taking my erection. Heat emanated from her sweet cunt, ripping an inarticulate noise from my mouth. Torturous. Exquisite. She bent lower, rooting my cock deeper, her pussy encapsulating me.
I hunched, Flare twisted her head over her shoulder to catch my mouth. Our tongues met, the steam of her lips yielding under my own.
“Please,” Flare implored.
“Please, what?” I panted.
“Please don’t stop.” She kissed me and whispered, “Never stop.”
Not from a thousand miles. No fucking way would I stop anything with her.
I charged after those sighs, moans, cries. Yet I needed to see her features when she came around me. Reciprocating that desire, Flare shimmied forward, breaking us apart.
I whisked Flare onto her back again, and she slammed me against her, threading her legs over my shoulders. My body fell into hers, flush and dripping with sweat. And fuck, I ground my dick inside her, the powerful motions splaying her thighs wide. Heaving for oxygen, we perfected a strenuous and concentrated tempo.
Perspiration drizzled between her breasts. My abs burned while working into her. By Seasons, I would make sure she found elation first.
Flare’s cries accelerated. I fused her mouth with my own, tasting every quiver of her tongue. Her waist seized up, because she was going to come.
Right. Fucking. Now.
I slowed my cock, plaguing her until the final shout cracked from her lungs. Her pussy rippled and clenched around me, launching another groan from my throat. I met my little beast halfway, my waist stalling. For a second, my vision went black. Then my bellow smashed through the room, cum spilling from my crown and into Flare’s convulsing body. But when my eyelids flashed apart, black turned to gold.
I fell into the color. I fell so fucking hard.
We crashed to the bed, my pulse slamming into her own. Condemnation, she would kill me someday.
Flare linked herself around my body, her tits brushing my damp skin. With my forehead pinned to hers, I fisted her dark brown waves, which had grown a few inches, though she usually preferred to keep it shoulder-length.
While our lungs recovered, we listened to the forest. Reptiles. Mammals. Sometimes I forgot other sounds existed besides these—the wild fauna and my little beast. Occasionally, it proved difficult to recall the noises of Winter.
The crunch of snow. Dire wolves howling from the pines.
I knew them. But I could not replay them.
Flare’s breathing changed. I lifted my head and surveyed her flushed smile. She never hid her expressions. From the beginning, that alone had fascinated me as much as it had unnerved me. Now I couldn’t get enough of those candid looks, her brilliant grin reactivating my sex drive.
“Tell me what you’re gushing about,” I said.
She tilted her head. “How do you know I’m gushing about anything?”
“Your exhales last longer whenever you’re daydreaming.”
She traced my jaw, then jutted her chin toward the surrounded drapes. “Actually, I wanted to thank you for the curtains.”
I had found sheer fabric in the textile cellar, the material functioning well for our bed. The mesh was light and airy, screening insects from us at night. Practical but attractive. For this anniversary, I’d thought she would like them and had installed the curtains while she slept this morning.
My mouth crooked. “Never thank me.”
Flare owned me nothing, whereas I would indulge her for as long as I drew oxygen. She knew this but refused to listen.
Case in point, she nipped my lower lip. “That will only make me show gratitude more enthusiastically.”
I quirked a brow. “Is that so?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Her fingers coasted down my navel, the descent causing my muscles to jump, my spent cock twitching with just as much subtlety. “Rules are meant to be broken.”
My voice turned to gravel. “And how would you break mine?”
Leaning up, she swept her lips over mine. “I already have.”
That, she had. For this reason, I kept my little beast in bed for the next three hours, fucking us into exhaustion. After the fifth orgasm, I ceased only because my cock would fall off if I didn’t calm the bloody hell down.
However, Flare had other ideas. She sprawled on top of me, her legs fencing my hips. “What next?”
With a half-chuckle, half-groan, I sampled her neck while she brushed through my mane. “Patience,” I murmured, ravenous against her throat. “Remember. We still have time.”
All at once, Flare gasped. She went still and repeated to herself, “Time.”
Leaning back, I furrowed my brow while she directed her gaze toward the marks we’d scratched onto the opposite wall. A makeshift calendar tracked the days, weeks, and months. It was one of her drawings, similar to the sketches she composed in the sand.
Realization set her irises aflame. Her features veered back to me. “I found the key.”