Gwen
Itake Rhys Evans blackberry picking. I suppose it was inevitable, really—my attempts at flirting are ever so clumsy, so I’ve landed on ‘any excuse to spend time with the man’.
And my need to be around him is even worse than before now that I’ve tasted him, now that I’ve licked the sweat from his skin and felt his spend flood my tongue, so when I decide to go picking in the late afternoon, I drag him along with me.
He doesn’t really put up a fight. The blacksmith downs his tools with an audible sigh of relief, and he doesn’t even change before we leave. He simply washes his hands and wipes his face and neck with a cloth.
And god, he must be sweaty under that shirt. That fresh kind of sweat, that smells like man and primal strength. The sweat I tasted.
“I’ve sent off ten job applications. And asked about three rooms.”
“That’s good,” Rhys murmurs, trailing me along the hedgerows.
We’re taking a different route than my usual one, climbing the hillside to walk along the ridge of the valley, and it’s hard going, making me puff and pant, but it’s better this way.
We’re less likely to bump into anyone, and in the meanwhile I can burn off some of this excess energy.
I shouldn’t have told Rhys ‘no’ when he offered to return the favor earlier. Don’t know what I was thinking. Well I do, I was thinking I wanted it to stand alone, to be my gift to him, but now I’m wound tighter than a bowstring. Every stride sends a pulse between my legs.
“No one has replied yet, but they probably will tomorrow.”
Rhys says nothing.
It’s cool out this afternoon, the wind whipping at the long grass and sending gray clouds skidding across the sky. Gold and red leaves dance on the breeze, proof that the season’s really turning, and my rescued wicker basket swings wildly on my arm.
It’s dented and damaged, but still good to go. A bit like me.
“Gosh, isn’t it nice out?”
The blacksmith’s eyes crinkle as he smiles down at me. It’s still a rare expression on him, and every time I win one of his smiles I feel like running a victory lap, a flag trailing behind me.
“I like it even better with you here.”
His smile fades. Oh.
Is that not a nice thing to say to someone? Am I being weird? Maybe I’m pressuring him. Maybe he doesn’t want me getting any wild ideas.
I mean, it’s not like I’m expecting him to get down on one knee for me or anything, just because I dropped to my knees for him. A man like Rhys, an independent, successful man who’s good at his craft and can make his own way… well, what use would he have for me?
“Cariad?” Rhys frowns down at me, tugging me to a halt. “What’s wrong? You just wilted before my eyes.”
I shrug, casting around us for something to say. We’ve stopped beside an iron age hill fort, a scattering of huge stones submerged in the scrubby grass. A faint echo of a long gone time.
Did they go blackberry picking? Surely they did. I shove a berry in my mouth now, tart juice bursting over my tongue, stealing a few moments to think as I chew.
“Gwen,” Rhys warns. My skin prickles. I love that low, commanding tone, but he undercuts himself slightly by rummaging in my basket as he scowls. The berries look so tiny in his grip—even the swollen, ripest ones.
I watch a purple berry disappear behind his lips.
“Gwen.”
I pluck at the front of my gray sweater, letting cool air swirl beneath to chill my flushed skin. “I’m fine.”
Rhys stares at me for a long moment, then grunts and shrugs off his jacket. He lays it down in the grass like a makeshift blanket, then waves me down to lie on it.
I go, heart thundering. What am I going to do, say no? I’d rather cut out my own tongue.
The world tilts, and then he’s standing over me, impossibly tall. Two crows dance on the air currents somewhere far over his head.
When Rhys Evans kneels between my legs, my heart leaps into my throat. That’s why I can’t speak, why I can barely swallow, and all I can do is squeak as he gently pushes my sweater up to my neck.
“Fuck.” He makes a pleased, rumbly sound, gray eyes scanning the bared skin of my stomach, no sign of displeasure at all at my moles and freckles and extra padding. Then my bra goes next, pushed gently above my breasts, freeing my nipples to the chill air.
My wicker basket creaks as Rhys dips a hand in there again, drawing out a swollen purple berry. He holds it next to my nipple, turning the berry slowly between finger and thumb as he watches my pink flesh harden. Jumping to attention for him.
“What do you think?” I grit out. Desperate for his approval.
Rhys smirks. “Ripe for the plucking.” And without warning, he crushes the blackberry in his fingers, dripping dark juice onto my bare skin.
“Oh!” I arch up off his jacket, mind spinning.
The blacksmith draws swooping lines over me in blackberry juice, doodling on my body with a stern expression before returning to my breast. He rubs the pulped fruit into my nipple, working the juice into the grain of my body, and when he finally brings the berry to my lips, I suck his fingers into my mouth too.
Rhys hisses between his teeth. “Fuck, Gwen. You make me so…”
So what?
So what?
I don’t have time to ask, because he’s plucking another berry from the basket. Crushing it over my stomach this time, watching the juice drip. Rhys holds it over my belly button, filling me up like a chalice, and only once I’m full to the brim does he rub the pulp into my other nipple.
On and on he goes. Painting me in sticky sweetness, the afternoon light fading as the blacksmith works steadily at his task. This must be what it’s like for those lumps of metal on his anvil: shaped steadily in his design, at the mercy of his unrelenting patience.
Finally, I find my voice again. “Rhys Evans, if you’re just making me all sticky for your own amusement—”
“Of course I am.” There’s a wicked glint in his eye. “But I’ll clean you up again, don’t you worry.”
As if to demonstrate, Rhys tosses his latest pulped berry into the grass, then shuffles back on his knees, staring down at my bared, stained body. His chest lurches up and down under his thick shirt.
When Rhys braces on his hands and leans over me, I feel again just how much bigger he is. It’s like having a bear or a bull on top of me, and I’m pinned, completely at his mercy.
A hot, damp tongue traces the center of my chest. I still beneath him, so aroused my brain has turned to mush.
“Shall I keep going?” The blacksmith’s voice is muffled against my skin, and I yank on the ends of his dark hair.
“Yes. Oh my god, yes.”
An approving rumble, and then he’s licking me everywhere.
Devouring every inch that he painted in juice.
He tastes my stomach, my waist, the swell of my hips, the dip of my ribs.
He drinks from my belly button, eyes screwed shut in concentration.
And his beard tickles, and his breath is warm, and every touch makes me ache even worse between my legs.
When Rhys sucks my nipple into his mouth, I cry out at the clouds. He rolls the bead over his tongue; palms my breast and lifts it higher. He feasts on me, bathing me in the wet, eager heat of his mouth, and only switches to the other side when I’m breathless and dizzy.
“Oh, god.” I moan, helpless, as he sucks at my second stained nipple. “Oh, there had better be a punchline to all this, Rhys Evans, or you are a cruel, cruel man.”
In answer, he flips up my skirt. I lift my hips automatically as he slides down my panties before tossing them onto the grass. “Come on, Gwen, I’m not cruel. I’m a teddy bear.”
He’s not, he’s—aah—he’s an evil genius, and this is some comic book torture, especially when the blacksmith spreads me with two fingers and crushes another berry directly over my sex.
Tart juice drips down, painting my clit and sliding through my folds, and I was already a slippery mess. Swollen and desperate.
“Lick it up,” I moan. “Oh my god, lick it up.”
“I will.” Thick fingers rub the juice over my sex, and Rhys looks so primal as he kneels over me beside the hill fort. He’s a bearded, hungry brute, his dark hair tugged by the breeze and his eyes lined with age as darkness falls around us. “Trust me, Gwen.”
Oh, I do. I really do.
But I still let out a howl when his face dips between my legs.
Because the blacksmith devours me. He laps at me like he’s never tasted anything so fine; he suckles on my clit, his beard brushing my inner thighs.
And the noises he makes. The grunts and growls.
The way the muscles in his shoulders bunch as he leans over me.
The strength in his hands as he presses me down…
“Gwen.” His deep voice vibrates through a million nerve endings, and I choke out a breath.
“Yes?”
“I’m going to put my fingers inside you. Alright? It might hurt at first, but it will make things easier if you ever want to… if we ever…”
Oh my god.
“Do it.” I try to buck my hips, but he’s holding me down, his face still so close to my pussy that I feel each shuddering breath. “Open me up for you. Make me ready.”
Another low groan. “Fuck.”
He’s right. As his thick middle finger pushes into me, it’s uncomfortable at first. I’m tight and untried, and my eyes burn at the sharp stretch.
But Rhys works it in and out, lapping at my clit again, and by the time he adds a second finger, I’m writhing and panting once more.
The tension is bleeding away, replaced by a new sort of tightness.
A new coiling sensation, low in my belly.
“How do I feel?” I can’t help myself. I live for this man’s praise, and he never disappoints.
“Like heaven,” Rhys grates. He crooks his fingers, rubbing at my inner walls, and I let out a mewl. “If I ever got inside here, if I felt you around my cock… I’d lose my mind.”
“You will.” Even though the light’s fading, I screw my eyes shut. It’s all too much, and my heart is raw, and as the blacksmith licks me, the pleasure is so intense that it’s edging into pain. “You will get in there, I promise. I want you, Rhys Evans. Only you.”
It’s his desperate cursing that throws me over the cliff edge.
I thrash and whine, muscles twitching and pussy clamped tight on his fingers, the wind whipping at my hair and the scent of fresh grass in my nose.
And Rhys licks me through it all, fingers pumping and breath hot, and when I finally nudge him away, he sits back with something like regret.
“You’ll get down there again,” I joke, lying in a puddle on his jacket.
He doesn’t look like he believes me. I swallow.
It’s okay. We’ll have time to figure things out together. We’ll have time to convince each other that we’re both truly in this.
I mean, there’s no rush, is there? It’s not like either of us is going anywhere.