Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
He had carried her home and sat beside her like a mossy statue. He didn’t react when the glitter cracked and it was just her, just Goldie, puffy-eyed and falling to pieces. He had made her feel safe.
She hadn’t meant to do it. She really, really hadn’t. But when he touched her cheek so gently, so absurdly carefully, like she was something delicate and wondrous, a fierce need lanced through her, hot and fast and verdant, and her body reacted before her brain could catch up.
The moment she kissed him, she knew it was a mistake.
The Assistant—Splice—stiffened like she’d set off a spell. Goldie froze, and had a horrifying flash of what they must look like: him, all sleek bark and silent bewilderment, and her, melting against him like a sex-starved moth fluttering against a very stoic lamppost.
Holy gods and goddesses, you stupid, horny bitch.
Her brain snapped back into her skull. Heat flooded her face. She jerked away from him with a sharp gasp, hands flying up like she could grab the moment and stuff it back into her mouth.
“Oh my gods—I am so sorry—I don’t know what—I didn’t mean—”
But she had meant it—oh gods, she had. Some traitorous part of her was suddenly awake, humming like it had been waiting for this all along, and now it was thrumming through her veins, hot and shameless, even as the rest of her screamed abort, abort.
Splice’s barklike skin had gone taut, fine lines etched around his eyes like tree rings. His mouth was slightly parted, and his strange gaze bored into her like he didn’t understand what had just happened, or why it mattered so much.
Goldie went cold all over, then flushed so hard she thought her earrings might melt off. Say something. Make a joke. Scream into a pillow. Throw yourself into the godsdamned sun.
She laughed, too loud, too bright, and shot to her feet like a cork out of shaken champagne. “Well! That was… awkward. Stellar job, Goldie. Really crushing the post-trauma etiquette handbook.”
His still staring, still unreadable eyes remained on her.
“Don’t mind me,” she went on, clapping her hands once. “Humans do this thing sometimes. Grief sex! Someone dies, big feelings happen, and you think yes, clearly the answer is to make out with the bark-covered man-entity who carried me out of a murder scene. Whoops. My bad.”
She turned and made a beeline for the kitchen before Splice could respond, rattling around with mugs and the tea tin just to have something in her hands.
“See, death and adrenaline? Messy cocktail,” she called over her shoulder.
“Add in your whole stoic leafy protector thing, and bam, recipe for questionable decision-making. Sorry. Won’t happen again, I promise. ”
She heard him enter the kitchen but kept her focus on the tea leaves.
“You speak of ritual,” he said, his voice quiet and close.
She turned, brows knitting. “What?”
“The grief sex,” Splice replied, and the clinical term landed like solemn scripture in her apartment. He stepped closer, the air shifting with him.
“In older days, desire was ritual. Maidens went barefoot into the wilds to be blessed. Couples sought fertile ground. The grieving came begging for rebirth. Mycor gave freely, without shame, for he is the cycle: blossom, fruit, rot, seed.”
As he spoke, something stirred. A faint light threaded his skin, green-gold veins kindling beneath bark-shadowed flesh. His gaze was steady, burning.
“I have stood for him countless times, accepting the offering of those who needed blessing but feared the Thornfather’s deeper wildness. It was joyous. It was sacred.”
Goldie’s mouth went dry. She could almost feel the sunlight in the fields he described, the pulse of bodies, the musk of loam and skin. Her breath hitched. And there it was again—that traitorous hum in her blood, sudden and shameless.
Splice moved closer until the kitchen counter was at her back and he was right there, a breath away.
She tilted her head upwards, very suddenly aware that his shoulders were broad as a sturdy tree trunk, that quiet power radiated in the lines of his frame, and if he bent his head just so his lips would reach hers.
“Is that what you wish?” His hand lifted and settled lightly at her neck.
Up close, he was beautiful in a way that didn’t belong in kitchens. His face was all sharp hollows and gleaming edges, like wood sculpted by water and wind. His eyes began to glow faintly as he moved his thumb gently against her skin.
“Um,” she whispered. “Okay?”
His gaze dipped reverently to her lips. “You are the offering,” he intoned, the words sounding older than time itself. “I am the ground that accepts it.”
He bent his head and claimed her mouth in a lingering press that coaxed a startled moan from her throat. His lips were cool at first, then searing as he deepened the kiss, tongue sliding against hers with unhurried hunger.
Heat rippled through her like a spark catching dry tinder, each nerve alight, her body arching toward him before she realized she’d moved. The taste of him was wild earth and green things after rain, and she wanted more.
Fine tendrils began to slip free from his fingers, curling down her shoulders and arms. Their touch was feather-light but insistent, coaxing her closer.
She gasped into his mouth, her hands flying to his shoulders for balance.
He radiated warmth like sunlit stone, his chest a steady furnace pressed to hers.
Between breaths his lips brushed hers, his voice a hushed chant.
“Root to root. Breath to breath. Seed to soil.”
Each syllable carried a pulse of power, sinking into her as surely as the kiss.
Something under her skin shuddered awake, wild and wordless, and she whimpered. Her thighs clenched, heat spiraling low in her belly.
His mouth brushed the corner of hers. “Blossom.” His lips grazed her cheekbone. “Fruit.” A breath of a kiss to her forehead. “Rot.” His fingers finally ghosted over the curve of her hip. “Seed.”
Gods, it was weird. Hot, but weird. Like receiving a horny blessing from a priest of the wilderness. Arousing in a way that made her shiver, but also unsettling, like she was being turned into a living altar.
So Goldie did what she always did when discomfort tried to back her into a corner. She took action.
With a wicked little hum, she slid her hands down his back and grabbed his ass. Hard.
“Fertilizer,” she whispered against his lips, her grin sharp enough to cut through the ritual.
Goldie felt Splice’s whole body stutter. The ceremonial veneer cracked. The glow in his eyes flickered and dimmed. He blinked, looking down at her with a strange, human sort of bewilderment, like a spell had just unraveled in his hands.
She leaned up, lips grazing his ear like a secret. “Forget ritual,” she murmured, her voice low and thick with heat. Her fingers curled into his collar, yanking him down until their mouths were a breath apart.
“Let’s fuck.”
A startled look crossed his face. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Goldie took his hand and tugged him from the kitchen.
Every step across the floor sounded like punctuation, every sway of her hips a command.
He followed, almost dazed, vines retracting in shivers along his arms as though unsure if they were still invited.
She drew him into the living room, pushed him down onto the couch, and straddled him in a single, fluid motion. Her weight pressed him deeper into the cushions. Her hips rolled once, slow and purposeful, and she felt the unmistakable, hard shape of him through the barrier of their clothes.
She grinned, slow and wicked. “Well,” she murmured, shifting just enough to make him twitch, “looks like your roots are paying attention.”
She leaned in and kissed him. Her tongue teased against his, swallowing the little sound he made until even his breath belonged to her.
“Lay back,” she murmured against his jaw, her mouth trailing heat like a brand along his skin. “Let me enjoy you.”
Her fingers worked his shirt open, button by button, until the fabric slid apart and bared the strange, not-quite-human beauty of him. His torso was sculpted in clean lines, skin marked with faint striations like polished grain, the seams of his joints flexing too fluidly to be mortal.
Heat radiated from him, earthy and alive, and she bent down, her mouth sealing over the hollow beneath his collarbone.
His breath hitched. His hands fluttered at his sides, then dropped again. “Green gods,” he whispered, voice raw, eyes wide and blown. “Goldie, I… I don’t understand this. I don’t know… I don’t know what to do.”
The words froze her for half a heartbeat. Shit. I don’t want to steamroll him. Don’t want to be rapey with the hot plant man.
She sat back and cupped his face in both hands. “Hey,” she said softly, grounding the moment with her voice. “It’s okay. Just tell me if you need me to stop. I’ll stop. I promise.”
His chest rose in a shudder. For a heartbeat he looked carved from stone, every line of him taut with uncertainty. Then, slowly, he leaned into her touch. His mouth opened, closed, opened again.
“I want…” His throat worked around the word, rough and trembling. “Just… not the way I know.”
Relief loosened her lungs. She let out a laugh, small and breathless, pressing her forehead to his. “Perfect,” she murmured, brushing her lips over his. “Because the way you know sounds boring as hell.”
His startled huff turned into a shaky smile, and his hands rose to settle at her hips. The tentative weight of them there made her pulse kick.
“See?” she teased, rolling her hips just enough to make his breath catch. “You’re already learning.”
Her palms glided down the ridged lines of his torso, tracing the grain-like striations.
He was trembling. She kissed him again. His mouth was surprisingly soft, pliant and warm.
He gasped into her lips, and his hands moved: one sliding up to cradle the back of her head, the other settling, shy but urgent, against the small of her back.