Chapter 42 #3
Splice’s breath caught, a quiet, incredulous laugh rumbling in his chest. Goldie gently brushed her lips against his, a silent question.
He answered by cupping the back of her neck and kissing her like he’d finally allowed himself to want something, truly want it.
Their mouths met hungrily. His lips moved against hers with growing confidence, and when her tongue coaxed open her lips and brushed his, he made a low sound that vibrated through her.
When they finally broke for air, they stayed close, breath mingling, foreheads lightly touching. The astonished, almost reverent look in his eyes made her chest ache in the sweetest way. It felt like the world had narrowed to this single moment, luminous and inevitable.
“Come to bed with me, Splice,” Goldie said, her voice soft.
He searched her face for a long moment, and then a slow, beautiful smile touched his lips. “Yes,” he said.
His path was sure, his grip on her hand a steady, grounding pressure as he led her toward the bedroom.
As they entered, she saw that the room had changed and grown as well.
The bed anchored the center of the space like it had always meant to be there, the sheets turned down as if in quiet anticipation.
Along the far wall, where a slant of sunlight pooled like honey, a curtain of delicate vines had emerged, their green vibrant and unmistakably alive.
Goldie stopped just inside the threshold, eyeing the new growth. “Just so we’re clear, I am not taking care of new plants. I have a black thumb. They will die.”
Splice followed her gaze. “I’ll handle it,” he murmured, his fingers skimming up her arm. He leaned in and kissed her again, soft at first, then deeper, slower, like he meant to memorize her breath.
Goldie’s hands found the buttons of his shirt, each one a small, deliberate act of undoing.
His skin beneath was cool, shifting from smooth planes to the bark-like ridges that marked his collarbone and arms. She traced them with quiet reverence, her fingertips moving over wood and flesh, the strange and the sacred.
He touched her in return, lightly at first, as if still asking permission even now. His palms skimmed the curve of her waist, the line of her back, like he was learning her shape by heart. She leaned into him, their bodies fitting together in growing familiarity.
Clothes fell between touches, between kisses. A sleeve slipped off a shoulder. Fingers tugged gently at a waistband. There was no rush. Only the soft whisper of fabric hitting the floor and the reverent hush of Splice’s gaze as it followed her.
He kissed her again, slower now, and eased her down onto the bed, his hands warm and steady against her body.
The sheets were cool against her spine, but his warm skin soon followed, driving the chill away with the press of him against her.
The rough texture of his bark-like skin as he lowered himself over her dragged across the softness of her stomach and thighs, an exquisite friction that made her breath hitch and her fingers clutch his back.
Splice groaned, low and guttural, the sound catching in his throat as his mouth found the curve of her neck.
He mouthed at her skin like he was trying to ground himself, like her pulse might anchor him in this uncharted, sacred territory.
She arched beneath him, breath stuttering as his teeth grazed her collarbone.
Her hands roamed his back, mapping the soft, strange, ridged and real textures of him. Each new patch of skin sent a jolt through her, as if touching him here meant something more. Meant claiming him.
Splice lifted his head, his eyes blown wide with a mixture of awe and raw, burgeoning lust as he stared down at her. “Goldie,” he breathed, her name a prayer.
His mouth crashed down on hers, the earlier tenderness giving way to a fierce, consuming hunger.
This was a kiss of possession, of a man starved for a taste he was only just discovering he craved.
He plundered her mouth, his tongue stroking against hers in a rhythm that was both a duel and a dance, and she met his ferocity with her own.
His hands continued their exploration, a slow, meticulous worship that set every nerve in her body alight.
He traced the curve of her waist, the dip of her spine, the swell of her hips, his touch both a question and a claim.
When his fingers brushed the damp heat between her legs, her back arched off the bed with a sharp gasp.
The flowers above them pulsed in unison, their light intensifying, their scent deepening.
He broke the kiss to trail a line of fire down her throat, his mouth finding the sensitive skin of her collarbone.
His mouth continued its devastating descent, over the curve of her breast, his tongue flicking out to taste her nipple.
She cried out, her fingers digging into his shoulders as pleasure, sharp and blinding, shot through her.
He suckled her, a low, guttural sound of pure satisfaction rumbling in his chest. He was learning her, mapping her, and in doing so, he was discovering the vast, uncharted territory of his own desire.
Goldie cried out, her fingers digging into his shoulders as pleasure, sharp and blinding, shot through her.
He suckled her gently at first, then with deeper intention, a low, guttural sound of satisfaction rumbling in his chest. He was learning her, mapping her, and in doing so, discovering the vast, uncharted territory of his own desire.
But Goldie was no passive offering.
Her hand slid between them, fingers curling around the hard, heavy length of him. He gasped as his hips bucked instinctively into her palm. He was hot to the touch, impossibly solid, pulsing with a life force that felt both deeply his and borrowed from something far older.
Above them, the green light from the vines shimmered, leaves fluttering like breath caught on the edge of a moan.
She smiled, wild and wanting, and pushed herself upright.
With one swift, fluid motion, she tangled her fingers in his vine-like hair and pulled him in for a bruising kiss, then used that startled breath against his lips to flip their positions. She surged up, tackling him with all the power in her body, and pushed him onto his back.
The mattress bounced as she straddled his hips, her thighs bracketing him, her hair falling in a copper curtain around them both.
Goldie looked down at him, flushed and trembling beneath her, and grinned. “Mine,” she whispered, like a spell, like a promise.
She started at the base of his throat, her tongue tracing the line of a vein pulsing there, tasting the salt and magic on his skin.
He tasted of rain-soaked earth, something green, and a deep, masculine musk that was uniquely his.
She moved lower, her lips and tongue mapping the hard planes of his chest, her teeth gently grazing his nipple.
A sharp hiss of breath was her reward, and she felt his hips buck beneath her.
Empowered, she continued her descent, her mouth searing a hot, wet trail over the hard ridges of his abdomen. When she finally reached his cock, she took him into her mouth, a slow, deliberate claiming.
A strangled groan tore from his throat, his hands fisting in the sheets, his body going rigid beneath her.
Goldie smiled against him and began to lavish him with slow, meticulous attention.
She relished every inch of him, the strange textures, the way he throbbed on her tongue, the helpless sounds he made when she hollowed her cheeks and sucked a little harder.
Suddenly, a vine unfurled from his body and slithered between her legs. It circled her clit in a single, maddening loop before beginning to stroke, slow and deliberate.
She tried to pull back and protest this thoroughly unfair advantage, but his hand came up, gently but firmly holding the back of her head.
“Stay,” he commanded, his voice a raw, broken rasp. “Take me while I take you.”
She had no choice. She was trapped in a feedback loop of exquisite torture.
Every slow, deep pull of her mouth on his cock was met with a relentless, expert flick of the vine against her clit.
The sensations warred within her—the drive to give him pleasure, to push him over the edge, and the selfish, all-consuming need building in her own core.
The flowers above them pulsed frantically, their light a strobing, dizzying dance, their scent thick and intoxicating.
The vine picked up its pace, circling and flicking, a devilish, maddening rhythm that pushed her higher and higher.
She could feel his climax building, his body trembling, but her own was closer, a tidal wave about to crest. With a final, desperate sob against his skin, she came undone.
Her orgasm ripped through her, a violent, convulsing wave that made her body seize.
She collapsed, her mind a blissful, empty void. He was still impossibly hard inside her mouth. After a long moment, she lifted her head, and glared at him.
“Not fair,” she growled, surging up and crawling over his body until she was straddling his chest. She kissed him, a hard, punishing kiss that was all teeth and tongue and promise. It was a kiss that said, You have no idea what you’ve just started.
He met her fire with his own, his arms wrapping around her, pulling her flush against him.
Then, he rolled, reversing their positions in a seamless motion.
She was on her back again, pinned beneath his solid weight, her hands trapped between their bodies.
He was in complete control once more, and the look in his eyes was no longer playful. It was a raw, aching, desperate need.