16. Vireth #2
My lady. I know the term is an honorific for humans, but this is the first time Renard has used it with me. Something sickly sweet twists within my ribs, and I decide to keep this small pleasure tucked just inside my breast—just for me.
His warm, broad hands sweep across my body in smooth strokes, touching, teasing, driving me to madness with their gentleness.
“On your knees, then, my lord.”
With one last lingering kiss on my lips and the heat of a forge in his gaze, he sinks to his knees, his eyes never leaving mine. Something dark and possessive peeks out from behind that too-blue gaze, thrilling me to my very core.
“You have such fine lips,” I say softly, heart thundering so hard I’m certain he can hear it. “Perhaps I’d like to feel them everywhere.”
He closes his eyes, a muscle feathering lightly in his jaw and he exhales a stuttering breath.
“As you wish.”
His hands skim up the backs of my calves up to the backs of my thighs, lifting the hem of my shift and baring my overheated flesh to the cool dawn air.
He crouches slightly to press soft kisses to the insides of my knees, trailing his lips up the insides of my thighs.
Small tremors reverberate through my legs, and I can’t tell if it’s from Renard’s restraint or my own excitement.
When he reaches my sex, he simply stares for a moment, as if he is in shock. One hand fists the fabric of my shift—his knuckles turning white.
“This is the flesh of a goddess,” he breaths, and the warm air tickles my oversensitive skin, wrenching a whimper from my lips. “One who I’m wretchedly unfit to serve.”
Something cold shears through me.
“I’m sure the Blight Mother enjoys hearing you say so,” I say, pulling back slightly.
His grip tightens, and he looks up at me with something dangerous in his gaze.
“Not the Blight Mother,” he insists. “You, Vireth. I kneel here to you. For you. Not to some ancient goddess, or some immortal wild-folk, or even a fae princess.”
He runs one firm finger through the wetness gathering in my slit and bites out a desperate groan.
“So perfect, my goddess,” he murmurs, more to himself than to me. “So warm, so wet.”
He lifts his fingertip to his lips and sucks, and I cannot keep from squirming. His eyes slam shut again.
“So divine,” he says, his finger leaving his mouth with a wet pop.
I’m mesmerized by the unleashing of this formerly staid knight—the way he has transformed into something deliciously dark and wicked, as if he was conjured right from my fantasies.
When his eyes open again and he grins up at me, the look is wild, feral, utterly primal.
I gasp, and he dives forward like a man starved, setting his mouth to my sex with every intent to ravish.
His mouth explores every part of me, from the tight bud of pleasure through the slick folds and creases, until his tongue dips into my channel and I cry out.
“Renard! Oh gods…”
He sucks tenderly at the apex of my pleasure, flicking the tip of his tongue against it in alternating, delicate strokes.
His beard tickles the lips of my sex as he devours me, ravenous and rapturous, and even with an ancient death goddess inside me, I’ve never felt more powerful—spread open like a sacrificial feast. Pleasure begins to build and my knees weaken as it gathers, and I need more, more, more.
“More,” I gasp, whining and demanding. “I need more of you. Now.”
“As you wish,” he groans, thrusting one—then two fingers inside me.
They keep up a slow, steady rhythm, gently filling me and twisting, curling in the most clever, incendiary way.
His pace picks up and his broad middle finger crooks just so and the climax that’s been creeping up on me erupts with the force of a lightning strike, cracking me open with a scream and a bright explosion of earth-shattering pleasure.
Boneless, I collapse to the ground and Renard somehow catches me as I fall, still devoutly dropping kisses on top of my sex, my groin, my soft belly and the insides of my thighs.
I run my fingers through his soft hair, only just noticing the wide ring of bright pink mushrooms that have broken through the ground in a circle around us.
They’re beautiful, glittering with sparkling dew in the primrose pink sunrise.
“I am unworthy of something so heavenly,” he murmurs, laying atop my belly and staring up at me with a heady mixture of desire, satisfaction, and contentment in his gaze.
Gods. Being with him like this is better than getting drunk on fae wine.
“You know what they say—the unworthy must offer penance,” I chuckle, placing my palm against his cheek and running my thumb along his plush lower lip, still damp from his ministrations.
I can feel the hitch in his pulse with his chest pressed against my thigh and smile.
“How does my goddess long to take such penance?” he asks, and I cannot help but laugh at the hope in his gaze.
Propping myself up on my elbows, I pretend to consider his request.
“A gift of flesh,” I say coyly, feeling like a lustful adolescent.
Renard’s laugh vibrates through my belly, and I marvel at how lovely it is, and how rarely I’ve been able to enjoy it.
It feels like we haven’t been able to enjoy much lately, save for a few decent meals here and there, and the occasional majestic landscape.
Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time I truly laughed before rescuing Renard, but I’m certain it’s been an age.
This journey has brought a great many hardships, but here, now, in the fresh light of an autumn dawn, I feel…
happy. Despite its flaws, this world has a great many things worth saving, and as I watch my handsome farmer knight shuck his shirt and breeches, I vow to myself that I will not be the one to destroy it.
His body is better than I’ve dreamed—all corded muscle and sinew, decorated with scars that show his victories and his losses, yet every one of them makes him who he is.
“Would you help me take my shift off?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more beautiful, more perfect question in all my life,” he says, kneeling before me and helping me tug the soft fabric over my head.
Before I can get the fabric over my face, I feel Renard’s lips on my breasts again and I collapse back onto the moss with a satisfying moan.
Nudging my legs apart, Renard settles above me, his hard cock poised at my slick entrance, his face framed by the pink sky and drifting purple clouds. It strikes me that I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my life, and I’m embarrassed to feel hot tears pressing against my eyes.
Renard halts, panic flashing across his face.
“Oh no, Vireth, are you well? Do you wish to stop? I haven’t harmed you, have I?”
“I wouldn’t stop if the world was ending, Renard. I am simply enjoying the moment.”
He eyes me warily, descending to take my mouth in a kiss so sweet, so tender, the tears begin to flow despite my best efforts.
“Please. I need this,” I say softly. “I need you.”
“You have me,” he replies, the steadiness of his voice belying the tension in his body. “I’m here.”
But he doesn’t move—not yet—likely waiting for me to agree to this, giving me one last chance to stop before we both tumble over a precipice neither of us fully comprehends yet.
His kisses move down to my jaw, and my neck, and when his lips find the point of my ear he gives it a slow lick and lights a fire in my blood anew.
“It’s unwise to tease a fae,” I whimper.
He smirks, lowering one hand to caress my breast and flick his thumb across my nipple. I arch up into his hand, wanting—needing—more.