Chapter 22 #2
The trail out of the clearing leads into the old arteries of Sherwood.
Marian matches Lox’s stride, but her pulse won’t listen; adrenaline keeps it galloping, sluicing brightness into everything.
He flexes his fingers at his sides, as if restraining the impulse to keep touching her just to be sure she’s whole.
But she wants to be touched. She wants to be pressed open against bark, to ride the edge of survival into something reckless.
‘Everything all right?’ he calls out over his shoulder, a wicked grin tugging at the edge of his perfect face.
She arches a brow he can’t see and lets her tone turn careless and deliberate. ‘Why do you ask?’
He stops and slowly turns. The gold in his eyes flickers, and her heartbeat jumps.
‘Your heart is hitting like a woodpecker. And . . .’ He closes his eyes for an instant, inhales.
The sound he makes is half-laugh, half-surrender.
‘And there are other parts of you that are just as . . . tempestuous.’
Colour rushes into her cheeks, but instead of running from it, she leans in. ‘At the Severing, you said you wanted to ruin me sweetly against every tree in Sherwood.’ She eyes their surroundings before tugging him closer. ‘Care to make good on your promise?’
‘Oh, you wicked little fox,’ he murmurs, his voice torn and tender, and pulls her into his arms.
They steal along the seams along the main path.
Every tree becomes a screen, every shadow a room.
She laughs once – a sharp, startled sound – when a jay scolds overhead.
The forest closes rank around them and everything narrows to the scrape of bark at Marian’s shoulder blades, the drag of cloth, the staccato of her breath when he kisses her.
They move together in a wordless liturgy. He presses her to a broad mossy trunk and cups the line of her thigh; his fingers press, gentle then firmer. She answers with small, needy noises that make him grin against her mouth. The want between them gathers like a storm.
Lox spins her around, pressing her chest into the tree, and crowds the space behind her.
He grips her with a sense of certainty that steals her breath.
His fingers slide into her pockets, squeezing her inner thighs through the fabric until Marian is shaking with anticipation.
He inches her trousers down until the cool night air bites against her exposed skin.
Heat presses at the hollow between her legs, hungry and bright as freshly forged metal.
She rocks back into him, thighs parting just enough to confirm where she wants him. Lox’s mouth moves along her jaw, teeth grazing, his breath already ragged as his fingers sink inside her. The sound that ripples out of both of them is both prayer and penance.
Marian’s forehead tips against the trunk as his fingers work her open.
Bark scrapes across her palms, grounding her even as her body sinks greedily into every movement.
Lox presses close, his hardness straining against her, his hips nudging with every shallow thrust of his hand.
His breath rasps against her ear like he’s trying to memorize the cadence of her pleasure.
‘Saints,’ she gasps, the word trembling out of her as his thumb circles in time with his strokes. Her thighs quake, the cool air around them only sharpening the heat coiling in her belly.
Lox’s mouth is at her neck, teeth grazing the tender spot below her ear. ‘That’s it,’ he breathes, words hoarse. ‘Tell Sherwood what you want. What you need.’
Her answer is a broken cry, hips arching into his hand. The forest seems to lean closer, branches knitting tighter, as though it too strains to hear her. She’s never felt so completely undone and remade in the same breath.
His fingers curl inside her, drawing another sound from her throat, this one sharp and needy.
Marian twists, desperate for his mouth, and he turns her with hands rough on her waist. Her back hits the trunk again, but this time he sinks into the soil before her, antlers haloed in moonlight, eyes dark with hunger.
His fingers part her thighs with gentle insistence, and the night air licks at her bare skin.
He kisses down her body, leaving a trail of fire in the wake of his lips. His breath breaks just above the place that aches for him, and her knees wobble.
Her body arches helplessly, thighs trembling as he licks her with a devastating, ruthless tempo. Every scrape of bark, every slip of his fingers, heightens the storm in her chest. She’s alive in a way that’s unbearable, every nerve strung taut between survival and surrender.
She fists her hands in his hair, tugging him closer, and his grin ghosts across her flesh.
A feral groan slips out of him. His head presses against her, as though he can’t stand the thought of not tasting her. His fingers quicken in response to her grip, pressing harder, stroking deeper, until her cry splits the quiet like an offering.
Marian can feel his hunger for her release. His breath stutters hot against her, his antlers scraping across her stomach. She wants to give herself over to him, to tumble headlong into the storm Lox is coaxing from her body, but her mind splinters.