Page 19 of Faun Over Me

At that first touch, Cricket had bit her lower lip between her teeth, trying in vain to stop the tiniest, sweetest whimper from escaping. But escape it had, and that sound now rang in Avery’s ears. That, and each tight, almost panting breath that followed. She couldn’t have imagined that, just like she couldn’t have imagined how the peaks of Cricket’s nipples had hardened beneath the thin cotton of her shirt.

Avery was no fool. You didn’t spend the entirety of junior high and high school playing on a championship softball team without learning a thing or two about girls, their bodies, and how they responded to certain … stimuli, and Avery had learned that lesson well, time and time again exercising that knowledge.

Her dad always joked she only played softball because it was the only time she was allowed to wear shorts or pants. Avery had bitten her tongue, refusing to correct him. What was the point? To admit what she got up to on travel weekends or when one of her teammates came to spend the night would be to ensure she never got to enjoy the escape of a tournament and sharing a hotel room with Stacy. Or Erica.

Instead, she smiled and feigned laughter, and when Erica came over for a sleepover, she thanked God for her Mom, who only ever said, “I love you, make good choices.”

Her thumb brushed over her nipple, and she gasped at the surprising sizzle of pleasure, sweeping the hard peak again as she kept Cricket’s face clear in her mind. Thick, short lashes dusting her cheek, those wild curls springing every which way. How her plump lower lip looked juicy enough to bite. To tug.

“Oh.” Her hand slipped beneath the waistband of her shorts, driving between her legs, while the other cupped her breast, pinching and teasing her nipple.

Would Cricket make those sweet little pants if she touched her like this? Would she call out Avery’s name in that raspy, throaty voice? Or would she curse?

Her fingers trailed through her curls, nowhere near as soft as Cricket’s hair—oh, wow, was she that soft all over?

She circled her clit, hips twitching. The tiny flurry that had begun at that first accidental brush of her nipple blazed into an outright fire. She dragged a finger through her folds, teasing the slick flesh and circling her clit again, drawing closer and closer until the image of Cricket in her mind morphed and shifted. It became Cricket’s teeth pinching her nipples. Cricket’s long, soft fingers teasing Avery until she felt she would combust.

She drove two fingers deep, eyes flying wide as they crooked against a spot that made her see stars. Abandoning her breast, she pressed down on her hand, applying pressure to her clit until her toes curled and the sensation became too intense, too delectable to restrain any longer. She came with a silent scream, whipping her head to the side and burying her face in the pillow until each lapping wave of pleasure receded into her core.

Panting and, finally, exhausted, Avery lay on her back with her hand cradled on her chest, waiting for the guilt that usually followed. She wasn’t supposed to think about girls. She wasn’t supposed to want them, but she had, and she did, and even more surprising and no longer deniable, was that she wanted Cricket.

9

Cricket

Dawn in the woods had once been her favorite time of day. The world was mostly sleeping, the roads and villages were quiet, and the woods were the playground of the faun. She remembered traipsing after her mom, Thicket, when she was young, following deer trails only she knew into new, exciting corners of their old world—remembered being bedded down when the sun fully rose and spending those long days in a space between waking and dreaming until her mom and older siblings returned at dusk to rouse Cricket and begin the journey home to their den.

And then the world split, they fell through, and Cricket’s mother kept her close and safe. As the only one of Thicket’s children to fall through, she spent her doehood in a den with other young faun, given only a tight radius to wander that her parents considered “safe.” She was only allowed into Green Bank proper when her cousin returned to be married in the Faunish style with her human wife.

So it was little wonder she found herself hobbling the paths and deer trails running along the backside of the camp a little after dawn, leaning on her crutch and cursing under her breath whenever the knobbed end got stuck in a patch of mud or tangled in ivy. Which was exactly why she was bent at an awkward angle, tugging ivy off of the aluminum leg, and stopped long enough to catch the delicate, dancing melody floating through the trees.

Her ears swiveled in the direction of the sound, and her head followed as she straightened. The edge of a building was just visible through the trees, painted a lovely, deep shade of green. Jerking the crutch free, Cricket stepped off a path that could hardly be considered a trail and followed the sound. She hopped one-hoofed over a runnel feeding into a larger creek and swung around a tree, stopping beside a half-opened window.

Lovely piano music spilled out, a song Cricket had never heard before. She leaned against the wall, closing her eyes as the melody poured over her like warm, sweet honey. There was a hopefulness to the song, a whimsy tempered by a longing that tied itself to Cricket’s very soul. Gripping the window sill, she peered in, jaw-dropping at the sight of Avery lost in her music.

Eyes closed, body moving in time to the sound she produced, she was without care, without worry. This was Avery, plying her passion on the keyboard and baring her heart to an empty room. Her expression shifted with each measure, the human feeling every beat, every emotion evoked by the music written by her very soul.

Cricket was again caught by the puzzle of this human girl. Mesmerized, hypnotized, whatever it was, it held her in place like … a deer in headlights.

The song petered to an end. Avery exhaled all of that passion in one long sigh, releasing Cricket from her spell. She spun around, out of sight, frantically smoothing her ears down while imagining those graceful fingers—long, lean, and strong—brushing along sensitive down. The memory shifted, Cricket’s imagination taking full control, and those fingers brushed lower, trailing along her jaw and down her throat. Heat flooded between her hips, and she shot away from the building, catching herself with the crutch before faceplanting in the pine straw.

“Oak and ivy, you’re being stupid.”

Picking any direction that led her away from the building and Avery, Cricket followed one of the well-trod paths into the woods, careful to keep the camp on her right, though just out of sight. The morning bell rang, and muffled voices filtered through the trees as campers headed to the dining hall for breakfast. Her stomach grumbled, but the last thing Cricket wanted to deal with right now was sharing a meal with Avery. What if she asked about her hasty exit two nights prior? What if she had to admit that a faun’s ears were, like, super sensitive? Oh, Gods, what if Avery had seen her in the window?

Her ears flattened against the side of her head, and her face flushed hot. Gods, she needed to get out of this camp. Avery was running a number on her, emotionally and physically. She’d all but run up the stairs to Mac’s guest bedroom that night, needing to take the edge off after the incident with the spiderweb, but even then, it wasn’t enough. No matter how wild her imagination was, no touch or caress she gave herself could match the arousal she’d felt at those light, careful touches.

“Gods damn.” Cricket hobbled to a halt, shaking her head to rid herself of the memory. There was only one way out of this: distance. She needed her cousin to return so they could go to Green Bank and convince their family to move.

Her stomach growled again, and she raised her head, catching the scent of bacon, eggs, and—“Waffles, awesome.” Working around, she caught another scent in the air—wet and musky, with the faintest hint of wintergreen.

Her ears shot straight up, every muscle in her body going taut as instinct took over. The woods fell still, birdsong dying along with the quiet rustling in the undergrowth. It was here. Whatever had chased her over the ridgeline and stalked her through the wood was here.

Fighting her instincts, Cricket grit her teeth and spun around, nose twitching and ears swiveling, seeking any sound or scent or hint of where the thing was in relation to her. Just when she was about to give up, she caught it. A stronger, headier musk coming from the northwest. Abandoning her crutch against a tree, Cricket limped off the trail, wincing and hissing through her teeth. This was stupid; she was probably courting death, but she needed to know she wasn’t crazy. That whatever had chased her was real, and it was here.

Bacon and blessed waffles grew fainter in the air, and a new scent joined the musk and wintergreen. Something metallic and sharp that turned Cricket’s stomach, growing stronger with each step. She swallowed a sour mouthful of spit, ducked under a low-lying branch, and halted at the edge of a large, circular patch of churned and matted earth tucked up against a fallen tree. Flattened leaves and pine straw blanketed the bed, and her eyes easily picked out another trail leading away from the site.

She made it three steps onto the trail before the reality of that metallic scent smacked her in the face.