Page 57 of Untethering Dark

A plate of cookies in one hand, the red scarf in the other, Astrid leaned forward to take a delicate sniff. “They’re lovely.”

“You’ve been generous with your baking. I thought it only right to bring you something I’ve wrought from my own hands.”

“You’re a gardener?”Of course, he was a gardener.Mutter Perchta had said so days ago, and even if she hadn’t, how deftly and efficiently he helped Astrid with her own was evidence enough. Lust had as good as fried her brain.

He nodded. And since her hands were full, he set the flowers on the stump beside them.

Astrid blushed furiously, remembering last night’s dream.

Here he was being so sweet and kind, and all she could think about was being railed by him, deliciously raw and unhinged.

“Turns out these are great for digging and pruning,” he said, waggling his clawed fingertips.

She snapped to. “W-what?”

“Are you feeling all right? You’ve gone quite red.”

Subtlety was not in her body’s vocabulary right now.

“I made this for you,” she said quickly, holding out the scarf...to a creature that didn’t wear clothes.

Panic spiked. She hadn’t thought through this gesture very well. “I wanted to make you something more lasting than cookies. A keepsake. But you don’t seem to get cold or wear clothes, so I don’t know what you’d use a scarf for. It’s silly. I don’t know what I was thinking...”

Gently, and practiced, Gudariks took the scarf from her, handling it as if it was precious cloth. Or delicate flowers. He wound it around his neck, careful not to get it snagged on his antlers or his claws.

Astrid sucked in a breath.

Crimson looked so striking against his dark fur, and in the way it brought out the red of his eyes. She touched her fingers to her lips, speechless and aching for kisses.

“It’s so soft,” he commented, rubbing the material between two fingers. “It’s a thoughtful gift, Astrid. Thank you.”

Her whole body burned for him, crying out for his touch.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Hexe had not one, but two gifts for him tonight, and he really didn’t know what he ever did to deserve such sweet attentions. But he cherished each and every one.

“These are my favorites,” Astrid said, holding out a plate of cookies drizzled with chocolate and filled with homemade jam. “Kirsch-Marzipan Plätzchen.”

“You spoil me.” He grinned, taking one.

When he popped it into his mouth, her baked-in feelings unleashed havoc on his tongue, wrecked his throat. This batch was so saturated with rich, decadent wanting, he coughed, nearly choked, from the potency of it. Of her wanting him. And wanting him to want her.

Chewing intensified the flavor, and he clasped his throat, his belly, realizing he’d been wrong. Wanting was too tame a word for what this was.

He was tasting her desire, her sweat-soaked fantasies, the wet glide of fingers through needy, slickened flesh.

Heat raced up the base of his spine, flooding his limbs, and hunger in the carnal sense buzzed along his skin. That’s when he scented a fresh plume of her arousal in the air, breathed it in deep. Sweet and tart and...

He was painfully aroused the night before, but this was on a whole other level.

The urge to throw her down on the ground and mount her burned through his blood. To the startling, uncontrollable, and insatiable degree in which he sometimes hunted humans for food.

It scared him.

He had to get away. Now. Before this new hunger addled his brain and turned him into a mindless, rutting beast. It didn’t matter that she wanted him. He needed to be present and in control of all his faculties when he touched her.

“I have to go,” he bit out, before racing off into the trees.

---