Page 23 of Burn

“A coincidence.” Cadence shrugged, avoiding my raised eyebrows. “It’s not like I was looking out for you.” Her own brows dipped together. “Everything go okay out there? You seem frazzled.”

My mouth opened, then closed promptly. I wanted to share what had happened, but one thing kept me from imparting the story.

Instead, I nodded. “All went well.” To illustrate, I lifted the basket loaded with stalks. “We have dinner.”

Cadence brightened and snatched the vessel. “I’ll get the firepit going.” Before departing, the female noticed my leaf braid and flicked it with her finger. “Huh. Cute.”

As she walked away, Eliot noticed me and slung the cords of his garrote across the backs of his shoulders. Sauntering to the nearest railing, he gripped its ledge and yelled across the forty paces between us.“Be wary to believe milady’s bullshit,”the minstrel sang in exaggeration, his tenor ringing through the air, as if performing the lyrics to a ballad.“Lo, in your absence she hath been suffering a conniption fit.”

“Okay, fuck both of you,” Cadence groused as she pranced across an abutting bridge. “I deny everything!”

Eliot threw me an entertained look. I grinned back at him before retreating.

Across two suspensions lined in old lanterns, and up another winding flight of steps, I emerged on a deck surrounding an oak treehouse. The cabin’s front stoop protruded from the trunk, the home merged into the bark, and dormer windows jutted from the second story. Climbing the front steps, I stepped through the arched door and collapsed.

My spine hit the facade. Sliding to the ground, I folded one hand over my mouth, concealing a multitude of sounds.

Astonishment. Reverence. Yearning.

Sealed inside the room, I sketched the garland in my hair and marveled once more at its presence. It would have been easy to tell Cadence and Eliot how I’d earned this token from the forest, yet I hadn’t wanted to share it. Like every singular moment that had amounted over the past months, I stored this miracle with the rest, saving it for one person.

My thoughts strayed from the forest episode to other cravings. As I pictured his features, my skin pebbled, and my limbs shook.

I wish I could tell you what happened.

I wish you had seen it.

I wish you were here.

***

That night, my body trembled for a different reason. A hushed moan tripped from my tongue, sneaking out like a filthy secret before I could stop it. As I writhed atop the mattress, the noise echoed in the dark bedroom. Any louder, and the sounds would spill from the open window.

My friends kept their own cabins on neighboring levels, these walls were thick, and the brewing clouds rumbled. They would not hear me. Yet I sank my teeth into my lower lip until I tasted the salt of my own blood.

Always, he affected me this way. Mere thoughts caused me to bleed and my body to quiver with such ferocity that my bones might snap. And how I enjoyed the torment.

The headboard thumped gently against the wall, in tandem to the motions of my hand. With my legs splayed, I arched my fingers into the wet slot of my pussy and probed rhythmically. My walls spread around my digits, which pistoned in and out, the pace sinuous.

I rolled my wrist over my clit, the friction throwing electric currents across my skin. With each pass, the kernel inflated. My crease spilled more fluid, the ache in my cunt building, so that I soaked my hand to the knuckles.

Sweat dripped between my breasts, my nipples erect and pointing to the beamed ceiling. My heels kicked the quilt to the floor. I curled my spine off the bed and clamped my mouth shut, lest the moans should expand into a scream.

His voice drenched me. His words seared my flesh.

I let the memories seduce me into a frenzy. Frustration, loneliness, pain, and desire converged in the slit of my thighs. My backside rocked into the bed, granting me momentum as I lurched my fingers deeper into my folds. The muscles of my pussy contracted, bringing me closer to an eclipse.

My head dissolved into a fantasy. His wicked hand slid over my pumping one. Conniving fingers covered the backs of my palms, the forbidden touch wracking me with shivers. I turned onto my side and drew my knees into my chest, the better to pitch higher, deeper still.

From behind, a hot, decadent voice blew against the shell of my ear. “What have we here,” the jester murmured. “An heiress all by herself?”

A traitorous whimper escaped my lips, which turned into a gasp as his tongue dragged over the ledge of my ear. Tingles scattered to the edges of my being. My thighs stretched farther, my nipples toughened to the point of agony, and my pussy soaked the mattress.

I worked myself quicker, my fingers shoving into the private flesh. He hovered over me, his shadow draping across my body, those clover eyes glittering as he watched. I felt his gaze like a caress, yet I denied myself another moan.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he purred. “None of that, willful princess. Let me hear how your sweet cunt feels.”

“I can’t,” I wheezed. “I cannot without you.”

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