Candace
My heart hammers as my lips slide over Hollis's. He tastes even stronger than he smells, like a winter day I'm watching through a window. My heart flutters. My stomach clenches.
Hollis pulls back. His eyes are wide, pupils nearly swallowing green iris. "We can't."
Right. My mark sears, and I drop my gaze. We were just talking about all the reasons why we can't do this. Who it will hurt.
"Not here." He takes my hand.
Bright, burning hope lights in my chest. I scamper after him, out of the soft lights strung in the branches. Can he feel my heart pounding against the thin skin of my wrist? When he glances back at me, is he worried or just checking to see if I'm still following?
Hollis leads us to a small cluster of half-living trees, outside the ring of light and away from any other tents. I take a step forward, ready to kiss him again. He really believes me.
He frowns, and a muscle in his jaw tenses.
"What?" I ask softly.
"I-we-" He shakes his head.
I study the restrained movement in his legs, the tautness of his hand in mine. He wants to run. My stomach churns, but I want to run too. We shouldn't do this. I open my mouth to say just that.
He drops my wrist, grabs my waist, and crushes me to his body. I yelp, but his lips swallow the sound. His tongue dances into my open mouth, and I twine mine with his. His taste is potent, almost intoxicating. The first snow of the season in a pine forest, the promise of a hot drink when I get wherever I'm going. Ice and warmth in a complicated blend, neither as intense without the other. I slide my hands into his dark hair and hold on tight.
My heavy robe dulls the sensation of his hands sliding over my hips, my chest. The spring air tempts me despite the chill. I force my hands between us and yank the tie holding my robe closed. It falls open, and Hollis pushes it off my shoulders. I moan as his touch intensifies, nothing between us but thin, white cotton.
He cups one of my thighs and hooks my leg around his waist. Hardness presses into my warm center. I grind against him with another moan.
"Shush," he murmurs. "No one is nearby, but...."
He doesn't have to finish the sentence. I know the stakes. And through my vague memories of the Haze, I know I won't be able to keep quiet while he's touching me. With shaking fingers, I untie the cravat around his neck. Hollis stares at me blankly.
"I saw this once, in a book one of my brothers left out," I whisper. It sounds better than admitting I know it from watching Father bring prisoners of war back to the castle. Then, I stuff the cravat into my mouth, silken fabric brushing over my tongue.
Hollis's gaze goes dark. He strokes my cheek and opens his mouth as if to say something then closes it again. Before I can ask, he lifts me off my feet and lays me down on my fallen robe, his body covering every inch of mine.
I moan, and it comes out no louder than the beat of a bird's wings. My skin hums with want, and Hollis is quick to provide.
He presses his mouth to my neck, my collarbone, devouring in bites rough enough to feel but gentle enough not to mark. I squirm underneath him. He unties the neck of my nightgown easily, and I drag his mouth lower, onto the top slopes of my breasts. It's all he can reach. My body pulses, craving his touch where I need it most.
I have a robe to wear back to the tent.
My nails sharpen to claws, and I shred the front of my nightgown. It falls to the sides, and Hollis growls as he takes one of my nipples in his mouth. Lightning arcs through me. I clutch his hair once again, holding him so he can never get away. He palms my other breast in the same rhythm, nearly as hungry as we were the first night. My legs smear past each other when I tense them. I'm already soaked.
The embroidery on his vest and tunic scrape over my chest. I groan, release his hair, and begin pulling at his clothes. I'm barely wearing the sleeves of my nightgown anymore. I want to see him.
Hollis ignores my growing frenzy, focusing all his attention on my breasts. Here, he leaves behind a trail of kisses, covering nearly every inch of pale flesh. Right now, there's only us. There's only the sparks in my veins and the all-consuming want between my thighs. I thrust up into him and brush against the stiffness in his pants.
He's going to know I've never done this before.
I can't wait another second, and this is the only weapon I have.
I reach between us and grasp his cock.
Hollis grunts. "Softer."
I loosen my grasp with a small grimace. He's been inside me, but I've never touched him like this. Blindly, I undo his trousers and reach inside. Beads of wetness collect at the head, and it twitches when I run my thumb over them. He makes a soft, abortive sound that seems to be his own muffled moan. I wrap my fingers around him, and he thrusts into my hand as he switches his mouth to my other breast.
My nipple pebbles in the night air, cold for the second before he covers it with his hand. Slowly, I stroke him inside the prison of his pants. The angle is awkward, but touching him is exhilarating.
Hollis releases my breast, finally, and begins kissing down my chest. Soft nips of warmth chase his mouth, spurring the want between my legs higher than the want in my chest. I lose my grasp on his cock as he moves and grab his hair once more. His teeth scrape over my inner thigh, and then he pauses.
I lean up on one elbow to look at him. Hollis lays, frozen, staring at the apex of my legs. All his muscles have gone tense again. The spell is breaking. We are not two people in the night. We're not even two mates, really. A world expands in my mind's eye. One where I am learning how to touch him at the beginning of a lifetime of pleasure. Where one day I'll hear him fully. Where one day he'll mark my neck if he wants, grab me where anyone could see. An impossible world that he's realizing will never come.
Tears prick my eyes.
Hollis runs his fingers between my legs, a series of tiny explosions of pleasure, and his whole body melts. He moves sinuously as he returns to kissing my thighs and spreads the wetness everywhere he can reach. My breath whooshes out of my chest in a single gust, and I lie back. His mind must be telling him to leave, just like mine is. But our instincts are stronger. We can't fight them.
He fucks one finger into me, then a second. I arch, taut with want. His name comes out muffled through my makeshift gag. My first peak is already approaching, hot and fast. Every time he sinks his mouth onto my thighs, it gets a little closer. My tears spill, but something as complex as sadness or yearning is gone from my mind. I am all pleasure.
Hollis curls his fingers, and I shake apart around him. He strokes me through the tiny earthquakes that follow. My breath comes back to me slowly through the gag, and I fight the encroaching reality of the situation.
Clothing rustles. I squeeze my eyes tighter and hope. When he lies back down on top of me, it's skin on skin. I know I was right. There's nothing here but us and the trees now. He lines himself up with my entrance. My walls flutter in yet another echo of the peak, and he slides in.
The gag barely muffles my near-scream. A few birds fly off at the sudden noise. I lurch up into him, wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist like that'll keep him from ever going away again. It only drives him deeper, at a new angle. I tremble as he thrusts. His grunts start to grow in volume, and part of me wants to shush him. The rest wants to soak up every sound, every breath, every second before this ends.
With his hands hungry on my breasts, his mouth on my neck and dancing over my mark, Hollis reaches the apex first. He stiffens over me with a raspy noise that could, if I really want to hear it, sound like my name. I cling to him tighter. Even as he softens inside me, he keeps thrusting. Our sweat mingles. Our skin sticks together. My second orgasm crashes through me like a tree falling in a storm, leaving only devastation in its wake.
Hollis rolls off me, onto the forest floor. His chest rises and falls, the coating of dark hair drawing dramatic swirls on his pale skin. My stomach twists as the only two thoughts I can think take center stage in my mind.
How can I stay away from Hollis now?
How can I not without destroying Eva?
I pull his cravat out of my mouth, push to my feet, and grab my robe.
"Where are you going?" Hollis asks.
"We-" Can't do this. Should never have done this. "-can't get caught."
I tie my robe back on and leave, the fact that I didn't tell him we couldn't do it again pulsating in my mind.