Articulations of Aspen

You had been collecting in the forest since you were old enough to walk, trailing after your mother and grandmother, learning the difference between the bluebells that gave you headaches and the white wood sorrel that soothed them, the shapes of roots that would clot blood, and the berries that would stop a heart. But as you gathered elements into the basket on your arm, the familiar paths felt different. The knife tucked in the fold of your skirt was less for harvesting and more for caution after the fear that had taken root since the maiden from your village went missing.

You yourself sensed a difference in the forest—a heaviness to the air, the moss a little gray, the birds silent in the middle of the day, a wariness that seemed to rise from the soil itself, urging you back. But you were determined. You and your mother and your mother’s mother before her supplied the village with many medicines and balms that were not commonplace, not trusted by everyone, but were integral to many.

The lake at the edge of the trees was swollen with rain and the melting snow, the water so high that it had eaten half the lower meadow. You would have to cross damp ground and pick your way over drowned logs. And you did, pressing on until you reached the stunted willow on the northernmost part of the shore, where you knew the wild violets would bloom first. You were the only moving thing in the marsh, a fact that landed with an unnerving weight. Your own breath seemed to fog the air, as if you had walked into a story from before time.

You were kneeling, fingers plucking and gathering the papery layer of new leaves from a cluster of green, when you heard a splash. Not a fish jumping, but something large breaking through the skin of the water. Your hands went still against the leaves and you stood, knife steady in your hand, and you forced yourself not to imagine the threat.

You scanned the underbrush and waited as your mother had taught you, letting your breath go thin and quiet. That was when you spotted the man, tall with broad shoulders, a deep chest, and limbs that were unquestionably strong and formidable.

As if sensing your gaze, his head turned your way, and he locked eyes with you. He didn’t move right away. You watched how his hands hung at his sides, open, the fingers stained with earth and perhaps something darker, though at this distance you could not be sure. His hair was a mix of golden chestnut and birch, and his face was clean-shaven. There was something unusual in the way he stood, something not-quite-human in the perfect symmetry of his features, the strong jawline, his shockingly blue eyes.

You did not call out. There was no one for miles and if this shape was a threat, it wasn’t the kind that would be cowed by a girl’s bluff. Instead you held your position and waited, the knife a cold certainty in your grip.

He moved toward you, nothing hesitant in his approach. The sodden earth gave under his feet, the water lapping at his calves. As he drew closer, he seemed to grow, revealing a height you hadn’t realized, solid muscle beneath the strange patchwork of clothes, brambles clinging to the rough fabric of his jacket. His eyes didn’t blink, glass-bright and inhumanly clear and blue, and they looked you over with curiosity as if measuring your resistance.

He spoke first, and the voice was all wrong: too deep, carrying a timbre like wind in a dead trunk, creaking and full of hollow space. “You’ve come further into the forest than others have in weeks,” he said. “You’re not afraid.”

There was no question in his words. You found your tongue regardless. “I have reason to be cautious, but I’m not afraid, no. I know this forest.”

The man—if he was a man—cocked his head, smiling in a way that made you think of a wolf in sunlight: beautiful, hungry, and so unbothered by your blade it might as well have been a thorn.

“What a curious thing to say,” he remarked. “You think you know the forest, but you cannot possibly know all its secrets, and the forest does not always agree with you.”

You had no answer to that, not one that would make him believe you. “I only mean that I know enough,” you said. “Enough to respect it.”

He stalked a slow circle, just beyond the reach of your knife yet always within lunging distance. An old, deep instinct in you recognized this dance, this patient assessment before a strike.

“You are the daughter of healers,” he said, “the one who finds bones and stones and wild remedies for the sick. You think you are unseen, but the forest always has eyes.” He stooped then, picking up a half-buried stone and turning it over in his palm. The hands, you noticed, were not quite right. The fingers were a shade too long, the skin thick and tight over the bones and veins. “Your presence is noticed. Even now, when you twist violets and dockweed in your clever hands.”

You recalled your grandmother’s lessons: never admit a name, never turn your back, never let a stranger dictate the space between you. “Then you know I am no threat to you or yours,” you said, and made yourself believe it, even as your heart raced. “The forest has given me its blessing,” you lied.

Something shifted in him then—not in his expression, exactly, but in the quality of his stillness, the way a predator goes motionless not from patience but from decision. “Your ancestors were blessed because of their bargains,” he said, weighted and deliberate. “They made their pacts and honored them. The land was shaped by their bargains, just as they were shaped by the land. But your generation—” he trailed off, gesturing at the bruised sky, the muddy water, the hush where birds used to cry. “No agreement has been struck. No tribute paid. The exchange must continue, or the balance will tip.”

“What exchange?” you demanded, pulse quickening.

“It has given many things to your kind,” he replied, pronouncing ‘your kind’ with a curious, almost academic detachment, “but there is always a toll, and it is different for each generation.”

“My mother still leaves honey in the hollows; it is a tradition I can continue.”

He shook his head, movement clipped, as if the neck itself was bored with the charade of human flesh. “Tokens are not tribute.” His tone was not cruel, only factual, and you realized, with a cold bloom in your belly, how many kinds of hunger there were in the world. “There is a price for the peace your village enjoys. Something must pass from you to the forest, same as it ever was.”

You tried to parse this—what your forebears had truly given, what they had perhaps hidden in their stories. “What price did the forest ask of them?”

“Your mother was clever enough to ask for nothing but safe passage between the trees. She left offerings. She did not take more than she needed. Your grandmother,” he paused, and here a ripple of amusement crossed his face, “your grandmother made a more interesting bargain.”

The wind pressed through the grasses, flattening the young reeds against the mud. A memory stirred—a story your mother told in the hush before sleep, stories half-forgotten. But his voice cut through the past, speaking the words you were beginning to recall.

“Your grandmother was greedy. She wanted safe passage and she wanted the voice of birds, the green touch, the sense for what flourished and what would die. She wished to heal but also to know when healing was hopeless, in her own marrow. Understand: the forest cannot birth a gift without first devouring the seed. When your grandmother asked, she gave up her dreams.”

You remembered the quiet unease of her sleep, the way she would doze sitting up, hands braided in her lap, or walk the lanes of her mind in silence for hours. She never dreamt or, if she did, she never remembered. You’d always assumed it was age—some feature of withered time. But even as a child you’d known there were no stories or nightmares waiting for you in her lap, only the faint comfort of her skin and the steady thrum of her heart.

You looked at the man—or the not-man—standing so tall his shadow cut the lake in two. His words hung between you, like frost in early spring, uncertain and unwilling to melt.

“What are you?” you asked.

He smiled, and it was as if a branch bent and split under its own weight. “I am not the forest, but I am of the forest. Some call me Waldgeist—the spirit of the green. I walk the trees as you walk your own paths. I am the mind that grows beneath the bark, the will curled in every root. You have seen me before, though not with these eyes.” He stated it not as a boast, but as a simple fact that had always been true.

You swallowed, tongue dry as birch. You remembered not just the old tales, but the feeling itself—a shadow in your childhood room that was too tall, a silence in the woods that felt like a held breath. You remembered the certainty, even then, that you were never truly alone among the trees.

“Why do you look like a man, then?” you asked, pulse quickening. “Why come to me at all?”

He shrugged, a gesture that sent a ripple through the nearby trees. “I take a form you can understand. “A bargain must be struck between equals; this shape makes us so. I am here to collect.”

The words buckled the hush between you. You clutched the basket closer to your chest and kept the knife steady, but you knew, in some deep, marrow-knowing way, that neither would help you if he truly intended harm.

“What will the forest take from me?”

His blue eyes shifted, and with the next blink you saw the gold in them, as though some animal watched from behind the skin of a man. “That is for you to decide. You may attempt to make a bargain, if you wish. Or you may leave now and accept what the forest will claim in time.”

“Has the forest not already laid its claim by taking one of our young women?”

He did not answer right away. Instead, his lips thinned, losing all softness, and the blue of his eyes darkened like a storm. For a moment, he became as implacable as the roots beneath the soil. When he did speak, his voice was careful, measured, as if you had stumbled onto a delicate membrane between two worlds.

“That was not my doing,” he said. “The lake has its own demands, its own bargains. It is not forest.”

The words struck you as both a warning and a promise, a declaration that the world was layered in negotiations far more ancient than the bargains of your ancestral line.

He glanced down at the bruised violets shivering at your feet. “The creatures that dwell in water are older and stranger and more varied than you can imagine.” His eyes found yours again. “Do not worry for the lost girl. Her fate is with the water. Your business is with me.”

You gathered the violets into your palm, feeling an ache in your fingers as if the mere act of picking a flower now implicated you in an ancient cycle of debt. The Waldgeist waited, patient and unobtrusive, but you felt the pressure of his presence, the sense that the moment for negotiation was finite and slipping away like dandelion seeds on the wind.

“If I try to bargain,” you finally said, forcing your voice to work, “will you truly honor it?”

“I have always honored my contracts,” he said plainly.

You squared yourself and let your breath settle. Out here, feeling small amongst a vast web of nature, you managed a plainness you hoped was strength. “If my grandmother gave up her dreams, and my mother only left honey, what do you want of me?”

“Each generation pays a new price,” he said. “The forest never takes the same thing twice. It adapts. It learns.” The Waldgeist, the not-man, walked nearer. “You come to this place for the plants that nurture your people. You heal, but healing is only one side of the balance—life and death, and the line between them. I want the possibility that both can flourish.” He let the words flower in the air between you. He continued, “The forest wants to plant its seed in your womb. It wants you to swell with its green life, to birth the next guardian from your own blood and breath.”

The air left your lungs all at once. Your body as tribute. Your womb as a clearing for the next green thing. You had imagined many prices—your sight, your voice, your years—but not this. This was so much more intimate, more invasive, than you’d ever imagined. But as you stood in the hush, with the Waldgeist’s gaze upon you, you sensed he was not mocking. Not even predatory, not in the way of men, though the need in him was elemental and absolute. It was the same law that pulled the river to the lake.

“The only thing you have to offer that’s of any interest to me,” he said, his voice lowering to the hum of sap rising in the spring, “is that sweet, warm place between your legs.”

It wasn’t even a vulgarity, the way he said it. If anything, it was a kind of reverence—a hunger for the continuity that pulsed under everything alive. But a hot flush crawled up your neck, and your hands clenched the fabric of your skirt so hard you felt stems of violets snap between your knuckles. The leaves in the trees did not shudder. The entire forest waited, patient and unashamed.

He lifted his chin, as if he had tasted the shape of your resistance, and made clear that there was no shame or cruelty in the offer—only the certainty of the seasons, the calm of a thing that had always been true. “You may refuse,” he said, “and if you do, the forest will find another way to balance what has been taken from it. But should you choose to accept, you may name your own terms. I will match them if I can. If you wish to leave this place with no bargain, as I said you could earlier, I will not hinder you. The path out is always open, though it may not lead you back the way you came.”

You swallowed, the reality of the choice settling like a stone in your gut. He would not touch you—he had offered that dignity. You could walk away, unchanged, and let the seasons turn. But a different kind of cold crept in at the thought: the forest, left to its own devices, drawing its tribute in some slow, unpredictable, and perhaps far crueler way.

You looked up at him—the way he stood entirely at ease, as if a body was just a garment to be worn when convenient. The blood-and-earth in his veins seemed almost visible, his presence an axis on which the wind and the water now turned.

“What is your name?” you asked.

He did not hesitate, but you sensed the concept of a single name was foreign to him. “I have no name your tongue could form,” he said. “But your people have need of them. There was one who called me Steve.” The word landed, dry and spare. “You may use it, if you wish.”

It was so ordinary, so unburdened with myth. You turned the name over in your mind—smooth, plain, almost laughably small. Children did this, you remembered: named the thing under the bed to make it small. But the trees did not shrink. The wind did not shrink. And neither did he.

“Steve.”

What a small name for such a vast thing.

Something moved in his face—not a smile, not quite. The corners of his mouth drew back the way bark splits open in heat. “If you ask for a name,” he said, “I gather you agree.”

Your heart twisted, then steadied, and you nodded.

Steve stepped through the reeds and the cold lake water, the space between you closing until you could smell the wildness on him, the sharp green tang of willow bark and moss. He stopped with his face a hair’s breadth from yours, searching you with those ice-blue, wild eyes. As Steve leaned in, his gaze flicked from your mouth to your eyes, measuring your anticipation and fear with the patience of a tree waiting for the wind.

He lowered his head, tendrils of his hair brushing your cheek, and the animal warmth of his skin woke every nerve, every inch of scalp and spine. He waited, poised, until your chin tipped upward, an invitation.

The tip of his nose nearly grazed yours, and you could see the sweep of gold and green in his irises.

“Your kind,” he said, the syllables vibrating just above your jaw, “often begin their coupling with a kiss. Would that please you?”

You did not know what you expected—a command, a taking, some gesture of force, but his hands hovered at your waist, not touching, not yet, as if some ancient etiquette held him back until you gave consent.

You met his gaze, the question hanging between you. This was the first step, the seal on a pact you barely understood. The instinct to flee warred with a curiosity that held you fast. “Yes,” you breathed, the word both a surrender and a choice. “I would like to be kissed.”

You felt the air shift, the certainty of the woods folding up around you. You had imagined your first kiss as a hush in the honeyed dark, a stolen moment behind a barn or beneath the hush of twilight. You had not imagined the sensation of a mouth as wild and strange as the lake wind, nor the certainty of a hand—large, warm, with fingers a shade too long—drawing you in. Steve cupped your jaw, his thumb spanning the distance from cheekbone to chin, and when he bent his head, there was no trembling or hesitation—only a gentleness so deliberate that you understood, even through your shock, how hard he worked to contain himself.

His lips were cooler than you’d expected, but they pressed to yours with a strange, melting pressure that drew the air from your lungs in one startled, high gasp. Your knees gave, not from weakness, but as if the ground itself had softened beneath you. His other hand closed around your upper arm, bracing, the grip light but immovable, like the gentle crook of a branch against a windstorm. The kiss was not the fluttery, weightless thing you’d read about in stories—it was a gravity, a falling through the earth. His touch radiated from your jaw to the soles of your boots, a hot, heady rush that left you breathless.

You let your basket fall, soft, to the mud and reeds. The knife fell from your loosening grip, but you did not care, not with his hands now cupping your face and the tangle of your hair wrapped around his knuckles.

Steve’s kiss was a demand and a question, and you felt yourself answering in the way your mouth parted for him, in the soft gasp that escaped you when his hand slid—firm, careful—down your neck to the slope of your shoulder. There was a steadiness to the way he touched you, as if he already knew you would break otherwise. When you shivered, he drew you nearer, until your body was bracketed by the length of him, the heat of him, the certainty.

Steve coaxed your mouth open further, the velvet of his tongue not so much probing as mapping. He kissed you with such unwavering patience that you began to ache, not from fear now, but from wanting the next gesture enough to hurt.

Your hand found his hair, feeling the strange, thrumming life under your palm—a rhythm denser and more vital than any human's. There was an ancient knowledge in the kiss, yet beneath it, a clumsy hunger, a desperate restraint. You felt his effort to keep from overwhelming you, and it sparked an unexpected tenderness.

His mouth relented, drawing back only enough that he could see how your face looked in the aftermath. You opened your eyes, though you found no words behind your teeth, only air and a low, helpless sound of longing. He smiled, a gentle recalibration of his features, as if observing minor marvels.

Steve’s gaze was so intent you had to look away, but his hand coaxed your jaw to center, thumb brushing over your lower lip as if to see how much of you he had changed already. “You are doing very well,” he said, his voice low and calm, the kind you’d use to soothe a frightened deer at the forest’s edge.

He cradled your wrist, and you saw the knots of lichen just under his skin, veins running wilder than any human’s. He gestured to the bare ground, and from the mud a fresh cluster of violets bloomed in an instant. He plucked one and tucked it behind your ear with a reverence that made you feel like the forest’s own altar.

Steve guided you backwards, his steps gentle and unhurried, until the soft earth gave beneath your boots and you realized the ground itself had changed. The waterlogged moss and churned mud had, in the span of a breath, thickened and risen into a plush, living mattress of green that welcomed the weight of your body as he guided you down. The rush of green scent was dizzying, a perfume of leaf-break, and violets, and deep, wet bark. You braced yourself on your elbows, startled by the way the bed molded around you.

Steve knelt in front of you, balanced and quiet, his hands braced on either side of your hips. The air around you felt altered, denser, each sound of the forest amplified, as if the world had shrunk to only the patch of earth the two of you occupied. He watched you for a long moment, letting you breathe, or maybe just savoring the fear that had turned itself, somewhere in the last dozen heartbeats, to anticipation. He leaned on his hands and bent toward you, the whole scaffold of his body arranged with an a predator’s poise that sent a shiver through your blood.

“Are you afraid?” he asked, his voice low enough that you felt it more than heard it, a vibration that moved from your jaw down through your sternum.

“Yes,” you said, and then, as if your hand had its own will, you reached up and touched the side of his face. “But not—not the way I was before.”

Steve’s answering smile was frightening in its understanding. “That is good,” he said. “Fear makes everything sharp and honest.”

His hands were impossibly strong at your hips, the pressure just shy of command. One moved up your ribcage, charting the landscape of your bones. You gasped at the intimacy, and at the strange paradox of feeling safe. You sensed he would not take what was not offered, even as you knew he could take anything he wished.

He bent his head again but this time his mouth pressed not to your lips but to the angle of your jaw, your ear, the frantic beat hidden shallow under the skin. The weight of him, looming, should have been terrifying, but instead you were frayed with a kind of anticipation that would not have been out of place on the cusp of a summer storm. You forced your hands not to tremble as you cupped the back of his neck and felt the heat of his skin. Steve’s breath was cool on your neck, the hint of it unsettlingly gentle. You tipped your head back, a motion of surrender you didn’t recognize as your own, and he followed the column of your throat to the hollow at its base, then lower, to the line of buttons fastening your blouse.

He made a sound, not quite human, almost a purr or a buzz, and pressed his face against your sternum as if he could inhale your very shape. His hands, so careful at your ribs, curved around your waist with a certainty that left you breathless. He did not tug at your clothes. Instead, he pressed his face to the thin linen and breathed you in, as if scent itself was the substance of desire.

Your mind reeled. The other girls’ whispers, your mother’s warnings—they all spoke of pain, of a force to be survived. You had braced for a claiming, but Steve’s hands seemed to know nothing of that script. The warmth that bloomed low in your belly was not fear, but a bewildering curiosity. He brought his fingers to the top button of your blouse, unfastening it with a patience that was its own kind of power, pressing a kiss to each new inch of skin. The sensation was like a lightning strike, and your spine arched involuntarily.

He paused then, waiting, gaze fixed on your face as if he required your permission at every increment. You nodded, or maybe whimpered—whatever escaped you was enough for him to continue, and the next button, and the next, his fingers working each button loose without ever scraping your skin or snagging a hair. Only when your sternum and the pale slope of your breasts were exposed to the soft, damp air did he let the backs of his knuckles brush you, not quite a caress, more a sampling. Steve’s lips and hands traveled the exposed skin, tracing the hollow of your clavicle, the soft undersides of your breasts, his mapping every new inch as if memorizing a terrain he might never traverse again.

When his mouth closed around your nipple, you jerked, startled as if pricked by a holly leaf, but the wet heat had you keening the next instant. Steve groaned low in his chest, and the sound was so animal you felt it thrumming through your bones. His mouth was soft and deliberate, his tongue flicking where the air itself had barely touched you before. His hand stayed broad and steady at your hip, anchoring you so you didn’t float away.

He took the time to explore, open-mouthed at the soft edge of your breast, then the other and the valley between, all the way up to your throat, where his teeth found your pulse. Marks: not of violence, but of tribute, the press of a thumbprint onto fruit to test its ripeness. You shivered beneath him, alive to every place his tongue mapped and every inch of you that burned in the aftermath.

As glorious as that was, you knew what surely would come next, the act described in so many whispers and warnings: the press and pain, the split-second of being claimed and broken open. That was how it always happened, in the barns and haylofts and cold, wet fields, the wedding nights, the way the boys made the girls bite down on a hand or a sleeve, their haste to have it over with. You readied yourself to be bruised, to be stretched and split and left sore.

You braced for the press of his body at the split of you, the forceful push. Instead, Steve drew your skirts up methodically, slowly, and the cool air shocked the skin beneath as he exposed it to the forest. He planted himself between your thighs, the solidness of his shoulders between your thighs coaxing your legs to fall fully open to accommodate the breadth of him. Air stalled in your throat as you felt the heat of his gaze, unflinching on your most intimate place. He made a low sound in his throat that resonated through you and the trees, something between approval and hunger. “You’re wet here,” he murmured, his voice thick with wanting that hollowed your stomach. “Like the forest gives sap in the spring—slow, and sweet, and ready.”

He bent closer, the brush of his breath raising the fine hairs of your thigh, and he let his mouth hover over your slick, exposed folds. He watched your trembling, then the way your hips bucked when his tongue finally, shockingly, flicked at the bud of you. His gaze was open and unhurried, as if he had all of time. He groaned with the first taste, a deep and honest sound that made your hands fist into the moss, tearing up strings of it beneath your nails. Each pass of his tongue was a deliberate, patient movement, spreading your wetness with reverence, savoring you, as if tasting the salt and iron of the earth itself.

You moaned, the sound ringing out over the water, and he answered it with a pulse of suction that wrung more from you. His hands anchored your shaking thighs apart. He did not stop, even when the sensation crested past bearing and you twisted against him—whether to escape or to pull him closer you could not have said—but he wouldn’t let you go. From the creases of his palms, where his lifelines ran deepest, thin green vines emerged from his skin the way shoots push through soil in early spring. They wound around your upper thighs in slow, tightening loops, textured like the underside of a leaf, faintly cool where your skin was heated. The vines didn’t pull you wider, but held you just as you were, their cool, living pressure a patient, unwavering claim on the surrender you already offered.

You keened yet again, and Steve soothed it away with a tongue so dexterous and insistent he taught you a new way to live inside your own body, a way of being you'd never conceived. Your hands found his hair, and a sudden audacity took you, pulling him closer, grinding his mouth against you, feral and greedy and no longer a healer of the village but something wild, as much earthen as blood. He laughed, low and delighted, and you felt it where his mouth was still pressed against you—a terrible, gorgeous thing. He did not slow. He did not falter. He moved as though the wanting of you was its own kind of knowing, as though desire itself had handed him a map. His tongue traced your sex with an accuracy that made you wonder, briefly and wildly, if this was what it meant to be known—not seen, not touched, but learned, the way a river learns the shape of its banks over centuries of insistence.

When the wet, velvet heat of your climax broke over you, it did not snap or spark, but rolled up from your core in a long, rising wave—a secretion of you into the moss, into the air, into his mouth, which did not lose rhythm but drank and drew you further, until the only thing left was the trembling of your thighs and the stunned, empty ache where your voice used to live. Your eyes filled with tears, not of pain—never of pain—but of astonishment, as if every nerve in your body had just flowered at once, a bloom of both petal and thorn.

You had never known this could happen. That a tongue, a mouth, a pair of hands could make you forget yourself, undo the careful braid of your dignity and leave you sobbing for a mercy that, when he finally gave it, cracked open every seam in your body.

Your thighs still trembled against his cheeks when he slowed, his tongue drawing smaller and quieter shapes, the way rain gentles after a storm has spent itself. He did not stop, but his movements gentled and slowed. Your belly clenched once without warning, a small, wet sound leaving your throat before you could catch it, your spine curling involuntarily around the spasm. He raised his head at that. Steve pressed his lips, closed and warm, to the inside of your thigh. Then he moved up the length of you until his eyes were level with yours, his hands releasing your thighs, though the vines remained, loose now, a garland rather than a grip. You found his gaze before you meant to—bright with something that was not quite pride and not quite laughter, but lived fluidly in between. He kissed your mouth, unhurried, and you tasted yourself on his tongue, dark and unfamiliar, the flavor of a thing that had always been yours but that you were only now being introduced to.

He pressed his brow to yours and let you breathe, your own chest heaving against the solid warmth of his. The moss beneath you was velvet; the sky above, the dizzying blue, the gold of late afternoon flickering through willow fronds.

Your hunger had changed, no longer a storm but a strange, quiet hum beneath your skin. In the throb between your legs was both a memory and a promise, an echo of what he’d done and a question of what he still meant to do.

For a moment, Steve said nothing, only nuzzled into the hollow of your throat, the line of your jaw, as if the hollowed-out shape of your pleasure was a thing to be tended, not merely consumed. You lay in the aftermath, skin flush against the living bed of moss, feeling the pulse of your heart reverberate through your every limb. The world seemed sharper than it had ever been, each smell and sound and taste layered and immediate: the greeny wet-earth smell of the moss, the close heat of your own body, the lake’s cold mineral current threading through the trees, and him—less a presence than a gravity, one that didn’t pull you toward him but simply held you to the earth.

You did not want to move, but you wanted more, and he read both truths in your body. His hand slid between your thighs, fingers slicked with what he had drawn out of you, and he pressed the pads of them into you—not to hurt, only to test, to see how easily you would yield.

“The forest gives,” he murmured against your collarbone, the words a vibration you felt more than heard. “But it also takes. It’s only right you should receive first. It bargains in full measure… and now it is my turn.”

He stretched you open, one finger first, then two—so patient, so careful, you only realized you were being claimed when the green heat crested in you again, this time burning languid and low, like embers tended under moss. His hands were indecently strong, but he used them as if comfort was the primary goal—pressing, stroking, coaxing your body to soften around him. The first bite of pain was a shimmer, quickly edged away by the wet insistence of his movements and the wildness in your own hips. You rocked into him, greedy and bright, and the hesitancy that might have undone you was snuffed by a need to see how far, how deep, the pleasure could run.

You did not see his cock at first. When you felt the nudge of it, hard and impossibly hot against the inside of your leg, you looked down and saw that he was already bare, as if the forest itself had shed his clothes for him. The sight of him made your breath catch—he was built the way old trees are built, with a density that seemed to belong to something older and less tame than any man you’d known or could imagine.

An absurd, animal instinct made you shrink back, but his hands caught your hips and held you with tenderness—firm, but tender. The head of it was wet, already slick, crowned by a bead of clear fluid that you watched, dazed, as he thumbed down and pressed to your folds. You’d seen men before—quick glimpses, awkward fumbles in haylofts or behind market stalls—but this was not a man’s cock. It was a thing grown for a single purpose, and each time he guided it up your seam, parting you further, it was as if a new, second pulse had been hidden in your body, one that beat only for this.

He pressed the blunt head of his cock to your entrance and held it there. His eyes had gone wolf-bright, fixed on yours, reading the tremors that ran through you. The stretch was immediate, shocking—a white-hot claim of space where there had been none. Your body arched, seeking more instinctually, and a low rumble started in his chest, the sound of stone shifting deep underground. When he pushed past the first ring of resistance you gasped, a sound somewhere between agony and relief.

A white-hot seam of pain stitched through your hips and along your spine, pure and electric, and then, impossibly quickly, it was overtaken by the burning, desperate pleasure of being filled and filled and filled until you could not imagine more, and still he pressed deeper. You made a strangled noise that was half groan, half sob, your arms thrown up to brace against his chest, nails biting into the patches of moss-and-bark that surfaced between stretches of smooth, human skin. There was no logic to the fit of him, no sense in the physics of it, but he did not force. He gave, and your body took, the slow press of him unfolding you like a new language written into your bones.

His breath came hard through parted lips, but his eyes—his eyes did not move from yours, and what was in them was not hunger, or not only hunger… it was something older and more careful, the look of a man who understood exactly what he was holding, taking. The tendons in his neck stood out like roots finding purchase in stone, and he breathed through his nose in one long, deliberate pull, as if holding himself back from splitting you entirely. Inch by inch, he worked himself deeper, and you wept out loud when your body finally yielded and he was all the way inside you—a thickness that was almost unbearable, a depth that felt impossible as every nerve lit up and you did not think, for a moment, that you could bear another inch, even as his root dragged and pressed into a place you had never known you had. Steve made a soft, shushing noise, a caress of wind in your ear, and stilled inside you with a gentleness that nearly undid your sanity.

Your pulse beat hard in your throat. You felt full—so full—and with every tiny shift of your hips, every tentative intake of air, he seemed to bloom larger inside you. You didn’t think you could breathe until he gave you leave, and then you shuddered, the air shoving out in ragged, surprised gasps. The pain faded as swiftly as it had bloomed, replaced by the eerie awareness of being shaped from within. You were aware of every inch, every subtle shift, and it was intolerable and perfect.

He tilted his hips, a fractional shift that sent the cock inside you pressing higher somehow, grinding a spot that burned and throbbed with every minute twitch. All you could do was shudder and hold on as his hands ran up your body—stroking your sides, reverently palming your breasts, the whole time never pulling back, never pulling out, as if the very idea of separation was foreign to him.

He bent his head again, kissing all the places he could reach: your throat, wet with your sweat and the lake air; your ear, where he whispered words you barely understood, half in another tongue, the syllables soft and full of promise. His hands mapped you, his body claimed you, but it was not a violence, not an invasion. Something older than memory was being pressed into you, the way a name, spoken enough times, becomes the only word a mouth knows how to form.

He moved, slow at first—less a thrust than a rolling flex of pelvis and hip, a careful rocking as if he were teaching your body how to say yes. The first withdrawal was exquisitely, almost cruelly, slow. You felt every millimeter of him slide back along the walls of your cunt, a velvet scrape that left you gaping and gasping for more. Before you could mourn the loss, he pressed forward again, filling you deeper, the new angle making you see stars. Your hands clung to his shoulders, to the strange lattice of moss and bark beneath the skin, the unreal heat of him burning into your palms.

He began to fuck you then, not with the frantic, selfish rhythm of a man, but with the slow, inexorable certainty of a season turning. His eyes never left yours, reading every flutter of your lashes, every catch in your breath, as if cataloging the ways your body learned to take him.

That rhythm was slow and considerate, but soon the tempo changed. Steve braced his hands in the moss at either side of your head and moved with deliberate, rolling thrusts that grew in force and speed. Your gasps, your shivers, the dull percussion of your bodies meeting each other—it all became the rhythm of the forest, mingling with the hush of wind, the wet shudder of leaves. You felt the moss bed beneath you shudder, the roots trembling, as Steve’s hips snapped forward with more force. The careful, reverent worship of your body became an urgency, a drive, and it overtook both of you—his hands pinning yours above your head, his mouth finding your throat and holding it there, as if he could root you to the earth by the pulse alone.

He did not ask if you were ready. He did not have to. Your body gave its own answer, arching up, knees drawing higher and wider to accommodate the relentless, beautiful force of him. With each thrust, the forest blurred into green-gold strokes, the sky itself seeming to fall away, leaving only the bright, unspeakable ache of being filled and fucked.

You came apart, succumbing to it like a riptide. You clung to the filaments of his shoulders, body locking in great, shuddering spasms around the cock that was still splitting you. The sound that tore from your throat was not yours, or not one you had made before, and he drove into you through the whole shaking length of it, unhurried, relentless, the way weather moves through a valley.

Your cunt rippled, clamping, until you felt the answering quiver in him—a hardening, a climbing tension, the way his entire body drew up. Steve bowed over you, his hair a whisper against your skin. A grimace of pure ecstasy pulled at his mouth, and a low growl built in his chest as he fought for the last vestiges of control, holding himself back from breaking you completely. Only when you sobbed his name—ridiculous, simple—did he splinter, driving into you with a force that shoved all the air from your lungs, holding you impaled as his cock pulsed inside you, hot and fevered, a flood that felt like it was remaking you from within.

You were pinned to the earth not merely by his body, but by a force that had nothing to do with choice or want, something closer to gravity than desire. Even after he stilled, the moss beneath you continued to tremble in sympathetic rhythm with the frantic ricochet of your heartbeat. Steve did not move at once—he seemed to savor the heat of you, the locked and wet hold of your cunt, the way your body shuddered around every last pulse. When he finally withdrew, you felt the loss, whimpering at the stinging ache, the slow, deliberate slide of him from your body.

Steve knelt between your legs, cock smeared with your blood and his own seed, and in a motion so gentle it nearly made you weep again, he bowed his head to you. His tongue drew shudders from your body, tracing reverent patterns over newly awakened nerves, and you basked in the deliberate, shocking care of it.

When he was satisfied with his work, Steve moved back up over you, and his lips brushed your temple. “Hush,” he murmured, the words a soft vibration against your skin. “Again and again, until there is no question. The forest wants its fruit… and I will make sure it takes root.”

You could only nod, your body still caught between tremor and euphoria, your chest rising and falling in time with the damp, living earth. The words he’d spoken echoed in your mind: the seed, the fruit, the next guardian. You had thought life a slow accrual, a distant, speculative thing. But there was no speculation now. As your blood quieted, a stillness gathered deep in your womb—a heavy, waiting calm that confirmed the change was not coming, but had already arrived.

Lake monster Curtis being a bolotnik meant that when I incorporated another creature, I wanted to draw on more European folklore and play with the elements, and that's how rooted around until I found mention of the Waldgeist. I definitely took liberties in my interpretation, but just like I did with bolotnik!Curtis, I wanted to play around with the lore the way we've so commonly played with vampire and werewolf lore.

This was its own vibe to write - it flowed from beginning to end, and felt very magical-realism, and created its own kind of creative track in my head that was very different from some of the ideas and projects I've been working on lately, and so I hope it was as immersive to read as it was to write!

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

"If I win this bet, you owe me a date."

“Uh-huh.” You roll your eyes. If Lloyd Hansen has made an agreement with you once, he’s made it a thousand times: bets, predictions, whether or not he makes a specific mark, terms for anything from a coffee order to the next Nobel Prize winner. And yet, for all Lloyd’s talk, he’s never once tried to collect. Not that you have much to fear—he’s the type who’d rather make you squirm in anticipation. You know he likes the idea of a date more than the date itself.

Scratch that, you know Lloyd is not the dating type. Hates and ridicules the colleagues who do go on dates.

He flashes a smile that should be illegal outside of toothpaste commercials. "I’m serious this time. Put it on the record."

You don’t even look up from your laptop. "You owe me more dates than you can count.”

“Ninety-nine.”

You jerk your head up to look at him. “What?”

“You heard me: ninety-nine dates.”

You open your mouth only to close it again.

“Ninety-nine,” he repeats, smug as ever. “If I win today, that’s one hundred.” He laces his fingers behind his head, elbows angled with showoff laziness, leaning back in his seat on the chartered plane. “At that point, I’m cashing in. No more IOUs. You, me, three uninterrupted days. I take you to my place in the Bahamas, and we see how many times we can fuck before your brain completely short-circuits.”

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

Shockingly, it wasn’t so much sadness you felt as you realized the inevitable had happened–that your village had finally been conquered by the royal army–it was… nothing. You felt nothing at this revelation, although in the deep recesses of your mind, a quiet voice admonished that you should be ashamed for being so heartless. 

You shrugged away those thoughts, however, because there was a reason you were out in the wilderness all on your own, and had been for weeks. There was a reason why you were near delirious from hunger and dehydration, and you were as close to Death’s doorstep as you had ever been before. 

And as far as you were concerned, none of it was your fault. 

The familiar burn of anger and betrayal rose within you, making your eyes fill with furious tears as you shoved away from the tree and staggered forward, continuing your trek, as stupid and reckless as it was. 

Because you were heading straight for the enemy’s camp. 

It was senseless, you knew, dangerous, but you were so very hungry, and lured closer by the warm, comforting aroma that wafted toward you, promising something hearty and delicious to chase away the pangs of hunger stabbing through your belly. 

You had heard that the king took great care of his people–his royal army even more so–and your frazzled, hazy mind could only imagine the kind of feast they would indulge in tonight to celebrate their victory over your former people. 

The soldiers would be so lost to their revelry that it would be easy for you to just slip in and out of the perimeter of their camp. Take a small ration for yourself, a spare waterskin, too, just to keep you going, to keep you alive until you were far enough away from your village to be safe at last. 

And it was much easier to focus on this one task–find food and water–than the whole complicated and messy situation you now found yourself in. 

Your steps did not falter as you approached the edge of the camp. It had been set up in the large field on the outskirts of town, was now situated with numerous tents and horse-drawn carriages filled to the brim with supplies. 

There was one such carriage a few yards before you–left unattended–just like the crates set outside it. You could see rounds of bread peeking over the edge of the top crate, and your mouth began to water, your eyes too, as hopeful tears finally made an appearance and spilled over, streaking your dirty cheeks. 

You were too focused on the glorious food before you to realize you were no longer alone, and just as your trembling fingers gripped the crusty round of bread and pulled it free, you were grabbed from behind. 

You whimpered as you felt the cool blade of a knife beneath your chin, tipping up your frightened face as you clutched the bread to your chest and stuttered out an apology. 

“Save your sniveling,” a gritty voice snapped as a big hand closed around your arm and began to roughly steer you away from the carriage and further into the enemy’s camp. “You picked the wrong man to steal from, our fierce commander,” your captor rumbled. “And now you shall meet him and face the consequences.”

You were led to the largest tent, many a soldier’s wandering eye following your forced march, hoots of laughter and lewd taunts trailing you as you passed by. 

But you did not wilt under the attention–you would not–you had been through far too much already, and if you were to meet your gruesome fate this night, you would so with your head held high and your spine as straight as steel. 

Despite your brave thoughts, your stomach roiled with fear as you were brought before two hulking men, the leaders of the army, you assumed. They sat on a log before the fire outside their tent, talking quietly as they enjoyed their meal.

The bigger of the two had short blond hair neatly swept back from his handsome face, his shoulders as broad as you had ever seen and stretching the dark blue material of his tunic. The other man was beefier and brunette, his hair shaggy and curling over the collar of his red tunic as his dark eyes danced with amusement at whatever they discussed. 

You only had but a moment to drink them in before the man behind you roughly threw you to the ground at their feet as an introduction. To your great shock, rather than laugh or jeer like the other men had at your predicament, these two both looked disproving of your captor’s behavior. 

“Have care, you brute,” the brunette admonished. “That is no way to treat one so fair.”

“I caught her stealing a round of bread.” Your captor explained, holding the loaf aloft like it was the most damning of evidence. 

And you supposed it was. 

“Give it to her,” the blond man said calmly. 

You gaped at him, still sprawled in the dirt at his feet as your captor spoke behind you, sounding as flabbergasted as you yourself felt. 

“Come again, commander?”

“She’s clearly starving.” The commander rose to his feet, the sheer size of him making you tremble. 

You had no doubt that this man was the leader of the rest. Everything about him screamed strength, power, and authority–from the confident way in which he held himself, to the impressive sword gleaming at his hip.  

He drew closer to you, and you tried to scramble away, but with your captor at your back, you had nowhere to go and instead whimpered in fear–loathing the weak sound the moment it fell from your lips. 

“Be calm, fair one,” the blond murmured softly as he reached for you. His grip on your arm was firm but not painful as he pulled you to your feet before ushering you to the seat he himself had just vacated. Once you were sat, he pressed his own steaming bowl of stew between your shaking hands. “Eat.” 

You heard the brute from earlier huff, then turn on his heel and begin to stomp away, but the brunette beside you stayed his retreat with a terse, “Leave the round of bread for our guest.” 

And just like that, you suddenly had more food being offered to you–by the enemy–than you had eaten in weeks. 

The realization, and the shock of it all, had you going silent and curling in on yourself. You were scared, as much as you hated to admit it, even more afraid than you had been the day you had fled your homeland. 

The day you had fled for your life. 

Because now, you had foolishly gone and run straight into enemy territory. And if you thought that trying to survive on your own, with no food or shelter or anyone to help you, had been a challenge, you could only imagine what was in store for you now. 

And how ironic a fate, that in fleeing to survive, you had run straight to your doom.  

You watched warily as the army commander stepped away. He turned to his attendant who stood just outside the tent entrance, and although he kept his voice low, you could hear him request a bath be drawn for you for after you supped. 

Your face burned, because for the first time since you had left your home, you found yourself worrying about your appearance. You could only imagine how dreadful and unbecoming you looked after weeks out in the wild. 

Eyes dipping past the bowl of stew in your grip, you realized for the first time just how filthy you were. Your dress, which had once been a light gray and cream combo was now stained dark, covered in dirt and grime, and your boots were nearly worn straight through from your travels. 

Although you weren’t a true maiden–those didn’t exist in your poor village–you had always tried to take care of yourself and present well, and now that was yet another thing from your former life that you had lost.

The commander easing into the spot beside you broke you from your thoughts. As his arm brushed yours, you realized that you were now pinned between the two largest, most competent looking warriors you had ever seen.

The flare of panic was instant, and strong, and yet… you couldn’t help the curiosity that rose up within you. Trying to be subtle about it, you peeked back and forth on either side of you, amazed by the way that these two men defied what you had always been told–and imagined–about conquerors. 

They did not appear violent nor foul. In fact, they both looked freshly bathed, their clothing much finer than any you had seen before. But you supposed if they were as accomplished and victorious as you had heard about the king’s royal army, then they must want for very little, even in the field.

You glanced around the camp, observing that the other soldiers looked well-fed, their tents in very decent shape. They looked less like a crew of brutal savages and more like a noble party. 

Which only made you feel even more out of place. But you tried your best to push that aside, along with your anxiety and lingering fear, because more than anything–and most importantly–you were famished. As the incredible aroma of the commander’s stew filled your nose, your stomach gurgled loudly, causing the brunette beside you to bark a laugh. 

Cheeks warming with humiliation, you curled in on yourself, cradling the bowl to your chest as you gripped the spoon and began to shovel the stew into your mouth, forgetting your manners entirely. 

“Pace yourself, or your dinner will return before it's even settled in your belly,” the commander chided, but his voice was colored with amusement, his blue eyes sparkling with mirth as he watched you peek over at him as you slowed the pace of your eating. 

“Does our guest have a name?” the brunette asked you. At your hesitation–your fear put on plain display–his gaze softened. “I am Ari, and this is Steve,” he gestured toward the blond. “He is our fearless commander, and I am his irresistibly handsome lieutenant."

The urge to laugh was strong, but you suppressed it, still untrusting of these strangers as you took a moment to chew your food. Swallowing your mouthful, you licked your dry lips before quietly murmuring your name. 

Ari echoed your name in his deep baritone, making your belly flutter for some reason, and you found yourself quickly looking away, as he asked, “What is a woman doing out in the wild all on her own?”

It was as if Ari’s acknowledgement of your circumstances–and he and Steve witnessing your desolate state–made everything more real, made it all come rushing back to you now, as fresh as when it had first happened. You felt the familiar anger and resentment flood you, but you felt a well of shame too as you admitted, “If I did not flee my home, I would have been executed.”

Steve straightened beside you, a tic popping in his jaw as he stared at you for a long, quiet moment before he shared a look with Ari. “Well, now we are quite intrigued, brave one,” he told you.

Ignoring the flutter in your chest at the endearing title, you explained yourself, feeling an unexpected sense of relief as you were allowed to tell your story–your truth–to those willing to listen. 

Even if they were the enemy.

“My betrothed,” you sneered at the mention of him, “defiled my younger sister, so I made sure he would never defile another again. His father, who had bribed my own into the forced union, called for my head for maiming his heir and ending his family line. When it was clear that none would come to my defense nor aid, not even my own kin, I ran.”

There was a long, tense moment of silence once you finished speaking. You could feel the gravity of the situation settle over you–your new burden to bear–as Steve and Ari took a moment to process your tale. 

“We are not so different then,” Ari murmured eventually, sounding impressed by you and what you had done. “Fighting to protect those we love.”

You couldn’t help but scoff. “We are nothing alike. You are conquerors.”

“Conquerors to your people, protectors to ours,” Steve rebutted as you glanced over at him. The corners of his lips curled slightly as he dipped his head to meet your fierce, fiery gaze head on. “I wonder, what shall we be to you, brave one?”

There was something in Steve’s words, something intimate with a touch of impropriety, that had you shivering. That made your breath stutter and catch in your chest as you stared at him, unsure of how to respond. 

It was starting to dawn on you at that moment, that perhaps you weren’t as in danger as you had originally presumed.

Nothing in the way Steve and Ari watched you spoke of violence or ill intent. Your eyes fell to your lap, to the empty dinner bowl cradled in your hands. They had willingly fed you, shared their very own rations with you–a stranger, an exile–and shown you the type of kindness and understanding that not even your own family had been able to muster. 

After everything you had done to protect and avenge your sister.

A well of sorrow at that realization opened deep within you, making your vision swim with the onslaught of tears that you furiously blinked away. Luckily, before you could try to cobble together a response, Steve’s attendant appeared, announcing that your bath was ready. 

“Go on,” Steve encouraged softly, his big hand warming the small of your back as he used the other to take your empty bowl. “You shall have your privacy for as long as you need it.”

Once again, you found yourself staring at him in disbelief. A hot meal in your belly, and now the promise of being clean. It perhaps seemed so small a thing, but to you, right now, after everything you had endured, it was the ultimate luxury. 

The ultimate kindness. 

At the unexpected luck–not doom–that had befallen you, you finally lost the battle with your tears, a few escaping that you quickly batted away as your insides curdled with embarrassment. 

“I’m sorry, I’m just… overwhelmed,” you quavered, slowly rising to your feet, your sore and exhausted body protesting the entire time. 

You took a step before pausing, swaying on your feet as you rung your fingers before you then peeked over your shoulder. Your shy gaze darted from Ari to Steve as you whispered, “Thank you.” 

Ari gave you a big, beaming smile, and Steve? His smile wasn’t as boyish, but it was there, and it was genuine. 

And as you turned to scurry into the tent, you could feel both of their gazes on you the entire time.

You could have spent hours in your bath, well, if the water hadn’t cooled and dirtied so quickly. But by the time you emerged, you felt like a new woman. 

Just as Steve’s attendant had promised, some clothing had been laid out for you at the foot of one of the large beds that filled the space. There were two of them within the tent, as well as the bathing area behind a folding partition, and a small writing desk tucked in the corner. The ground had been covered with an array of rugs, and you took just a moment to allow your bare toes to enjoy the soft warmth beneath your feet instead of the cold, harsh earth you had grown accustomed to over the past couple of weeks.

You dried yourself with a blessedly clean towel before moving toward the clothes awaiting you. You swallowed nervously as you realized it was no more than a long, linen shirt that left your legs bare once you quickly pulled it on. And it was instant, the way you were enveloped in a familiar scent that took your tired brain a moment to realize was Steve’s.

The commander of the king’s royal army himself had let you borrow his clothing. 

Something about the gesture had your insides warming exponentially, had something deep at the core of you fluttering and clenching all at once. 

You supposed after the way your former betrothed had treated you–like a possession to own, not a person–it was flattering to be cared for by another, especially one so fearsome and powerful. 

“Are you decent?”

You startled at the sound of Steve’s voice just outside the tent, flustered now as you glanced down at yourself and saw the way the commander’s shirt both shielded your modesty but draped along your body in a way that felt all too revealing. 

“Um, yes?” you trembled the response.

Not a second later, Ari ducked into the tent, his grin big and boyish as his eyes wandered the length of you without shame. “You sounded so unsure I was hoping you were indecent,” he winked.

You could only gape after him as he moved toward the bed opposite where you stood and started to unbuckle his sword belt. 

“I assure you Ari’s brashness does grow on you,” Steve’s voice was amused as he entered the tent, watching his lieutenant fondly. “Eventually.” Turning his full attention to you, he shifted close, his gaze slowly roving over you. “Feeling better?”

“Much, yes,” you mumbled, hugging yourself tightly as you cleared your throat and stepped away. 

The back of your knees hit the edge of the bed, and you squeaked, flailing for a beat before Steve’s  hands shot out, catching your arms and tugging you upright, flush against him. 

“Careful, brave one,” he hummed, his warm breath washing over your face and making you shiver. 

Steve’s body heat began to seep through the thin shirt you wore, and you couldn’t help it as you shuddered and sank against him further, for you hadn’t been this warm in far too long. It took a moment for your brain to catch up with your actions, and you stiffened.

“Forgive me,” you stuttered, face warm as you tried to pull away, but Steve’s grip held firm. 

“No need for that,” he husked, his hands urging you closer before dipping to frame your waist and making your breath hitch. “You’ve been through so much, it is very understandable that you would seek comfort in another, and I am willing to give it to you.” Steve glanced over your shoulder, at Ari, you assumed, as he confirmed, “We both are.”

Your brain was still processing his words when you felt an undeniable heat at your back. 

“It must be lonely out here all on your own,” Ari breathed, planting his hands on your shoulders and giving them a squeeze. “Especially now with winter soon approaching, with everyone you’ve ever known calling for your head.”

Steve gently backed you into Ari, until you were effectively sandwiched between both men. “We can keep you safe, warm, well fed,” he promised. 

“Well pleasured, too,” you could hear the smile to Ari’s words as you felt them rush past your ear. 

You gasped, your face pinching as you glared up at Steve and hissed, “I am not a whore.”

“We do not claim you to be one, but… you could be ours.”

You blinked at him, uncomprehending, and Steve’s face softened. His touch on your waist shifted, until he was gently rubbing along your sides, his gesture one to soothe. 

“You are not the only one who suffers loneliness,” Steve explained. “We yearn for hearth and home and a warm body to sink into after a fierce battle has been won.”

Ari hummed his agreement, the sound a gritty rumble that had your pussy clenching hard before fluttering. His thumbs dug more deeply into your shoulders, rubbing away the tense knots beneath your skin that had built up from weeks of living in stress and terror, of running on pure adrenaline and betrayal. 

You were overwhelmed, your body feeling more alive–and hyperaware–than it had ever felt before. Although you knew you should have been repulsed by their offer, by what they wanted from you, you weren’t. 

You were flattered, and more so than that, you found yourself wanting, truly and shamelessly, for the first time in your whole life. 

But this was something in which you were not versed–not at all–and you didn’t know truly what they wanted, or what to do. So you confessed as much. 

“I do not know about…  any of this.”

“Then allow us to teach you, sweet one,” Ari whispered, pressing a lingering kiss to the side of your throat. 

At the gentle scrape of his beard against your skin, you shuddered hard, a soft, wounded sound rising up the back of your throat–because you had never been touched like this, nor desired in such a genuine yet carnal way. 

You were wanted, by both of these lethal yet beautiful warriors.

You.

The realization made your head buzz and your body vibrate with anticipation. Yet still, you were afraid of the unknown, your voice an unsure quaver as you asked, “You would… be gentle with me?”

“We do not seek to harm you,” Steve promised, his gaze somehow both earnest and fierce as he met your own. “We seek to make you feel good.”

Ari’s voice was playful as he countered, “Although I have a sense that a fiery one like you may one day ask for a harsher touch.”

The idea alone had you squirming between them, a tickle and gush between your legs causing you to press your thighs together. 

Steve noticed your reaction, something sinful igniting in his gaze as he watched you, as he drank in your blatant yet shy desire. His hand lifted, his knuckles trailing down your cheek in the most gentle caress before his fingers caught your chin and forced your gaze to meet his. 

“May I taste these tempting lips?” 

Once again your breath hitched, and you were nodding before your brain fully processed his words. 

“Good girl,” Steve purred, making your pussy flutter wildly as he slowly leaned in. 

The first touch of his plump lips against your own had a rush of heat flooding through your body, making each and every one of your nerve endings sing as his mouth expertly moved against your own. 

Steve’s hands shifted to cradle your face, his touch as soft as the press of his lips against your own. He was being gentle with you–careful–like you were as precious and delicate as spun glass, and the fact that a revered warrior could treat you in such a way had your emotions welling up once again, as well as a new wave of tears. 

They spilled over before you could prevent them from doing so, and Steve slowly pulled away when he tasted the salt of your tears. 

“Do you want to stop?”

You shook your head so quickly that it made him smile and Ari laugh behind you and give your hips a fond squeeze. 

“No, I am sorry,” you took a breath. “I am just so overwhelmed by… all of this. But… not in a bad way.” 

“Mmm, glad to hear it, sweet one,” Ari rumbled against your shoulder, pressing a kiss there before leaning closer. “Because you have no idea what your scent does to me,” he groaned, tucking his face against the crook of your neck and breathing in deep. 

You gasped, a tiny bit scandalized but also thrilled to have such an effect on him. This was still so new for you–this kind of primal attention, being touched in this way, let alone by two devastatingly handsome strangers who seemed to want you so desperately. 

“Oh,” you mewled as Ari began to press a trail of slow, lingering, open-mouthed kisses along your throat. Your head tipped sideways to make more room for him, to encourage him, your eyes fluttering shut at his attention as your nipples pebbled into hard, achy peaks. 

As if he knew your body so well already, Steve’s hands cupped your hips, slowly gliding up your sides–learning the terrain of your body–before he was gently cupping one of your breasts in each of his hands. 

At his sinful touch, you moaned for the first time ever, arching your back on instinct to press more firmly into Steve’s grip. He rewarded you with a deep, satisfied rumble from the back of his throat, touching his lips to yours for good measure as his fingers plucked your nipples through your shirt until you were keening softly. 

“She makes the sweetest sounds,” Ari groaned, his teeth gently nipping your skin and making you whine. 

“I bet something else is just as sweet,” Steve gristled. 

That was all the warning you got before his hand was sliding beneath the tunic you wore and up your bare thigh. It shamelessly pressed its way between your legs, his knuckles caressing just as gently along your bare cunt as they had your face mere moments before. 

“S-Steve,” you trembled, unable to help it as your thighs pressed shut. 

“Shhh, let me get you ready for us, sweet one,” he whispered against your ear. “I’ll make you feel so good, I promise.” 

You shivered as he pressed a lingering kiss to your temple, making a pleased sound as you released a shaky breath and spread your legs to his questing touch. 

As his fingers teased gentle circles around your clit, you made a soft, breathy sound of surprise, biting your lip and tipping your head back against Ari’s shoulder as your legs opened even wider, encouraging Steve’s sinful touch. 

“There you go,” Steve hummed, drawing his fingers up your slit. “You’re so wet and eager for us already, just like I knew you’d be.” His touch dipped lower, growing more firm, and you gasped as he eased a finger into you slowly, spreading your tight walls for the first time ever as you keened and canted your hips against his lewd invasion. 

“Let him work you open, love,” Ari cooed, banding a thick, muscled arm around your waist to keep you firmly in place as Steve explored your pussy for the first time. “Our swords aren’t the only big weapons we wield." 

You couldn’t help but snort at that, making Steve laugh and grin at you, his eyes crinkling in mirth as you dazedly met his warm gaze. As you stared into each other’s eyes he slowly fucked you with his thick finger, nostrils flaring as you squirmed and rocked against his touch eagerly. 

“I know you can take another, our brave love,” he murmured, easing a second finger in beside the first and making you whine at the unfamiliar yet delicious stretch. “You’re so tight, I know it’ll be like heaven to have you on our cocks.” 

“If we ever get to that point,” Ari nearly whined.

“I thought you enjoyed the build up,” Steve teased, exchanging a heated look with Ari over your shoulder. 

This time, Ari’s huff was wordless, his face dipping to your neck once more. You could feel how shaky his breath was as he inhaled your scent, his free hand finding your ass and giving a squeeze. 

“Perhaps we should take pity on him,” Steve said, his eyes twinkling as they met yours. 

Your mouth dropped open as he moved his fingers inside of you faster–deeper–until you were so wet that an obscene squelching noise filled the tent as you cried out and rutted against his hand, desperately seeking something you couldn’t even name. 

When Steve’s fingers suddenly retreated from your sex, you made a sound of dismay, glaring at the commander as he shot you a wink before painting your pouting lips with your own slick.

“Go on, give him a taste,” he smirked at you. Then he was moving so quickly, that between one blink and the next, you were spun around in Ari’s arms, facing him now. 

You froze at the feral state of him, at the almost predatory way in which he was watching you. He was so much bigger than you–his presence all consuming–as his dark gaze flickered to your gleaming lips.  

Ari swooped in without warning, one of his big hands moving to cradle the back of your head and keep you in place as he kissed you with a kind of ferocity that quite literally stole your breath away. 

You sank against him–helpless against his onslaught–your fingers clutching onto his tunic as Ari deepened the kiss. His tongue invaded your mouth, and he groaned at the taste of you, at the way you whined and went pliant in his hold, surrendering to him completely as you desperately tried to keep up with his feral, frantic kisses. 

When he finally pulled away, you were both panting, and you knew if Ari himself wasn’t holding onto you so tightly, that you would have collapsed to the ground by now, because it felt as if all of your bones had melted. 

“Those pretty lips aren’t the only thing I want to taste,” Ari growled. 

Your eyes widened as he backed you closer to Steve’s bed. The commander himself was now leisurely undressing, his gaze smoldering as he watched Ari deposit you on the foot of the bed and tug you right to the edge as he sank to his knees. 

You didn’t resist as Ari tugged Steve’s tunic from your body, and you listened when he told you to lay back and spread your pretty legs. Despite the way it felt like your face was on fire, and you were as vulnerable as you had ever been in your life, you were excited too as Ari settled himself between your legs. 

His palms were warm and rough–heavy too–as they settled on your inner thighs. He pressed your legs as far apart as they would go, lewdly baring your pussy to his gaze. It was as exhilarating as it was mortifying that he–and Steve–could see just how wet and wanting you were. 

Ari groaned as his thumbs tugged your folds apart, and you keened as he leaned in and dragged his broad tongue up the cut of you. You thrashed against the bed as his tongue laved along your clit, giving another throaty, shocked cry of ecstasy when Ari tugged back the hood of your clit and sucked your sensitive bud between his lips.

You sobbed at the overwhelming pleasure that pulsed through you, hips writhing as Ari feasted on you without shame. He lapped at you eagerly, without relent, until your body was trembling with your first ever orgasm, and all the breath evaporated from your lungs as a result. Each and every muscle in your body seized at once as you crested the wave of ecstasy, and when Ari hummed his approval, everything inside of you fluttered and clenched as one. 

“God, look at how pretty you are when you let go,” Ari murmured, not taking pity on your boneless, dazed state as he shoved two thick fingers inside of you, and started working you all over again. 

“Ari!” you whined, trying to twist away–because it was so much–but then Steve was sitting above you on the bed, naked and giving you a soft smile and quiet tut as he gathered both of your hands in one of his before pinning your wrists above your head. 

“Let him have his fun, sweet one, he fought and won a very hard battle today after all.” 

You opened your mouth, but all that came out was a pitiful moan as Ari curled his fingers and started to rub a spot inside of you that you didn't even know existed until now. Your body arched violently as you came, so hard, in fact, that you gushed all over Ari’s hand and wrist, nearly sobbing at the overwhelming pleasure. 

“Mmm, I had a feeling,” his grin was wolfish as it flickered up the length of you before meeting Steve’s lustful gaze. “Look at how sensitive and responsive this pretty pussy is.” 

As if putting on a show, Ari’s fingers retreated from you, and he once against tugged up the hood of your clit with one hand while using the other to rub back and forth so quickly–and effectively–that you were once again orgasming hard, your body writhing and gushing as you were rocked by another wave of intense carnal delight. 

“I think I've effectively warmed her up for you, commander,” Ari grinned. He gave your puffy pussy a soft pat before finally pulling away and giving you a moment to try to catch your breath. 

“As always, your hard work and dedication are much appreciated,” Steve drawled, his voice much lower and huskier than before. 

It had your insides fluttering and standing to attention despite the way it felt as if you had lost all control over your body–your bones liquified from Ari’s feral and thorough attention.

Which is why you were somewhat relieved when Steve shifted over you, and instead of focusing all of his attention on the warm, wet place between your legs, he instead smoothed a hand over your head, lightly touching his lips to yours in a fleeting kiss. 

You blinked up at him, your gaze glossy and almost helpless in a way that had a warm smile curling his lips and something in his eyes going tender. 

Steve’s thumb traced along your cheek, his lips touching the other in another show of unexpected tenderness that had a soft sigh rising up your throat. He turned your face so he could trail his lips along the hinge of your jaw, then he was kissing his way down the side of your throat, purring his delight as you squirmed beneath him. 

Steve took his time as he touched and tasted you, almost methodical in the way he descended your body, on a different kind of quest now as he paid you gentle attention until he could see some of the tension and overwhelm ease from your frame. 

You didn’t realize you were fisting the furs at either side of you until Steve’s hands gently loosened your grip. He eased your arms up, thumbs rubbing circles into your palms until your arms went lax above your head and your eyes fluttered at yet another blessed release. 

You sank further into the bed as Steve pressed your legs apart and settled more heavily against you. It was a different kind of delight to feel his firm, naked body flush to your own. 

You realized it quite suddenly–how safe you felt despite being so out of your depth and doing something so tawdry and unknown to you, with not one but two near strangers. 

You hadn’t known Steve or Ari for long at all, but they had shown you more care and kindness in this one evening than you had received in your entire life. There was an earnestness to them, too, and even though it didn’t make sense, for some reason that you couldn’t explain–one that was more instinctual than anything–you trusted them both.

And you knew it in the deepest part of your being–that they were good men. 

So you weren’t surprised at all when Steve nuzzled his nose along your cheek, his lips seeking your ear to murmur, “Are you able to endure more tonight, sweet one? Or have you had your fill? This beautiful body of yours seems boneless and well-ravished already, and we would not take advantage of you in such a vulnerable state. Say the word, and we will leave you to rest.”

Even though you could feel how much Steve wanted you–could feel the hard, hot press of him searing into the skin of your belly–you knew that he would retreat now, and Ari too, if you requested it. 

Which only made you want them–and want to pleasure them–more. 

“I don’t want to rest now, I want more,” you replied, feeling shy but forcing yourself to meet Steve’s gaze so he could see the truth shining in your eyes. “I want you, and I want Ari, and I want you both to take what you want from me.”

“Such a greedy thing,” Ari teased as he sank onto the bed above your head, sprawling adjacent to you and Steve. 

“And if we want everything?” Steve playfully challenged, allowing his weight to sink against you completely so you could feel all of him. “Would you give it to us?”

“Yes.”

“You are a gift,” Steve husked as he slowly drew his thumb along your lower lip. “One I would covet more than anything else, even a hard-fought victory.”

You swore your heart skipped a beat at Steve’s declaration, your eyes fluttering shut as he dipped close and kissed you slowly, ardently, making sure you felt just how genuine his words were.

When he pulled away, his eyes were the darkest you had seen yet. You shuddered as anticipation raced through you as he moved a hand between your bodies, his fingers drawing along your slit, ensuring you were wet and ready for him. 

Your breath caught when he dragged his hard, heavy cock along your bare cunt, coating himself with your arousal. You squirmed as he lined himself up with your entrance, holding your breath as his hips shifted, and he slowly began to push into you. 

The whimper spilled from your lips before you could suppress it. And not so much from any true pain you felt, but from the sheer strangeness of your body being invaded in this way. 

“Relax, sweet one,” Ari murmured over you, gently petting your head. His touch shifted to your shoulder, giving a squeeze that had you sinking into the furs beneath you and going a bit more pliant. “There you are. It may hurt for a tick, but he’ll make it worth it, just wait and see.”

You knew he was right, so you tried to focus less on the temporary discomfort and more on Steve himself. How big and broad he was–how strong. How gorgeous. The way his nostrils flared when you involuntarily clenched around him, and the weight of his warm palm on your lower belly as he pressed his touch there before his thumb reached down and began to strum your clit. 

“Oh!” you gasped at the added stimulation, your thighs falling further open and your hips shifting in a way that had Steve sinking into you even more. 

He groaned loudly, and it made your pussy flutter wildly, which only made him grunt as he draped himself over you, until your head was framed between his muscled forearms as his hips finally met yours, and he settled within you to the hilt. 

“I was right,” Steve breathed as he dropped his forehead to yours. “Utter heaven.” His lips teased your own, his hips shifting slightly and making you moan at just how full you were, for the first time ever. “Alright?”

You nodded, swallowing hard. Tentatively, you reached for Steve, your hands touching his sides, feeling how soft his skin was, how warm. Your touch gently skimmed higher, and you felt a swell of pride as Steve shuddered in response, because you affected him so. 

Gently, Steve began to rock his hips, moving inside of you with shallow thrusts that had your body lighting up and desperate for me. 

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” Steve panted against the crook of your neck, burying his face there for a beat as he gave a particularly deep rut that made you gasp. “M’sorry–”

“No! Again, please,” you whined, your fingers digging into his bare flesh more firmly as you curled your legs around his hips and urged him closer. “Please, Steve, I need… I need more.”

“Go on, commander, our girl can take it,” Ari purred, sprawling backwards and tucking his hands behind his head, getting more comfortable so he could enjoy the show. “Give it to her good.”

Groaning, Steve lifted his head to meet your gaze, swallowing hard as you nodded in encouragement. He shifted over you, planting one of his hands beside your head to give him more leverage, and then he was sliding out of you almost entirely before fully sheathing himself inside of you again with a slow, deep thrust. 

You keened in response, pleasure ricochetting through your body as you threw your head back and begged for more. 

Steve gave it to you, losing that stoic composure of his little by little, with each new thrust inside your tight, wet heat, with every one of your sweet, wrecked sounds. When his thumb once against found your clit and began to rub, you sobbed his name as you went rigid, your body bowing and jostling as Steve began to fuck you with enthusiasm. 

His free hand slid to your side, then beneath you, lifting your body against his in a way that had his cock delving into you deeper, and at the perfect angle. With each rut of his hips, you cried out in delight, shoving against him desperately–shamelessly eager for more–until everything inside of you detonated at once, your body trembling and writhing as you found your release. 

Steve hissed as you clenched around him hard, setting you back down against the bed so he could frame your hips with his large hands and hold you steady as he pounded into you, chasing his own release now. He gave a wordless shout as he reached his climax, throwing his head back, lost to his own bliss as he buried himself as deep inside of you as possible and throbbed within you, until your cunt was flooded with his warm, creamy seed. 

Panting, Steve sank to his hands and knees, hovering over you for a long moment as you gasped for breath beneath him. You couldn't help it as you reached for him, trailing your fingers up the flexed muscles of his forearm, his bulging bicep, until your touch was cradling his smooth cheek and aiming his dark, satisfied gaze your way. 

He stared at you for a beat before nearly lunging at you, his lips almost frantic against your own as he cupped your cheek and kissed you in a way that was almost as filthy as what the two of you had just done together. 

“You’re incredible,” Steve breathed against your lips. Stealing a final parting kiss before slowly pulling away. His smile was soft as you struggled to meet his gaze, his fingers falling to briefly lace with your own and give a squeeze before he shifted away. 

You enjoyed the sight of Steve’s naked body flexing and moving as he crossed the tent to clean himself up, and before you could fully pout as he disappeared behind the privacy partition, Ari was reaching for you. 

You squealed at just how easily he manhandled you as he rolled you onto your belly and hovered over your back for a moment. 

“I have a very specific way I want you, sweet one,” he rumbled against your ear, giving it a nip and laughing at your squeak. 

He gave your ass a soft spank before tugging you up onto your knees, but when you tried to get your hands beneath you, too, he tutted, big hand collaring the back of your neck and giving a squeeze that made you go still. 

“No, like this,” he murmured, pressing your face back down into the furs beneath you, until your sweaty cheek was against the bed, and your pussy was fluttering at the lewd position you were now in–your ass up and on full display as Ari moved behind you. 

His hands smoothed over the bare curve of your ass, gripping both your cheeks and making you jiggle in a way that had your face flooding with heat, but your pussy gushing too. 

“You are the embodiment of temptation,” he husked, pressing your legs further apart to make room for his massive body. “I can’t wait to fill you with my cock.” 

“Then do it,” you blurted, making Ari bark a laugh. 

“Brat,” he chuckled, giving your ass another smack and earning a moan from you for his effort. “Oh, we will definitely explore that more another time.”

Your belly fluttered at the sinful promise–at the fact that he was thinking of you as part of his future–but then all thoughts in your mind seemed to evaporate as you felt the thick, spongy head of Ari’s cock press against your drippy hole. 

His groan as he slowly pushed into you was loud and shameless and made your cunt flutter up a storm. You moaned as he pressed into you even deeper, taking his time to fill you up, his breath coming out in a harsh pant once he bottomed out and made you keen in the process. 

“Fuck,” he gritted, his fingers digging into the flesh of your hips as he gave a rut that had him somehow sinking into you even deeper. 

“Divine, isn’t she?” Steve gristled as he sauntered back into sight and perched on the side of the bed closest to you. He was still naked, his cock no longer gleaming with a combination of both your cums, but half-hard again already. 

His fingers touched your cheek, and you mewled, your lips parting on a harsh gasp as Ari began to really fuck you. 

“She is,” he grunted as he drove into you hard, groaning as you keened softly and clenched around his cock like a fist. “A gift, just like you said, our gift, all ours,” he babbled as his head fell forward, chin touching his chest as he lost himself to his pleasure. 

“I’ve never seen him so undone,” Steve grinned at you, gaze soft as your lashes fluttered and you tried to fight against the urge to close your eyes and surrender to your bliss. 

But Steve painted such a tempting picture, his body gleaming in the afterglow, his cheeks still a bit ruddy, and his hair flopping over his forehead. But it was the warmth in his gaze as he watched you that had you whining in a different kind of desperation as you reached for him, needing to touch him, to feel him, even as Ari unraveled you entirely. 

“Look at how sweet and needy you are,” Steve teased, meeting your outstretched fingers with his own and twining them together. His face grew more serious as he ducked closer to you, eyes blazing with determination as he told you, “From here on out, you will want for nothing.”

“Do you mind?” Ari huffed, groaning as his pace slowed and he shoved into you hard, lingering in your delectable warmth. He half-heartedly glared at Steve, but you could hear the tinge of amusement to his words as he said, “Save your sweet promises for after I’ve fucked her. You’ve already had your turn. Now it’s mine.”

Laughing, Steve raised his hands in playful surrender, giving your head a final pet before leaning down to kiss your cheek. “And you want Ari to fuck you, too, don’t you, sweet one? You want him to fill you with his seed, just like I did, huh?”

“Yes!” you gasped, fluttering at the thought of feeling it again–being flooded with the warmth of another’s pleasure, from you. “Please! Please, Ari.”

“You heard her, lieutenant," Steve purred, shifting so he could recline on the bed above you. He gave Ari a cheeky smile over your head. “Fill her with your cream. She’ll look so pretty leaking both our cum out of that tight well-fucked hole of hers.”

“Christ,” Ari gritted. 

You moaned as you felt his cock throb inside of you at Steve’s words, your eyes slamming shut as Ari gripped your hips and started to rut into you wildly. 

He had enough presence of mind to dip his hand beneath your body and work your clit, moaning as you came with a shaky cry of ecstasy and pulsed around his cock as your own pleasure swept you away. 

“Take it,” Ari snarled, curling over your back and completely blanketing your body with his as he hammered into you. The obscene sound of your pussy squelching each and every time his cock drove into you filled the tent, but it was the gravelly, wrecked state of Ari’s voice as he chanted, “Take it, take it, take it, every last drop,” as he fucked you that had your body trembling with one last orgasm, and it finally tipped Ari over the edge, too. 

He moaned into your shoulder as he came, burying himself as deep inside your cunt as he could. You could feel his cock swell before he was flooding you with his spend, and you moaned brokenly as the squelching grew louder. Your cheeks warmed as you felt his cum–and your own, and probably Steve’s too–leaking out around Ari’s cock as he gave a few final thrusts before finally going still. 

He was breathing harshly, his body as slick with sweat as your own and plastered to you, but it was a strange sort of comfort, being with Ari in the aftermath, feeling him as undone as you were, and sharing this moment with him. 

You couldn’t help but smile, giving a tired giggle as Ari muttered, “You’re an angel and a devil all rolled into one.” You hummed in agreement as he pressed a kiss to your cheek, pouting as he carefully pulled away from you, then out of you, before sinking back on his haunches. 

He gave an appreciative whistle as he watched the sizeable gush trickle out of you, and when you gave a huff and tried to roll away, he grabbed you, easily holding you in place with one hand while he used the other to scoop up the evidence of your debauchery and shoved it back inside you, laughing as you squealed. 

“Who’s the brute now?” Steve admonished, swatting Ari away from you before gently easing you onto your side. “I hope you’re prepared to deal with his nonsense, it’s endless.”

Your smile was tired but amused as your gaze flickered from Steve to Ari, who flopped down on the bed beside you, looking very chuffed and shameless as his sticky cock softened against his thigh. 

Steve caught the direction of your gaze, and he smirked at you, chuckling as you whined softly before burying your face into the furs to hide. “I can’t tell if you’re eager for more or appalled at the messy state of him.”

“I’d wager both,” Ari snickered. 

You felt the bed shift, and after a moment, Steve’s touch was on your back, gentle and reassuring as he leaned over you. “Let me clean you up before you sleep.”

You didn’t resist as he did just that, your belly swooping at the extreme care with which Steve wiped the mess from between your legs. 

“Thank you,” you whispered, struggling to keep your eyes open, but glad you caught a glimpse of Steve folding the cloth over and tossing it at Ari. 

“Make yourself decent or you’ll be sleeping by yourself tonight,” he chided with exasperation. 

“Why don’t you come over here and clean me yourself, commander?” Ari grinned wickedly, waggling his eyebrows as he caught your sleepy gaze and winked, “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

He laughed as your eyes widened and you peeked between the two of them, pressing your thighs together as the thought of them being intimate–without you–made your insides swoop and spark with a new and different kind of heat. 

Steve just shook his head, seeming more amused than anything as he went around the tent and blew out the few lanterns keeping the space alight. Leaving just one nearby glowing softly, he carefully climbed into bed beside you, smoothing a hand over your head as you snuggled into his side. 

A beat later, you felt the bed shift as Ari moved closer, pressing himself flush to your back. His lips found your bare shoulder, planting a soft kiss against your skin before his hand drifted to rest at your hip, making you feel enveloped completely. 

And safer than you had felt in a very long time. 

You felt the kind of safety that, just a couple of weeks ago, you would have thought impossible, especially for you, especially after everything.

But you were experiencing it now, genuinely, despite all that had led you here this night, and the revelation had you softly murmuring, “Protectors.”

“What’s that, brave one?” Steve hummed, his fingers trailing along your cheek as you sleepily blinked over at him. 

“To me, you shall be protectors,” you elaborated, answering his question from earlier in the evening.  “Although I dare say you have both conquered my body and claimed it as your own.”

“Then for you, and you alone, we shall be both,” Steve smiled, tweaking your nose and making you smile. 

“And we shall watch over our new favorite territory as you rest now, sweet love,” Ari rumbled at your back, his voice thick with sleep as he gave your hip a gentle squeeze before burying his face against your neck and going still. 

Giving a sigh of content, you allowed your tired eyes to drift shut at last. It wasn’t long at all before you finally fell asleep–warm, wanted, and well protected–your heart aglow with hope and the deep knowing that a life on the run, or alone in the wild, was no longer something you needed to worry about. 

Not anymore.

And not ever again.

It was actually a bit of a challenge writing this after going almost a month without writing and having lost my spark, but overall I’m really pleased with how it turned out. I’d love to know your thoughts and reactions! Thanks so much for reading ❤️

—

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“He is our fearless commander, and I am his irresistibly handsome lieutenant."

hello, handome sir!

AND OUR POOR READER'S STORY?! I'M GUTTED FOR AND ANGRY ON HER BEHALF!!! 🥺 But what a powerful story - doing what she absolutely had to in her bones.

The corners of his lips curled slightly as he dipped his head to meet your fierce, fiery gaze head on. “I wonder, what shall we be to you, brave one?”

Oh.

And then Steve's shirt?! And the scent?????????

Reinsert this repeatedly slamming the buzzer gif again right here.

“Then allow us to teach you, sweet one,” Ari whispered, pressing a lingering kiss to the side of your throat. 

but just

like

SIRI

My brain just keeps blitzing as these men take care of us - physically and emotionally. The check ins, the pauses, the praise, the

Ari swooped in without warning, one of his big hands moving to cradle the back of your head and keep you in place as he kissed you with a kind of ferocity that quite literally stole your breath away. 

ok and then I promised that I had thoughts reading the rest!

except also, I didn't! absolutely couldn't! just head empty, legs open, keening and needy for them both, and they each took care of us so well, giving us everything and more and more until we couldn't possibly!!!!!

JUST WOW.

You're getting your masters in 19th century French literature and just can't believe your luck that he's accepted you as his TA and agreed to be your advisor.

You love talking to him about the books in your course. He's just so smart. And yes, startlingly handsome, but honestly, you admire his intellect the most. And he makes you feel so smart too! Like you're worthy of having a conversation with him.

He always has a lot to say about your lectures. Most of it is good! But when he corrects your analysis of the works you're trying to teach, you think about it for days. It's so much louder in your ears than any of his praise.

After one lecture, he pulls you aside, making sure to tell you in private that the pretty new blouse you just got was see-through under the florescent classroom lights. You're so embarrassed and he doesn't exactly reassure you. "You don't want your students thinking you're a whore, do you? I know how smart you are, but everyone else might not if you keep dressing that way."

When you dress extra conservatively over the next few weeks, he confuses you when he tells you that he misses your pretty sundresses. You don't know what to do. You almost wish he'd just tell you what to wear.

He schedules a meeting about your thesis after dark on a Friday evening, telling you it was the only time he could fit it into his schedule. He's so busy. You're lucky to get any of his time.

The whole building is dark, the only light coming from his office.

He sits down on his leather couch next to you, your thesis in his hand. You're surprised when you can see with just a glance that it's covered in red ink.

"I have to be honest," he says, his voice soft but firm, "I'm very disappointed by your effort here." Your heart sinks as he scoots closer. "Your arguments are shockingly facile. It's clear that you didn't think any of this through."

You hate yourself when you can't stop the tears gathering in your eyes. "Really? I thought if I explored it from a different angle-"

He shakes his head. "It just exposes the fact that you don't understand the work at all."

The tears are falling freely now and he coos at you. "Oh sweetheart, it's alright. I'll help you. I'll explain everything. We'll work together to make you sound like a real scholar. No matter how long it takes. I'm happy to take my time with you."

And then, just as you think that all your academic dreams are falling apart, he places his hand just above your knee, exposed by the sundress you secretly wore just for him, and you're shocked by how grounded it makes you feel.

Thank goodness for Professor Drysdale. You really don't know what you’d do without him.

You could not sleep, not truly, not anymore.

At least it felt that way. You could not remember what it was like to have a truly restful night of sleep now that you were so swollen with child.

Curtis shifted behind you, the weight of him a presence you were still not quite acclimated to, even after all these months. His arm groped around your middle, not gentle, but not cruel either—the grasping, possessive way he always had of reminding you that your body was his, that you had been claimed and would never, ever be unclaimed.

“Settle,” he rumbled, voice thick with sleep and something else—something that tinged the word with an implication, a warning, a plea. His hand splayed over your stomach, thumb tracing the tautest curve of your belly. You could feel the talon at the tip of his thumb, filed to more bluntness now for your comfort, but never quite harmless.

“I can’t,” you hissed, heat rushing up your neck. “It’s not comfortable, Curtis. I feel the stiffness in my hips, in my spine. I feel too tight, too—”

He rolled you to your back, so you faced him and the flicker of his phosphorescent blue eyes. He looked at you with rapt attention, like he was examining a rare specimen, one whose suffering was evidence of profound, necessary transformation. You hated him for it, and wanted to weep with relief that he might touch you, change you, ease the ache.

“Your body was made for this.” His hand cupped your jaw, then trailed down your neck, the pressure just shy of discomfort. “Do you remember the first night I claimed you?”

You did.

You remembered every moment: the sting of his teeth, the shocking stretch, the coolness of his skin, the relentless, remorseless fullness of him inside you. You remembered the moment shame and terror lost its edge and pleasure consumed the rest.

His hand moved to your chest, fingers splaying over the heavy curve of your breast. The child was not the only thing that had grown inside you; the rest of you had blossomed too, flesh thick and ripe, veins congesting with new blood. Every sense was heightened; your skin felt alive, every nerve exposed and raw, hungry for relief. The ache in your hips and spine was nothing compared to the ache between your thighs.

His hand squeezed, and you couldn’t help but arch into it, greedy for the pressure.

“You ache,” he said. It was not a question. “Let me help.”

You opened your mouth to protest, but already his hand was sliding, possessive, down your torso, across the vast swell of your belly. His touch was electrifying, not because it was gentle—he was never gentle—but because it was so exact, so insistent, as if he could knead away every complaint inside you, every complaint and every protest, until there was nothing left but the wanting. It seemed your body was always already in anticipation, every cell addicted to the inevitability of what he would do next.

“Curtis,” you tried, but the word came out as a sigh, as permission.

His tail was already curling under your knee, prying your legs apart with the unhurried strength of a tree root. He lowered his face to your neck and breathed in, the exhale chilling, the inhale so deep it felt like he was drawing the breath from your lungs. His hand was at your thigh now, squeezing the flesh, kneading it as if evaluating the meat on a haunch. He’d told you, more than once, that you’d filled out beautifully, that the lake itself approved of what you’d become.

You squirmed away from his cool heat, the pressure, but he only pressed his palm up to your pussy, and you yelped, not out of fear, but at the obscene, greedy pleasure of it. He inhaled again, and you realized that he was savoring the rising, salt-sweet scent of your arousal.

“You’re restless,” he said, tongue flicking in the hollow behind your jaw. “Let’s cure it.”

You thrashed, but the movement only succeeded in pressing you against his cock, which was already hard and waiting, resting like a threat against your thigh. His thumb found your clit, pressing down until you bucked, the pulse so fierce it brought tears to your eyes. He held you there, his mouth at your throat, tongue darting out—licking, flicking, biting. You could not have moved if you’d wanted to; every part of you was locked between the hardness of his body and the suffocating need in your own.

He took his time, always. He was deliberate; he seemed to relish the slow climb, the way every touch made you shudder, made your skin pebble, made your cunt throb with a greedy, insistent rhythm. His mouth found your nipple and sucked, pulling at it until you moaned, the sensation radiating out from your chest in a dizzying spiral. He bit down, and you couldn’t help it—you reached up and tangled your fingers in his hair, yanked him closer so the pain and the pleasure crashed together at the point of his teeth. His hand scrabbled for leverage on your hip, fingers digging deep as he sucked, scraped, and finally groaned into your chest, the sound wet and low, just this side of feral.

He lifted his head, mouth shiny with spit. “You need this,” he said, his voice ruined and ragged. “You need to be fucked. You need to be relentlessly filled with my seed, flushed with it so thoroughly it stitches your bones together around the ache. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re not wrong,” you choked out, clutching at his shoulders. They were slick with the faintest sheen of lake water, always, always, as if he carried the essence of his world with him, whether he was in or out of the water. Your whole body was trembling, aching, desperate for him.

He pressed the tip of his nose into your cheek, dragging it slowly along until it slid down the side of your neck, his breathing steady, his lips curled against your racing pulse. “You’re changing,” he murmured, and his hand stilled on your belly, spreading his fingers wide as if to encompass the entirety of you. “Do you feel it, little one?”

You whimpered and nodded, because it was impossible to ignore. You felt it wakeful, and you felt it always. Your body was not just growing, it was being remade. The softness of your skin had thickened to something more water-resistant, but only just. At night, you dreamed of gills blossoming open along your ribs, of your hands webbing at the base of each finger. Your eyes now reflected the moonlight with the same shimmer as his.

His hand cradled the base of your skull, claws gentle for the moment, a cage of tenderness you did not want but could not help but need. “It isn’t just the child,” he breathed, as if reciting a benediction. “It’s what happens when one like me mates with one like you. The biology is… transformative.” There was a hint of awe in his voice. “Every time I fill you, your body takes more of me, and less of your old life remains.”

He was fascinated by the heat of you. He had told you, after finally bringing you to his curious lair, that your human body ran so warm inside, and that your cunt felt like a living furnace, a molten trap that threatened to melt and consume him every time he entered you. He said it in the same way he said everything—half-worship, half-mockery, always with the edge of a threat—but you could tell he meant it. The lake was cold and deep, and he was made to thrive in it—the fire of your body was an impossible addiction.

Curtis pressed your legs apart even wider, nestling between your thighs as though he belonged nowhere else. His skin, always cooler than yours, felt almost feverishly good when it touched you. He braced himself on either side of your hips, and then, with unhurried care, pressed the head of his cock to your entrance. He was always so eager for the first breach, he always relished the shock and resistance, that first gasp, that split-second where you didn’t know if you could take him. Now, your body admitted him gladly, almost hungrily, and you felt yourself yield to the pointed insistent pressure, stretch around his girth, suck at him once he passed the initial resistance. The catching pain blended instantly with the pleasure, as familiar now as his voice, as expected as the tides. He groaned when he breached you, grinned so wide it seemed all teeth, and set a brutal, perfect pace at once—the slow, deep strokes that made you claw at the sheets, then faster, the piston rhythm that made it impossible not to buck up and meet him.

“You were born to take this,” he crooned, as he loomed over you, cock pounding out every remnant of sleep and doubt. “To crave it. I could keep you filled for a thousand seasons and you’d still want more.”

His hips never stilled, and his tail snaked behind, curling serpent-like around your ankle, claiming even more of you for himself. Your fingers clawed for purchase on his back, the scales there a cool counterpoint to the fevered pulse of your own skin. You felt yourself coming undone, senses overrun, the pressure building and building, rolling, deep pressure of his cock splitting you open again and again, and, oh, how you wanted more.

You had once thought that his rutting would get less urgent, less insistent over time, but if anything, Curtis fucked you harder every month, every week. He seemed to want to breed you anew every time, as if there was always a possibility you could be more his, more changed, more claimed. He would say things in your ear—“I can feel you opening for me,” “You’re so much tighter for me,” “No one else will ever fuck you this cunt that belongs to me,” “Do you like how I fill you, little one?”—and you did, you did, and you told him so, the words turning to gasps, to high-pitched whines as the pleasure outpaced any language you could give it. The world shrank to the bed, the pounding throb of his cock, the cold pressure of his scales, the way the air itself seemed to hum with the force of his need.

Curtis’s eyes gleamed in the semidark, and he gripped your face in both hands, thumbs pressing to your jaw, holding you steady so he could watch the pleasure breaking across your face with every stroke. “I love how you look when I fuck you,” he growled, hips never slowing. “You try to be strong, but you shatter every time. No one will ever see you like this but me.”

Dawn was hours off, and you had no expectation he would unhand you before then, even if by some miracle you managed to sleep. His stamina was naturally supernatural, and his hunger only that.

You came twice before you even realized it, the first at the seizing stretch, the second at the rolling, unyielding pressure of him grinding your clit with every pass. Curtis liked to feel the way your thighs trembled, the way your cunt clamped around him, the way you lost yourself in it. And you did, again and again, until the world burned white-hot and you were nothing but need and the squelch of your bodies meeting, hypersensitive to every flicker of sensation.

You didn’t notice at first what his tail was doing, too lost in the rhythm, in the hunger, in the collision of your hips. But then the cool, slick tip pressed behind you, teasing at your other entrance, and the shock of it made you jerk and squeal. Curtis laughed, low and wicked, and didn’t pause for a moment.

“Shhh, shhh—” he crooned, voice full of wicked, hungry delight, “just let me in, let me in—” and the pressure increased, cold and smooth and unyielding. He’d done this before, once or twice, always slow, always greedy, and you’d never been able to resistthe insistent, pulsing claim of his tail. The cool pressure breached you, slow and inexorable, until you were trembling, almost sobbing, with the shock of fullness from both ends. He waited only long enough for your body to yield—never gentle, but vigilant to the ways you stiffened, the catch of breath before pain. There was satisfaction in him, an echoing hum that radiated through his hands into your skin: a predator’s pride when prey surrendered to the jaw.

And how you surrendered.

He set a rhythm, fucking you with both cock and tail, every thrust calculated to reach further, fill more, feel more. You could not move, you could only ride out the onslaught, the relentless hammer and thrum and pleasure so staggering it threatened to dissolve you. Your body sang with it, nerves scattering into the ether, your mind reduced to the tidal wave of sensation. Every time you sobbed your pleasure, Curtis redoubled his efforts, drilling into you so hard you thought you could feel your whole womb twisting up to make room for the stretch. The twin fullness overwhelmed your nerves, a bright white so severe you almost begged for mercy. He gave none.

There was a point at which you were certain you could not take more, and yet your body learned to take it, to want it, to clutch him with desperate, greedy spasms, to refuse to let him go. All your muscles burned with the effort, with the need to hold him in, to be filled so absolutely that nothing else existed. Your cunt spasmed and wept and gushed around his cock, and you hardly noticed when your own arms lost the strength to clutch at his scales and simply splayed above your head, limp and pleading.

By the time you felt the first ripples of his climax about to break, you were slick with sweat. Curtis’s whole body tensed, every scale and muscle gone rigid. The groan that erupted from him was guttural, ripped from something ancient and primal inside him. He drove himself as deep as possible, until your breath caught and your pelvis ached with how wildly, impossibly full you were, and then he came. It was an abrupt flood, a torrent, so much and so shockingly intense you could feel it overflow around him, seeping hot and icy down your thighs, leaking from every stretched, desperate inch of you. His tail, still working at your other hole, pulsed too, and you felt another rush fill you there—this flooding from his tail a first, your body trembling, boneless.

You lay pinned beneath him, shuddering and shocked, and when he finally stilled, there was nothing else in the night but breathless, trembling aftermath. For a long time, neither of you moved; the weight of him, the chill and the heat, the press of his tail still inside you, the throbbing ache that was already shifting into a deep, heavy peace.

Then, gradually, you noticed something else—the strange, spreading numbness that radiated from the place where his tail breached you. It wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, it felt like a balm poured over the burning aftermath of climax, a slow, dreamy unraveling of every tension in your body. Your limbs went slack. The ache in your hips dissolved, your spine melted back into the mattress, and every muscle, every fraught, knotted nerve, at last let go. Your body, which had been a battleground of need and pain and pleasure, suddenly belonged to no one and nothing, and you drifted in a haze of perfect, suspended contentment.

“Curtis,” you managed, voice slurred and slow, “what are you—”

He stroked your hair, smoothed your brow, and quietly uttered a, “Shhh,” against your temple.

You didn’t have the strength to reply. The world glowed dimly at the edges but was mostly darkness, punctuated only by the chorus of your own heavy breaths and the lazy, overlapping whisper of the lake at the edge of the cool, cavernous lair of your new home. You lay there, half-buried under his body, feeling as if you might melt into the bed and the earth beneath it.

“I never told you about the venom of my tail. It’s not the kind you think—nothing lethal. But it is… potent.” His tail flexed, and you felt the last dregs of will drain from your limbs, leaving you hollowed out and weightless.

“It’s a sedative,” he explained, rolling you to your side and curling around you, spooning you with the possessive certainty of an apex predator. “It relaxes the bones and nerves, renders any prey motionless.”

He curled himself tighter around you, chest at your back, tail draped over your thigh, anchoring you in the nest of bedding and moss. In your boneless state, you could not escape the possessive drag of his palm over your skin—first up to the arch of your ribcage, then slowly, almost reverently, to the globe of your belly. He pressed his hand there as if you were both a relic and a promise, a rare treasure he’d stolen from another world, and you suppose you were.

In your mind, you felt the distant panic of a body that knew it should not be so helpless, that this creature had seized your survival reflex by the throat and throttled it—but after a few heartbeats, you realized you didn’t care. Curtis was pressed up behind you, his arms a wall of certainty wrapped all the way around your womb, your ribs, your shoulders. The ache was gone. The tightness was gone. You had been wrung out, emptied, and now you were nothing but full of him, inside and out.

He rumbled a sound from deep in his chest, almost a purr. The vibration traveled through your spine and straight to the place where pleasure had left you rawest. He nuzzled your hairline, then traced the shell of your ear with the tip of his rough tongue.

“Sleep,” he murmured, and you did. Or at least, you drifted on the edge of it, not quite inside sleep, not quite awake, suspended in the place where dreams bled into touch. Curtis’s hand moved over your skin the entire time, massaging the rounded slope of your belly, stroking your thigh, sometimes cupping your breast or tracing the curve of your jaw. The cocoon of his arms made you smaller, softer, less yourself and more a thing to be adored and kept.

You vaguely registered the way his cock, not even fully soft, pressed against the seam of your thighs, rutting at the seam like a persistent dream. You couldn’t have moved if you tried, but the feeling of him pushing between your thighs—wanting back in—was, impossibly, not unwelcome.

You wondered, or perhaps only imagined, if he could sense your dream-thoughts; the question seemed to amuse him. He gave you a moment of what passed for tenderness, nuzzling your hairline, rocking you back and forth in his arms, his tail stroking the flesh behind your knee. The sedative in your bloodstream left you blissed and limp, a ragdoll for his pleasure.

He was hard again, or nearly so, and the friction of his cock caught between your thighs was both a comfort and a question, as if your body had become the only vessel for his hunger.

Curtis’s hands never tired. You tried to imagine the monotony of your body, the sameness of your skin beneath his touch, but it seemed he could never get enough. He massaged your belly in long, slow arcs, sometimes lifting the weight of it as if to relieve you, sometimes holding so gentle and so firm that it seemed your flesh was his most prized, fragile artifact. His palm spanned the roundness, mapping every centimeter, sometimes dipping to the underside where your skin felt stretched to near-breaking, sometimes trailing up to the space above your navel. The gentle repetition of it—his touch, the rise and fall of his chest at your back—lulled you deeper into the velvet black of near-sleep. Even your mind became lazy, thoughts smudging at the edges until only sensation remained.

When he was satisfied that you’d gone slack, that your muscles had relinquished every old human defense, he shifted behind you. The cool press of his cock found the seam between your thighs—he never seemed to lose his interest for long, even in the slow moments. He nestled himself between your legs and, with a single, unhesitating thrust, pressed his half-hard length into your cunt. It was not rough, not this time; he moved with the patience of someone tending a sacred fire, easing in until your bodies were flush, and the faint ache became a deep, saturating fullness. Your mind drifted, but your body, trained and conditioned by months of relentless attention, responded in kind: you flexed around him, and a lazy, involuntary moan struggled up your throat. Curtis groaned, his chest pressed flat to your back, and rutted once, twice, before stilling, letting you sheath him while you both floated on the edge of sleep.

He didn’t use his hands now, not for pleasure, not directly. Instead, he gripped your hip for leverage, holding you open and tilted just so, and pulled your ass flush to his pelvis, driving his cock in to the hilt and then simply… staying there. You felt every twitch and pulse of his cock, every shift in the slow, animal rhythm of his breathing. He stayed hard inside you, using your body as a sheath, as a warm, wet cradle; you were perfectly pinned, utterly possessed, and you could do nothing but receive him.

Curtis exhaled into your hair, his voice a thick, slurred mumble. “You’ll keep me, won’t you? Keep me in you all night. That’s what I want, little one. I want to rut in you while you sleep. I want to use your heat, let my cock twitch and throb all night in that perfect cunt.” He rutted once, again, and you felt the faint flutter of his cum oozing out from the last round, slicking your insides. He seemed to relish the sensation, the lazy, languid pleasure of being buried and unmoving, until another aftershock rolled through him and made you gasp.

“I can feel your body holding me,” he said, the words warm and thick as sap with sincerity. “It’s all I want now. Just to be in you. You don’t even need to be awake for it, little one. Let me have you while you sleep. I’ll fuck you in your dreams if I have to, and you’ll wake up full of me.”

You tried to protest, but the sedative still dulled your tongue and every nerve, made your body heavy and dumb with pleasure. He rocked his hips, once, and the sensation rolled through you like a wave, sticky and slow and so deep it made your eyes water. The pressure of him inside you was a kind of lullaby, a constant, anchoring weight, and you found yourself drifting, drifting, until your thoughts were only the animal, helpless response of your body clutching around his cock, milking it with every slow, involuntary contraction.

“I’ll take care of you,” Curtis promised. “You’ll always feel good. I’ll see to every want you have, and every want you can’t even name.” The words were a net, a binding, and you believed him, not for comfort, but because he had never lied to you, he had no reason to.

The night drifted on. Curtis’s hand never left your belly; his cock never left your cunt. There were times, across the long hours, where you felt his fingers knead at your clit with lazy affection, almost absent-minded, and sometimes you came, even in this fugue—little contractions that made you clamp down and wring more pleasure from the fullness. He’d sigh when you did, and sometimes you came, even in this fugue—little contractions that made you clamp down and wring more pleasure from the fullness. He’d sigh when you did, the sound vibrating through your back, and sometimes he’d soothe you with a stroke of his hand, as if petting a restive animal. Occasionally, a tiny aftershock in him would pulse more of his seed into you, and it seemed like he was intent on keeping you topped up, leaking around his cock, overflowing with the certainty of his claim.

Sometimes he’d lick the sweat from the back of your neck, or whisper obscenities in your ear about how perfect you were, how he would keep you filled until it took, until you were more lake than girl, reminding you that you were changing, that every time you let him breed you, you became more his, less the fragile thing you had been. You believed it, because it was true: your body grew more resilient, your hunger more intense, your mind more focused on the simple, ceaseless need to be joined, to be filled.

This is what your life was now, and Curtis kept you like a pearl.

I make no apologies. I need to go shower.

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

The flight in the private jet back to Boston is the first time you’re confined to a space alone with Andy since the morning after everything unraveled at the villa. The two of you had orbited around each other, and he’d only forced your company for the social engagements. It had been shocking, and you had expected there to be some point at which he’d demand an interaction.

But he hadn’t.

Even the morning of your departure, there’d been a note left on the kitchen counter that there was business associate he and Lloyd had to take a meeting with, and so he’d see you on the tarmac.

He hadn’t taken any meetings for nearly seven weeks, so why he had one on your final day seemed like an excuse, but one you were glad he’d made.

You keep to yourself for the first hour, blanketing yourself in music and noise-canceling the entire plane. The flight attendant brings you food; you turn it down. Andy doesn’t even look up from his tablet or whatever he’s staring at. You’re astounded by the discipline, the sheer restraint. Seven weeks of being together—sleeping together, eating together, sometimes not even breathing unless the other was in the room—and now you’re basically anonymous passengers to each other on a plane. You should be grateful for the reprieve, but it makes you feel something worse than anger. It’s a fatigue that’s half heartbreak and half relief, an exhaustion so deep it feels stitched into your bones, making it hard to want anything at all—not even vengeance.

For the last week you’ve harbored the exhaustion of wanting something you’re ashamed of wanting, the kind that makes thirty-five thousand feet of sky feel like the bottom of the ocean.

Even now, you think about calling your mom or calling Thea, and you can’t stomach it. You don’t want to be the fool who messed up again, and you know neither of them would let you feel that way, you do know that. But you still can’t stomach having to talk about everything that’s happened.

You look up at the roof of the cabin when the familiar ache at the back of your throat gets worse, when you realize your vision has gone blurry at the edges. You let yourself cry only once at the villa. You don’t want to be crying, and you certainly don’t want him to see it, but of course he does.

You feel it before you look up—the cabin contracting, his attention shifting from deliberate absence to something still and fixed. When you look over, he’s there, eyes on you, not bothering to look away.

He’s not glaring. He’s not smirking. He’s just sitting there, hands braced on his knees, head slightly lowered, as if he’s waiting for a verdict or maybe for you to say something—but you have nothing to say to him, not right now, not ever in a way that wouldn’t cost you more than you can afford.

You press the heels of your palms into your eyes until you see stars, then look away, back to the window. Nothing out there—just black, the kind that makes you feel like the plane is standing still, like there’s nowhere left to arrive. The hum of the cabin fills in around the edges. You. Him. Whatever it is you’re going to have to figure out how to carry when you land.

He does finally speak, somewhere over Newfoundland, in a tone so flat it could almost be the engine noise.

He says your name. Not Mrs. Not wife. Just your first name, like it’s a code word or a trigger. It floats across the cabin and you can feel it snag deep in your ribs, a sudden, sharp tug. You keep your eyes straight ahead.

“I know I can’t fix what happened in Italy,” he says. His voice is calm—not soft, not kind, just controlled. “But I want to know if you’re coming back to Boston as my partner, or as my hostage.”

You laugh, a sharp, biting sound that comes out before you can stop it. “Was there ever a choice?”

He lets it hang. The cabin is silent but for the white noise of engines and air rushing past aluminum. Quite reluctantly, you look at him. He’s leaned forward in his seat, elbows braced, hands locked tightly together.

“I need you to understand something,” he says, and the rattle of the cart in the galley is the only sign the world is continuing outside of this conversation. “The life we’re going back to is not going to feel like that house.”

“You made that abundantly clear,” you say, “You told me yourself—liminal space, not real life. Isn’t it a relief to get back to the world you designed?”

He doesn’t answer at first. He lets the words pool between you, absorbs them. His stare is unwavering, stripping away the distance between your seats, but it’s not cruel—if anything, it’s the most exposed you’ve seen him outside the night he gave you his mother’s brush.

“No, it’s not a relief,” Andy says finally. “It’s a liability.” He stops. Inhales. “You’re a liability.”

You did not expect those words, and almost lands as an insult, but instead you’re almost proud—finally, something true and ugly, not polished for effect. “I’ll try not to be,” you say with a humorless smile, but the ache in your throat is getting worse, and now it’s not from fatigue.

He sighs, and you hear the edge of human tiredness in him, not the constructed fatigue of someone performing the part. “I know I was ruthless with you. I know what I am.”

The questions of why did you do any of it, then? why take the risk? why force me? why pretend? swirl in you like a storm, but you don’t let any of them out in this moment.

Instead, you venture, “Do you want to know what I hate the most?” You give him a look so sharp you hope it draws blood, but you’re too tired for real malice. “I hate that it was good. I hate that you were better than I expected in ways that made me want things I couldn’t have. I hate that you made me want to stay, and then made it impossible to stay.” You take in a deep breath and then say the worst part. “I hate that I’m heartbroken.”

Andy absorbs this. He doesn’t try to talk you down or walk back the truth you’ve lobbed at him. He just rubs a hand over his bearded jaw, and when it drops away, you see the faint trembling in his fingers.

“I didn’t want it to end that way,” he says at last, staring at the tabletop between you like it might yield the correct answer if he keeps staring. “I thought if I took you far enough away, surrounded us with something perfect, we could…” He searches for the word, but even he doesn’t seem to know what shape to give it. “It doesn’t matter.”

You almost want to ask him what it was supposed to be between you, but what does it matter? How are you supposed to trust any of it?

Andy turns his head, gaze fixed on the oval window, the blue-white arc of the jet’s wing. “I can’t shut it off,” he says after a long beat. “I thought with you, maybe—” He stops. “I wanted to.”

You blink, not sure you heard it right. Maybe he’s angling for sympathy, but the words don’t quite land that way; they’re surrendered, not given.

You almost say, I wanted that, too. But the words feel buried under the weight in your throat. You’ve been in almost this spot with him before, and you won’t give him another soft admission this time.

You remember the reverence in his voice one of those blissful, happy nights in Lake Como, a tone you’d never heard before.

“I like us here,” he’d murmured into your ear.

And you, caught in the spell of it, had admitted, “I do, too.”

“I’ll be in New York for the next week. Maybe two.” Like he’s talking about going out for a carton of milk. “There are things I need to set in order since I’ve been gone.”

Everything inside you wants to spit something cruel, but you just nod, keeping your eyes fixed on the window. “You’ll have Shep and Mark. I’m not leaving you unprotected. But…” he pauses. Sighs, the word dissolving before it’s fully formed. “You can do what you want with the time.” You wonder if he thinks this is a kindness. If he expects gratitude. You say nothing. The silence endures, painful, invasive. He says, “I’ll be out of your way,” again, softer, and this time you almost believe he means it as penance.

You land at Logan airport. The customs officials board the plane and clear you for re-entry. The black Range Rover is waiting on the tarmac, backseat climate-controlled and softly lit, Mark up front, Shep waiting with the rear door open, his posture all respectful deference and zero curiosity.

Andy doesn’t make a show of seeing you to the car. He simply helps load your bag in the trunk and shakes Shep’s hand as if he’s passing along a charge. There’s no hug, no goodbye, but there is one last look. Short, and with a nod. Then he’s on the phone before you’ve finished getting into the back seat, and he’s striding back to climb the stairs into the plane and leave you for New York.

The city’s lights seem surgical after weeks of olive oil and sun, a whole different wavelength—unfamiliar, then familiar, because Boston is still utterly, inescapably home. The perimeter of things you have to face here is coming into focus, and beyond the ache in your ribcage and the hollowing exhaustion, there is a brittle sense that you are braced for it. At least some parts are. The rest is raw and soft and probably always will be.

You expect the house to be cold and dark, but you forgot that Andy’s people would keep the mechanisms of daily life humming and stoke them back to full life for your return. The lights are on, the entry immaculate, flowers everywhere.

The re-entry is a shock to the system. You wander upstairs and stand under the shower’s sterile, even heat, so different from the sun-warmed water at the villa. You let the cold marble chill your feet, a grounding sensation, and watch condensation erase your reflection in the glass.

You are halfway dried off and dressed in a robe when you hear Shep’s voice through the hallway, relaying some detail of tomorrow’s schedule to Mark—something about groceries and deliveries and your standing appointment at the studio. You almost want to cry at the normalcy. The urge to resent Andy for anticipating all your needs, for giving you back this version of your life like it’s a favor is strong, and yet it’s a relief to not have to fight for things to start up again.

You are almost ready to crawl into bed and lose yourself in a marathon of whatever the algorithm serves you, but there’s a knock at your bedroom door. You’re so unused to being summoned that your first thought is that you imagined it. The knock comes again, firmer.

A voice follows: “Ma’am?” It’s Shep.

You cinch the robe, open the door. Shep stands there, hands folded in front of him, gaze respectfully averted.

“Shep, you really can’t keep calling me ‘ma’am.’ You’re, what? Eight? Ten years older than me? It’s weird.”

He gives a short, almost silent laugh. “Forgive me. It’s not a matter of age. It’s just—never first names, not in this line of work.” His words settle with a gentle finality, as if he’s stating one of the few things in his world that is simply not negotiable. You want to argue—tease, even—but there’s a dignity in Shep’s posture that tells you he’s not performing. It’s not subordination, but a kind of personal code. “If you don’t want ma’am, I can use Mrs. Barber, or an equivalent. But never your first name. That’s not respectful.”

You almost smile at this. “Fine,” you say, “ma’am if you absolutely must. But you can drop the tone like you’re addressing the principal.”

He nods, a fraction less rigid. “Understood.” The corner of his mouth lifts, just barely.

“Is this just a courtesy check, or?”

“No, there’s a small matter that needs your attention down in the kitchen.”

“Alright, give me just a moment.”

He nods, and you close the door. You throw on leggings and a cashmere sweater, not bothering with makeup or anything else, and head down the wide staircase, following Shep. “What about a nickname? Like my security detail codename! You have those for us, right? Like the Secret Service?”

“Your codename on the records is ‘Mrs. Barber.’”

“That’s lame,” you huff. “It literally couldn’t be anything more interesting than that?”

Shep’s shoulders hint at a shrug, and the movement smooths out his usual ex-military stony bearing. “He insisted upon it from day one, ma’am, but we all would have. Codenames are for assets, not family. You’re not an asset.”

“I might as well be,” you mutter. But you drop it as Shep steers you into the kitchen, where the lights are bright, the air is flush with the smell of American fast food, and two figures you’d know anywhere are such a profound relief you could weep.

Your parents are standing at the island, your father in his battered Red Sox sweatshirt and your mother wearing a navy cardigan you would have called “teacher-core” if you had the emotional bandwidth for jokes. She’s unpacking a paper bag from Shake Shack, a guilty-pleasure custom sandwich in each hand. Your dad is setting out cartons of fries and the crinkle-cut pickles that only your mother will touch, and both parents look up in the same instant when they see you.

For one sharp, embarrassing second you nearly cry. Not from homesickness, but an animal relief you didn’t realize you’d been holding at bay for weeks. You’re in your own kitchen, your parents are here, and you have never felt so much like a child in your adult life.

Your mother, of course, crosses the kitchen in three steps, gathers you in a hug so tight you hope your ribs pop. She doesn’t let go, not when your dad comes around to add his own arms, both of them holding you in a sandwich of warmth and cheap detergent and fryer grease.

She smells your hair, then cups your jaw with one hand, tilting your face to the light. “You look too thin,” she says, which is her form of ‘I missed you so much it hurts,’ and you almost laugh, because you know you undoubtedly filled out more with all the indulgent meals and sweets that you never worried about at the villa.

“Oh, she’s fine,” your dad says, and then to you, “You look great, kid.” He scuffs your shoulder and draws you in, rolling his eyes at your mother in the way of a man who has built his whole life around loving her, and of course you.

You mumble something about not expecting them, as you step back.

“Did we overstep?” your mom flusters. “Andy texted us yesterday that you were coming home but that he had to go directly out of town for a bit, and he said there’d be nobody here to greet you. I thought—”

“We didn’t want you coming home to an empty house,” your father finishes.

You’re hit with the double impact of their presence—the comfort of being known and the mortification of being inspected by people who will always see more than you want them to.

“You didn’t overstep,” you say, because you realize it’s the closest thing to relief you’ve felt since boarding the plane. “I just. I’m really glad to see you.”

Your mother beams. “You don’t have to thank us, dear. You know we’d walk through fire for you.” She is, as ever, immediately in motion, pulling a chair out and patting it, already unwrapping your sandwich, refilling your water bottle, doggedly ignoring the bags under your eyes and the maternal worry warping every word. “Sit, sit, and tell us everything.”

You sit with them at the kitchen island, because that’s what you’ve always done, and let them fuss and fill your plate and ask questions you are both eager and terrified to answer as you fill your stomach with food that feels like home.

You do not tell your parents about the end of what happened in Italy, but you do tell them every detail of the lake, the food, the neighbors, and Lloyd—your mother wants to know everything, leaning forward on her elbows, and your father sits back with his arms crossed and a look on his face like he can’t quite decide if Lloyd is the funniest thing he’s ever heard or if you’re making him up. You leave out his mafia affiliation, of course.

You focus on what isn’t hard to say: the meals, the wine, the impossible blue of the water, the way Andy cooked from his mother’s recipe book. You skip all the nights of the last week, and edit your time down to just sun and laughter and the gradual narrowing of a world to the shape of the villa.

You let yourself be cared for. With every bite of the familiar food, every casual question about their friends, the tension in your shoulders eases. They are a shelter you didn’t know you were desperate for. You watch them, these people who have nursed you through everything, and know their love could contain the entire ugly truth. But the words won’t come—not about Andy, not about a marriage that feels both forced upon you and chosen, the two truths tangled so tightly you can’t find the start of either one. Especially not now, with damage you haven’t yet found the language for.

When your mother’s phone lights up mid-anecdote with a call from one of her friends, she excuses herself with an apologetic grimace and heads down the hall. You expect her to linger in the mudroom or maybe stand in the foyer, but she vanishes properly, leaving you and your father alone at the island.

He checks to make sure your mother is out of earshot, then sighs and leans in, folding his arms on the stone counter. He’s never been good at letting silence hang, so you brace for the bluntness you know is coming.

He says your name, softly. “Level with me. Are you okay?”

You look at your father, and your first impulse is to say, yes, of course, because you always want to be his strong, brave little girl. But you’re beyond empty, and the real answer is floating so close to the surface.

“No,” you say. “But I will be.”

He tilts his head, studying you, and you recall, with a sick kind of fondness, how your dad has never bought a single lie out of your mouth, not since you were six and inventing elaborate reasons for missing homework. He waits. His face settles into something patient and unguarded, the same expression you remember from every hard conversation you’ve ever had at a kitchen table with this man.

You flex your fingers around your glass, smearing the condensation that’s gathered there, and then you admit, honestly, “I don’t know, Dad.” Your voice comes out calm, steadier than you expected. “This all spun out a little faster than I thought it would.”

He nods slowly, his eyes dropping to the Shake Shack wrappers between you. “Your mother threw a plate at me once.” He says it quietly, picking at a napkin. “1987. We’d been married two years. I’m not telling you marriage is hard—you know that.” He finally looks up, his eyes steady. “I’m just telling you it’s your choice. And if you ever needed to just… come home,” he gestures vaguely at the room around you, “you could. You know that, right?”

You force yourself to nod, not trusting your throat to work around too many words. “I know. I do.”

Your father’s face breaks into a tiny smile, and it’s the only thing that keeps you from falling apart entirely. He squeezes your hand, then clears his throat. “It’s better with a full stomach,” he says, gesturing at the wrappers, “and better with company.”

Your mother returns, phone call over. “You two didn’t finish all the fries, did you?”

You shake your head and say, “Wouldn’t dare.”

Your father passes the rest of his fries to her, and your heart thrums happily watching them.

The evening winds into a tangle of low, sweet moments—your mother gushing over some of the gorgeous kitchen appliances, your dad quietly snooping through the fridge and coming back with four pints of ice cream, and insists you all do blind taste tests until your tongue is numb and you cannot stop laughing.

Eventually the yawns win out, your mother shooing you off the kitchen stool like a child past her bedtime. You protest, but your body sags in grateful relief as she ushers you up the stairs. Your parents gather their things, making you promise to come by theirs Sunday for brunch and any other night you just want company while Andy’s gone.

Back upstairs, you truly internalize that you’ve never been alone like this in this bedroom alone before. It’s the same room, the same balcony view, the same walk-in closet and familiar textures, but no one was waiting, and no one will eventually join you.

Andy is not here. He is not coming—not tonight, not for a week, probably not for longer.

The actuality of it feels weirdly hollow.

You drift through the motions of bedtime. You try to read for a bit, and you’re sure you do, but the words blur and ghost by. Your teeth are brushed, your face is washed; you can’t quite remember doing either. You are so wrung out you can barely cobble together the will to change into pajamas. You settle for underwear and a t-shirt, and sink into the endless white of the sheets.

You fall into a deep, dreamless sleep, and when you surface again, it’s to a spill of midmorning light and an unfamiliar quiet. For a second you forget where you are. The confusion is clean, like you could be anyone and in any life, and you let it last until the dull ache in your chest has time to catch up, and you realize you’re in the bed, alone. You feel oddly rested. Not good, necessarily, but not the emotional hangover you’ve been battling back bit by bit each day, either. It’s as if your body has decided, somewhere deep inside, to metabolize all the heartbreak and embarrassment into a low, manageable hum now that you’re back in Boston.

You rouse yourself and stretch, expecting the sensation of Andy’s hand on your lower back, but there’s only the cool rush of linen and your own skin. You lie there, staring up. The ceiling molds itself around the sunlight in a way that makes you ache for the lake villa, for the slow, gold mornings that rewired you to want gentleness.

You get up, pad across the cold floor, and spend an aimless hour in the shower, letting the spray needle your scalp until your thoughts turn clear. You towel off, dress comfortably, and head for the kitchen, not even bothering with a bra or shoes because this giant house is where you live and you don’t care who sees you here.

After breakfast, you meander into your study, pleased to see your plants were well taken care of in your absence, but after only glancing at the elegant desk with your laptop, you wander back out and head upstairs again.

You settle for the easiest distraction: unpacking. You’d only pulled out a couple of essentials the night before, and the suitcases are still half-zipped and listing open on the bench in the walk-in closet, the contents slumped and jumbled, exactly as you left them in the haze of last night. You unfold a tangle of linen dresses, roll up the last of the swimsuits. The second suitcase ends up containing the soft things you’d loved in Italy and the handful of gifts Andy had forced on you (a silk robe, the ridiculous but beautiful leather boots, the scarf you’re embarrassed you already missed). You’re nearly finished when you see it: a heavy cream envelope, not sealed, with your name written in Andy’s all-caps print.

You pause, thumb knocking the edge, considering whether to open, wait for some future courage, or refuse to read it altogether.

You stand in the middle of the closet, the envelope dense with the weight of what it might contain, and make yourself hold it for a count of ten, the way you once trained yourself to resist the urge to scratch mosquito bites as a child. Then you set it on the bench, hands steady, and back away as if it might be hot to the touch. You busy yourself with the rest of the suitcase, but your eyes keep wandering to the envelope. Eventually, you give in—how could you not—and stalk out of the closet, grab your phone, and hit Andy’s number before you can change your mind.

He answers before the second ring is finished. “I was waiting to see how long it would take,” he says, not quite soft, but without the shield of irony.

You don’t let him steer any further, not this time. “I found your letter,” you say.

There is a half-beat of stillness, then, “You haven’t opened it yet.” Not a question. A reading of you, as accurate as it is infuriating.

“No.” You squeeze the phone tighter, shift your weight from one foot to the other. “I hate you for knowing that.” You mean it to land with more weight, but it sounds raw.

“I figured you’d start with a text,” he replies, “but this is better.”

You close your eyes and force yourself to inhale, to let the silence expand before finally finding the words you want. “I can’t believe you wrote me a letter,” you tell him, and now the irritation has a shape and a target. “You don’t get to be Mr. Darcy. You don’t get to drop all this on a page.”

Andy lets out a short, breathy laugh. “I’m not pretending to be noble or romantic, or whatever you want to call it. I wrote it because I thought… I thought it might be easier for you to hear without having to look at me. Or fight me. Or argue.” A pause. “And maybe as a showing that I heard you and that you can read it in your own time. Or you don’t have to read it at all. It’s your choice.”

You want to hang up, to tell him that nothing on a page can fix the fact that you’re speaking only because of a letter he left for you to find, like some reverse land mine meant to detonate all of your resolve. But you don’t hang up.

“I might read it,” you say. You sit on the edge of the bed, the phone pressed to your ear. You don’t look at the envelope. “But since you might be listening, I’ll say this: I don’t care what you wrote. I need you to know it’s not about the letter. It’s about whether I can trust you to give me a real choice. A real relationship. Ever.”

Andy’s breathing is barely audible. “I know,” he says.

“I’m going to hang up now,” you tell him.

“Okay.” The word is a soft exhalation. Then he says your name, and you wait another moment before ending the call. “If you ever want to talk, I’ll always answer. No matter what.”

For those of you who were hurt/betrayed/livid after last chapter: I want you to know Andy doesn't get a quick fix overnight. I promise.

For better or for worse, because of how things combusted between them in Italy, our reader is going to be more assertive, more resistant, and hold her boundaries and demands more firmly. She still holds complicated feelings for him, but the feelings won't excuse or circumvent things anymore.

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