At my feet, several yards away, a roaring inferno blazes. It lunges for the stars in rapid flicks and restless shivers. It paints the trees, catches on the slick dew exuding from the bark. The sweet warmth crawls the distance to fill the space between my thighs and drape over me like a blanket.
A lover.
A weight I shift under, anxious for something I can’t name. Desperate for something I can’t have. I lie and watch the colors paint my skin a soft gold. Watch them harden my swollen nipples to sharp, aching points. The plump mounds jut proudly up towards the heavens, so soft and sensitive, and needy.
So needy.
My core is on fire. A throbbing mess of nerves begging for the thing I haven’t had in years. My unused channel pangs and clenches like that might do anything, but it only makes me all the more aware of the emptiness.
And the leaking moisture, warming in the firelight.
“I thought I lost you.”
Nails presses through my chest at the pain in his voice.
“I’m here,” I promise, shifting, nudging back the sheets like I’m ready to go to him.
“It’s time, my love. Come home. Come back to me.”
I crawl to the foot of the bed, baffled by this new request.
“What do you mean?”
The fire snaps. Ashes flare, sending tiny embers through the air.
“I need you. Open your legs,” says the deep voice from everywhere and nowhere. A voice dusty with age and power, and such command I am powerless to disobey. “Show me where that sweet smell is coming from. Where you will take my seed when you return.”
The bed vanishes and I lie in a familiar bed of pine, my senses a betrayal of my body as I watch the branches shiver overhead and the shadows dance with the moon.
All around me, the wind sighs my name as if it has been waiting eons for me to return to it. It scuttles through the branches and shivers with the leaves.
When it blows over me, licks the salt on my skin, I’m made aware of my nudity. Of my vulnerable state at the center of a clearing in the night with only the softest fern and petals as my mattress.
I can’t see him, but my knees lift and spread of their own accord. A whine sticks at the back of my throat at the first lick of heat up my core. Through my wet folds.
“Yes,” it purrs. Growls. “That. Is. Mine.”
I can’t object.
Every inch of me belongs to him. He owns me with a certainty I would never question.
And I would die for him.
I would set my soul on fire just to feel a brush of his fingers on my skin. I need him with such mindless devotion I’m writhing and spreading myself wider for it. So desperate to please the thing in the shadows watching me from the other side of the fire. Hidden from me by the leaping flamesand endless night. Even the light envelops him so I only catch glimpses of white bone and dark eyes.
Antlers.
Majestic arches that extend and vanish into the dark.
Even in my sleep fog, I calculate the flames to reach nine feet. Maybe more. But he stands taller. A proud figure cloaked in black.
And I’m not scared.
I should be. Logic tells me I should be terrified of being alone and naked, my most vulnerable place on display. But even without eyes, his scrutiny enthralls me. His attention, his desire for me ignites a wildness I know only he can tame.
“Say it,” it taunts. “Tell me what you want.”
God, what do I want?
