He’s angry.
I can feel it in the reckless invasion of tendrils unfurling from their knot. Spilling free inside me with flailing tips that snap against my walls.
“Please,” I whine again, though I’m not sure if I’m asking him to stop.
Not when the sharp strings feel so good. When the pressure and stretch of my opening is exactly what I need. But it’s more than that. It’s the suspension, the weightlessness. Of simply floating while being given unimaginable pleasure.
“I was not done with you,” he growls low in his throat.
A new vine prods my back entrance. It circles the puckered opening. Nudges against the resistance. But ultimately coaxes in and rubs against the membrane separating it from the writhing mass in the other channel.
“I wasn’t done torturing you.”
I lift my head, and I’m not surprised to find him in front of me. His dark silhouette, a shadow rippling with power and desire. In the semi light, I am level enough with his massive chest to make out the tight, hard roots crossing and winding like armor over every inch. They cover every chiseled muscle. Every line and valley of his torso.
But I still can’t see his face. Even with all the streaks of light, he continues to find the shadows in between.
“Didn’t want to leave,” I tell him.
The chaotic flailing slows. The tendrils calm. The very air around him clears to something breathable.
Giant hands edged with jagged claws lift to my face. Each palm is the size of my head as he gently cradles my cheeks.
“It’s time to come home, Rina. Come back to me.”
It’s asked so softly. With such pain my heart twists.
“You’re a dream,” I tell him, devastated by my own rationality. “I’ll wake up again and you’ll be gone like you always are.”
His thoughts are unclear with the heavy swirl of shadows hiding him from me. But his thumbs catch beneath my chin, and my face is tipped to his.
“Not if you let me in,” he murmurs. “I will never let you go again.”
I don’t understand, nor do I get to ask when the bindings tighten and pull. I’m hoisted out of his hold. Lifted towards the trees above. Lifted to his face. Level with where his head would be.
My breath catches even before the vines slip free with a wet, slippery pop. I stare into the shadows, fully recognizing he has grown bigger. Taller. His antlers still don’t reach the branches canopying our shelter, but I think they have expanded higher, giving him space to become a size that should terrify me in my vulnerable state.
But he won’t hurt me.
I know he won’t. It’s a clear certainty that leaves no room for anything else.
Even when his hand — bigger than my entire body from tip to heel — tucks beneath me like a chair, I don’t resist. I stay in his palm, legs straddling his heel. I’m pulled forward into the shadows, swarmed by the obscurity. Lost in the scent of cloves and smoke.
“Stay,” he breathes, the single phrase hot, washing along my thighs, up my core.
“I can’t...”
I break off with the first sweep of something warm and slick brushing my center. It nudges through my folds, dances over my clit.
Over my head, my fingers tighten into the vines holding my wrists. I squeeze, anchoring myself for the first nudge at my opening.
I try to shift my hips, rolling them forward to give him better access, but the way he has me splayed, where I need him is flat against his heel.
He seems to realize it too.
His solution is tucking his thumbs under each of my knees, settling me on the crack of both palms. His fingers cushion my back, reclining me.
His efficiency makes me chuckle. “Do this often?”
