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“Perfect. I hate everything about him.” The next berry he lifted was one he’d already bitten, and the juice dribbled over her collarbone as the pulpy fruit was dragged down her neck. Grace’s indignant laugh at the movement cut off on a gasp when something long and wet moved over the top of her breasts, exposed in the scant fabric of the sundress, before laving at the juice that pooled in the hollow of her throat. Merrick hadn’t moved: still loomed over her, gripping her hip, his garnet eyes glittering in the moonlight.
The kiss they’d shared on the observatory balcony had been very nice — his small fangs had nipped at her lips and she’d gone dizzy over the warm, woodsy smell of him — but there’d been something missing, and now she knew why. His tongue was an impossibly long coil, leaving his mouth in an endless line, and he used it to lick at her skin, up her neck to the corner of her mouth, cleaning the trails of dark berry juice he’d smeared there. A rush of wetness joined the heat between her legs when she considered how dexterous this extra-long appendage might be.
"I thought you said you weren’t a fighter?"
"I'm not, but I never said anything about not being the jealous type," he murmured once his tongue had re-coiled itself in his mouth. The desire to have his hands moving over her body, to strip off her dress and bare herself for that curious tongue nearly made her dizzy, bracing herself with a palm against his chest as he continued. “That’s going to make it very hard to be nice to him. I’ll do my best not to act like a jealous asshole every time I’m here, but no promises.”
“And how often will that be?” Tracing her fingertip over his sharp clavicle, she managed to avoid his eye as she gave voice to the thoughts that had been running on a loop in her head since Tris’s message.Here for a good time, but not a long time.“After all, you probably won’t be sticking around for long, right? Once the birds and the bats start migrating you’ll be on your way?” The berry she raised to his mouth was dark and ripe, the flesh bursting easily against the gleaming white fang to which she pressed it; the pulpy sweet juice a wet pressure against her lips when she moved the fruit back to her own mouth, dragging it back and forth.
Merrick’s expression was inscrutable, but the hand he kept at her hip tightened infinitesimally as he clicked. “It depends how long the program lasts. That's usually out of my control.” His voice was a mellifluous hum, raising the fine hair on her neck. His antennae fluttered low around his ears and her resolve wavered.
"Then I suppose we ought to make the most of it," she said lightly. The hand that suddenly gripped her wrist was strong, his movements so quick she had no time to react. The dripping berry at her lips was dragged down her neck and pressed to her throat, the pressure increasing as he slowly pulled it lower. She gasped when the macerated remains of the fruit slipped between her breasts, guided by his leading fingers, her nipples tightening beneath the thin cotton dress.
“I suppose you’re right.” The ability to breathe was not one she regularly contemplated, but at that moment, as his fingers pressed beneath the edge of her bra, his warm, berry-smeared palm cupping her breast, her lungs were completely unable to inflate in the wake of his softly spoken words.
When his head lowered, practically necessitating him bending in half, she was ready to receive the kiss. Heat and warmth, the intoxicating smell of him and the sharp, sweet taste of blackberries, the long fingers that rolled her nipple making her moan into his mouth.This is all you’re looking for. A good time. Despite the desire there, his mouth was still somewhat hesitant and undemanding, making her feel as though she was completely in control of how the evening ended; control she valued more than he could possibly suspect.
"If you're planning on coming around to check up on us often, I'll see if we can have a designated parking spot for the lab coat know-it-all."
A gasp of mock offense accompanied the berry he smushed against her cheek, once again dragging it into her dress, ignoring her squeal of laughter. Catching the devious hand as it dropped the smashed fruit to the ground before he could snatch it away, her lips closed over the pad of his tapered thumb. Sucking the berry juice from his skin, her tongue slid over his knuckle, eliciting a purring growl from his fluff-covered throat.
“You’re making it very difficult to be a gentleman.” His thumb withdrew, running over her teeth, testing their sharpness before leaving her mouth. Before she could protest, two long fingers replaced it, sticky with berry pulp.
The thought of those same impossibly long fingers curling into her wet heat, pressing into that spot that made her back arch and toes curl pulled a moan from her throat, vibrating around his fingers in her mouth. Merrick's answering groan was accompanied by a bruising pressure at her hip, crushing her against him. If this was a test, Grace considered, she planned on passing it.
Stroking the underside of the slim digits with her tongue made his antennae shiver and dance, while hollowing her cheeks and sucking made his dusk-colored wings flutter wildly, as that impossible tongue unspooled from his mouth to drop into the loose fabric of her dress. The thin, wet slither over her breasts made her shiver; when it dropped even lower to slide over her stomach she gasped.
“You’re right. I want to have another taste.” His voice was deep and guttural, another buzz at her neck, his rapidly beating wings a fluttering buzz that seemed to surround her; that low hum emanated through her, buzzing against her hands splayed against his chest, buzzing against her neck where his fangs pressed into her lightly, buzzing against her clit when that impossible, miraculous tongue slid beneath her panties to drag through through her wet folds.
The confirmation that it had been his tongue he had used that night from the tree outside her window, unfurling and stretching from the branches made her weak. When the tip dragged back through her slick to alight on her clit, sucking with strength of a small vacuum, the noise that left her throat was loud enough to send a cluster of starlings zooming through the sky, startled from a nearby tree, her knees buckling, no longer willing to support her.
“Wait!”
His tongue retreated as he caught her, cradling her securely against him as she reeled.
“Wait . . . not here. Cal might come outside.” As soon as the words were out, she caught the smell of woodsmoke carrying on the light breeze, which she’d attributed to Merrick’s appealingly smokey smell when she’d been pressed to him.
"Do you want to come back to my place?" he asked seriously, the somberness of his tone making it sound as if he were asking her to come over so he could audit her taxes. “Do you want to come over for sex?”
His matter-of-factness was adorably hilarious, she decided, nearly choking on her laughter. Terribly literal, he was leaving nothing to chance this time.
“I know you have to do some work at home, right? Are you going into the lab?” she asked, thinking through the logistics of proximity to her house versus his own.
His head shook, feathery antennae dancing. "I'm not, actually. Today was a fieldwork day. This is the fourth farm I've been to since this afternoon. But," he added with a frown, "Idostill have to record my data at home."
"Perfect," she grinned. "I've always wanted to see an apartment in the woods.”Here for a good time, not a long time.It was fine, she reminded herself. This was all she needed — scratch this itch, and then she could get back to business, without feeling as if there was something missing in her life.Make the most of it.“You can be a gentleman tomorrow morning when you make me breakfast. Let’s go back to your place. For sex.”
♥?♥?♥?
––––––––
By the time she'd arrivedat the edge of the dark forest, her berry patch bravado had withered and fled. Grace was reminded once more that she wasn't actually that brave, wasn't that bold, and away from the false sanctity of her bedroom, she was the furthest thing from brazen that one could imagine.
“You know the way?” Merrick had asked as he crouched next to her car window in the small gravel lot. She would drive herself, it was decided, since he had flown. The notion of a partner who was able to fly was dumbfounding, even here, even in Cambric Creek, and she'd decided she'd feel better driving this first night they were together.
She'd been giddy as she pulled out of the farm. She wondered if being with him would have the same raw excitement as performing for him had; if they would have any awkwardness, learning to maneuver together for the first time. She realized that those two nights in her bedroom, even though he had been right there outside the window, she'd felt buffered by the safety of her own home, secure in the knowledge that all she had to do was drop the shade. Here though, at his house, she would be at his mercy.
She was comfortable in her own skin in the privacy of her own four walls, never thought twice about her thick thighs as she sat on her sofa in the evenings, laptop open to her reliable, color-coded spreadsheets. She had the heart-stopping supposition that he might be disappointed in her body as she stopped for a red light, midway across town. It was one thing for him to have happened upon a naked woman gyrating in front of her open window, one thing to have stopped and enjoyed the titillating show. It was a wholly different scenario to have her back at his place, in his bed, where he would see her dimpled ass up close and personal, without the forgiving cover of branches masking her flaws.Oh well, she thought.Like it or lump it, I guess.
