Page 57 of Bonetide

He groans and kisses me again, his mouth taking mine. His fingers start to explore me, slowly, carefully.

I can’t help the noises escaping me, they’re completely out of my control now.

“Quietly, lass,” he murmurs against the side of my mouth, his lips wet from mine.

“What?” I manage to ask.

“The woods are listening. I’ll undo you and you’ll come quietly, you understand?”

Not really, but I’ll honestly do whatever the hell he wants at this point. That need, that urge to come stems from some lizard-brained part of me, and right now it has total control.

He’s kissing me hard again, his tongue soft but violent—perhaps to devour me, perhaps to keep me quiet—and his hand is moving against me with a ruthless rhythm, dipping in and out of me slowly. The sound is lewd and surprisingly clear, which makes me want to yell at my vagina for being so loud when he specifically said not to be. The woods are listening, or something? Who cares!

He works me the way you do with something you know well, something you do all the time. Obviously, he hasn’t had me before, but now I know he’s had me before in his head a thousand times. The way his thumb knows where to be, and his fingers know how to angle, and the way he reads my breathing, and how his other hand touches my breast through the long-sleeved shirt, pushing under my bra cups, knowing exactly how I like my nipples to be pinched. I’m clutching at his sweater with both hands, and the bark of the birch is biting into my shoulder blades through the cardigan, but all I can really feel is his cool fingers on me everywhere.

“You’ll come for me, Iris,” he demands roughly.

“Yes,” I gasp. Almost there.

“You’ll come for me here, against this tree, before we go another step toward my house.”

I make another sound that sounds like a yes.

“And then you’ll walk the rest of the way with me with shaking knees, and you’ll step into my home, and you’ll tell me what else you want.”

God, yes.

“Yes.”

“Say my name.”

“Alasdair,” I moan.

“Aye. Christ, I could listen to you all day.”

And I could have him do this to me all day. All day, every day, forever.

I’m close. I’m closer than close. He’s been at it for what feels like a year but is probably two minutes, and I am moments from letting go entirely. He keeps his skilled hands moving, knowing exactly what they’re doing to me, and puts his forehead against mine, surprising me with the intimacy.

“Look at me when you come, Iris.”

I can’t find the words to refuse. I look at him.

His eyes are that Alasdair blue, swallowed up by the dark pools of his expanding pupils.

“Now.”

It moves through me like a tidal wave, slamming into every crevice and corner from head to toe, obliterating my thoughts. My hands are locked in the front of his sweater, and my hips are rocking against his hand, wanting more, more, more, even as I’m getting too much. The rough trunk of the birch is the only thing keeping me up, my eyes on his and his on mine. There is a moment where I see something in his face, this primal intensity of his eyes that verges on the surreal, the look of a creature being given a thing it has been promised. And then I close my eyes because I can’t look any longer. I’m suddenly afraid, so wonderfully, blissfully afraid.

His fingers slow, and he’s breathing hard for once. He kisses the corner of my mouth, and the side of my jaw, and my throat. He waits until I’m somewhat coherent again, my heart steady, and eases his hand out from under my skirt.

I watch him bring his fingers to his own mouth.

He closes his eyes briefly as he sucks on them, and when he reopens them, I’m beyond hypnotized at this point.

“Iris,” he says thickly.

“Uh huh.”