Page 94 of May: Bloom & Bane

“Sage.” My fingers close tight around his forearm. “Get in the water.”

“Impatient,” he murmurs.

“Get in the water.”

He rises, wings flaring wide enough to swallow the sun. Water streams off his forearms, and the level surges over the rim as he steps in. He comes down over me, one knee sliding between mine, his hair falling loosely around our faces.

“As my ash’kaela commands.”

His knee presses against me, applying pressure right against my clit. I grind down against him, seeking friction. The slick water makes every movement effortless. “Sage… Ashán.”

A possessive groan slips from their lips. His lavender eye darkens as Ashán’s flares alongside it, watching the way my eyes roll back.

“You like that, mí’aevúna?” He shifts his leg, the heavy muscle of his thigh rubbing slow circles over my clit, coaxing soft moans out of me.

“N-need you inside.” I tug roughly on his hair. “Now.”

His wings snap open, scattering droplets across the grass. Strong arms hook under my thighs and lift me like I weigh nothing at all. Water cascades down my body as he sets me on the cool lip of the porcelain. He guides my legs wide over each side until I’m seated above him. The morning air kisses my wet skin, sending a shiver through me.

Something rustles near the base of the tub. Thick vines unwind from its walls, climbing slowly toward me. Three green coils wrap snugly around my middle, keeping me secure.

“I needed something for you to hold on to. Or rather—” His lips graze the inside of my knee. “—something to hold on to you.”

A shuddered breath escapes me as my fingers grip the sturdy vines at my hips. “You think of everything.”

“I think of you,” he corrects, his eyes burning as they drop between my spread thighs to where I’m glistening for him, “constantly. Everything else is incidental.”

He sinks lower into the water and presses his mouth to my ankle.

“Sage.” It comes out halfway between a moan and an accusation. “That is not where I asked for you.”

“No,” he agrees against my skin, trailing kisses up the curve of my calf. “But it is where I am starting. I made a promise a few days ago, mí’aevúna, and I keep my promises—” his fangs graze the tender flesh inside of my knee, and my whole leg jerks, “—thoroughly.”

The venom in my system turns his slow climb into a war of attrition. Every kiss lands twice, once against my skin, once somewhere else much deeper. His mouth maps the inside of my thigh with a mind-shattering slowness, dragging out every second until my fingers white-knuckle the vines at my hips.

“Sage, please⁠—”

“Mm.” The hum vibrates against the crease of my thigh, one breath away from where I’m aching. He looks up the length of my body, both eyes locking onto mine as his tongue drags a slow line over my skin. “Ashán wishes me to tell you that begging suits you.”

His venom hums under my skin, and something reckless hums along with it.

“Fine,” I breathe, looking down at them kneeling in the water between my thighs. “Then I’ll redirect my begging.” I hold the dark eye. “If Sage won’t lick me… will you, Ashán?”

Silence falls over the meadow.

Sage pulls back an inch to stare up at me. Betrayal and arousal cross his face in rapid succession, and beneath them the left side flickers in admiration. The dark eye widens, and the flesh along that side of his chest fades into bone.

“Eden, that is the single most dangerous sentence you have ever spoken.”

“Is it working?”

“He is—” Sage’s jaw tightens. His head tilts. “He is volunteering. Enthusiastically. He has volunteered four separate times in the last three seconds, and two of the offers were not anatomically possible.”

“They sound possible to me.”

“You have not heard them, mí’aevúna.”

“Then maybe you should stop keeping his offers to yourself.” I tighten my grip on the vines, arch as much as the coils allow, and deliver the killing blow with my sweetest voice: “One of you is going to keep the promise about the tongue, remember? I truly don’t mind which.”