by Piper Rayne
I realized I had been wringing my hands under the table, half with nerves at this news, half trying to distract myself from the staggering need to touch Gawen again.
If the fire hadn’t started, what would we be doing right now? Basking in his bed in an afterglow of our union?
Would I still be a virgin?
“I just … how? Is it something you are born to?” I tilted my head, looking at him, the way the sunlight backlit his wild brown hair. “How did you come into your—your powers?” I could scarcely say the word; it still all felt like a child’s imaginary game.
“I am not much of a mystic,” Gawen confessed. “And I’m not sure if it is something you are born to, or something you are taught. Or perhaps both. The master who taught me did not give me a comprehensive training. I only learned enough to keep the enchantment alive. If there is more to my abilities, I have not yet fathomed those depths.”
I hung on his every word. “So you were taught, then—were you a young child?”
Gawen nodded. “I was brought here to be a sort of caretaker for the Fair Forest. The spells I know are simple ones.”
“So then…” I pieced together a theory in my mind, speaking it out loud as I did so. “Perhaps I was taught when I was very young. Perhaps as a toddler, and I’ve forgotten the lessons. Perhaps all my powers have been dormant until now. Until they were awakened by—” I paused, my eyes trailing up and down Gawen, taking in the sight of his thick, corded forearms, which jutted out the ends of his pushed up tunic sleeves like tree trunks. Gods, he was big enough to be a beast—even though he was nothing more than a magical wild man living in the heart of the Fair Forest.
“I’m sorry,” I told him, “I don’t know how to finish that sentence.”
“I think I do.” Gawen cleared his throat. “Until you went past the periphery. I don’t think the forest knew you were here until you tried to leave. I think it triggered something. In fact, I think it was the forest that tugged you into the pond.”
Yes, I realized, that made sense. My body broke out into goose pimples at the rightness of this—the forest had pulled me down into the water, and it had welcomed me, told me to stay.
The forest hadn’t wanted me to leave.
“But I don’t understand why.” My chest bristled as I reached to puzzle this out. “Why would the forest be so desperate to keep me here? Why wouldn’t it let me go?”
Gawen fixed his eyes on my face, and the intensity of his gaze made my cheeks burn pink. “Because,” he said simply, “it needs you to be its protector.”
I couldn’t help snorting out a laugh. “The Fair Forest? Needing protection? Why on earth would—” I stopped short as Gawen suddenly set his elbow on the table, laying his hand face up. There was a gash from his middle finger to his wrist, the dark black-red of blood beginning to clot.
“Go on,” he said calmly, grabbing a basin of water and a rag, which he wet and pressed into his wound.
“The forest is full of dark creatures and things that can destroy a human,” I kept talking. “Massive trees, trees that have been here for thousands of years—trees that will outlive both you and I. Why would the forest need a puny human to safeguard it, when it is more than capable of crushing either one of us?”
All of my life in Fairfront, I’d been taught to stay away from the Fair Forest. I’d been warned about its vindictive trees, its haunted bogs, its vines and weeds which could move independently thanks to the witches who had lived and died in its bushes. I’d been warned about the merciless bears and the venomous snakes and the cruel birds; why on earth would such a place need a human to keep it safe?
Gawen wrapped his palm with a length of gauze, tying it off with his other hand. “Do you know how many trees your village cuts down every year for lumber? Firewood? Fences? Do you know how many of the forest’s animals it kills for food? Do you know how many animals your Fairfront men shoot for simple pleasure, just to stick their arrow into something and watch it die at their hands? Do you know how many small fires your village has caused? How they rely on the forest for their resources?” He shook his head, as if stopping himself before he got too riled up. “This forest may be vast, and its trees may be old, but it has survived through the years because it always has a caretaker. The man who trained me was its protector before, and someone protected the forest before him. If not for the protector, if not for the periphery spells that kill anyone who tries to escape the Fair Forest, your people would march in and cut down every tree. They would uproot every herb, slaughter every animal. Your people would take and take and take, and the forest would never be able to keep up.”
I pictured an apocalyptic landscape, row after row of dead gray tree stumps, birds soaring overhead, searching for the tiniest scraps but finding none. “You’re right,” I told him. “Although … they’re not my people. Not anymore. They gave me up to the forest, knowing I wouldn’t survive.” Every time I remembered Fairfront’s betrayal, my spit turned bitter in my mouth. I leaned back in my chair, the magnitude of this new information pressing down on my shoulders.
Rising from my chair, I walked around the table, leaning against the open door. From here, I could see beyond Gawen’s yard—all was green, green, green, and if he was correct about the forest claiming me as one of its protectors, then I was meant to keep it this green.
But how?
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next,” I vocalized. “Obviously I was meant to come here—my power was meant to be awakened. If I am truly meant to protect the forest… How? How will I know what to do?”
When I angled my glance down, looking to Gawen for guidance, my knees weakened.
Gawen was gazing at me with a ferocity in his eyes that made me warm all over. My thighs tightened, squeezing against each other. I wanted to reach out and touch him, but I kept my hands to my side, uncertain.
He was staring at me like I was … well, like I was a beast. Something far more powerful than he’d realized.
“You will figure it out,” he assured me, suddenly remembering the question I’d asked. “I’m sure of it.”
“But what if I can’t?” Something inside of me crumpled, and my eyes filled with tears. Just two days ago, I had thought the biggest problem in my life was a lone wolf who had torn apart our chicken coop. I had no idea what awaited me when the elders of Fairfront had tied me to that old birch tree. “I’m just a farmer’s daughter. Nothing more. The forest picked the wrong girl. I’m nothing. I’m no one—”
Gawen pushed back from his chair with a swift movement; the chair, knocked backward and landed on his floor with a clatter.
“You are not nothing.” His voice was as steady as his eye contact; one of his hands propped him up, leaning against the doorframe above me, and his other hand rested on my shoulder. “Don’t ever let me hear you say those words again. You are many things, Rosaline, but the forest chose wisely when it chose you.”
I couldn’t stop looking at his lips—he kept licking them, and in response, I bit my own bottom lip, wishing it was his teeth.
I had never given myself to anyone before.
“Oh, Rosaline,” Gawen suddenly whispered, and his fingers pushed back a stray lock of my hair from my eyes, sending waves of chills down my spine. “I’ve been waiting for you for such a long time.”
My nipples hardened beneath my tunic; I reached my hand up and placed it on the side of his face, against the scruff of his beard. “And I have been waiting for you.”
Waiting to give myself to Gawen.
Waiting for a man who looked at me like this, like I was capable of saving the world.
“Take me to bed,” I whispered, and his chest heaved in anticipatory pleasure.
“Are you—are you certain?”
Rounding up my courage, I reached down and untied the rope from around my middle. Lifting the tunic up and over my head, I stood there, my breasts naked, and a whimper left my mouth as he peeked down at them. His cock hardened in his pants; I could feel
him press against me, full of desire.
A shivering awareness coursed through me. I had never laid with a man, and though I knew the mechanics of it, now that I was presented with the opportunity, it felt daunting, but I wanted to learn with Gawen. I wanted him to touch me where no man had ever touched me before.
“Yes,” I told him. “I’m ready. I want you.”
Chapter Ten
Gawen
My heart was in my throat.
“I want you.” Rosaline’s words echoed through my mind.
“And I want…” Everywhere my blood flowed, it left heat behind. I could feel every vein, every cell in my body, all of them writhing with hot desire.
And here was this stunning young creature, offering herself to me.
Her breasts, shining in the early afternoon light, were pale and round. The sun bathed the tops of their slopes, and her nipples were hard, pink, and inviting.
My hands moved to her breasts, and I had to force myself to go slowly, not to pounce. As soon as I had them cupped, their softness filling my hands, Rosaline let out a moan.
My pants tightened as my cock got impossibly harder. “Do you like it when I touch them?” I murmured, running my thumbs over her stiff nipples.
“Yes,” Rosaline answered right away, arching her back to bring her breasts closer to me. “Yes, I love it.”
So she liked to be teased, I surmised, for every time I ran my thumb over her nipple, she seemed to be in agony until I touched it again.
Kneeling so my mouth was level with her chest, I followed my instincts, taking one of her cherry pink nipples into my mouth.
I wanted to tease her some more. I wanted to give her the release that I was craving, but first I wanted to make her skin dance with pleasure.
Her left nipple was hard against my tongue; I lapped at it greedily, then let the breast fall out of my mouth with an audible, noisy pop.
“Oh,” Rosaline breathed, and shifted her chest, trying to press her other breast into my mouth.
I smiled. She was stubborn, even when she was naked in front of me. I was momentarily cruel, merely tapping my tongue against her right nipple, enjoying the feeling of her groaning and writhing against the doorframe, and then she seemed to grow a spine.
She leaned over, put her hands on either side of my face, and moved my mouth where she wanted it. I suckled her right nipple with care, testing it with a gentle bite.
“Ooof.” Rosaline flinched away from me.
I released her breast and glanced up at her, worried that I had gone too far. “Did I hurt you?” I asked apologetically.
She shook her head. “I like your beast bites.” The gleam in her eyes was bright as stars, her lips parted and heaving, and I tasted her tongue as I kissed her, pressing her into the doorframe, my hands rolling her breasts around on her body, squeezing them, nearly overwhelmed with the desire to thrust into her.
“Rosaline,” I whispered, kissing her neck, smelling that sweet garden smell that issued from her like air. “I want to tell you something.”
She waited patiently, holding still as I met her eyes.
“I’ve never … with another woman,” I admitted. Part of me was proud of this fact, because it meant that I could give all of myself to Rosaline, my first, my last, and everything in between. But I also knew, from what I had gathered about the villages outside the Fair Forest, that for a man to be my age and still a virgin, without wife and children, carried a certain stigma. I knew I should be ashamed of it.
But Rosaline smiled, a danger radiating in her eyes. “Then what are you waiting for? Take me.”
Gods, those words sent jolts of lust straight into my loins. It was all I could do not to twist her around, rip my borrowed leggings off her, and thrust my manhood straight into that warm, wet place I knew was there.
But no.
I wanted to take it slow.
This was my very first time, and hers as well. I wanted to savor every minute.
Gathering her in my arms, I carried her to my bed and set her down right on the edge. She tried to undress me as well, but she only succeeded in lifting my tunic off me.
“You’re so handsome,” she muttered, rubbing her hands across my pectorals, her thumb grazing my hardened nipples.
I groaned with pleasure. She could keep her hands here, just touching my bare skin, and I was certain it would lead to a release for me.
But I wanted more.
Rosaline went for my pants, and I knelt, dodging out of her reach.
“Not yet,” I whispered. “First, I want to see you.”
I’d admit, I was curious and a little nervous to see what was between her legs. Of course, I understood the basics of human female anatomy—there had been many books that helped with this, but there was anatomy on the page and anatomy on a flesh-and-blood woman, and I was about to get my first glimpse of the latter.
“Gawen,” Rosaline breathed, propping herself up on her elbows so her breasts spilled over to either side of her torso. She was still wearing her leggings, but I was preparing to remove them, and I could see the nerves in her eyes as well.
“Rosaline.” I leaned forward and kissed her perfect lips in reassurance. “I don’t want to do anything you don’t want to do.” Then I waited, hovering near the edge of the bed.
If all that happened today was that I got to touch and suckle her glorious breasts, then so be it, but I wouldn’t press her boundaries. Not for anything.
But Rosaline pursed her lips in a smirk, and she locked eyes with me as she pulled down her leggings and tossed them onto the floor. “Be gentle,” she told me, and cautiously, she spread her legs.
It was like looking into a whole new world.
Her folds were delicate, a soft brown that tilted pink, covered in a fine dusting of dark curly hair. The skin was already moist, which pleased me greatly. I knew women showed their own arousal by getting wet, which, judging by the shine of Rosaline’s pussy, meant she was as lust-filled as I was.
It smelled heavenly—salt and musk and sweet honey all at the same time, and I could not decide which to touch her with first, my tongue, my finger, or my cock.
Pulling her closer to the edge of the bed, so her rounded backside was cushioning her and her pussy was right under me, I inhaled and leaned in, my mouth kissing her folds gently.
Rosaline moaned. Her eyes fastened shut, and she hitched her hips.
It tasted as good as it smelled. I ran my tongue down the center of the folds, experimenting with different strokes, different rhythms. My hands found her thighs, gripping them as I used my tongue on her, and when she arched her back, I took it as a cue, pressing a finger inside her dark, wet slit.
“Gawen!” she cried, bouncing her hips up and then down again onto the bed. “Gawen, don’t stop. Whatever you’re doing, don’t stop!”
I was stroking the very crest of her folds with my tongue and pushing two of my fingers in and out of her. She was surprisingly tight, and I instantly imagined how it would feel to push my hard length into her, her slippery wetness closing in around me.
With a shudder, Rosaline suddenly let out a long, almost mournful moan, and her entire body arched up and back. I held onto her thigh, feeling the waves of pleasure ripple through her, and my hand and tongue were then coated with her slickness.
Rosaline reached down with a hand and gently pushed my finger and mouth away while she recovered from her luxurious release, and I rested my chin on the top of her hip, letting her have a moment to recover.
She breathed in, her chest heaving, and when she rolled over and linked eyes with me, saying, “That … was incredible,” a new surge of need flooded through me.
I had to have her. Now. I had to bury my cock deep inside her. I stood, hovering over her, and whispered, “You taste incredible.” I kissed her, knowing her wetness was still on my tongue. “But incredible as it was, we are both still virgins.”
Rosaline’s face was earnest, beaming with something I could not place—something
I wanted to see more of, absolutely. “Shall we change that?”
Do not act like a pig, I recited to myself as I unfastened my pants. Do not make a beast of yourself. My heart was thumping as I released my pants, letting them drop to the floor.
Rosaline took in the sight of my stiff prick; she shyly reached out for it, and once it was in her hand, I closed my eyes, nearly going mad at the contact.
She stroked me up and down, almost out of sheer curiosity more than anything—this was her first time seeing the male anatomy in person, I realized, and the reminder that I was her first made me breathless.
A growl rumbled in my chest.
“Is that—am I hurting you?” Rosaline slowed her stroking, her soft hand tickling the head of my cock.
“No.” I couldn’t wait any longer. Her soft, feminine hand on my length was amazing; the silky tightness of her slit beckoned me.
Rosaline flattened herself on the bed; I grabbed her hands and pulled her up to sitting.
“No, no,” I told her, and lay down on the bed myself, positioning the pillow beneath me. “I want to see you.”
Rosaline carefully climbed above me, her thighs still slick from her earlier release. She knelt, and I reached up to cup one of her breasts as she positioned herself over my throbbing cock—gods, they were so soft and big, so delicious.
And then she was sinking down on me, so tight I nearly spasmed with pleasure. Her eyes found mine as she lowered herself, and a gasp rolled out of her.
“Are you all right?” I managed to ask. “Does it hurt?” I had heard stories of virgins bleeding, virgins tearing, and from what I had felt of her pussy, she was going to be so tight it might be too much.
But Rosaline shook her head, and her face contorted with undeniable bliss. “It feels… Gods, Gawen, you feel—” She let herself sink all the way down, quaking, and now that I was fully entered, I was overwhelmed.
She bounced up and down on me, almost testing out how it felt, and I roared as her pussy strangled my cock. Thrusting upward into her, I placed both hands on her hips to steady her and worked into her, pushing up, letting her pussy stretch to take me in.
