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“I have fruit,” he announced. “Like you wanted.”

He held the bag open. Briar looked inside and saw a bundle of incredibly unripe apples, small, shiny, and green.

“Thank you,” Briar said, still irritatingly touched. She forced her useless sentimentality back and made her smile sultry. “Fruitandprotection. I need to thank you more thoroughly.”

“You do not have to,” Wick said.

Briar wanted to shake him. To demand that he act like a regular person, to drop all the sweet politeness and act more like the monster he was. Give her a proper reason to feel unsafe with him. If he kept being this good to her, there was nothing to do but get attached. And she didn’t want to see how that ended.

But failing that, she would channel all her stupid, gooey feelings into something she could handle: good old-fashioned lust.

“No,” she said softly. “I think I will.”

With that, she sank to her knees in front of him.

Wick’s tail swished uncertainly. “What are you doing?”

“Guess.” She unknotted his loincloth, rubbing the material between her fingers. It was surprisingly clean for someone who slept in a nest.

The loincloth fell to the grass. Wick’s cock was half-hard against his thigh, and Briar was a little smug at his fast reaction.

“But,” Wick said, his tail swishing anxiously. “We’ve already?—”

He cut off with a groan as she took his cock in his hand. She stroked it and watched it plump up under her touch. Her cunt tingled, still wet with his come.

Not now,she told it.

She stroked faster. His cock rose, but it didn’t rise very far. It was too heavy to stand up against his stomach. The ridges were thick against her fingers, red and puffy.

Briar’s mouth watered. She was still faintly appalled at herself for being attracted to a Skullstalker, a creature they used to scare children into behaving. But a nice cock was a nice cock,no matter what species it was attached to. And no matter how much it would make her jaw ache.

She tucked her wet hair behind her ears and leaned in, sliding her tongue through his slit.

Pre-come burst on her tongue, salty and bitter. She grinned and lapped it up.

Wick let out a low rumble. His hands clenched at his sides.

Briar huffed a laugh and pulled away. “You can touch my hair. Just don’t push or pull me, or I’ll bite.”

She clicked her teeth together.

Wick nodded determinedly. Both his hands slid into her hair, his claws brushing her scalp. They were only half retracted, and Briar found she liked the light scrape.

She sucked the head into her mouth. Wick’s hips jerked, his claws tightening in her hair.

Briar thought about pulling away and giving him another warning. But then he stilled, and Briar continued.

She liked knowing he was holding himself back. That he wanted her so badly he couldn’t control himself, but he was forcing himself not to take it all.

The necklace glowed comfortingly between her damp breasts. Briar pulled back to give the tip of his cock a kiss and then sunk deeper, bobbing her head properly. She could barely fit her lips around him; forget about getting him into her throat. But he kept making small, shocked grunts like it was the best he’d ever had.

Briar let herself sink into the rhythm of it. But her jaw was already starting to ache, spit dripping down her chin from how wide she was stretched.

She pulled off reluctantly. Wick’s hips jerked again, and his slick cockhead slid against her cheek.

“Eager,” she said breathily.

“Sorry.” Wick squeezed his eyes shut, but not in time to hide the pulsing fires in his eyes. He was shaking like she had taken him whole, not barely making it past the head.