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To say nothing about the feel of him, all taut muscle and polished skin. What will it be like to strip him down and sketch those private contours? Which will be pliable? Which spots will be rigid?

My fingers stray across his waistband, drifting to the buckles at the front. Puck sucks in another gust of oxygen. His mouth parts to speak, but I set my fingers over his lips, afraid he’ll break the spell I have over him.

If he does, I won’t know how to proceed. As it is, I’ve never done this before.

Puck snatches my fingers and curls them into his palm. “No Fae touches like this,” he puffs out.

Wounded, I’m about to reel back and bluster that I’m not a Fae, in case he’s forgotten. But then his voice registers, afflicted and overwhelmed.

Affection confuses satyrs. That’s what Cypress had said.

I comprehend that look of inquisitiveness, of bemusement. I recognize the mystery of inexperience, of not recognizing something and wanting very much to know what that something is.

Puck isn’t discounting or belittling my touch. He’s awed by it, mesmerized by it. For all his vast acquaintance with seduction, the satyr is unaccustomed to this kind of contact.

My fingers sizzle at the tips. I’m not the only one stumbling through this moment.

No Fae touches like this.

“No,” I agree, licking my lips. “But I do. I touch like this.”

As my digits sweep aside a red forelock, he squeezes those eyelids tighter. “And like this,” I say, drawing an experimental line with my pinky across his eyebrow.

“And like this,” I continue, running that finger over his cheekbone and sliding to the edge of his jaw.

Puck’s exhalations grow shallow, becoming thinner. My inhalations reach deep, becoming uneven.

Fire erupts in my belly, spreading from my navel to my toes, to my scalp. I don’t know how to touch a male, have never touched a male, only touched myself, and only once thus far. So I hunt for the right direction, following his reactions like a trail, a route toyes,more,there.

And like this, I explore the cranks of his antlers. They’re hard and smooth like the rest of him must be under those clothes.

And like this, I glide my fingernail along a vein in his arm, down that tributary to his wrist, where his pulse hammers.

And like this, I knit our hands together.

And that’s when his eyes flip open, clarity brightening his mien. “And I touch like this.” His strong arm slings around my middle, hauling me against him. His head slants and dips to my earlobe.

“And this,” he entices, flicking his teeth over the delicate flesh.

I gasp. My arms hook around his shoulders for balance, my nails imprinting his vest collar. The hot scrape of his ivories runs along my ear, teasing the shell until my thoughts melt into putty.

“And this,” he whispers into the canal, his mouth skimming, coaxing.

“And this,” he mutters, those lips parting, latching around the lobe and sucking on it like a disc of butterscotch.

Fables help me. The wet tug of his lips feels so good. My bones go limp, yet my body ignites like dry kindling smoking to life.

Puck pulls back on a ravenous groan—”And like this,” he seethes—and plies my skin with open-mouthed kisses. He scorches a path from the base of my ear, to the trench beneath my jaw, to the column of my neck.

I keen, the sound as chipped as porcelain, on the brink of shattering. I don’t know what’s become of my faculties, but my body doesn’t care. It acts of its own volition, grasping onto him, clinging for mercy’s sake.

My head falls back, the antler crown tumbling to the ground as I grant the satyr access. He nibbles and kisses his way along my clavicles. “And like this,” he hums into the basin, then dabs the spot with that vicious tongue.

Puck alternates between licking and suckling there, his tongue swabbing rhythmically, then his lips suctioning me in, exerting pressure. The backs of my knees thaw, and my flesh pebbles, the foreign sensations rendering me speechless. Where have these avid, physical reactions come from? And where have they been hiding all this time?

I can’t take this. How does anyone take this?

My hands don’t know what to do with themselves. They shoot into his hair, but that’s not right either. I scramble to frame his face, then map out his biceps, then strike back into his waves. My fingers tangle into the threads, making a mess of him. Still, it’s not enough.