Page 116

For some reason, this gives me pause. However, Puck just admires the depiction fondly, then ushers me into the kitchen. Apple and onion bushels stand beneath a vine of sausage links hanging from the ceiling. In addition to the wood stove—wrought from some obsidian element native to this land—a cauldron squats in the belly of another fireplace. Crockery clutters the exposed shelves, and an island presides in the room’s center, along with a pair of stools.

Puck extracts potatoes and carrots from the larder. I sit on a stool and watch him putter about. “Behold: Satyrs can cook.”

“This satyr can.” He flips a peppermill in his hand. “I can cook, spice, and grind.”

He waggles his brows. An undignified snigger hops up my throat, about to skip across my tongue like a stone. But instead of letting it out, I roll my eyes. However, Puck’s cavalier smile indicates he knows I’m struggling to hold back.

It isn’t long before I march to his side and judge the amount of salt and herbs he uses for a stew recipe. He tries to shoo me away, but I examine the assortment of ingredients and declare, “That’s too much” and “That’s too little.”

“Bossy woman,” he says.

“I’ll have you know, I’m a fine baker back home. My family loves my pies.”

“I’ll bet I would, too,” Puck flirts. “But we’re not baking.”

We’ll see about that. This menu requires an addition.

We end up cooking together, hovering side by side at the stove. He stirs, I chop. He insists we include an acidic component, declaring it one of the pillars of flavor. And I insist we use measuring spoons.

To thicken the pot, we add extra potatoes, then mix a quick batch of biscuits. Impulsively, Puck flicks granules of flour at my chin. I maintain a blank, deadpan expression. Without missing a beat, and without looking away from my task, I scoop a handful of flour and lob it at his antlers.

And so it goes. By the battle’s end, powdered flecks mottle our clothes and skin, and we’ve gotten flour everywhere.

It takes effort for me to keep a straight face, whereas Puck’s snicker fills the room, and my temperature rises from the sound. It takes even more effort to control myself when he pins me against the counter and seizes my mouth in a hot, flour-coated kiss.

This feels effortless, normal. The cabin feels like a home, especially with him here.

After cleaning up, we feast on the stew, Puck watching me lap fluid from my spoon. Based on the way he chokes his own utensil, it’s a wonder I don’t find myself sprawled on the island.

We pull ourselves together long enough to eat and talk. Settled on the stools, our conversation jumps from one topic to the next, mostly about the animals of my world and his.

The sprawling comes later, when talking segues to touching, then to fondling, then to more kissing. Thrusting his arm across the countertop, Puck swipes our dishes to the floor and hauls me out of the seat. Ceramics clatter and roll across the planks as he deposits me on the island and drapes me across its surface. He hunches over, his lips seizing mine, his hips grinding between my legs.

Our pelvises rub through the clothes. In that position, we don’t last long. I’m halfway to a climax when Puck lifts me into his arms, my limbs hooking around him. The top floor is the loft where he sleeps. I barely have time to register his cello case propped in a corner and the bed covered in furs before we’re stripping one another.

Minutes later, I’m moaning into the mattress. Divested of everything but my sweater, I rest on my stomach while Puck’s naked torso bends over me from behind. My backside pitches into the air as his length thrusts inside, his hips slinging into the apex of my thighs. He calls out my name, and I call out his, my walls squeezing him to the hilt.

Like this, always like this.

He rides me into the blankets, the bed jostling, until I’ve unleashed to the point of hoarseness. Then he lets himself go, hauling me upright and driving his shaft high. The firm crown lunges inside me, stroking out and then striking back in. Rolling my bottom into his pelvis, I reach back and cling to his nape, astonished cries still vaulting from my mouth.

And like this, I bring him down for a kiss. And like this, I taste his release.

Lying in a tangle of arms and limbs afterward, we whisper tired things that make no sense. Puck gathers me to him and nuzzles my throat, making it his mission to draw a laugh from me. “Look at you, thoroughly fucked and pleasured, all relaxed and radiant and—” he kisses me, “—alive.”

We mumble until my eyes drift shut, aware of what’s happening before tumbling into a well of peaceful black. Finally, we sleep.

***

When I come to, the brink of dawn floods the room, splotching the walls and blankets. We’ve been unconscious for hours. Along with the languid shades of early morning, candlelight from the oak branches pours through the windows.

Puck rests on his side, lost in oblivion while his arm links around my midriff. Curled into him, I count the white freckles speckling his nose.

“Look at you,” I whisper. “All mischievous and merry. For all that, such a deep dreamer.”

Thus far, he hasn’t questioned my desire to keep at least one article of clothing on while having sex, nor has he pressed me to be fully nude with him.

Part of me wants him to ask. Part of me dreads that he will.