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My exhalations glide against his jaw. “Consideration,” I whisper. “Significance.”

“Passion,” he insists. “Stimulation.”

“Restraint.”

“Rhapsody.”

“Prove it.”

“Show me.”

We stand on a precipice, at the center of this enclosure. I don’t know what’s happening, but I know this: I don’t want to leave.

We swallow, draw in air, and shove it out. My sweater flutters against his abdomen, but I do this: I press nearer, permitting, craving.

More, closer, now.

Puck’s hands slide into my hair, clasping my scalp in his palms. A guilty thought sits on his face, and that same thought penetrates to the marrow of my bones: This is wrong.

This is so very wrong.

Our bodies slam together. And the satyr sinks his mouth into mine.

21

I had expected a kiss to make sense. I had expected it to be gradual, beginning with a prologue—perhaps an introductory peck. I had expected it to be methodical, something taught and learned. I had expected the kiss to be…expected.

What I hadn’t expected was for this kiss to be a departure from consciousness. All body and soul. All hands and mouths. All taste and motion. All of it, proseful. This isn’t a step taken, nor is it paced, but a wild leap into the fire.

Those wicked lips slant and fuse with mine. We fit together, our mouths folding in unison. He pries our lips apart, a humid blast of air colliding. I gasp at the temperature and flavor of it, balmy and gingered.

His fingers tangle in my locks, the heat of his palms radiating to the rest of my body. My flesh turns into kindling, then whips into an inferno, flames crackling.

The contact knocks me off my bare feet with the force of a quake, the earth shattering beneath us. I grab ahold of his waist for balance, my fingers digging into the leather.

At my touch, Puck shudders. A guttural hum vibrates from his throat and slips between my teeth. At the sound, an inarticulate noise spills from my own mouth.

And then his tongue sweeps between my lips.

My head dissolves into mist. He laps against me in a dizzying rhythm, pitching in and out. In and out. In and out. In and out. And oh, he tastes of forests and mischief.

His kiss spreads me wide, somehow impacting me everywhere, from my mouth to the slot between my legs. Both wet, both getting wetter by the second. I feel it there, and there, andthere. My belly swoops with each swat of his tongue, another incomprehensible sound ripping from my throat. It ricochets across my tongue and travels to his. My fingers go rogue, knifing through his red layers and pulling on the roots. I need him closer, deeper.

Not enough. More.

Inhaling through my nostrils, I fill myself with the scandalous aromas of cloves and pine. Beneath the sweater, my nipples stiffen. My bust mashes against his naked torso, our hearts battering one another. The savage tempo causes my knees to liquefy.

Before this moment, I’d have assumed such a response would render me weak, reduce me to a damsel spirited away in the arms of a rakish satyr. Instead, the effect is empowering, primal.

My fingers feel indulgent, my thighs decadent, my mouth greedy. My body’s a reckless, rebellious thing.

Sensations I hadn’t known existed spring from my pores. Fuses ignite. Smoke curls through my blood. I’m a blaze, thrashing from its confines. He’s the earth, fueling me to burn higher, brighter.

My arms sling around his neck, clinging for leverage. Then I match his cadence, lashing my tongue with his.

The satyr groans, long and needy. His fingers drag from my hair, one arm slinging around my lower back, the other clamping my head in place.

Our mouths are restless, hectic. Puck licks into me, over and over. His tongue thrusts against mine with deft strokes. I sketch the base of his antlers, then descend to the tips of his ears, thumbing the peaks.