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I had a second to admire the smoothness of his chest and abdomen, the flexing muscles and path of blond hair running into the band of his pants. He was built like a shield, broad and solid.

Aire pitched the shirt to the floor, then grabbed my face and took my lips again. I keened into his mouth, lost in the tempo and taste of him.

I felt myself being lifted, swept into his arms, and carried to the bed. Another first for me. With any other boy, I would have rolled my eyes.

With Aire, I didn’t. Instead, my throat closed around a forbidden, terrifying emotion.

The fire in the background swayed as he lowered me onto the mattress, my head gently hitting a pillow. I reached out for him, and he came in a rush, his weight settling between my legs. Pinning my wrists over my head, he kissed me swiftly, then dove in for my neck.

He sucked on me there, on the sensitive crook at my shoulder. My head lurched into the pillow, a moan spilling from my mouth. The sound encouraged him to do it again, to trail his tongue over my neck, to drag his mouth to the neckline of my nightdress, then lower, lower, to my breasts. Over the material, heat and moisture soaked through as his lips closed around a peak and drew me into him.

My whole body undulated. I cried nonsense, pleading for him to—I didn’t know what. My hips bucked, feeling his hardness, feeling what my noises did to him.

Gently, he shackled my wrists back onto the bed and kept going, his mouth on my breasts, and I couldn’t say what it felt like to sweat, nor for blood to flow through my limbs, but I imagined it was something like this.

His mouth returned to mine, and it felt endless and immediate and wonderful. Such a radiant kiss that my eyes stung, no matter how hard I tried to hold the tears back. An honest weakness.

Aire peeled the straps of the nightdress, the garment sliding down my body, whispering over my woodskin. This was my third time, but so many things were new. For one, those other romps happened with my clothes on, my skirts raised.

I’d never been naked in front of a man.

As long as I kept my eyes on Aire, I wouldn’t cower or squirm. I wouldn’t hide myself. I wouldn’t ignore the nervousness.

I wanted to know all the corners of this moment, the fearful and the incredible.

I wanted him to see me.

The material floated to the floor. I gulped, waiting as that beautiful gaze dipped, tracing my body, the flecks of woodgrain, the fastenings and trimmings, the malleable arches and solid joints, the nicks where I’d forgotten to give myself a polish, the hairlessness.

But still, overall, the bare shape of a woman.

I didn’t need his approval, but I did want his affection.

His voice soared. “You are a vision.”

I couldn’t help myself. I vaulted toward him and seized his mouth, teetering us backward on the mattress. He caught me and held on, balancing us upright.

I straddled him, my hair falling over his shoulders as we kissed. I loved the graze of my bare breasts against his chest, our arms entwining. Skin on skin.

He touched me everywhere, his fingers sketching, setting me aflame.

“What is this?” he asked, his thumb dashing across my bust, across the enclosure that I’d built to store away the acorn.

I wavered. “It’s my heart.”

He accepted this with a smile before bending over to place a chaste peck there. Right there, he kissed my secret, my half-truth, my half-lie.

He didn’t ask to see it. If he had, I would have said it was sensitive like an organ, but maybe he’d already assumed as much. Also, he simply believed me.

I wanted to weep, wanted to shout. I wanted him toknow.

Instead, I shared as much as I could with him. I kissed his own pounding heartbeat, his body shuddering in response.

My hands moved to his pants, undoing the closure. He hurried to help me, both of us tugging at the bindings. Aire shuffled back and stood to disrobe, removing his pants and exhibiting glorious flesh, the toned cliffs of his body flushing. The stacks of sinew and muscle. The slopes of his pelvic bones.

Andthatpart. That part rising for me.

Outside, branches scraped the windows. Inside, fire seared the logs in the grate, and the bed creaked as he returned to me, climbing on top of me. The weight of him felt safe, absolute. We aligned ourselves, my thighs steepled around his waist, my limbs slung over his hips.