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My focus narrows in on the ones that have slid beneath and behind me, on the one that has turned into a knot of smooth wood and caresses me.

Sometimes, I wonder if the pollen from the flowers that grow in her vine-like hair is an aphrodisiac. But the desire and need, the long wait between opportunities to sneak away … that longing is what makes my knees weak at her first touch and fills me with such lust.

She holds me in her cage-like arms and moves me how she wishes. She doesn’t want me to see the figure she’s formed to hold me this way. My memory supplies a previous version, and Iwould tell her I have always liked stick bugs if she would let me, but she wouldn’t care.

I know why. I know what she fears.

How many times have I had to race back home? How many times was I dragged … But there’s no one coming to steal me away. No reason for me to go back now.

I’m hers.

As soon as she feels safe, I’ll make sure she understands that. For now …

I kiss her and breathe more deeply as her pollen swirls around us. Her twiggy fingers pinch at my nipples and I shift, trying to make her do what I know she’ll only do when she’s decided it’s time.

When I struggle against her hold, she reluctantly releases my hands.

My fingers twist in her long torso, trying to drag her closer to me, even though it is impossible.

I don’t understand the shape she has taken, but I want to. I want to know everything we haven’t had time for before.

Stamping a hoof, I mumble“More” against her lips.

“Let me work up enough sap, impatient woman,” Fyrn laughs as her lips trail across my jaw and she finally pulls back far enough that I can look at her whole face, instead of just the deep glowing yellow of her eyes.

It extends farther than it should, a little like a shield. The protrusions like horns and a mimicry of ears are tucked and tangled in the willow branch hair she’s grown this time.

Fyrn is beautiful in every form she chooses to take. And she’smine.

“You call me impatient, but you didn’t even let me get three steps into your glade.”

She bites her tongue and her knotted hand finally presses into me.

It steals my breath and bows my back.

“I am not impatient. I have been starving for you,” she says. “Can you blame me for needing to water myself with the joy of your orgasms? Can you blame me for wanting to drink in every note of your song, every brighter-than-sunshine ray of your smiles?

“I have been limp with want for you, rootbound with desperate need. Even if I was impatient … How could you or anyone blame me?”

I have to breathe deeper as her fist-like knot pushes further, spreads me wider.

When she withdraws, I let free an irritated snort and she laughs at me. Soft and sly, the sound brushes over my skin.

She is wicked and wild and everything about her makes me want her.

“Please, Fyrn.” I kiss her and let my lips linger before I say. “Love me the way I’ve longed for since the last time I had to leave you.”

Love is something I can feel here without having to keep it secret. Love is something that can bloom instead of being buried deep.

We’ve cultivated that love over seasons and through droughts.

“My sweet centaur.” She sighs against my lips, “I would take root in you if I could. I would grow so deep inside of you that there was nowhere in any of the realms you could go that I would not be with you.”

I open my mouth to tell her I want that, but the words turn to the fractured sound of pleasure as she finally presses into me again.

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