Page 26 of Moist!

chapter three

MIA

“I am,” the deep voice answers cryptically from the shadowy direction of the wall of foliage. “Now, continue with what you were doing.”

I try to stand to get a better look at who is hidden in the green, but vines wrap around my wrists and ankles, and I’m yanked back down to my hands and knees in the grass.

“What the hell?” I tug and pull at my wrists, but the vines hold firm. “Who are you? Show yourself!”

I yank on the plants as hard as I can, all my muscles clenching, my pelvic floor engaged so each movement makes me more aware of the orgasm I stopped myself from having.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I’m stuck and horny.

Panic races through me, and I use all my strength trying to tear through the vines, attempting to throw my arms up and kick my legs back.

I go wild trying to roll to my side and out of the plant’s grip, but the vines hold me upright.

I’m panting and sweating, my grip slipping on the grass in front of me, and the vines have no problem letting me fall flat on my face with my ass up to whoever is hiding out behind me.

“Calm yourself,” the voice repeats, closer now.

“Easy for you to fucking say!” When I turn my head, twisting to finally see, the giant slab of leaves, vines, and flowers is moving towards me. The form of a body slowly begins to take shape as the figure moves out of the shadows.

A swamp monster , I realize.

I read about Strange creatures like him in Dru’s books.

They protect the land, like the Celaelai protect the oceans or the shifters care for their territories.

I’d met shifters before, and at least one Celaelai, but I’d only seen illustrations of his kind, and they don’t compare to seeing him in the green leafy flesh.

The swamp monster has impossibly broad shoulders and a strong chest seemingly made of twisted vines and leaves, but somehow, it’s solid too.

Pecs and abs are formed from the plant matter, strong thighs rising from his trunk like calves.

He looks like he lifts, but maybe that's just how swamp monsters are made.

His arms are as thick as logs, his palms wide as his fingers stretch into vines.

Beneath me, the grass brushes the tender flesh of my arms and legs, and more vines, his vines , move up my inner thighs. They feel so cool on my warm skin, the delicate tendrils of the tips stroking over me. My eyelids drift closed for just a second.

I choke back a soft moan and force my eyes open to see the monster has moved in front of me, his body looming over mine as he blocks out the pale pink light of the sunset.

From my stuck position, it hurts to crane my neck up to look at him, and instead, my gaze rests on the pillowy firmness of his chest.

“You’re so big,” I gasp. He’s like an Evergreen or a giant Sequoia or whatever type of tree grows in the swamp… A tree I’d like to climb.

The monster is a towering wall of foliage, so big, he puts my six foot three inches to shame. He’s so massive, my face would nestle perfectly in the dark green shadow of his muscular pecs, his thick arms swallowing me whole. His vines would caress my back like they’ve touched my legs now.

What would it feel like to have them move over my ass?

Once, I flew halfway across the country to surprise a man who said he missed me, only to have his live-in girlfriend greet me at the front door.

Another time, I skipped a final exam to go out with a guy I matched with online.

Now, I’m holding back moans with a monster because I like the feel of his leaves.

I’m lusting after a bush— a jacked bush.

The problem is, my pussy overrides reason in the hope of finally getting off.

I’m still new to spellwork, but I should’ve at least put a protection spell on my clit before I left LA, because the vines at my wrists and ankles brush so soothingly over my skin, I don’t want them to stop.

I’m the problem. I yank at my plant bindings that have wrapped further up my arms and tease the inside of my thighs. I make bad, terrible, horrible choices. I can’t seem to ? —

“Stop!” the monster roars, halting my careening thoughts.

I freeze, slowly registering he can’t read my mind. What is he talking about?

“You have me tied up! What the hell am I supposed to stop doing?” I yell back incredulously from my position on all fours. “What the hell are you doing to me?”

“Whatever you are thinking, witch, stop right now.” His deep voice is calm and even as he stands still as a soldier above me, his eyes the most vivid shade of violet, seeming to glow brighter as he speaks.

It’s almost enough to distract me from the fact that a swamp monster is holding me hostage.

He adds, “It is too strong. You are harming the swamp.”

“My thoughts are hurting the swamp? My thoughts ?” I jerk my head side to side, looking for the damage I caused, but the swamp is still and quiet. “I’m not an energy witch, and I haven’t even been practicing long! I couldn’t hurt anything. I’m a divination witch, and I can’t even do that right.”

As I say it out loud, the pain of my inadequacy strikes me firmly in the chest.

“Yes, your thoughts and emotions are seeping into the land. You are a witch. Good at magic or not, your Strangeness only increases its intensity.”

The monster is too fucking calm, too at ease with the bizarreness of it all.

In the few years of honing my powers, Dru never once told me my energy could affect my environment— shit, she did talk about the unique life force of the Strange once.

I remember I was staring at my phone, trying to juggle a rotation of online prospects, when she said something .

It was something important, I know that, but it was also right after things ended with my ex. I just wanted to feel good again.

More of my bad choices.

“That.” The monster points a thick green finger down at me, a vine suddenly sprouting from the tip to tap my forehead. His eyes glow extra bright with curiosity. “The sky should be filled with fireflies right now, but they are hiding because of your thoughts. What are you thinking about?”

I’m thinking about my terrible love life, I realize. It’s always my fucking love life.

“Of fucking course.” My body jumps and shakes with sudden laughter. “My lack of orgasms has brought on the downfall of an entire ecosystem!”

I didn’t mean to say it out loud, and my face heats in embarrassment.

“Yes.” He nods firmly, his muscular arms with coiled foliage crossed over his chest. He stares down at me like a disapproving sergeant. “Precisely. You must have orgasms then.”

“Goddess, you don’t sugarcoat it, do you?” I yank back against the binds and find more vines and more leaves have sprouted beneath me, more touching me.

My face feels like it’s on fire. Even worse, my body responds to the monster's deep voice talking about my pleasure. And with me bound in front of him, primed from my workout… I need to get out of here now .

“I am not Goddess. I am Creature,” he says so earnestly, I stop my struggling. Registering what he said, I burst out into more hysterical laughter.

“What? No, I just… I wasn’t calling you… Never mind. It’s just Creature?”

“Yes, just Creature.” His light purple eyes seem to soften as he looks down at me. “And you are called?’

“Mia,” I answer, finally recovering from the laughter and determined to make it through this conversation with as much dignity as I can salvage. “My name is Mia. ”

This is too civil, too bizarre. My lack of a decent sex partner has a Strange monster holding me hostage, and we are exchanging names.

“Okay.” Creature nods. “I can give you what you need, and I can put the swamp back to rights. I will fix you, Mia.”

“You’re going to fix me?” I try to hold on to the last threads of my self-respect the best I can while stuck on all fours, but he’s one more person telling me what he wants and not asking what I need.

My grip seems to be failing. “I’m not a problem to solve.

My…orgasms, or lack of them , are not your problem. ”

“You’re a problem in my swamp.” He steps forward, his body emitting a cool breeze in the moist heat of the swamp. “I feel what my swamp feels, and your anxious energy is so loud, you might as well have been screaming?—”

“You think because you watched me workout —like a creeper, by the way —and maybe sensed I was a little stressed?—”

“The herons are quiet, the toads aren’t eating…”

“Just because you feel my stress doesn’t mean you know how to fix me. I don’t need fixing.”

He starts to speak again, and I cut him off before he gets a word out.

“I can fix myself. What I need is for people to listen.” My yelling rant morphs into a muttering diatribe. I’m just so tired. “If you all could just listen to me, I’d tell you what I want?—”

A heavy leaf slaps at the sensitive mound of my pussy, and I moan. Even through the layers of spandex shorts and panties, a shock wave of need pulses through my core. My body stills. I want to hold on to the sensation as long as I can.

“Does the pleasure help you?” he asks matter-of-factly then drops down onto his haunches in front of me.

My eyes are wide in shock, and I can’t seem to lie.

Lie, dammit, lie.

“Yes, it helps.” I nod and swallow hard. And if he doesn’t do it again, I’m going to scream