Page 9 of Velvet Folds (Velvet)

Chapter 9

In which our heroine gives our hero her nights

Adrik’s shadow passes over me while I am shoulder deep in a clump of lake turnips. The wooden walk I crafted years ago holds me out of the muck but when I pull the bulbous fruiting bodies of the lake turnips from their soupy resting place, those boards creak with wear. I will have to replace them sooner rather than later.

But that is a daylight task.

The ground shakes as Adrik falls from the sky, landing in the meadow behind me as I rinse off the last of tonight’s harvest… and my arm too.

Carefully walking back along the planks—the lake is too cold to risk falling in—I smile up at him before placing the lake turnips in the basket with the rest of my harvest.

“What are they for?”

“Some eat the leaves, others make tea from the stalks… the fruit has a meaty taste, and one of the women in the village likes to dry them. It turns the bulb at the bottom into a rattle toy for the children.”

He takes my hand, pressing a kiss to my palm. “Did you cultivate them, or do they grow wild?”

“They were here before I was, but I’ve managed to keep them both healthy and from taking over the lake.”

“Do you need to take them somewhere?”

“No, they’ll keep til morning.” They only require a night harvest because the bulbs sink below the water, shying away from the sunlight.

“Good.” He sweeps me up into his arms and kisses me. When he draws back, it’s with a growl. Then, as if to distract himself, he says, “There used to be a vodyanoy in this lake.”

“I know. If it was still here, I wouldn’t need to thin the weeds.” The creature would have eaten enough of them the outlet would never be blocked.

I look out at the water and remember the story my mother told me a hundred times while growing up… about the man who killed the creature… the man she’d found floating, half drowned… the creature had taken his sight and she had made him promise to never hunt another monster again… if she helped him heal.

My father’s eyesight never recovered, but he had kept his word… it was the only promise he ever kept for my mother.

By itself it wasn’t enough to make her stay.

“What brought this melancholy to your face?”

“My mother used to tell me stories. Thinking of the past is never a happy endeavor.”

“Is she gone?”

“No, she lives about twenty miles east of here… it was as close to my father as she could stand to be.”

I don’t tell Adrik she comes to visit every year or so… I think it’s so that they can throw things at each other and then get drunk while they tell each other how much they hate each other. I leave before I have to hear or witness what comes afterward.

Adrik laughs. “ My mother called the vodyanoy a beast… as though I and my brothers were any less monstrous.”

“You don’t drown children, or eat people.”

He brushes his fingers over my throat. “I feel like I could devour you.”

Humming, I lace my fingers in his. “But I’d like that.”

“Tell me your name.”

He’s promised to stop his man from coming to look for me and I believe him. There’s no reason to keep that from him. “Lucia.”

“A shining name,” he says, inhaling as though knowing my name is a relief. “It’s no wonder your blood burns through me.”

“Do you need to go for a swim to douse those flames,” I ask, teasing.

“Nothing could put those out, sweet sacrifice.”

Adrik turns me around, holding me against him, back to chest and then he leaps into the air, wings carrying us both out over that dark water.

The black water glitters with starlight, broken only by our shadow.

Wind fluttering in my hair, Adrik’s arms wrapped around me, I let the joy of flight push the small tremor of fear away, even as his wings beat, pushing us higher into the sky.

The world is so small below us, I can understand how he might think it would be easy to leave it behind.

He takes me back to his castle and we descend in a spiral to a courtyard I have never seen before.

It’s closer to his vaults and I am glad that no one sees us disappear back beneath the castle.

Tonight, the space is filled with candles. Light and warmth suffuse me and I look at the space that is even larger than I had thought.

Clasping my face in his hands, Adrik turns me away from all of that, kissing me like I’m a lover, long lost.

He lingers on my lips as though he has been deprived for decades, not hours.

I know what he wants and I am happy to give it to him. But first, I want to give him something he hasn’t asked for.

Unlacing my ties and wiggling my dress from my body, I step out of my clothes and shiver as his hands brush down my sides.

When I sink to my knees, he doesn’t stop me. He only mutters my name so softly, it could be mistaken for a prayer.

The tip of his cock peeks out of the opening at his groin, and I trail my fingers along it, looking up for… permission? I’m not sure.

Adrik’s eyes are hooded, his expression soft. But when I stroke him inside of that pocket, his cock is hard.

Toying with him, I don’t tug or yank. I let his cock spring free all on its own and lick my lips when it does.

I’ve felt it and seen it in the dim light of that single candle before, but the full sight of it now…

There is a bulge at the base and a bulb at the tip, almost as if he was made to stay inside of me, no matter how far he’s able to get.

If I had seen it first, I might have cause for concern, but the memory of how he filled me pushes any worries away.

And when I tease my tongue over him, his moan is enough to give me the courage to take anything.

“Take me, Lucia.” He says with a low growl. “I want to see you take me. I want to feel the sweetness of your mouth.”

I plan to give him what he wants, but getting my lips around the bulbous tip is more difficult than I expect.

I’ve never backed away from a challenge, especially not one with a reward I truly desire.

And once I’ve done that, I have to brace my hands on his legs.

The shape of him means I’m only able to take so much of him, but even going as far as I can doesn’t make me gag.

I’m free to take him with abandon, and when his fingers thread through my hair, moving me at his will, I’m able to drop one hand and slick my fingers in my velvet folds. I moan on him when I first touch my needy clit.

His breath shudders, and his grip tightens. “Yes, touch yourself, Lucia. Ready yourself for me.” He presses deep and I hum with desire. “You are mine until sunrise and I plan to take my fill of you.”

I suck harder, pressing his cock into my pallae with my tongue and he curses as his cum floods my mouth. My eyes widen at the sweetness, but I can’t ask until I’ve swallowed him all down and he has eased himself from my lips. And then, I have no chance as he lifts me and takes me to his bed.

“Tell me, sweet sacrifice, why can’t I keep you here?” He presses a kiss to my sternum. “It is where you are meant to be. I knew that the moment I tasted your blood. Fate weaves tight webs and we have been bound together since before the world was made… we just had to find each other.”

They are very pretty words, but, “Fate’s web has woven me to more souls than just yours, my lord. I have daylight commitments I can’t abandon, even if I would like to lay here with you buried inside of me, cock and claw and fang and all…”

He turns me over on top of him, legs spreading mine wide and when he kisses me, it’s not his cock that strokes me. My eyes go wide and he watches my face as his tail—it’s the only possible explanation—presses into my velvet folds.

“Do you want me to stop?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I’m yours, so long as the sky is dark, you may use me as you please.”

Brow raising, he wraps his hand around my throat and my eyes flutter closed for a moment before I can drag them open again.

“I will use you as we please,” he tells me. “Do not think for a moment that I could derive my pleasure from something that gives you none.”

Nodding, I press back, onto his tail and sigh. “I cannot think of a way your body could displease me.”

Kissing me senseless, Adrik uses his tail to keep me perpetually teetering on the edge of my orgasm.

Each time I get close, he eases back, until I bite his lip.

He pulls me back by my hair and the tightness and tension sets my nerves on fire, making me squirm.

“Do you want to come, Lucia?”

Each time he says my name it’s like he’s gotten a treat.

I nod, pulling my hair again and clenching down on him from the sensation. “Yes. Let me come on your tail the way I’ve come on your tongue and cock.”

Growling, he jerks me forward, twisting my head to the side, and when his lips go to my throat, it’s not to bite, but to suck. That tug on the skin of my wounds is so sweet and sharp, I cry out in an instant, shattering over him and then, I scream out in pleasure as—between one thrust and the next—his tail is replaced by his cock and the pressure and the fullness makes me see stars.

Adrik drives up into me as I bear down on him and his teeth brush along my neck.

“I want to keep you forever,” he says as he holds me down tight to him, pressing until a second burst of pressure passes and I am seated tight to him, held by that lower bulge.

He keeps me there, pressed down tightly to him as his abdomen flinches and twitches and he comes deeply inside of me.

“I want to hold you close, and never let you go.”

The desire to let him is dangerous.

Perhaps someday. If my mother returns for good, or my father agrees to move into the village. Perhaps then I could give into the temptation of letting myself be his.

Buried deep within me, Adrik stills, holding me to him, and I know he has no plans to withdraw.

I don’t ask him to.

We lay there for hours.

I spend half of them asleep. He spends all of them inside of me.

He only eases from my velvet folds when he reluctantly tells me that dawn is near.

The candles have burned to stubs and he helps me clean the cum that drips down my legs now that there is nothing keeping it trapped inside me.

But when I have my clothes on again, he pulls me back into his arms.

“I have too strong of a desire to keep you. Fate should not be so cruel.”

“Perhaps fate wished to teach you patience.”

He lets me go when I step away.

“I’ll give you everything I can, Adrik.” Kissing him, I slide back so that he cannot catch me again. “But you’ve forgotten something.”

“What have I forgotten?”

I smile at him and make certain I am at the arch that leads away from the vault, where he won’t be able to catch me before I say, “You haven’t asked me what I want or why I can’t stay.”

I leave him, staring silently after me.