Chapter 7: Riverbank Reunion
The week of separation had been a deliberate cruelty, one Eris had orchestrated with cold precision. Council meetings, border disputes, the tedious pageantry of the Autumn Court—all necessary distractions that kept him from returning to the cabin, from returning to her. He told himself it was to test his own resolve, to see if the gnawing, obsessive pull she exerted would fade with distance. It didn’t. It festered.
He winnowed into the clearing as twilight stained the sky with deep purple and amber. The cabin was dark, the air silent save for the constant, whispering rush of the river. A flicker of disappointment, sharp and acidic, cut through him. He’d hoped, irrationally, that she would be waiting.
He stepped onto the porch, the old wood groaning under his weight. He was about to push the door open when a movement at the river’s edge caught his eye.
She was wading out of the water, her back to him. The fading sun gilded the droplets on her skin, turning them to liquid gold as they slid down the delicate knobs of her spine, the full curve of her ass, the long lines of her thighs. She was utterly naked, her hair a wet, dark rope down her back. She moved with a newfound, unselfconscious grace, as if the wilderness and the water had seeped into her bones.
She didn’t know he was there.
Eris leaned against the porch post, arms crossed, and watched. He let the sight of her—the water beading on her pale skin, the slight shiver as the evening air touched her—wash over him, a balm and a brand. The possessive clench in his gut was instantaneous, visceral. Mine.
She turned, finally, reaching for a towel she’d left on a mossy rock. She saw him and froze, one arm crossed over her breasts, a reflex that lasted only a second. Her hand dropped. She stood tall, letting him look.
“You’re back,” she said. Her voice was steady, but he saw the rapid flutter of her pulse in her throat.
“I am.”
A week of silence stretched between them, filled with the river’s murmur and the rustle of the pines. The marks he’d left on her—the bite on her shoulder, the faint shadows of bruises on her hips—had faded to soft yellows and greens. The sight of them, his proof on her skin, sent a raw thrill through him.
She didn’t approach. She simply stood there, water pooling at her feet on the smooth stones, and looked at him. The challenge was back in her eyes, tempered by something softer, more knowing. She had tasted his darkness and hadn’t run. It changed everything.
He pushed off the post and walked down to the riverbank. His boots crunched on the gravel. He stopped a foot from her, the chill of the water-scented air a sharp contrast to the heat rolling off her body.
“You survived a week alone,” he observed, his eyes tracing a droplet’s path from her collarbone down to her nipple. It puckered under his gaze.
“I’m resourceful,” she said, a small smile playing on her lips. “I found your wine cellar.”
“You drank my 300-year-old faewine?”
“I drank some of it. I also read your books. Your taste in poetry is surprisingly sentimental.”
He ignored the jab, his focus narrowing to her mouth, then lower. “Did you miss me?”
She took a step forward, closing the distance. The scent of river water and wild mint clung to her skin. “I missed the way you look at me,” she said softly. “Like you’re deciding whether to devour me or worship me.”
“It’s always both,” he breathed.
Her hands came up, slow and deliberate, to the buttons of his tunic. Her fingers were cool from the river. She didn’t look away from his face as she worked the first button free, then the next, exposing his chest to the cool evening. Her touch was a brand.
When the tunic was open, she pressed her palm flat against his sternum, over his heart. His skin jumped under her cold hand. “Your heart’s racing,” she whispered.
He caught her wrist, his grip firm. “Yours isn’t?”
Before she could answer, he saw the shift in her eyes. The teasing glint hardened into pure, defiant intent. She dropped to her knees in the moss at his feet.
The air left his lungs in a quiet rush. She looked up at him, her gaze unwavering, and her hands went to the laces of his trousers. She didn’t fumble. Her movements were sure, practiced from memory. She freed his cock, already thick and hardening under her direct attention.
“Lilly,” he warned, his voice a low strain.
She ignored him. She leaned forward, her breath a warm ghost over the head, and then, without further preamble, she took him into her mouth.
It wasn’t a tentative exploration. It was a claiming. Her lips stretched around his girth, and she took him deep, her throat opening to accept him until his cock hit the back of her mouth. A low, hungry moan vibrated through her, around him, and the sensation was so brutally intense his knees nearly buckled. Her eyes watered, but she held his gaze, a dare shining in the tears.
She pulled back, her tongue laving the sensitive underside, then sank down again, deeper this time. Her hands gripped his hips, her nails biting through the fabric of his trousers, holding him in place as she began to move. She set a relentless rhythm, her head bobbing, her mouth a hot, wet, perfect fist of pleasure. She used her tongue, swirling the tip, tracing the vein, sucking hard on the upstroke. The filthy, wet sounds she made were obscenely loud in the twilight quiet.
“Fuck,” he gritted out, his own hands tangling in her damp hair. He didn’t push, didn’t guide. He just held on, his knuckles white, as she worked him with a single-minded purpose that shattered his famous control. She was worshiping and devouring him, just as she’d said.
She looked up at him, his cock sliding past her lips, glistening with her saliva. “You taste like power,” she husked, before diving down again, taking him so deep he saw stars.
He was close, too close. The sight of her on her knees, her beautiful mouth stretched around him, the memory of her in shackles, the feel of her icy tightness around his fingers—it coalesced into a white-hot knot at the base of his spine. He wouldn’t come in her mouth. Not like this. Not their first time in a week.
With a growl that was nearly a snarl, he hauled her up by her arms. She gasped as her feet found the ground, her lips swollen and wet.
“Turn around,” he commanded, his voice ragged.
She turned, presenting the smooth plane of her back, the curve of her ass still glistening with river water. He didn’t bother with his trousers. He kicked them down just enough to free himself. He wrapped one arm around her waist, pulling her back against his chest, his other hand pushing between her legs.
She was soaked. Slick heat greeted his fingers. She’d been aroused the entire time, working him with her mouth. The knowledge drove him feral.
He positioned himself at her entrance, the broad head of his cock nudging against her. “You wanted to see what you do to me?” he rasped in her ear. “Feel it.”
He drove into her in one savage, deep thrust. She cried out, a sharp sound swallowed by the forest, as he filled her completely. She was tight, so fucking tight, her body clamping around him like a vise. He didn’t give her a moment to adjust. He pulled back and slammed into her again, setting a brutal, pounding pace right there on the mossy riverbank.
His arm banded across her stomach, holding her secure against him as he fucked her. His other hand slid up to clamp over her mouth, muffling her cries. “Let them hear,” he grunted, each thrust jolting through both of them. “Let the trees bear witness.”
She was meeting him thrust for thrust, pushing back against him, her ass slapping against his hips. The sounds were crude, primal: skin on wet skin, their ragged breaths, his guttural groans against her ear.
He moved the hand from her mouth down to her clit, rubbing rough, quick circles. She shattered instantly, her body convulsing around his cock, her internal muscles milking him in pulsing waves. Her climax tipped him over the edge. With a final, deep plunge, he buried himself to the hilt and came, his release pumping into her in hot, endless spurts. He held her there, locked together, as he pulsed inside her, his teeth set against the curve of her shoulder.
For a long moment, the only sounds were the river and their struggling breaths. Slowly, he softened and slipped from her body. He turned her to face him, his hands cupping her face. She was flushed, beautiful, utterly ruined. He kissed her, deep and lingering, tasting himself on her lips.
He picked her up, cradling her against his chest, and carried her towards the cabin. “You’re a menace,” he muttered, his lips against her hair.
She nestled into him, a soft, satisfied hum in her throat. “You left me alone for a week. I had to make an impression.”
He shouldered the cabin door open. The fire he’d lit with a thought blazed in the hearth, warming the room. He laid her on the thick fur rug before it and sank down beside her, propped on an elbow, tracing idle patterns on her damp stomach.
“The impression,” he said quietly, watching the firelight play over her skin, “is that I am well and truly fucked.”
She turned her head to look at him, her expression serious. “Good.”
He stared into the flames, her warmth a solid line against his side. The obligations of his court, the scheming, the constant, wearying power plays—they all waited for him in the world beyond this river. For now, they were just ghosts. Here, there was only her breath, the crackle of the pine logs, and the terrifying, unshakable truth taking root in his chest.
He had thought he was keeping her. He was wrong. She was keeping him, and the leash she held was one he had no desire to chew through. He pulled her closer, tucking her under his chin, and said nothing more as the night deepened around them.
He pulled her closer, tucking her under his chin, and said nothing more as the night deepened around them. The fire popped, sending a shower of embers up the chimney. She traced the line of a scar that cut across his ribs, a relic from a conflict he never discussed.
“This one,” she said, her voice drowsy. “How?”
“A displeased emissary from Spring,” he murmured, his fingers stroking her arm. “He had a knife. I had less patience.”
She lifted her head, her eyes searching his in the flickering light. “Do you ever get tired of it? The scheming, the violence?”
He held her gaze, the answer forming truthfully before he could filter it. “It is the only language my court understands.” His thumb brushed her lower lip. “Until you.”
The simplicity of the statement hung between them. He hadn’t meant to say it. Her eyes widened, and she kissed him, a soft, sinking kiss that tasted of faewine and forgiveness. It stoked a different kind of heat, slower but deeper, an ember fanned back into flame.
Her hand drifted down his stomach, past the waistband of his trousers, which he’d only pulled up loosely. She found him already hard again. A low laugh escaped her, warm against his neck. “Insatiable.”
“You are a catalyst,” he said, rolling to pin her beneath him. The fur was soft against her back. He kissed her throat, her jaw, claiming her mouth with a lingering possessiveness. This time, the urgency was tempered by something darker, more deliberate.
He entered her slowly, watching every flicker on her face as he stretched her, filled her. The glide was slick, effortless. She wrapped her legs high around his waist, heels locking at the small of his back. He set a deep, grinding rhythm, each roll of his hips dragging against a spot that made her breath catch.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice thick.
Her eyes, glassy with pleasure, found his. He held the stare as he fucked her, the connection more intimate than the joining of their bodies. He could see the moment her pleasure began to coil, a tightening at the corners of her eyes, a parting of her lips.
“Not yet,” he whispered, slowing his pace, drawing it out unbearably.
She whimpered, her hips chasing his retreat. “Eris, please.”
He withdrew completely, ignoring her cry of protest. He flipped her onto her stomach with a firm hand. “On your knees.”
She moved for him, the firelight painting gold across the sweep of her spine, the curves of her ass. He knelt behind her, his hands gripping her hips, and pushed back inside. The angle was deeper, more punishing. He fucked her like this, his thrusts hard and measured, filling the quiet cabin with the sound of their bodies.
“This is what I thought about,” he gritted out, each word a pant. “In those damned council chambers. This. Your perfect cunt taking me. The sounds you make.”
He leaned over her, blanketing her body with his, one hand tangling in her hair. He turned her face towards him, kissing her deeply as he continued to move inside her. The dual sensations overwhelmed her; he felt her climax begin to pulse around him, a fluttering, sweet tension.
He broke the kiss. “No. My turn.”
He pulled out again, his cock glistening. He lay back on the fur, his head propped against a cushion. His expression was sheer, unadulterated command. “You take what you want. Show me.”
She understood. A fierce, bright light ignited in her eyes. She moved over him, straddling his hips. Her hands planted on his chest for balance as she guided him inside, sinking down with a slow, controlled roll that made them both gasp. She was so wet, so tight, her body a slick, hot glove around him.
She began to move, finding a rhythm, her head falling back. Her breasts swayed, nipples taut. He watched her, his hands settling on her thighs, feeling the muscles work. “That’s it,” he urged, his voice a dark scrape. “Use me.”
She did.
SHE RIDES HARDER.
Her movements shifted from rhythm to desperation, her hips pistoning, driving him up into her with a force that was almost violent. The slap of skin grew frantic, percussive. She fucked him with a wild, grinding abandon, taking her pleasure from his body, her cries short and sharp. Her hair stuck to her sweaty skin.
“Is this what you wanted?” she panted, her eyes blazing down at him. Her inner muscles clenched around him, a vicious, milking pressure. “To watch me come apart on your cock?”
“Yes.” The word was a punch of air. His control was atomizing under her assault. His hips arched to meet her plunges, driving even deeper. “Now. Come now.”
It was an order she was already obeying. A shattered scream tore from her as her orgasm ripped through her, her body seizing, clenching around him in relentless waves. The visual, the sensation—it was too much. His own release detonated, a blinding surge that had him shouting, his fingers digging bruises into her hips as he emptied himself inside her.
She collapsed forward, her body slick with sweat, her heart hammering against his. He held her there, spent, his own breath ragged in his ears. The fire crackled, the only sound for a long while.
When she finally stirred, she slid off him, curling into his side. His arm came around her automatically. The smell of sex and woodsmoke was thick in the air.
“The icicles were worse,” she mumbled into his chest after a moment, a tired, smug note in her voice.
A startled laugh burst from him, rough and genuine. He pressed his lips to her hair. “Noted.”
They lay in silence, but the world outside the cabin walls began to press in again. He thought of the report waiting on his desk, the unfinished business with a mercenary band in the eastern woods. His father’s summons. The delicate, poisonous ecosystem of the Autumn Court required constant tending.
Lilly’s breathing evened into sleep. He stared at the ceiling beams, the pleasant exhaustion in his limbs now threaded with a cold, familiar dread. This was a stolen interlude. A fantasy. The reality of what she was—a human from another world, with no court, no political value, no understanding of the centuries-old hatreds that fueled his life—meant this could not last.
He could not keep her in a cabin forever. And he could not bring her into his world without getting her killed. The thought was a blade twisted in a fresh wound. His arm tightened around her. She sighed in her sleep.
Outside, an owl called. A branch scraped against the roof. The sounds were no longer peaceful. They were a countdown.