FERN

I curled my fingers, inspecting the shape of him. Soft skin. Hard flesh. A trickle of doubt slid into my belly. Were they always this large, or had his grown with the rest of him?

I'd seen one before. In the painting of God creating Adam hanging inside Pastor's office. Pastor's wife caught me staring and shooed me away like I'd done something wrong. Tex was nothing like the painting. More like the summer we bred our stud horse to the neighbor's mare.

Tex stilled my hand. "Hold on." A warning lay beneath the command. The kind one would give a person about to be hit by a car. It almost seemed like that's how it would feel. His lips parted, brows lowered, eyes squeezed shut.

He wanted me to stop when I'd only just started. Instead of doing what he wanted, I did exactly as he'd asked. I held on, gripping tighter to stop him from pulling away. I couldn't give in now. Not when I'd made it this close. "I want you," I said. "Please."

Tex groaned and dropped down, pulling himself free. His eyes seared into mine; our lips almost touched. "Keep it up, and I might just give you what you're asking for."

"Good," I breathed. "I want it all. This. The rest. I want to be yours. I want you to be mine." I ran my hand up his back, relishing the fact that he let me.

He took a heaving breath too harsh to be a sigh. "If things were different, I'd build you a cabin in the middle of goddamn nowhere." He stroked my cheek. "I'd put a baby in your belly, and you'd teach us both about survival." His lips brushed mine as he spoke. His gaze had never been more tender. "I love you, Darlin'. I've never said that to a woman. I've never felt it. I love you so goddamn much, I'd rather die than do wrong by you."

A lump formed inside my throat. I swallowed. "I don't want to die never having had this." I held him tighter, pulling him to me, wishing I were strong enough to keep him there forever. "I have enough regret. I can't carry anymore."

His eyes darted between mine, thoughts racing across his expression, then he kissed me, deep, languid. He kicked his jeans the rest of the way off, then slid his hands beneath my sweater. "I've wanted to take this fucking thing off since I saw you wearing it."

"You don't like it?" The words trembled. My body trembled. It was happening.

He hummed. "You drive me insane." He lifted and undid my pants, pulling them free and shoving them off the edge of the bed. Then he paused and looked at me. "You're like an angel, sent down to make sure I'm good and damn ready to burn." He glanced at my face. "Tell me what you want."

White hot fire pooled into my stomach and spread lower. "I want to do what you've been doing. I want a turn."

Tex chewed his lip, looking like a dog just offered a steak. After a moment's hesitation, he flipped onto his back and lifted his arms above his head. "Alright, then, Darlin'. I'm all yours."

Everything about him was beautiful. Sculpted and adorned by art. It should have been him in the painting. If God were going to make a man, no doubt he'd look like this. Godly. Perfect. Flawed. Tattoos covered his legs, his chest, his arms. A bulldog on his calf. A naked woman on his thigh. Skeletal figures and fire and smoke.

He watched me watch him, tracking my reaction. "It's okay to change your mind."

"I haven't changed my mind." I wanted to see everything. I wanted to touch, and taste, and do for him what he'd been doing for me. I rose to my hands and knees and crawled over him, kissed his neck, his shoulder, lingering over the scar left behind by my arrow, then working my way down with pretend confidence. What if I did it wrong? What if I wasn't any good? I'd always been a hands-on learner, and while Tex had been demonstrating for a week, he hadn't necessarily been teaching. He'd been taking. Giving. Keeping me in the dark.

When I made it below his belly button, Tex gripped the cover on either side of him. His head pressed backward into the pillow as I ran my tongue up his length.

"Like that?" I whispered.

He shuddered and bobbed his chin, grip tight, arms and shoulders strained.

"What else?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Don't ask me that."

Why was he still fighting? He thought me too pure. Too innocent, young, and inexperienced to do anything. How did he think people stopped being all those things? Why was he so obsessed with keeping me like a little bird in a cage? Well, my cage was opened, and if he wouldn't tell me how to fly, I'd just have to fall until I figured it out myself.

I licked him again, from the base to the tip, then again up each side.

"Oh fuck," he heaved. "I can't. I can't."

I thought he meant we'd have to stop, and I was about to protest when he let go of the cover and palmed the back of my head. He gathered my hair into his fist, using it as a handle as his other hand gripped himself and guided it to my lips. "Open your mouth."

A throbbing ache formed between my thighs. I did as he asked, peeking at him from beneath my lashes as he rubbed the tip against my tongue. He tasted sweet.

"Suck on it." He bit his lip hard, lightly bucking his hips. "That's it. Just like that." He let go of my head and stroked my hair, my cheek, as I continued on my own. Eager to learn. Desperate to please. Already addicted to how powerful he made me feel.

His breaths grew harsh, voice harsher as he murmured praise. But it didn't last long before he gripped my arms and wrenched me up to straddle his lap. "Are you sure?" he asked, eyes fixed where my body met his. He held my hips, moving me against him.

I moaned at the feel of him between my folds, sliding back and forth to create the most delicious friction.

"It will hurt," he murmured. "I can't stop that."

"It hurts now," I said, and it did. I ached, longing to be filled. Perhaps that was Mother Nature's way of directing me in a dance as old as life. Instinct rolled my spine, urged me onward, telling me what to do. "I feel like I might die if we don't."

Tex flipped, settling me beneath him, then watched my face closely as he guided that hard length to my entrance. "Tell me to stop, and I will."

"Don't stop."

He pressed forward, and the pain came, just like he said it would. Sharp, shooting pain that stole my breath and caused my thighs to lock him in place.

He kissed my jaw, my neck, my collar bone, whispering praise against my skin as he gave me a minute to relax, then slowly inched further.

My breath caught, muscles tensed. He was too big. He wouldn't fit. "Tex?"

He hummed, stopped, leaving himself wedged inside me as he reached between us and rubbed circles over my sex. "Yeah, Darlin'." It was a breath. Praise. Encouragement. The sound of it, husky and hoarse. The feel of his hand, then his mouth on mine. The pain dulled. The fire returned, filling my belly, arching my spine, and without thought, I levitated. Needing more. Pressing further as pain became pleasure, and pleasure became my only reason for existing.

Tex watched my face with hooded eyes and parted lips. "That's it. Ah, fuck me, you feel so fucking good."

I whimpered, fighting to reach some distant place I couldn't see.

Tex pushed deeper, pulled back, then again, long and measured. So, so slow. He groaned, gripping my hip with one hand and the blanket beside my head with the other.

"More," I whispered. More. More. It was the only word I could remember. The only thing I'd ever need. More than shelter. More than food. More than water. More than air. I needed him. "More, Tex. More."

His spine rolled with each thrust; an intoxicating rhythm that curled my toes and ignited my senses. Harsh breaths. Rough growls. Body crashing against mine like waves to shore. The walls he'd built collapsed under the swells, and I tossed in the current.

He rose upright and pushed my leg toward my chest, tilting his hips in a way that hit a spot I hadn't known I had. It pushed me over the edge, and I cried out as I fell—down, down, down without ever having left him. My legs shook, lungs heaved.

Tex didn't slow. "That's it." He rested my leg over his shoulder, then slid his palm from my cheek down to my breasts. "You're so goddamn perfect." He gripped my opposite hip, pulling me into each move, breaths heaving around rough sounds. "Goddamn you feel so good."

I floated in sensations. A zing each time he spoke. A wave of heat each time his body filled mine. I arched my spine and took it all like a sinner, greedy and needy and thoroughly corrupt. I opened my mouth to tell him I loved him. That he was perfect too, and he felt good, and all the things he'd said to me, but all I managed was, "More."

Somehow, he gave it to me. He lifted me up, watched me fall, then did it again like it was a game. They say a person's life flashes before their eyes just before they die. Maybe this was the same because I saw our life. Every second of every minute we'd spent together. I felt his hand on my side the night I'd had to re-bandage his wound. Our first kiss. Each one of his many smiles. There was no baker, or oven, or pie. There was just us. Two souls who'd met in the woods, intertwined by fate, joined in the way we'd always been destined to.