Rhys smirks. “Ripe for the plucking.” And without warning, he crushes the blackberry in his fingers, dripping dark juice onto my bare skin.

“Oh!” I arch up off his jacket, mind spinning. The blacksmith draws swooping lines over me in blackberry juice, doodling on my body with a stern expression before returning to my breast. He rubs the pulped fruit into my nipple, working the juice into the grain of my body, and when he finally brings the berry to my lips, I suck his fingers into my mouth too.

Rhys hisses between his teeth. “Fuck, Gwen. You make me so…”

So what?

So what?

I don’t have time to ask, because he’s plucking another berry from the basket. Crushing it over my stomach this time, watching the juice drip. Rhys holds it over my belly button, filling me up like a chalice, and only once I’m full to the brim does he rub the pulp into my other nipple.

On and on he goes. Painting me in sticky sweetness, the afternoon light fading as the blacksmith works steadily at his task. This must be what it’s like for those lumps of metal on his anvil: shaped steadily in his design, at the mercy of his unrelenting patience.

Finally, I find my voice again. “Rhys Evans, if you’re just making me all sticky for your own amusement—”

“Of course I am.” There’s a wicked glint in his eye. “But I’ll clean you up again, don’t you worry.”

As if to demonstrate, Rhys tosses his latest pulped berry into the grass, then shuffles back on his knees, staring down at my bared, stained body. His chest lurches up and down under his thick shirt.

When Rhys braces on his hands and leans over me, I feel again just how much bigger he is. It’s like having a bear or a bull on top of me, and I’m pinned, completely at his mercy.

A hot, damp tongue traces the center of my chest. I still beneath him, so aroused my brain has turned to mush.

“Shall I keep going?” The blacksmith’s voice is muffled against my skin, and I yank on the ends of his dark hair.

“Yes. Oh my god, yes.”

An approving rumble, and then he’s licking me everywhere. Devouring every inch that he painted in juice. He tastes my stomach, my waist, the swell of my hips, the dip of my ribs. He drinks from my belly button, eyes screwed shut in concentration. And his beard tickles, and his breath is warm, and every touch makes me ache even worse between my legs.

When Rhys sucks my nipple into his mouth, I cry out at the clouds. He rolls the bead over his tongue; palms my breast and lifts it higher. He feasts on me, bathing me in the wet, eager heat of his mouth, and only switches to the other side when I’m breathless and dizzy.

“Oh, god.” I moan, helpless, as he sucks at my second stained nipple. “Oh, there had better be a punchline to all this, Rhys Evans, or you are a cruel, cruel man.”