In answer, he flips up my skirt. I lift my hips automatically as he slides down my panties before tossing them onto the grass. “Come on, Gwen, I’m not cruel. I’m a teddy bear.”

He’s not, he’s—aah—he’s an evil genius, and this is some comic book torture, especially when the blacksmith spreads me with two fingers and crushes another berry directly over my sex. Tart juice drips down, painting my clit and sliding through my folds, and I was already a slippery mess. Swollen and desperate.

“Lick it up,” I moan. “Oh my god, lick it up.”

“I will.” Thick fingers rub the juice over my sex, and Rhys looks so primal as he kneels over me beside the hill fort. He’s a bearded, hungry brute, his dark hair tugged by the breeze and his eyes lined with age as darkness falls around us. “Trust me, Gwen.”

Oh, I do. I really do.

But I still let out a howl when his face dips between my legs.

Because the blacksmith devours me. He laps at me like he’s never tasted anything so fine; he suckles on my clit, his beard brushing my inner thighs. And the noises he makes. The grunts and growls. The way the muscles in his shoulders bunch as he leans over me. The strength in his hands as he presses me down…

“Gwen.” His deep voice vibrates through a million nerve endings, and I choke out a breath.

“Yes?”

“I’m going to put my fingers inside you. Alright? It might hurt at first, but it will make things easier if you ever want to… if we ever…”

Oh my god.

“Do it.” I try to buck my hips, but he’s holding me down, his face still so close to my pussy that I feel each shuddering breath. “Open me up for you. Make me ready.”

Another low groan. “Fuck.”

He’s right. As his thick middle finger pushes into me, it’s uncomfortable at first. I’m tight and untried, and my eyes burn at the sharp stretch. But Rhys works it in and out, lapping at my clit again, and by the time he adds a second finger, I’m writhing and panting once more. The tension is bleeding away, replaced by a new sort of tightness. A new coiling sensation, low in my belly.

“How do I feel?” I can’t help myself. I live for this man’s praise, and he never disappoints.

“Like heaven,” Rhys grates. He crooks his fingers, rubbing at my inner walls, and I let out a mewl. “If I ever got inside here, if I felt you around my cock… I’d lose my mind.”

“You will.” Even though the light’s fading, I screw my eyes shut. It’s all too much, and my heart is raw, and as the blacksmith licks me, the pleasure is so intense that it’s edging into pain. “You will get in there, I promise. I want you, Rhys Evans. Only you.”

It’s his desperate cursing that throws me over the cliff edge. I thrash and whine, muscles twitching and pussy clamped tight on his fingers, the wind whipping at my hair and the scent of fresh grass in my nose. And Rhys licks me through it all, fingers pumping and breath hot, and when I finally nudge him away, he sits back with something like regret.