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“You don’t like it,” he murmured.

“No. Yes. I don’t know.” She was embarrassingly near tears, trying not to rub her legs together, to rekindle that desperate desire, almost a need. Sun filtered through the leaves, heating her bare shoulder, her brow. Some horrible insect had stung her cheek. She scratched at the lump. “I’m sorry. I look . . .”

He opened his mouth. He’d say beautiful and he’d be lying.

“Like you belong in these woods,” he said, and gently untangled a leaf from her hair.

Her insides squeezed. “I don’t belong anywhere.”

“Today you belong here, with me.” He pulled back so he could study her, and she was undone. He belonged in these woods, with his wild locks and bronze skin, his broad shoulders, his ribs knit with muscles, his body so lean and strong and animal.

“Unless you recant your wish,” he said.

Recant? She was already shaking her head. She didn’t want to recant her wish. That was the problem. She wanted to double, then quadruple it. She wanted today and tomorrow and the day after that. She was greedy and needful and ugly. She was dirty and bitten and throbbing with lewdness.

She was unpresentable. Unfit for polite company. Utterly unperfect, now and perhaps forevermore.

“It’s not . . . nice . . . down there,” she managed. His eyes seemed suddenly to darken as he understood her. She could fall into them forever.

“Oh, it’s nice,” he said, voice like velvet. His finger trailed over her collarbones, the callus scratching over her nipple, beneath the curve of her breast, lower and lower. “Like moss and lilies and riverbank and cloud.”

She tried to laugh but it was trapped in her tightening chest.

“It’s dirty.” Her voice strangled.

“Mmm.” His tongue moved over his bottom lip, and she realized with a start that he must be able to taste her there. “Like dirt too.” He smiled. “Slippery mud. Seaweed. Worms.”

Now she did laugh. “You’re a lunatic.”

“It’s like everything,” he said. His finger barely touched her, skimming the tuft of hair at the apex of her thighs. His face became hard, intent. His finger pressed down, found the spot that made her want to writhe and moan.

“You do like it,” he said, watching her.

“Maybe too much.” She gasped as he curled his finger. “What if I can’t control how I . . .”

She couldn’t finish. It wasn’t just his touch but his face that took her breath away. She’d never seen him so purposeful.

“If you can’t control how you look?” He inched his body closer to hers, stretched out to his full length, not on top of her, but beside her, staring into her eyes. Down there, his finger worked at her. “If you can’t control how you sound?”

She couldn’t help it. She groaned and rolled onto her side, wanting more contact. Ah. There. Her breasts bumped his hot, hard chest, flattened against his naked skin. He exhaled but didn’t stop circling with his finger, didn’t stop speaking . . .

“If you become completely wild, like a forest creature, or like a pirate queen who takes her pleasure without apology and gives no quarter . . .”

He pushed her onto her back and loomed over her, so his shadow quenched the light.

“God, I want it.” He almost groaned the words. “I want to make you come and come apart and forget every goddamn thing but the feel of my mouth.”

She quivered, legs loosening.

“Do you want it too? Tell me.” He waited, and she saw that he was vibrating with the effort, with his eagerness.

She had the power to decide.

“Yes.” Her chest heaved. “Yes.”

She shut her eyes against the sun as he nestled again between her thighs, spreading her even wider than before, tasting and tugging until she couldn’t tell his tongue from his fingers. The fullness inside her pressed up through her belly, made harsh cries burst from her lips, but she didn’t care.

This was no time for tidy, calculating prettiness. She clutched at his head, wrapped his hair round her fingers, tipping her hips, pushing herself into his mouth. Shameless.