A Taste of What I Offer

After yesterday's tryst by the lake, Colin can't stay away from the enchanting new woman in the neighborhood. He shows up bright and thirsty, but Lyra doesn't give her favors away lightly--especially not to mortal men who forget the rules.

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Monday - 7:00 am

It's close enough to dawn that lingering dreams still cling to my hair. I haven't finished my first cup of coffee. I haven't even dressed--just the beaded cord with its silver bell still, looped around my waist from yesterday. Otherwise, I'm bare beneath my long, lavender silk robe.

But the crows take up the raucous, heralding cry they use to tell me that someone is approaching. They've only seen me with one man and the wind all spring, so I know it must be Colin. And since I haven't even adorned myself with the rest of the charmed bells I use to call my lovers to me, he's come here all on his own.

It would be unbecoming not to reward such initiative so early in our play. I carry my coffee to the porch, and settle in just as he turns onto my street.

Some summer lovers carry the lazy indolence of the season. Colin is not one of them.

He moves like a man newly awakened to his hunger. It makes him radiant, even youthful, for man nearing fifty. But he was virile even before I lured him into the lake, disciplined in his runner's regimen that took him past my cabin several mornings each week.

True--Monday isn't usually one of them, but his stride is no less deliberate for the deviation.

He walks up my driveway like he's never known hesitation, peeling off his shirt like we're the only two people on this earth. As if he's not a married man with a reputation to protect. As though he already belongs here, with me, in this tiny cabin by the lake.

It's a stark shift from the man I had to sweeten all spring with charms magical and mundane. But despite his early coyness, Colin's blood runs hot. And I've noticed that the more their habits run contrary-wise to their truest nature, the more swept away they become in the rush of my little enchantments.

The moment his feet touch my steps he stops short, remembering, suddenly who he thinks he is. I feel a flicker of disappointment that he didn't follow through on the impulse had him disrobing in my driveway.

"Good morning, Lyra," he says, casually as he would any other day. But the look on his face betrays him, even more than his bare chest and the shirt balled in his fist.

Normally, Colin would not make so bold with a human woman, even in the throes of passion. But my kind unbalances mortals. Whether by our gentleness or cruelty, our attention strips away their domestication like skin from an eel, exposing the succulent animal beneath.

This seduction is never a one-way unraveling. But the season is young. And I am not easily made cautious.

I rise and open the door without a word. Just as silently, he follows.

Once inside, he claims the cup, the whole cabin, with a leonine assurance--shoulders back, hands sure. He puts my cup on the sill, hangs his shirt on the doorknob. His presence here transforms my tiny cabin into a lover's bower for the very first time, and that always delights me.

Still. He did not come to me correctly.

"Such an unexpected pleasure to see you, Colin," I purr, my palms gliding across his chest. "From the street, no less, for all to see. After you were so very shy all spring. And told to take the deer path from your door to mine."

The quirk of his mouth tells me he's heard everything in my tone: the tease, the challenge, the reprimand. He doesn't answer it. He simply pulls me close, one hand cradling the back of my head as he kisses me hungrily. Like he's been waiting a year for this, not a day.

I lace my fingers behind his neck, thumb pressed to the steady thrum of his pulse, ankle curling around his calf. His hands roam down my back, over my hips, and he presses me tight against him. He's already thickening beneath those ugly running shorts. He wants me to feel it.

The morning has changed its shape, and we both know it.

"I can't stay," he says, low. "Wasn't planning to come by, but I couldn't stop thinking about yesterday. I've never..." He shakes his head, words failing. Then he grins like a boy caught with a stolen sweet. "Next thing I knew, I was here. Figured I'd stop by. See if you were still real. Ask if you needed anything."

In a winter lover, this naked longing might come off desperate. But in summer? It's lush as the leaves pressing against my windows, aching to come inside.

"And here you are," I tell him, "real as I." I slide my fingers through his hair. "What is it you hoped I might need at this hour?" I ask.

Colin drops to his knees on the old braided rug that came with the cabin, arms slipping around my thighs. He buries his face into the silk gathered between my legs, pressing close, before he remembers his manners again.

"May I?" he asks, his green eyes shadowed with want. "Please?"

I wind a lock of his wavy hair around my fingers like a ring or a leash.

"You may," I say.

He doesn't waste a second. Colin can't stay, after all.

His breath is hot through the silk as he tongues the damp place between my thighs. I stroke his hair as he lingers there, nuzzling, breathing me in. The way his slightly crooked nose presses into the softness of me--that I'll remember. That will keep me company, long after he's gone.

The silk slips away like water, pooling around my hips and calves. It leaves the tiny silver bell at my waist exposed, the narrow strip of skin between my still-covered breasts tempting as a secret that wants to be told.

"Lyra," he whispers, "You're already so wet."

I press one hand to his head to steady myself. I'd woke from wanting dreams this morning, and word from the crows had only sharpened my desire. But I pick my coffee up from the sill, and take a small sip.

"It's just the morning dew, my sweet," I tell him lightly.

The first touch of his tongue is so tentative I nearly laugh into my cup. But the second? Oh, he's focused now. Intent as he was at the lake.

He licks me open, slow and broad, then sucks my clit between his lips and moans like he's found his private salvation.

The open abandon of this man ignites me in ways I haven't been in years. The cup in my hand suddenly feels ridiculous; a shallow prop against the flame of his desire. I set it blindly on the sill and give myself over to him.

His fingers dig into the meat of my thighs, pulling me closer, opening me wider. He licks, nuzzles, sucks, his nose catching every shift of my hips, the tiny bell at my waist ringing in time with my shivers. His tongue circles, flicks, laps--utterly unhurried.

"You've... earned your appetites," I murmur, my breath unsteady.

He answers with a low, pleased hum that vibrates against my clit.

The sound startles a gasp from my throat. My hand tightens in his hair. He reads every quiver of my body and responds in kind. Gentle, then firm, then faster still, adjusting as I come apart against his mouth.

The heat coils and tight and low in my belly. He feels the change in my rhythm, the way I grind against him, chasing something I can almost taste. He could close in on me now, pull my climax out of me.

But he doesn't press. Just coaxes and takes. Drawing me forth by degrees, making my body seek him, and meeting it there.

For the briefest moment, I wonder if he wasn't playing his own game with me this spring--just a little. The way he'd made space for my every overture, and met it. His claim that he'd entered the leaked clothed that first time, because he hadn't wanted to make me nervous.

"Colin, you clever man--" I begin, but the thought shatters as he moans into me, calling my pleasure up with his voice.

The first wave crests before I can brace for it. My knees buckle.

He catches me with an arm behind my hips... and keeps going. He doesn't just happen to be good at this. He loves it. And so do I.

I pretend to pull away. He holds fast.

"You-- it's too much--" I gasp. "I'll fall--"

"You won't," he rasps against me, mouth slick. "I've got you."

He keeps me on the edge, trembling, bracing myself against the door as I cling to him. My chest heaves. My legs shake. He holds me tighter still. His thrilling moan deepens, with a note of warning. He won't stop.

His mouth--his beautiful, relentless mouth--draws broken sounds from my throat: half-threat, half-prayer, in whatever language is closest to my lips.

The second orgasm crashes through me like a summer storm, hot and flooding. I cry out, and this time my knees do betray me.

But I do not fall. Colin catches me, just as he said he would.

He strokes my hips as I ride it out, slow and rolling. Only when I slump, breathless, against the door does he finally draw back. His chin is slick. His eyes are animal, but warm. A beast with his mate.

He presses a kiss to the inside of my thigh, another where leg meets hip, before easing me to the floor. My legs part around him, his chest rising and falling like he's the one who came twice on a doormat.

I grab him by the chin and tug him forward, guiding him over me and into a kiss. I'm hungry for the taste of myself on his lips, to be taken again by his tongue. He braces himself on his arms as I untie the sash of my robe and let it fall entirely open, framing me like a painting.

"Pity you're not staying," I whisper against his mouth.

"No," he says. "I'm not. I have a Zoom call in forty minutes."

"That doesn't sound like nearly enough time, Colin," I warn him.

He groans, dragging a hand down his face.

"You're not going to let me fuck you, are you?" he asks, cock straining visibly beneath the thin fabric of his shorts.

"Of course not." I tell him. "You'll linger, when you're allowed inside me again. I won't have you rushed between sprints and Zooms."

"I could call out sick. Take all my meetings off camera. Spend the day."

But he stops short as I shake my head.

"Absolutely not. That you weren't staying was almost the first thing out of your mouth this morning," I remind him, my voice leavened with just a trace of mockery.

I trail my fingers along the thick line of his cock, still trapped and twitching under fabric. "So you'll bring yourself to resolution now. And return to me on the deer path another day, as you were told."

"You're so much trouble," he huffs--half laugh, half desperate exhale. He plucks lightly at the bell around my waist, ringing it once more before tugging down his waistband with one hand. His cock springs free, flushed dark and already weeping.

I lick my lips, slow and deliberate. He watches.

"You're sure, Lyra? You look a lot like a woman ready to be fucked on the floor."

He does test my resolve, this man. And if it were later in the season, I might keep him here until the sun dipped low. But his fantasy of me is still too fresh to sully with consequences or bad habits.

Instead, I decided to grant him a taste of what my enchantments can do for lovers who honor my wishes.

I push him gently to his knees, then guide his hand between my thighs. He groans when his fingers find how wet his mouth has left me. I press him there, grind once against the heel of his palm, and sigh.

It's not just breath.

A wisp of enchantment charges the slick on his hand. Invisible to him, but not intangible. It races up his fingers, coils into his wrist. His fingers twitch. His brow furrows. He opens his mouth to speak.

But then I wrap his hand around his cock, and the glamour blooms.

He gasps, spine arching like he's been struck. The first stroke so sharp and encompassing it feels like he's been turned inside out. The wet glide a symphony echoing through skin and blood and bone.

His grip falters. I hold it. Guide it. Smooth strokes, steady tempo, until he can manage the stroke on his own.

"Oh, fuck," he breathes, his voice is ragged, uncertain. "How--"

"Be quick, Colin," I say, settling back and drawing one knee up. My fingers drift lazily down my thigh.

He strokes himself with short, desperate pulls, as if anything more elaborate is beyond him. His jaw clenches. Each stroke ripples through him like a stone cast into deep water. His whole body rides the edge of pleasure too sharp to trust.

His eyes lock to the place where my fingers circle, swirl, tease. He bites his lip. His hips jerk forward.

"Faster," I whisper. "Think of your Zoom call."

"God damn you--" he growls, panting.

"Don't say that unless you want a taste of damnation, sweet Colin," I murmur. Then I press two fingers deep inside myself as he watches.

When I withdraw them, I trace one finger along his lower lip, slow.

That does it.

He groans--loud, ragged--and folds over me, catching himself on one arm. Fist working in frantic rhythm, shoulder pitching. His cock bobs slick and swollen inches above my thigh. His wrist gleams with the spell-glazed wetness of my sex.

"Ask," I say calmly, though I'm shaking inside. "Ask me."

"Lyra--please--please let me--fuck--I need to--"

"Yes, Colin. Come with my name in your mouth. Carry my taste until you return."

He moans what could be my name and spills in a pulsing, wild release that pours across my thighs, the open folds of my robe, the floor. The spill froths at his knuckles. His hand keeps moving, his hips bucking, even after there's nothing left to give.

He's gorgeous like this: wanton, generous, wholly mine.

I sit up and place a hand lightly over his still-moving fist, guiding it to a slow stop. My lovers all come to crave this glamour, but it does ride them hard at first.

His eyes find mine as though surfacing from a trance. Sweat beads on his forehead, slicks the column of his throat. When he releases his hand to me, I dip his finger into the mess he's made across my thighs and bring it to my lips, tasting him for the first time.

He shudders beautifully.

Then I rise, leaving the despoiled robe in a heap on the floor. I pluck his shirt from the doorknob.

"Now run home," I say, wiping myself clean. "Before you're late."

"You're going to murder my time in my fall races," he mumbles, still winded.

He tucks himself away with shaky hands and reaches for his shirt, now streaked and damp.

I snatch it away from him, and use a clean section to wipe his face clear of me instead.

"No. Rinse it in the lake. Then go back bare-chested. Like you ran hard," I tell him.

"Lyra. I meant-- I wanted to ask you--" he begins, struggling to get the words out.

I tilt my head, curious. Waiting.

"Where were you, before you came here?"

My smile falters, just slightly.

"Why do you ask?"

He lifts my mug from the sill and shrugs, aiming for nonchalance.

"Yesterday, you said you wanted to know me, while you were here this summer. I want to know you, too."

He offers the mug to me, earnest.

I trace the rim of the cup with one finger. I'd meant know him in the older sense of the word. But I realize, in this moment, that it's not the only one. I take the cup, and make a decision.

"Next time you visit, you may ask me three questions, and I will tell you a truth. Say you understand."

"I understand," he says.

Then I kiss his cheek and usher him out the door, his legs unsteady, his cock still outlined against damp fabric.

I sip the last of my cold coffee and listen as the crows rise up behind him, gossiping loud and delighted as they follow him down the road.