Me and no other, making me feel like a woman desired, worthy of this devotion he promised. “I’m not denying it.”

The ground trembled; it ran up along the trunks of the birch trees, letting the branches quiver until small twigs rained down. One caught in Enosh’s hair, which I fumbled from his black strands, only to stare at it in mute shock. Perhaps the god held my weak heart trapped in this moment of intimacy, but his was not as unaffected as he had claimed.

My gaze went from the twig to meet his. “Return to your duty.”

A smile curved his lips, quickly hidden beneath a kiss he pressed to my collarbone, and more toward my breast from there. His tongue trailed a circle around my nipple, rousing the bud into a hard pebble while he kneaded the heating flesh of both. My breathing quickened when his tongue trailed down along my belly. His hands splayed open my thighs, exposing me so fully out here in the forest, but only until his mouth covered the juncture between them in a warm caress of lips.

Arching my spine, I braced my heels against the bone, trying to escape the sudden onslaught of sensation only to shift toward it. His tongue stroked along my folds, lapped at my entrance, and circled my nymph, each movement a smooth answer to my body’s demand. I shifted away, and he eased the pressure. I spread my legs wider, and he buried his tongue ferociously inside my cunt.

I gave in to it all, allowing myself to succumb to the delirium of pleasure that was my husband’s sinful mouth. Glorious shivers wracked my body as his tongue dipped inside, only to draw back and play with the soft, sensitive edges. When my breathing turned to panting, his attention shifted to my nymph, where he gingerly lapped and suckled until a torrential wave of heat flooded my sex.

“Beautiful,” he mumbled against my cunt as he kissed me there until my breaths lengthened and slowed. Then he climbed between my legs, cupped my cheek, and brought my gaze to his. “Look at me.”

His eyes remained locked on mine as he reached between us, where his cock throbbed against my inner thigh. He placed the bulbous crown at my slickened hole, and then…

Nothing.

Instead of thrusting inside, he lowered his forehead to mine. He brushed his mouth over my cheek, allowing a moment between us not dominated by lust or overshadowed by my urge to escape it.

I was a willing captive.

He was a loving god.

Together, we were a man and a woman, making love in the forest, unconcerned with the snapping of nearby twigs or the passing of time as the sun peeked through the thinning forest canopy.

I clasped my legs around his waist, inviting him with a tug. Commencing the act. “Return to your duty.”

“Ah, and ride the lands while my family awaits me at home.” He slowly stroked inside me, adopting an unhurried pace void of his usual urgency. “My mortal wife shall sit on a throne of the dead, motifs of trees and birds and meadows carved into its bone. Is that what you wish?”

I moaned at the warm pressure as he worked himself deeper. “Yes.”

“And there, on your lap, shall sit our son or daughter, black of hair with eyes the color of the sea between the Kilafa mountains.” He nudged his pelvis tightly against mine, letting us share in a shudder that pebbled our skin. “And I shall embrace them, and kiss them, and take them into my arms. Yes?”

I swallowed past a constriction in my throat, only for it to form a knot of warmth beneath my sternum. “Yes.”

 “Then, I shall rock our child and place it to sleep between us on a bed of bone while my beautiful, kind, and stubborn wife looks upon me with such ardor, eternity will seem like a blessing. Mmm… your heart, little one.” He pressed his hand against the valley between my breasts, letting the organ pound against the flat of his palm. “Right here is where it flutters, causing such warmth between the rapid flow of blood at everything I may lay by your feet… everything I could give you.” A kiss to my temple before he whispered, “If only you would love me.”

A task that seemed so easy as he let his words fill the void at my core, driving out this sad loneliness we shared. “If only you would treat me right.”

He drew his hips back and thrust again, working my body to a higher ledge of pleasure with the measured stroke. “Have I not shown you my goodwill since we gave our vows?”

Yes, but Enosh was unpredictable in his godly whims—a constant sway between delicate and domineering. “You hurt me many times.”

“Mm-hmm, yes, I hurt you.” He once more gripped my collar, exposing the sensitive skin above it, and laid siege to it with his teeth until it burned and set me ablaze. “And I would hurt you again. I would break your bones, sour your flesh, meld your skin to mine. I would do all that and worse, if only to have you for eternity. That, Ada, is how much I desire you.”

The sound of my name was my undoing.

Anchoring my arm around his neck, I lifted my lips to his, letting them slam together with such ferociousness, they trembled on impact—as did the ground. Twigs snapped, birds took flight with rapid wingbeats, and somewhere, pinecones must have thudded to the ground. A crk-crk-ckr brought my attention to the hairline cracks veining along the backrest of the daybed.

I broke the kiss and snapped for air. “Enosh—”

“Shh.” His lips reclaimed mine until they throbbed, only parting for one agonizing second as he pulled his shirt oven his head. “Nothing but the bone in the ground growing restless, eager to come to my aid. Touch me, Ada.”

I let my fingers glide over the slopes of his shoulders, over the firm set of pectorals, and down the defined muscles rippling over his abdomen. “Tell me you’re at least tempted to give in.”

“More than ever before.” Gradually, his pace quickened, making my insides convulse with a need for release that shook me to the core alongside the world. “Decades. Centuries. Eons. One day, you will love me. And on that day, when you become wholly mine and nobody else’s, I shall open my gates and return to my divine duty.”

At his next thrust, I pulled him deeper into me. Our kisses lost precision, but my benumbed lips pressed down wherever they reached as I ground against him, meeting him beat for beat.

When my breath caught in my throat and my entire body tensed, Enosh’s back rounded, strong hips pinning me to the soft mink beneath us. Snarls hissed passed his clenched teeth, cutting across my lips as a cry wrenched from my throat.

The world seemed to collapse around us, trees threatening to bury us beneath their branches as we peaked. Only when the tangle of our panting breaths calmed did the forest grow still.

Aside from the groans.

My eyes snapped to the underbrush and my heart gave a massive whomp. “Why are they here?”

Enosh followed my line of sight to the dozens of corpses looking at us from between shrubs and standing on fallen trunks covered by moss. Men, women, children… they bore their milky-white stare into us, their faces smudged, their hair covered in lumps of dirt, grass, and wilted leaves.

A bemused scoff rumbled from Enosh’s chest. “They must have thought their master at great risk.”

“You didn’t call them?”

Enosh regarded me, his air of superiority vanished, the face beneath the mask laid bare to the almost sheepish grin on his lips. “Not precisely… but I am ever-so pleased with their eagerness to protect me.”

Protect him from what?

The question fanned a little spark to life in my core. During our lovemaking, my husband had accidentally made the dead crawl from the ground. My temporary surrender had blown his mask off, right along with his control. Perhaps he was no less trapped than I, exposing a heart he claimed he no longer had.

I placed my palm against it.

A heart that fluttered wildly against my skin, long after his breathing had calmed, right where it bred love with no care for precautions. Should that scare me?