“It’s…” His breath caught. “Like a bud just before it bursts open. Everything in me strains towards you.”
Another vine unfurled, this one from his shoulder, and drifted down the curve of her spine, its touch as delicate as a falling leaf. She shivered into the caress as she continued stroking him in a steady rhythm.
The head of his cock slicked under her palm, and the sharp hitch of his breath told her he was teetering on the edge. Shetightened her grip, savoring the hot, silken slide until his hand came down, covering hers with quiet finality.
“Not in your hand,” he murmured, voice a low thrum against her ear. Slowly, he guided her hand away and lifted it to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “And certainly not yet.”
Before she could process his sweet denial, the vine at her back wrapped fully around her waist, a firm but gentle anchor. Another slithered from his opposite shoulder and coiled around her other wrist. One brushed against the nape of her neck, sending a shiver darting down her spine. Another, broader and heavier, slid between her thighs. She whimpered, hips rocking forward instinctively, greedy for more.
Splice groaned into her hair, the sound raw, a man trying to hold onto his sanity while offering up his soul. “Gods, Goldie, you are—” His voice fractured as another vine, delicate as a fern frond, traced the shell of her ear and the sensitive skin just behind it.
“Splice,” she breathed, voice cracking. Her free hand clutched at his shoulder, nails biting into the bark-like texture of his skin.
The vine at her thighs shifted, rolling with an obscene slowness that made her gasp, and slid inside her. Goldie moaned, a raw sound that was swallowed by his mouth crashing down on hers. He kissed her with the furious hunger of a starving man. The sensation of being filled by him, by this impossible, living part of him, was exquisite agony.
Splice groaned against her lips, the sound reverent and ragged.
“Like roots finding water after a drought,” he breathed. “Like the world drawing itself closer, tighter, until there’s nothing left but you.”
Her mind fractured. There was no thought, only feeling. Pleasure built into a searing, unbearable peak. Her head fellback, hair spilling behind her as a cry tore from her throat, pure and profound, as she shattered.
Her body convulsed around his vine, inner muscles clenching and milking it in violent, ecstatic waves. His name was a sacrament on her lips, repeated over and over as the world dissolved into light and heat and the scent of damp soil. The vines held her fast, a living cradle supporting her through the aftershocks, their gentle pressure a promise that he would not let her fall.
He pressed his forehead to hers, his voice a broken groan. “You are life itself.”
As the last echoes of her orgasm shivered through her, he withdrew his vine. The motion was an agonizing, reverent retreat that left her hollow and trembling, her body strung tight with fresh need.
“You shatter for me,” Splice growled, his voice thick. “So open. So alive.”
He lowered his head, beginning a slow, deliberate descent. His mouth traced fire down her sternum, over the soft rise of her belly. Vines followed like they were mapping her, gliding across her ribs, waist, and hips with a greedy wonder.
At her navel, he paused. His tongue flicked into the shallow hollow, and her hips jerked helplessly, a choked gasp escaping her lips.
He looked up, his eyes lit from within. “Every sound you make unroots me.” His voice caught, then steadied. “I don’t know how to stop wanting you. I don’t want to.”
He dipped again, his mouth exploring the tender space just below her belly, tongue drawing slow heat along the curve of her hip. Vines echoed the movement, tracing the sensitive planes of her inner thighs, teasing and reverent.
The air thickened, humid with her arousal and his strange, green scent. He moved lower, inhaling her scent like it was something he’d been starving for.
“I’ve never needed anything the way I need this,” he said roughly. “The way I need you.”
And then his mouth was on her.
A choked cry tore from Goldie’s lips as his tongue made its first hungry pass. He licked her with slow, deliberate pressure, tasting, learning. Pleasure slammed through her, white-hot and overwhelming.
The vines joined in. One, slick and gentle, slipped between her folds, parting her with obscene precision. Another, rougher and bark-textured, found her clit and circled it, coaxing a helpless sob from her throat.
“I can feel you,” Splice murmured, breath hot against her. “You’re shaking for me. Gods, you taste like I could live on you.”
The pressure in her belly coiled tighter, unbearable and exquisite. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Only feel—his mouth, his vines, the steady, patient rhythm that pushed her toward the edge.
“Splice… please…” she gasped, not even knowing what she was asking for.
“Yes,” he answered at once, his voice a raw promise against her trembling skin. The tendril at her clit tightened. His tongue thrust, then flexed, a slow rhythm that stole the breath from her lungs.
Her orgasm struck, violent and elemental, arching her spine from the mattress and tearing a scream from her throat. Her chest heaved, skin flushed and damp, every nerve humming with aftershocks.
Splice pulled back and rose to kneel before her. Her gaze dropped, and her breath caught. His cock curved in a fierce,elegant arc, thick and proud, gleaming like polished ironwood with veins like tiny roots pulsing beneath the surface.
