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“That wasn’t nothing.”

He looks down at my hand over his. “I had another speech ready. About taking you home whenever you wanted.”

“I’m not ready to go back.” I draw him closer. “I want to be here with you.”

He kisses me once, then again when I follow him. I can see the small buds gathering beneath the leaves along his jaw. He no longer covers them.

I brush my thumb over one, careful of its folded petals.

“Let them,” I say.

His mouth curves against mine.

He kneels.

The old boards take his weight with a groan. His leaf-framed face lowers between my knees; river water flashes beyond his shoulders, and the antlers rise past my hands when I reach up.

He gathers my skirt and shift up over my hips. His claws stay withdrawn. The wool bunches in my lap, and I hold it there with my bandaged hand, because if I let go I’ll cover my face instead, and I don’t want to. I want to watch him.

Cool air between my thighs. Then his breath, warmer than the air, moving up.

“Vai.”

“Yes.”

“Look at me when you can.”

“I’m looking.”

The leaves along his jaw slide over the inside of my thigh, soft at first, then turning their edges when I inhale sharply. He learns without hurrying. His mouth follows the leaves, one slow kiss above my knee, another higher. I’ve imagined this in my room with my hand between my legs and the door vines closed. I never imagined him stopping between kisses to look up and see what my face is doing.

It’s doing everything. From this angle I have no way to hide it, and I give up trying.

The vine beside my boot lifts as I shift.

“Hold me,” I say.

It winds once around my calf and anchors me to the bridge. Another vine curls beneath my unbandaged hand. I close my fingers around it.

His tongue finds me. One long stroke, and my hips come off the rail before I’ve decided anything. He lets me settle back. Then he does it again.

“Oh.”

He smiles. I feel it before I see the buds along his jaw pushing open, one after another, white against the green.

Then his mouth is on my clit, and I grip the offered vine until its ridges bite my palm.

He’s careful. Too careful. I can feel him listening for a flinch, holding half of himself back.

“You won’t hurt me,” I say. “Stop being gentle.”

He stops being gentle. My head drops back and I see the branches he closed over us, green on green, and then I see nothing because my eyes have shut on their own.

He learns what I want because I tell him. Higher. Slower. There, don’t change anything, don’t. The leaves move against my thighs with every word. His name gets out of me, and he answers with a sound I feel through the rail, low and rough, and the bridge shivers beneath us, putting out green shoots along both rails.

I’m making noise. I can hear myself and I can’t stop, small broken sounds that would embarrass me anywhere else. Here they make him groan against me, which makes me louder.

“Daurek. Please. Don’t stop.”