Beneath the Faerie Moon

Chapter 3: The First Touch

The wine hit her tongue like winter lightning, sharp, sweet, other worldly. It ran down her throat and bloomed everywhere, her spine, her thighs, her n*****s, her mouth. She gasped and stumbled.

He caught her, his hands firm at her waist.

“There,” he said softly. “Now you’re listening.”

The air had changed. She felt it humming across her skin. She had changed, nerves sharpened, thoughts blurring. She was so aware of her body now. Of him. Of her wetness. Her need.

He drew a length of black silk from the air itself, the way one might pluck a petal from a flower, and held it out.

“A test of trust,” he said. “Mortals are always more honest when they cannot see.”

She stared at the blindfold. Her heart pounded, but she nodded.

He stepped behind her and slid the silk gently over her eyes. Tied it, firmly but not cruelly. Darkness took her. And in that darkness, sensation roared to life.

The first touch came from below, his hand between her legs, cupping her heat through the thin linen of her skirts. She gasped. Then, nothing. He didn’t move.

Only after the tension became unbearable did he stroke her, slowly, palm dragging up against her center, lazy and deliberate.

“You’re already wet,” he murmured. “You like being watched.”

She moaned, embarrassed, aroused, unable to lie.

He slipped behind her again, letting her lean against the ice railing for balance. His hands slid beneath her skirt, cool fingers parting her thighs. And then he knelt.

The first brush of his mouth against her folds made her cry out, it was like being kissed by ice and fire at the same time. His tongue moved slowly, tasting, not devouring, a connoisseur sampling the rim of a goblet.

He stopped. Waited.

She shifted, trying to grind against his mouth, but unseen forces held her still.

He chuckled softly.

“You offered me your body,” he whispered, licking her c**t with glacial precision. “But not your control. That will come.”

“More,” she whispered, shame rising like heat to her cheeks.

“I told you,” he said, voice a murmur against her slick flesh. “You’re more honest like this.”

Then he truly began.

His tongue was deft, inhumanly precise. He licked her in long, slow strokes, pausing at her c**t only to blow a breath of winter across it, making her legs tremble, making her beg. Every pause became torture. Every return a reward.

Her hands clawed at the railing. She moaned his name, or tried to, but she didn’t know it. That made him chuckle against her.

Fae magic flared. Heat and cold warred along her spine. She felt as though the air had become a second lover, hands of breeze stroking her breasts, tugging at her n*****s, lifting the hem of her blouse to expose her more and more to the elements and him.

And still he held back.

He never let her tip over the edge. She came close, dizzyingly close, twice, three times, each time drawn back by the edge of his control. The fourth time, she sobbed.

“Please—”

He stood.

His fingers stroked her cheek. He removed the blindfold.

Her vision swam. Light haloed his figure. She blinked up at him.

“You want release,” he said, not a question. “But not yet.”

“Why?” she gasped.

“Because pleasure means more when it leaves a mark,” he whispered. “And I haven’t decided how I want to mark you yet.”

Her legs nearly gave out. He caught her again.

“Rest,” he said, brushing a kiss against her temple, the only soft thing he’d given her all night. “There is still time before the Binding Night.”

And just like that, he was gone, leaving her unsatisfied, confused.

"What is the binding night.

-----

Maris was bathed.

Not by water, but by magic and by oils.

Silk-cloaked servants surrounded her, hands glowing with enchantment, murmuring incantations that sank into her skin. Wherever they touched her, heat bloomed, tightening her n*****s, flushing her throat, making her ache in places she didn’t want to acknowledge, not again, not so soon.

The oils didn’t just cleanse. They awakened. Now, even the whisper of air across her skin sent jolts of pleasure through her spine.

She hadn’t seen the Winter Prince since the Tasting ceremony last night.

He had vanished into his courtly duties with no warning, no warmth, no aftermath. And no answers. She should have been angry. But every time she closed her eyes, she felt his mouth again. The control. The restraint. The claim.

And the emptiness when it was over.

“You are to be presented,” one of the servants said, lifting a hand and a shimmering fabric appeared brought by two drayds, It was opalescent, barely-there, woven from thread that shifted with Maris’s breath.

“Presented to who?” Maris asked.

“The Court.” The servant took the dress off of the maniquine.

“And what does that mean?” Maris said as she was wrapped in the dress.

The servant smiled, her eyes like cracked sapphires. “That they will judge whether you are worthy of the Prince’s bond. And whether your body speaks truth when your tongue does not.”

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