Page 32 of Song Bird Hearts

I don’t answer. Instead, I grin and release him. I step back, my socks crunching across the fresh pine needles and leaves splattered across the ground. I turn, looking over my shoulder at him as I walk over to the large flat stump he’d been splitting wood on. It’s the ghost of what was once a great tree, but now it’ll serve as a table. I make eye contact as I take a seat, and then deliberately, I slowly spread my knees, not enough for him to see, just enough to tease.

He exhales like a man starved.

“Well now,” he drawls, coming over and stepping between my thighs. He leans down and slides his palms along my cold thighs, rough hands stroking goosebumps in their wake. “Ain’t never seen a woman sit so pretty on a throne I built.”

I huff a laugh. “Was that axe of yours compensating for somethin’?” I tease.

He drops to his knees so fast, it knocks the breath right out of me.

“Nah,cher,” he murmurs, voice thick with heat, his eyes dipping down to my core as he pushes my knees firmly apart. His eyes glitter dangerously when he sees I’m not wearing any underwear, his body shuddering with heat. When he looks at me next, I know I’m in trouble as his hands slide up and grip my hips. “Icompensatewith my tongue.”

He tugs me forward. My dress bunches up around my hips as he presses his shoulders in between my knees and leans in.

He’s not rushed, not greedy. He nuzzles the inside of my thigh first, breathing me in like I’m the only fresh air he’s ever gotten. His slight stubble rasps along my skin as he presses open-mouthed kisses higher and higher, dragging out every second of anticipation like he wants me to ache.

“T’es dounce, ma belle,” he whispers, voice barely a growl. “Gimme that honey,cher. Let me ruin my mouth on you.”

My hips buck when his tongue finally touches me, hot, wet, and slow. He doesn’t go for my clit right away. He licks along the seam of me, slow and deep, tasting me like a man savoring the first bite of something forbidden.

When I tangle my fingers in his hair and moan, he groans right back, the sound pure filth against me.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he murmurs between strokes. “Sing f’me,cher. Let the whole damn mountain know how good I treat you.”

He flattens his tongue and drags it over me again, and again, until I’m gasping, grinding down on his mouth with no shame. He wraps his arms under my thighs, locking me in place, and devours me like he means to commit it to memory.

“Mmm,bon Dieu, you taste like sugar and sin,” he groans against me. Then his mouth wraps around my clit, gentle at first, then tighter, before his tongue flicks in lazy, practiced circles. “You’re so damn sweet,” he breathes. “I could spend all day here, make you come till you cry, and still beg f’more.”

My thighs tremble around his shoulders. “Fuck, Gilden?—”

“Keep sayin’ my name like that,” he growls, slipping two fingers inside me while he sucks, “and I’ll make sure you don’t say nothin’ else for an hour.”

I come hard the first time, shaking around his mouth, my hips jerking against his face. But he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even pause.

He licks me through it, groaning against me like my pleasure feeds something inside him. When I try to push him away because I’m too sensitive, he just looks up at me with that wicked gleam and says, “No, no,cher. You stay right there. I ain’t finishing sayin’ grace.”

I can’t breathe, not even if I wanted to. Not when Gilden is dragging me over the edge again with his mouth locked around my clit and his fingers deep inside me, curling just right.

My thighs shake. My hands clutch his hair like it’s the only thing tethering me to earth. But Gilden doesn’t ease up. Not once.

“You keep comin’ for me like that,” he says, voice thick between my legs, “and I swear,cher, I’m gon’ lose my goddamn mind.”

I come again, sharper this time, my whole body jolting as I throw my head back and gasp his name like it’s the only name that’s ever mattered. And still—still—he didn’t stop. He kisses me through it, mouthing against my suddenly soaked skin, praising me in his language so soft and reverent, it almost sounds like a prayer.

“Mignonne. . .regarde-toi. Look at you,ma chére. All that sass, all that fire, brought to your knees by my tongue.”

I’m spent, slick and sensitive and trembling. But when he finally pulls back, lips swollen and glistening, I open my eyes and grin.

“You proud of yourself?” I rasp, breathless.

He chuckles, the sound wicked, as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’d hang a goddamn medal on my tongue if I could.”

I slide off the stump before he can blink, dropping to my own knees in the pine needles. The look in my eyes has him going still for once.

“Your turn,cher,” I goad.

His breath catches when I palm him through his jeans.

“Aw, fuck,” he whispers, his head tipping back.

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