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The cherries came from a grove just beyond the tree line, fat and cold from the stream mist. Harding dumped them into a dented pot and swished river water through until the skins shone like lacquer. The camp smelled of wet leaves, smoke, and leather - home for one thin night under the trees that remembered older names.
“Right,” Davrin announced, already fishing for a stem. “Important cultural experiment. Have any of you heard about the special few who can tie a knot using just their tongue?”
Lucanis snorted. “This is how plagues spread.”
Taash plucked a cherry, popped it whole, and spat the stone into the fire with surgical confidence. “I’m still kinda curious, though.”
Bellara leaned forward to grab one, grinning. “Purely academic, I’m sure.”
Rook had one in her fingers already, turned it over, and made the mistake of glancing across the fire. Emmrich was watching the berries roll in the pot like he was pretending not to watch her at all.
Which meant he was entirely too aware of her.
“I am not getting involved,” she said, cheeks warming.
“Boring,” Davrin sing-songed, wicked delight in his eyes.
“I’ll do it.” Harding stood and took a stem, accepting the challenge like a pro. She tried, gagged and spat it out before bursting into laughter. “Absolutely not.”
Neve made an earnest attempt, but it ended with a green tongue and a helpless wheeze. Lucanis claimed he was too dignified to attempt it, swilled his coffee mug and watched. Taash tried and produced something that could, from a certain angle, be mistaken for a malignant loop until it popped apart. Bellara twined her stem around her finger and declared that it counted.
Emmrich accepted a cherry and plucked the stem free with the air of a man inspecting evidence. He set it on his tongue and worked at it with precise, patient motions - jaw ticking once, eyes never leaving Rook. When he drew it out between forefinger and thumb, it was only kinked, not knotted. The corner of his mouth lifted anyway as he let it fall into his glass. “Trickier than advertised,” he said, settling back - smirk in place, as if the point had always been the watching, not the winning. He brushed a thumb across his lower lip as if cleaning it. “Method over myth,” he added, eyes on her mouth. “And my methods are… thorough.”
Rook picked up exactly what he meant. Heat climbed her cheeks; she pressed her lips together to strangle the answering smirk - and still, traitorously, she blushed.
Rook could feel the warmth in her face grow by degrees. She had always been good at small, unnecessary tricks; this one had once won her a free drink and a problem she didn’t want to remember…
“Come on,” Davrin coaxed. “For science.”
She glanced up. Emmrich’s gaze caught hers across the firelight - warm, unreadable, and somehow too intimate in front of everyone. Her stomach flipped.
“Fine,” she muttered, and slid the stem into her mouth.
She was all too aware of every eye on her - more aware still of Emmrich’s. His smouldering gaze tracked the workings of her mouth: the pull of her lips, the angle of her jaw, the hollow at her cheek; then it dipped to her throat, as if he’d just remembered precisely what she was capable of.
She didn’t perform. She didn’t need to. Tongue and teeth worked in sure, unhurried movements; the motion was small, barely visible. The knot cinched with a soft click against the roof of her mouth. When she pulled it from between her lips and placed it into her palm, a perfect loop, the others cheered.
“Maker…” Harding breathed, delighted.
“Told you she’s lethal in more ways than one.” Taash’s grin sharpened. “Weaponised charm.”
Bellara arched a brow. “I’m revising my theories.”
Davrin whooped. He tipped his head at Emmrich, smirk razor-bright. “Well, damn, Emmrich. You’d think you’s smile more.”
Emmrich’s mouth did something that wasn’t a smile and wasn’t not. Rook’s heart thudded. She closed her fist over the knotted stem, suddenly very aware of her own mouth.
“I’m…going to get more wood,” she blurted, grabbing the kindling basket.
“Take the northern trail,” Harding called. “Watch the brambles.”
“I’ll help,” Emmrich said, mild as a winter evening.
No one argued or made past comments, but they knew.
The forest took them fast - wet fern, old root, the campfire a dim orange behind the trees. Rook had the kindling basket; Emmrich had her wrist.
“Don’t hide from me,” he said, voice already rough.
“I wasn’t…” She was. The stem-knotted loop burned hot in her fist.
He opened her hand, took the stem and pocketed it in his vest. “This,” he said, thumb stroking her knuckles and tapped the place where he had placed the ‘keep saker’, “put ideas in my head.”
“Professor,” she warned, pink and pleased.
“You will have to be quiet, my dear, so we don’t wake the world,” he murmured, then kissed her like he’d been starving for days. She kissed back, cherry-sweet and curious, until his restraint broke and he had her turned, back to an old root, fingers under leather, mouth at her throat.
“Open for me,” he said against her skin, and when his hand found her cunt wet, he exhaled something obscene. “Maker, yes…look at you. Such a mess for me already.”
“Because you’re talking,” she gasped, rolling her hips into his palm. “Because you …ah…”
He hooked two fingers and worked her like he owned every shiver. “There. Right there…good girl. Quiet for me. Take it.”
She came quick and sharp, biting his shoulder to keep from crying out. He groaned, wrecked by it, then shoved his trousers low, freed his cock, and pressed the head against her, slicking through her heat just to feel it.
He turned her and set her front to the trunk, one forearm banding her waist while the other came up to cover her mouth. “Can you be good for me?” he breathed at her ear, “take every inch and soak me while you scream into my hand?”
The first slide in punched a noise out of both of them. He went deep, slow, forehead to her temple, control hanging by threads.
“Maybe you should be the one who needs reminding to keep quiet.” She quibbed, and it heard a hard thrust.
“Perfect. Maker, Ivy…you feel perfect. I could…” He cut himself off with a ragged sound and held there, buried to the hilt, letting her feel the heavy throb of him while his palm gentled over her lips. “Good girl,” he whispered, voice gone ruin-low. “Take me. Breathe.”
She nodded against his hand. He drew almost all the way out and rocked back in with a grind that made her eyes roll and earned a whimper. The tree was cool against her cheek; he was hot everywhere else, breath ragged, jaw at her temple. Still, her body wanted to be loud. He felt the little sound start in her throat and pressed his palm more firmly to catch it, the heel of his hand cupping her jaw, two fingers stroking her cheek in apology even as his hips found a brutal, perfect rhythm.
Thick drag. Deep seat. Again.
She pushed back to meet him, breath stuttering, and he nearly lost the thin glass of his restraint. He pulled out with a hiss, fist tight at the base to keep himself, eyes black with it.
“Darling, look at you,” he grated, hips snapping. Rings bit lightly into the meat of her thigh where he held her open. “So tight for me. You like this, being full and quiet? You like me using you right here?”
She made the kind of noise that would have woken the camp if not for his hand. He watched her eyes for the flicker of doubt and found only heat; she tapped his wrist once - more. He groaned, obeyed, pace turning savage under the leash of silence. The wet sound of them, the soft slap of his hips to her backside, the creak of leather - obscene in the green hush.
“Mine,” he panted, the word falling hot against her ear. “My clever girl.” He lifted the hand from her mouth just enough to let her breathe and fed two fingers between her lips instead. “Bite if you have to. That’s it. Ivy….fuck… you feel… ”
She sucked his fingers, tongue slicking over the knuckles he’d stained with cherry. He lost a beat at the sight of it, then found a deeper angle that had her cursing around his fingers. Her body clutched at him, pulse-fast, and he felt her start to break - the first flutter, then the hard, sweet seize that always destroyed him. He kept her there, hand firm at her hip, fucking her through it while she shook against the bark, tears caught in her lashes from the effort of holding back.
“Shh,” he soothed, desperate and tender at once, easing only when her legs went weak. He pulled his fingers free of her mouth and brought them to his own, tasting her with a helpless little sound that made her clench on nothing when he slipped out.
He gripped the base of his thick cock, panting, control hanging by threads. “Not inside,” he rasped, forehead pressed to her temple, eyes black with need. “I need your mouth.”
Her pupils flipped wide. “Yes.”
He fished three cherries from his pocket, crushed them in his fist - dark juice ran over his knuckles, down his wrist. He stroked the mess along his length, slow, painting himself red to the root. It dripped from the swollen head, glossy.
“On your knees, clever girl.” His rings slid into her hair, guiding. “Open up and show me the mouth that ties knots.”
She sank, obedient and shaking, heat pouring off her. She stuck her tongue out for him - pink and eager - and he thumbed a streak of cherry across it. “Wrap that wicked tongue around my cock,” he said, filthy-soft. “Tie yourself to me.”
Rook took the tip first, a wet kiss, then flattened her tongue and licked up the length, collecting juice and pre-come in one long, reverent stripe. He swore brokenly. When she closed her mouth around the head, he had to brace a hand to the tree to stop himself from thrusting through her throat.
“Eyes on me,” he ordered, breathless. She looked up, mouth full, cheeks hollowing. “Fuck…yes. That’s it. Let me see you take it. Tap twice if you need air.”
She tapped once on his thigh - go on - and sank deeper. He felt the slick heat of her throat catch and then ease as she breathed through her nose, jaw soft, tongue cupping along the underside exactly where he liked it.
“Good girl. Maker, that tongue,” he rasped, guiding her pace with his hand in her hair, shoulders trembling with the effort not to ruin her. “Look at you, making a mess of me. You like this? You like my cock in your mouth?”
She hummed around him - yes - which vibrated in all the right places. Cherry juice and spit slicked her lips, gleamed on his shaft, stringing between her mouth and the head when he pulled her off to breathe. He thumbed her lower lip down, watched it spring back, then fed himself back in, shallow thrusts that made his teeth bare. “Open wider. That’s it. Take me… deeper… dearest…”
She swallowed him to the hilt and held, eyes watering, one hand wrapped around the base, twisting with the juice, the other braced on his thigh. He groaned - ruined, grateful, worshipping and filthy all at once. “Maker, Ivy…. you’re spoiling me. You’re going to make me…”
He slipped free, panting, because he wanted it a very particular way. “Tongue out.”
She obeyed, tongue lolling, cherry-stained. He stroked himself over it, slow, smearing red across her lips and chin. “Pretty mouth,” he said, reverent and dirty. “Knot-master. My clever girl with the dangerous tongue. Keep it right there and let me finish on it.”
She looked up and met his eyes with that wreck-me look, and he broke cleanly. One more tight pull and he spilt hot across her tongue and lips, a low, helpless curse dragging out of him. She held, obedient, filthy, mouth open, letting him pulse against the wet pink of her tongue until he was wrung out and shaking.
“Show me,” he panted, and she tilted her head, tongue extended, cum and cherry juice mixed - obscene, perfect. His hand shook as he thumbed her chin, smearing what dripped. “Swallow.”
She closed her mouth around his thumb and swallowed, slow and theatrical. He felt it. He swore again, softer, the sound breaking into a laugh of disbelief.
“Come here.” He hauled her up and kissed her, hungry and grateful, tasting sugar and himself. “Thank you,” he murmured into her mouth, ridiculous and sincere.
“For what?” Her voice was raspy, smug.
“For letting me be indecent,” he said, forehead pressed to hers. “For letting me have that clever tongue on me.”
She grinned, wicked and fond. “Any time you bring dessert. I am always willing to indulge…”
He snorted, finally pulling his trousers up, then crouched and brushed his thumb under her mouth, wiping the last red smear with a gentleness that contradicted the mess they’d made. He put the ruined cherries’ stems in her palm; she slipped one into her mouth and, never breaking eye contact, tied another neat knot and spat it into his hand.
He groaned. “You’re trying to kill me.”
“Hard to kill, remember?” she teased, and nipped his jaw.
He tucked the new knotted stem into his pocket along with the other, then glanced toward the camp. “We should…pretend to have foraged.”
He picked up exactly one stick. She snorted and grabbed two leaves for show. They walked back under the hush, breaking apart like mist. At the edge of the firelight, Davrin arched a brow at the single stick.
“Productive,” he said.
“Exceptionally,” Emmrich replied, almost smiling, voice bone-dry. His hand brushed Rook’s as he set the stick down, and she licked a last glimmer of cherry from the corner of her mouth just to watch his composure trip.