She lost patience with the slow tease, bridging that last little distance and pressing her lips against his. For a long moment, his lips remained hard, then they softened and suddenly he was kissing her like he intended to consume her. Like the world might end if he didn’t get inside her. His hands gripped her ass, lifting her and crushing her against him. She helped him by wrapping her legs around his waist.
There were none of the teasing touches of earlier. No delaying the inevitable culmination. It was like someone had lit a match and they were going up in flames.
He was inside her between one breath and another, thrusting up into her and pressing frantic kisses against her throat and breasts. She threw her head back and moaned, feeling her womb pull tight, and those feelings spiral deep inside.
He reached down, rubbing the bundle of nerves just above where they were joined, building the tension in Shea. She was hurtled into climax before she could even think to guard against it. He followed moments later, his groan echoing through the trees.
Finished, he pressed her closer as he rested his forehead against hers. Shea was still breathing hard as she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as he moved to the side of the pool and lifted her up to set her on it.
They were quiet as they dried off, each keeping their thoughts to themselves. They shared little touches with each other, a caress against the shoulder, a fleeting touch to the back, a press of lips against the chin, telling each other without words the depth of their feelings.
They dried off and dressed in the change of clothes Shea brought. She pulled out the food, mostly trail rations—nothing fancy—except for two pieces of fruit she saved for their dessert.
By now the sun had set and even its memory had faded from the sky, leaving only night in its wake. This high in the canopy there were gaps for the sky to be seen, and what a sight it was. This far from the camp and village meant there was no light pollution to obscure the heavens on this nearly cloudless night. It made for the perfect opportunity to lay next to each other and stare up, as the stars woke one by one, until they were a stream of light twinkling across the heavens, sometimes so thickly that they looked like a river of sparkling dust.
It wouldn’t be long now until the main event—the reason Shea had wanted Fallon to see this. It was only visible for a limited time beginning a few hours after the sun set. Not every night, but often enough that Shea had risked the trip.
“This is beautiful, Shea. I can see why you brought me here.”
Shea turned her head to find Fallon staring at her. She gave him a smile, only visible because of the moon and stars. Something over his shoulder caught her eyes. She tapped him and pointed. “Look.”
The purple flowers that had been folded tight in daylight began to unfurl, looking nearly silver in the pale light. Out of each flower a light rose, slowly at first, then with ever-increasing speed until the little treetop grove was aglitter with moving, flickering lights. It turned the grove into a fantastical oasis as the tiny lights became nearly as numerous as the stars above.
“It’s like the stars have come down for us to touch,” Fallon said in a soft voice, reaching out one hand to touch a light that had drifted close.
“This is the only place I’ve ever seen these,” Shea confided. “It seems to be a phenomenon unique to this area. This is a small showing. I’m told that deeper in the forest, the lights are so plentiful that it’s brighter than the sun at midday.”
“What are they?”
“Bugs, as near as I can figure it. The locals call them fairy lights. They’re nocturnal and reside in the flowers during the day, using its cover as protection against predators. At night, when the flowers open, they wake up and come out.”
Fallon caught one, gently cupping his hands around it. He held his hand out between them and unfurled his fist in a slow movement. In his palm, no bigger than Shea’s thumbnail was a miniature figure, almost humanlike with a head and arms and legs but no features, and wings that closed and opened in a lightning fast movement. As they watched, its wings flickered, creating the glow they’d been watching.
“How does it create light?” Fallon’s face was intent as he tilted the fairy light in his hands, this way and that as if he could find the mechanism it used just by observation.
Shea shook her head, the movement visible by the fairy light. “The villagers don’t know, and my people haven’t spent enough time in this area to study it. There’s a story the villagers tell about a race of people so tiny that they are almost invisible to the eye unless you look very closely. That the race was once so plentiful throughout these lands until the cataclysm, which forced them to retreat into obscurity to avoid annihilation. The fairy lights only come out at night when they feel safe, chancing the light only when predators or enemies aren’t close.”
Fallon looked up for a moment, the fairy light’s wings opening and closing, its light turning off and on with each movement.
“Watch.” Shea lifted her hands and clapped once, the sound a crack in the night. The lights closest to them winked off, including the one in Fallon’s hands.
“It reacts to danger.”
“Yes, which means the light can be controlled. Its reaction to threat is to hide, using the natural camouflage of the night as protection.”
When Shea made no other movements, the fairy lights gradually drifted closer again in a slow meandering movement. Fallon slowly lowered his cupped hand when it became clear that the light he’d held was no longer there.
“The villagers harvest the fairy lights’ waste to create artwork and ceremonial dress. For the summer solstice, they always have a celebration that they call the Joy of Light. It looks like a dance of the sun. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Shea said.
Fallon’s hand covered hers on the blanket. “I would like to see that someday.”
Shea leaned her head against his shoulder as they watched the fairy lights move in swooping patterns over the pond, its water reflecting their light.
“When we have children, I’d like to bring them here,” Fallon said, his statement startling in the quiet.
Shea lifted her head. “We’re to have children, are we?”
“Of course. I must have someone to pass what I’ve created to—someone to take up the legacy and make something better, something stronger out of it. I’ll sit them down here and tell them the story of how we met, how you exploded onto that platform like a goddess of old, like the stories my grandmother told me when I was a child.”
“What if I don’t want children?”
His shoulder shifted as he peered down at her. “Do you want children?”
Shea rubbed her chin against his shoulder and sighed. “Truthfully, I’ve never thought about it. I’ve been so focused on making a place for myself—and then when the Trateri caught me, on surviving—that the thought never crossed my mind.”
“I think you would make a good mother, teaching our children how to read the trails and track beasts.”
“Like my mother taught me.”
“Not your father?” Fallon voice curious. “You so rarely talk about them.”
Shea was quiet a long moment. Her first instinct was to clam up, to ignore the question and make it clear there were some things she didn’t want to discuss. It’s what she would have done not so long ago.