Wildwood (2 page)

‘
Of course not
.’

‘
We’re acting under duress
.’

Ash pushes up against me so he can get his hands round my waist and down to the swell of my arse. ‘Naturally.’ He cups the twin mounds, his fingers daring and possessive. ‘I don’t want you – you understand that, don’t you?
’

‘
Yes
.’

‘
You’re not beautiful
.’

‘
I know,’ I gasp before he clasps the back of my head and kisses me with ravenous kisses. My body is pliant against the hard length of his and I can feel his thick erection trapped between us. It excites me beyond measure. He eats my soft whimpers of distress
.

‘
Avril,’ he groans as we break for air at last. Then he sinks to his knees before me, his hands on my hips. His only clothing is the living ivy and his prick stands like wood. He stares up at me with an expression so intense I’m almost lost. While he stares his hand travels to the inside of my thigh, brushing aside the last few curls of bark there and, as he presses his lips to my belly and his thumb describes circles on my mound, his fingers slip inexorably into the crease of my sex. My folds are plump velvet like the petals of an overblown rose, and at the heart of the rose I am wet and waiting for him
.

‘
You smell like summer,’ he mumbles, his tongue sweeping my skin
.

Oh good God, he’s inside me – two fingers, scissoring to open me, stirring. The rest of his hand rubs against my sex and my clit, firm and easy. He stoops to kiss my hip, my belly, the crease of thigh and crotch, his lips fervent as his fingers slip in and out. I lay one hand on his bare shoulder to feel his muscles working, one hand on his hair. He is oak, I am birch, and my sweet sap is welling out and running down his fingers, oiling his palm. His teeth nip at my mons, tugging on the skin, sending sparks straight to my clit. I start to make frantic little noises. But just as my orgasm is so close that I can taste it he pulls out from me and rocks back on his heels. I nearly lose my footing and I have to grab at him to steady myself
.

‘
Ash!’ My cry is soft but my whole body is screaming with frustration. I push my fingers against his lips and he bites down
on
them – the pain reassuring, something to cling to. Lovingly he touches himself with the hand he’s had inside me, smoothing my honey onto his hard cock, making it shiny with my juices. He’s so aroused that there’s no give to that stiff column, but he strokes it a couple of times anyway
.

The look in his eyes would be frightening in any other context, so strong is it, so charged with such implacable intent
.

Then he takes me by the hips and pulls me forwards, right off balance, so that my body slides down the length of his. I straddle his thighs as I sink into his lap. He spreads me, settling my sex right over the head of his cock, and holds my weight effortlessly as he pushes deep into the space he has prepared so well. My body, tight though it still is, is starving for him and swallows him in one hot wet gulp. It only takes a couple of thrusts to seat himself to the hilt and, as he does so, he groans my name. Face to face again, I find his lips. My arms are round his neck
.

‘
Ash
…’

His kisses silence me. His hips surge under my thighs and, as I grind my pelvis upon him, part of me thinks that this must be an incredibly uncomfortable position for him, but I’ve once again forgotten how strong he is. The muscles of his arms bulge as he lifts most of my body weight, sliding me up and down on his impaling shaft. I try to help, pushing with my spread legs, but it’s not really necessary. Ash can fuck me. Ash is fucking me and I’m riding him. Brought already to the very edge, my sex responds at once and I arch my back and spit out incoherent, urgent cries
.

Ash mouths at my throat and words are wrung from him like drops of blood. ‘Avril,’ he groans: ‘Oh God, Avril. I don’t want you. I don’t want you. I don’t love you
.’

I know I need to hear those words properly but right now I’m too frantic with my own need and my mind is like a blizzard of golden leaves and everything, everything is dissolving and turning to light
.

In the midst of rapture something touches my arm lightly, like fire
.

I open my eyes and find Ash’s own are closed, his skin flushed and damp as he thrusts. Every one of those thrusts sends an aftershock of orgasm through me, rendering my mind to pulp, and I can barely focus on his face
.

The light has dimmed
.

Pain stings along my left thigh
.

I look down and see a holly leaf with its spines embedded in my skin. There’s a red line scored down my left forearm too. A dark mass moves in the wood, over Ash’s shoulder. Blinking, I try to focus
.

The mass is a wall of vegetation – dark, shiny leaves like a storm front on the move, and at its apex a man with a look of thunder and in his hands a spear of blackened wood. He strides into the clearing, the gale of holly billowing around him, and draws the spear back to thrust
.

‘
It’s Michael! Michael’s got into the wood!’ I cry, but Ash can’t hear me. His arms are around me and his thighs are like slabs under me and he’s deep deep inside me; Ash is in the last throes of his agony and he can’t hear, only feel
.

As the spear impacts between Ash’s shoulder blades I scream, and wake
.

Sliding out of bed, I land on my arse on the rug. It takes a long time before I can truly believe I’m safe in my own room, and longer still to stop trembling. My body is aquiver from the orgasm I’ve just experienced – one of those aching belly-deep orgasms you get in sleep – and frantic with adrenaline.

The fear goes first. It was only a dream after all, and I should be used to them by now.

Getting to my feet I go to the window. My bedroom is in the converted attic of the old cottage, with quaint sloping roofs on
either
side of the centre beam and only two small windows, one on either side of the bedhead. Kneeling to draw back the curtain I look out into the night. Part of me expects to see Ash out there in the long grass, silver with moonlight, looking up at me. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. But the night is moonless and the meadow is empty. All I can make out is the black bulk of Grange Wood against the horizon, like a living darkness.

Dropping the curtain I turn back reluctantly to my bed. The light from the landing illuminates the room softly. Michael sleeps on his back down the centre line of the mattress, hands resting on his chest. His black hair is a crisp outline on the pillow and the sheet covers him only to the waist. Jenny, the girl from the pond, lies on his far side, curled into a ball near the foot of the bed. Neither of them stirs. I can hear Michael’s even breathing, though not hers.

My tongue feels like a piece of carpet. A pulse still beats in my clit like the tick of an old-fashioned watch and my thighs are wet and sticky. I need a drink of water, desperately, and there’s a carton of orange juice in the fridge so I head down the stairs. A glance out of the landing window gives me another look across the estate grounds towards Grange Wood. Somewhere out there under the dark oaks Ash lies asleep, I presume. I wonder if he lies alone.

I shrug off the last shreds of my dream. It’s all due to the wood, of course – those dreams that crowd my sleeping hours, night after night, powerful and vivid and exhausting. I live too close to the ancient trees. Dreams seep out from under the shadow of the wood edge and they cross the old orchard and the lawns and crawl in at my window. They fill my head with confusion and my body with heat.

It’s all the fault of the Wildwood.

1: Something Old, Something New

‘NOW WHAT KIND
of woman brings a knife along to a wedding?’

I jumped, but it was too late to conceal anything. The cut had already been made. I straightened to meet the gaze of the man who’d accosted me. It wasn’t, thank God, the vicar: that would have been too embarrassing. ‘I didn’t actually bring it to the wedding,’ I explained. ‘I keep it in my coat. In the car.’

‘In the car, right.’ He made it sound just as wicked. Standing on the churchyard grass with his hands in the pockets of his beautifully cut suit, he was clearly relishing the thought of my lawbreaking. Under his black brows there was a complicit glint in his eyes. ‘So, what sort of woman keeps a knife in her coat pocket? International assassin, perhaps?’ He looked pointedly at the thick black strap in my hand. ‘Rubber fetishist?’

I could feel the blush warming my face. ‘I’m an arborist,’ I said, folding the clasp knife safely away. I touched the trunk of the young rowan I’d been tending to. ‘This tree’s been staked for so many years that the strap’s cutting into the bark and choking it.’ I poked the rotten base of the tree stake with my foot. If I’d been wearing my steel-capped boots like I did for work I’d have given it a solid kick and knocked the piece of wood away, but in strappy open-toed shoes suitable for an August wedding I had to be a little more cautious. ‘Anyway, by now the tree’s supporting the stake, not the other way round. So I was just cutting it free.’

‘I see.’ He was still smiling, which I found disconcerting. Men that good-looking didn’t usually smile at me.

Not that many men I’d met were quite that handsome, I corrected myself mentally, taking a moment to look at him properly. And usually I was wearing combat trousers, a reflective waistcoat and a safety helmet when I did meet them.

‘You’re a tree surgeon.’

There was a hint of doubt in his tone, which made me bristle. I knew what he was seeing when he looked at me, though he kept his gaze just focused enough on my face to be polite: a tall young woman in a fuchsia-pink summer frock which showed off her tan and clashed just a little with the jacket, betraying a lack of expertise when choosing clothes. A big mouth. A silk flower in my hair that stood in for the wedding hat I’d refused to buy, and a rather amateurish attempt at make-up. It was not my normal look and I was horribly certain that the effect was less than flattering. The dress hid my toned thighs and the jacket hid the muscles of my upper arms – the long flat muscles of a keen swimmer or climber and in my case both – and left me looking simply rangy. ‘I’m a landscape gardener,’ I said, drawing myself up taller, ‘with a specialisation in trees.’ Damn it, I wasn’t going to let this man embarrass me. ‘I work in a National Trust garden in Cumbria.’

‘Sounds lovely.’

‘I think so.’ He really was unusually handsome; it was something about the eyes, the way those black lashes contrasted with the blue of his irises so that they flashed every time he moved. His hair was dark too, growing thick and a little unruly. It added up to what I thought of as Irish looks. And I was willing to bet a suit like his cost more than my monthly wage. Maybe several times more.

‘And even at a wedding you just can’t resist a little tree work?’

‘Well, you know.’ I shrugged. The way I see it, looking after
trees
is more than a job. ‘Obviously the churchwardens here don’t know what to do with them.’

‘They knew enough to plant a rowan near the main door.’ He plucked a leaf from a low branch and rolled it negligently. ‘It’s supposed to protect buildings from lightning and fire and witches.’ He smiled. ‘Doesn’t work though, not any more. Alas, the Church must resort to insurance like the rest of us.’

‘You know your trees then,’ I said, surprised.

‘I know their virtues.’

It was such a strange phraseology that I was temporarily at a loss. ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘they’ve been taking forever with the photos …’ I waved towards the church where the bride and groom were still posing. ‘I had to find something to do before I passed out from boredom.’

‘They’ve certainly been taking their time. You’re a friend of the bride?’

‘Emma’s my cousin. We grew up together.’ I smiled ruefully, not about to admit that we’d spent most of our childhood fighting. We were really quite fond of each other now that I lived on the other side of the country. ‘You were in Chester’s half of the church, I expect?’

‘Yes. I met him through work.’ Not, ‘He’s a friend,’ I noted.

‘He seems a nice guy.’

‘He does. Your arboricultural work …’ He trailed off with a gesture that conveyed that he was fishing for my name.

‘Avril Shearing.’

‘Avril … It means “boar fighter”, did you know?’

‘Really? I thought it was French for “April.” Friends have sometimes told me I look a bit French; it’s my Mediterranean complexion and the burnt-honey colour of my hair. So far as I knew I wasn’t of Gallic ancestry, though family legend had it that Great-grandmother had been naughty with several visiting GIs during the War, so the exact composition of the
Shearing
bloodline was an unknown quantity. The women in my family have never been conventional.

‘It’s a common misapprehension.’

‘Boar fighter?’ I grinned a little. ‘I like that. What language?’

‘Old English. Language of the heathen Saxon.’ There was a twist to his smile now.

‘Right …’

‘You’re fully qualified?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Do you have a business card?’

This time I laughed out loud. I didn’t move in the sort of circles where people swapped cards. ‘No – what for?’

‘Well, in case I need to contact you again.’

This brought me up short. I stayed smiling, not sure if he was hitting on me. From his expression he could be, easily, but I didn’t quite believe it. Men like him did not go for women like me. ‘Contact me?’

‘To deal with my trees.’

Again I hesitated. ‘Sorry, I’ve got a full-time job. I don’t do contract work.’

‘You misunderstand. I’m in the process of buying some property, and it’s quite heavily wooded. I may be looking for someone to manage it for me, on a full-time basis.’

Several trains of thought ran through my head simultaneously, most of them doubtful, some outright cynical. ‘OK,’ I said cautiously.

‘Don’t worry about the card.’ He turned away from me as an usher called ‘Michael!’ from the church porch. ‘I can find you if necessary.’