Chapter 54: Jealous of Trees

"I hate that the forest knows how to wait."

Tamsin said it in their room with the door barred, the green cabinet key on the table between them, and her hair loose around her shoulders like she had undone herself for battle. The inn below had settled into night noise: low voices, chair legs, Old Pero swearing at a pot that had done nothing to deserve it. Lina stood near the bed in her shift, hands empty, because anything in her hands would become an excuse.

"I thought I hated when it touched," Tamsin continued. "The dreams, the pollen, the roots under the soil. But waiting is worse. Waiting feels like manners. Manners make danger harder to hate."

Lina sat on the edge of the bed. "I should have told you about the cabinet hum when it happened."

"Yes. But this is larger than that." Tamsin paced once, then stopped because the room was too small for drama and furniture. "You are becoming a place where things answer. Hearth. Forest. Forge. Dryad. Scholar's paper. Garron. Me. I used to know what wanting you meant because it happened between us, in rooms I understood. Now I touch you and wonder whether some root under Valmora is taking notes."

Lina had to swallow around the sudden tightness in her throat. "When you say it that way, I want to make a joke and hide under it."

"Do not."

"I will not."

Tamsin looked at her then, eyes wet and furious. "I am jealous of trees, Lina. Do you understand how humiliating that is for a grown woman with wages, keys, and excellent breasts?"

Lina laughed once before she could stop herself. Tamsin pointed at her.

"Careful."

"I am sorry. Not because it is funny. Because you are beautiful when you insult your own dignity."

Tamsin's mouth trembled. "Do not make me easier to love so I stop being angry."

"I am not trying to stop you."

"Good." She took a breath. "Terms. No brew. Key on the table, not on my body. I want to fuck you hard enough that my body believes you are here, not north, not listening to flame, not becoming a language for every hungry thing in Sorana Vale. I want your mouth on me after. I want to say ugly things if they are true and stop if they become weapons."

Lina's body went hot and soft at once. "I agree. My terms: you can be rough with your hands, mouth, and fingers. No pain for punishment. If I say lantern, slow. If I say pearl, stop. I want to come for you and then make you come with my mouth. I will not turn your jealousy into proof of love unless you name it that way."

Tamsin closed her eyes long enough to choose mercy with teeth. "Good sentence. Terrible woman."

"Yes."

Tamsin crossed the room and kissed her like an argument finally given a mouth. Lina opened under it. Tamsin pushed her back onto the bed, climbed over her, and pinned both wrists above her head with one hand.

"Still yes?" Tamsin asked, breath shaking.

"Yes."

Tamsin bit Lina's lower lip, then moved down to her neck, her shoulder, the place where old bite marks had faded. She pulled Lina's shift down roughly enough that one seam tore. Lina lost one sharp breath to surprise. Tamsin stopped at once.

"Good?"

"Keep going."

Tamsin bared Lina's breasts and took one nipple into her mouth, sucking hard, then biting until Lina's hips lifted. Her free hand slid down Lina's belly, under the shift, between her thighs. Lina was wet already. Tamsin found it and made a low sound that was almost grief.

"Mine in this room," Tamsin said.

"Yours in this room."

"Not the forest's."

"No."

"Not Garron's."

"No."

"Not the cabinet's, gods help us."

Lina choked on a laugh that became a moan when Tamsin's fingers rubbed her clit.

"Mine because you choose me."

"Yes. I choose you."

Tamsin slid two fingers inside her without gentleness but with perfect attention. Lina cried out. Tamsin watched her face as she fucked her, wrist working, thumb on clit, mouth returning to Lina's breast whenever words threatened to soften the anger too soon.

The sex was not pretty first. It was clear. Tamsin's need had edges, and Lina accepted them because they had named where the edges ended. The bed creaked. Lina's wrists strained against Tamsin's hold. Every thrust of fingers said here, here, here, and Lina's body answered with no root, no flame, no green air. Just Tamsin's hand, Tamsin's breath, Tamsin's anger refusing to become cruelty.

"Say where you are," Tamsin demanded.

"Our room. Bed. Your fingers inside me. Your hand on my wrists. I want to come."

"For whom?"

"For you."

"Then do."

Lina came hard, arching under her, cunt clenching around Tamsin's fingers, voice breaking on Tamsin's name. Tamsin held her through it, then let go of her wrists and buried her face against Lina's chest.

For a moment, neither moved.

Then Lina touched Tamsin's hair. "Mouth?"

Tamsin lifted her head. Her face was open in a way anger had protected until now. "Yes. I want your mouth. I want to be touched like I am not a rulebook with legs."

Lina rolled them carefully and knelt between Tamsin's thighs. Tamsin shoved her skirt up herself. No underlinen. She was soaked, thighs shining, cunt flushed and open. Lina placed both hands on Tamsin's knees.

"May I?"

"Yes. Put your mouth on me. Make me stop hearing trees."

Lina licked her slowly first, from entrance to clit, tasting salt, heat, and the human truth of the woman who had held the whole inn together until she needed to come apart. Tamsin's hands gripped the sheet. Lina circled her clit, then sucked it gently, then harder when Tamsin asked. Two fingers slid inside only after Tamsin said, "Inside. Now."

Lina obeyed. Tamsin's hips moved into her mouth, no longer elegant, no longer managing. Lina loved her like that: blunt, wet, furious, alive. She kept one hand on Tamsin's belly, grounding her, while her tongue and fingers worked until Tamsin's thighs shook.

"Still here?" Lina asked against her.

"Here. You. Bed. No trees." Tamsin's voice broke. "Do not stop."

Lina did not stop. Tamsin came with a sharp cry, thighs closing around Lina's head, one hand in Lina's hair and the other slamming flat against the mattress. Lina kept her mouth gentle through the aftershocks until Tamsin pulled her up.

They lay tangled, sweaty, breathing hard. The key remained on the table. The cabinet below remained locked. The forest, if it listened, kept its manners.

After a while, Lina reached for the towel beside the bed and cleaned Tamsin's thighs with the same care Tamsin had once used to clean ink from Lina's thumb. Tamsin watched her, too tired to hide the tenderness and too proud to make it easy.

"Ordinary task?" Lina asked.

"Clean skin. Drink water. Put torn shift in mending basket. Admit I am not only angry."

Lina paused with the towel in her hand. "What else?"

"Scared. Aroused. Possessive in a way I dislike. Proud of us in a way I dislike even more because pride makes me forgive things too early."

"Do not forgive early."

"I am trying not to."

Lina kissed the inside of her knee. Not erotic now, or not only erotic. "I can love you while you are still angry."

Tamsin's hand found Lina's hair. "Good. Because I intend to be loved with accuracy."

Tamsin laughed suddenly, small and wrecked. "I am still jealous of trees."

Lina kissed her shoulder. "I know."

"But less inclined to lose a fight to one tonight."

"Excellent. I would hate to explain that injury to Isolde."

Tamsin turned into her. "Next time something hums, bends, clicks, warms, whispers, or behaves like a polite predator, you tell me before you decide whether it matters."

"Yes."

"No decorative verbs."

"No decorative verbs."

Tamsin touched Lina's mouth. "Good. Now sleep before I find another kingdom of nature to resent."

Lina slept with Tamsin's hand over her heart and the key still visible in the dark.

In the morning, the torn shift went into the mending basket instead of the laundry. Tamsin pinned a note to it: repair, do not hide. Lina left it there all day where she could see it when she reached for the ledger.

The note worked better than punishment. Every time Lina saw it, she remembered that intimacy could tear fabric without breaking trust, if both people stayed to mend what named pressure had damaged.

That night, she mended the seam herself. Tamsin watched, then threaded the needle when Lina's tired hands missed the eye twice.

Neither called that forgiveness. Both let it be care.

Care, at least, did not need to finish speaking before it worked.

That helped enough today.