CHAPTER 9

Over the winter, Amymone had lost all of her hair and curled up at the base of her tree to rest. Her long, green locks had returned in the last couple of weeks, locks which would undoubtedly turn a golden brown with the fall.

Mike put himself between the women, his hands held up in surrender.

"Naia, if Amymone isn't interested, then we need to respect that. Amymone, we won't do anything you don't want to do. Now, if you'd like to watch me spank your sister for being a snitch, I think we could arrange something." Though his relationship with many of the others had become carnal over time, he had always made clear that sex wasn't a prerequisite for staying in the home. "Is there some other way we can help you out?"

Amymone turned away from Mike, her hair covering her face.

"Don't pout," Naia told her. "You were the one who got everyone excited for the equinox, you didn't even have to do it this way."

"Oh?" This was news to Mike, and he turned toward Naia. "What do you mean?"

"Amymone doesn't have to wait for the equinox to do anything. She kind of wanted to make a big fuss this year because you actually seem to care about the little things and she was trying to impress you. Previous Caretakers would generally just bring her reading material and leave her be, but she remembers how you came out during the winter and put a blanket over her when it snowed."

He nodded, remembering how he had fussed over Amymone. She had been recently revived before winter had come, and had worried more than once about her tree suddenly dying again. Unable to hire a local company to care for his magical tree, he had made sure to clear snow around the base of the tree and had watched the weather in case temperature fluctuations were too rapid.

Once she had come out of hibernation, he had kept her in books. Able to easily read five or six a day, he had tried to convince her to use a Kindle. She had stubbornly insisted on paperback only, which he found a bit morbid on account of paper being made from wood. Regardless, he had to agree that the new book smell couldn't be beat, and the two of them would often pick a book to read together every week and then talk about it.

Amymone groaned, then crouched down. "If I had just been doing it a little bit at a time, then it would be fine. I just can't make everything happen all at once, not this year."

"I'm sure everyone will understand," he explained. "It's okay to have ambitions, but it's also okay to fail. It's how we all learn."

"You sound like an after-school special," she muttered.

"But he's right," Naia added.

The dryad groaned again, then stood. "You do realize that this is not at all how I expected our first time to be, right? I was thinking maybe closer to summer, way after my awkward winter phase had ended. I could lure you up into my tree, maybe there's just enough moonlight to see each other. The wind would rustle through the leaves, the crickets would be singing, we would look into each other's eyes for a good long while..."

"That would be her romantic streak," whispered Naia, though Mike was certain Amymone could hear. "She gets it from all the romance books she reads."

"Oh, fuck off," Amymone retorted. "I'm allowed to want what I want. That's my prerogative. You only get one first time after all."

"Surely it isn't your first time..." Mike muttered.

"First time with you." Amymone winked. "But I guess I'll have to settle. I did kind of build this event up in everybody's mind, so what's done is done."

"But your magic will give her the boost she needs," Naia added. "Since she's connected to her tree, she can take that energy and use it to help the plants and flowers bloom on time."

Mike nodded, a crooked grin on his face. While it wasn't uncommon to solve his problems with sex, he did find it amusing that he was officially going to start spring with a bang.

"I guess we're probably in a hurry." Amymone approached her tree and bent over, her hands pressed against the bark of the tree. "In a way, maybe this is kind of exciting, too. We can be strangers passing in the night, or perhaps—AYE!"

Mike had snuck up on the dryad and given her ass a playful smack. She had wide hips that were complimented by a slender waist and very thick thighs. When she looked over her shoulder at him, he gave her another playful smack.

"That's for making things unnecessarily hard on yourself," he informed her.

"Oh, do you want to do some roleplay?" she asked. "I'll be that pesky rhododendron that just can't get enough water, and you can be a beefy firehose."

"Um, what?"

"Oh, I know! Maybe I'm a bonsai tree, and you're here to tuck my branches in. Use those fingers to push my branches in place, tie me up a little. Oh, I know! You can be the dirty gardener, and I'm just a bush waiting to get trimmed."

Mike looked to Naia for help. The nymph was laughing.

"She's just fucking with you," she told him. "I think."

He turned his attention back to the mischievous dryad. She was chattering on now, something about his bark being worse than his bite. Using one hand to pull her gown up to give him access, he summoned his magic from deep within. It was wild magic, a cross between the abilities of a nymph that Naia had given him when he had become Caretaker, and the fae magic from Cecilia.

Sparks of electricity formed along his torso and then ran down his arm until they gathered along his hand. The idea of controlling this magic had been impossible six months ago, but after so many opportunities to practice, he had learned a few new tricks.