“I should have chosen,” he hissed, “a tall, hale, hearty, and serene woman. One who does not sell herself to the highest bidder, or prattle constant questions with every breath, or play-act as wiser than she truly is!”
The words seemed to strike at Rosa one by one, catching and reverberating at something deep and fundamental within. Hard enough to make her stagger backwards, her hands clutching against her flailing heartbeat, and it felt like there was ice, suddenly, crackling inside, breaking apart.
A strumpet, who sells herself. Prattles questions. Pretends to be clever…
Rosa’s breath was coming in thin, high-pitched gulps, the sound far too loud in this lovely little room, and her gulping swallow was audible too, striking at her ears. Good gods, what was wrong with her, what did it matter, she was aspy, she’d come to help start awar, John was cold and hard, hewas, she would get out of here and run back to Lord Kaspar andshe did not care…
She could hear John’s heavy sigh over her choking breaths, could feel him stepping closer — and then the abrupt, juddering warmth of his hand on her neck. His hand, gentle, tilting her head up to meet his shifting eyes, and he was opening his mouth, he was about to speak —
“Please don’t,” Rosa heard herself gasp, her wet eyes blinking at his. “Don’t say anything. Not like that, not now. Please.”
John’s eyes briefly closed — but then he nodded, quick and furtive, his throat convulsing. And as Rosa stood there, looked at him, it was almost as though she could see his regret, his resolve, rising, shuddering across his face…
The movement swarmed in a rush, the room swirling wide and sideways, rushing up to Rosa’s back — and when it settled again, she was lying on the four-poster bed, her limbs sprawled against the soft quilt. And John, John was looming over her, dark and huge and menacing, and she twitched at the feel of him yanking off the black leather belt he’d given her, pooling her tunic-dress up loose against her waist. And then — Rosa yelped aloud — he grasped both her arms with one clawed hand, dragged them up over her head, and used the belt to lash them to the bedpost with a graceful, devastating ease.
It left Rosa sprawled and tied on a bed, with her chest helplessly heaving, her entire bottom half exposed and entirely naked to the room. And to the orc, the odious, vicious,lyingorc, who was kneeling between her spread legs, and looking down at her with glinting, dangerous eyes.
“What thefuck,” Rosa gasped, “are youdoing.”
John’s expression didn’t change, his huge body close, coiled, deadly. “I swore I should care for you,” he hissed. “Thus, I shall be a kind lord, and grant you what you sorely need, in your distress. What youwishfor.”
Rosa spluttered at him, fully about to say that this was the verylastthing she wished for, of all the things to wish for upon the entireearth— but then, gods curse him, John growled at her, andtouchedherbare thigh.
The touch was gentle, careful, perhaps almost hesitant, at total odds with that rasping, terrifying sound from his throat — but together, it was warm, and primal, andwonderful. Dragging Rosa’s hissing breath out through her teeth, her eyelashes furiously fluttering, and above her John actually laughed, not quite as mocking this time.
“Foolish woman,” he said. “You wish for this too, ach? You wish for me? Even if you yet think I have cast some cruel spell upon you?”
His hand had begun sliding up Rosa’s thigh, slow, deliberate, glorious, setting her skin sparking in its wake. And she was squirming despite herself, sucking in air, feeling the strength of his soft leather against her bound wrists — and fighting back the almost overpowering urge to nod. To say keep going, don’t stop,please…
“Youhadto have donesomething,” Rosa replied, though her voice sounded breathless to her ears. “It’s the only thing that makessense.”
“Is it?” John countered, eyebrows rising, as that hand kept sliding. Not slipping down between Rosa’s parted legs, as her traitorous thoughts might have hoped, but instead gently scraping its claws up over her hipbone, curving against her waist. Drawing the loose tunic up with it, and Rosa couldn’tthink, especially when — her mouth gave a strangled moan — he exposed her bare breast, and then tugged at her nipple, gentle, purposeful,proprietary.
“Is it?” he asked again, his eyes cool, demanding on hers, as that warm hand slid over to the other side, and did the same there, tugging, twisting, teasing. “Or might it be, mayhap, that I swore to care for you, and I have done so? I saw the danger we foolishly courted, so I have brought you to my mountain, I have given you good food and milk, I have nursed you in my own bed, I have washed you in my ownbath. I have shown you my home and answered your questions and given you leave to work in my library. Ach, I havetastedyou, when no man has done so, and granted you the thrill of fear you crave. Even now I pet you, and soothe you, even after you have sought to endanger yourself by leaving, and blamed me for what I have not done. Ach?”
The utterasshole, and Rosa tried for a glare, which proved surprisingly challenging as he brought up his other hand, now playing with both her hardened, peaked nipples at once.
“You yelled at me too, orc,” she choked out. “And, you’ve also tied me to abed, and called me stupid, and prattling, and bony, and awhore!”
John’s head tilted, his eyes flicking up to hers, even as his hands settled closer against the slight swell of her breasts, cupping them soft against his palms. “Youarebony, and prattling,” he said, with damnable coolness. “But I did not call youstupid, or awhore. I said you think yourself cleverer than you are, which is truth, if you find yourself taken in by a Skai. And youhavesold yourself to the highest bidder, and now” — his mouth quirked, smug — “this is me, pet.”
He punctuated the words with an insolent pinch to both nipples, drawing a heated moan to Rosa’s mouth, and something that might have almost been a smile — which she bit back, hard, as his hands smoothed back down her bare waist.
“You — you called me a strumpet,” Rosa managed, her voice sounding abominably warm. “Astrumpet!”
John’s mouth actually twitched up, brief but true — and with a cocked eyebrow, he finally, finally skated his hand downward, and lightly traced it between Rosa’s parted legs. Earning a frantic, desperate choke from her throat, and an equally desperate clench of her swollen-feeling wetness against his gently delving finger.
It was humiliating, and highly betraying, and John actually laughed out loud, real and genuine, for only the second time in their entire acquaintance. His face lighting up, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners, his gaze warm and amused and perhaps almost —affectionate.
“Youarea strumpet, pet,” he said, with no small satisfaction. “You spurn the rich, powerful, titled man who claims you, so that you may be trapped and taken by his enemy. By anorc.”
And as he spoke, it was almost like the dark, bitter truth of that had stolen back into the room, into his eyes. Shuttering the warmth back behind it, locking it away into cool distance again, and suddenly Rosa needed it again, craved it again. This rare, hidden version of John that teased and laughed, and argued over technicalities, and —wantedher.Caredfor her.
The strange, thundering certainty of that seemed to worm its way inside, wriggling deep — and deeper still when she saw his shoulders rise and fall, his eyes closing again. And when they opened this time, they were dark, dangerous, deadly.
His harsh, fundamental growl seemed to light up every nerve under Rosa’s skin at once, choking off her throat, clutching the hunger tight in her belly. Her eyes fluttering, her body squirming, tugging in vain at its restraints, trapped under the sheer, ravaging power of a fierce, fiendish orc.
His stroking claws were sharper this time, scraping red lines against her skin, but Rosa only bucked and gasped, moaned at the exquisite, teasing agony. And when those claws thrust her legs wide apart, and trailed so gently against her quivering, dripping heat, there was only a rippling jolt up her back, a sound from her throat that might have been a cry.
