“Have you actually —doneall these things, John?” Rosa finally asked, breathless, perhaps almost afraid of the answer. “And would you, um, want to do all of them? With — me?”
Her heart was suddenly, wildly beating, her gaze fastened to where several orcs were brutally taking their pleasure with a single moaning, kneeling orc. John’s eyes had followed hers, narrowing at the sight, and then he tugged her closer against him, his hands spreading wide against her belly.
“I have done much of this, ach,” he replied, with remarkable coolness. “But it has never pleased me to be at another’s mercy. And it should never please me to share my pet with another, or cause true or lasting harm. You are too small and precious for this.”
The words wriggled and fizzled deep inside —precious, he’d said — and combined with the all-too-fascinating sights before them, Rosa had begun to feel dry-mouthed and shuddery all over. And when John slipped his warm hand under her short tunic, and carefully eased his clawed finger up into her swollen heat — which was still dripping wet, thanks to their own thrilling activities earlier in the library — Rosa felt only pleasure, hunger,more.
“Does that please you, pet?” John murmured, as he nodded toward the orcs Rosa was blatantly staring at — a bound, kneeling Ka-esh named Abjorn, who currently had another orc kneeling close behind him, thrusting into his bared backside while several other orcs watched. “Should you wish to do this with me?”
Rosa gasped and squirmed in response, earning a light pinch of disapproval from John’s free hand — no squirming with his finger like this, it meant — and she drew in air, deep. “I — maybe?” she whispered, tentative, exposed, deplorably truthful. “Maybe just — with someone watching, to start?”
She was too aroused to be ashamed, her thoughts lingering on all the thrilling possible visions of it, and John’s finger sank a little deeper, his voice a heated purr in her ear. “Gott,” he murmured. “We shall.”
That promise whirled and sang all night, even as Rosa again rode John in his bed, his cock buried deep, where it mattered, where it belonged. Even as she somehow fell asleep pinioned on his hot, sweaty form, his claws gently scraping her back — and then awoke again, hours later, with himstill there. With him actuallysleeping, his chest rhythmically rising and falling beneath her.
It was surely morning, so Rosa carefully reached to light the candle — and then studied him with a tilting, rising affection. Drinking in his faintly fluttering lashes, the slight twitches of his limbs, the surprising softness of his features in sleep. Gods, he was a beautiful orc, all sharp angles and smooth skin, and he felt beautiful, too. Still hidden soft and safe inside her, until — Rosa gasped — his eyes abruptly snapped open. Blinking up toward her first with visible confusion, and then with increasing, undeniable hunger.
“Ríddu mér,” he ordered, without so much as a good morning, but Rosa couldn’t even protest, not with that hardness swelling within her like that, filling her with his life, his warmth. So she again rode him, rocking atop his hips while he gouged and circled deep inside. Keeping his arms folded behind his head the entire time, the asshole, even as his mouth curved up, and his hooded eyes swept up and down her body with lazy, insolent appreciation.
It wasn’t until they’d again found their pleasure together, his hips arching up as he poured himself out inside her, that Rosa heard a sound from the bed opposite. And when her head jerked toward it, she realized, with true shock, that Tristan was still there, lying on his side, facing toward them, wide awake. And he wasn’t alone, Salvi was curled close behind him, and both of them were blatantly staring across at John and Rosa. And — Rosa swallowed — Salvi’s hand was buried in Tristan’s trousers, sliding up and down with fluent, familiar purpose.
A clawed pinch at Rosa’s nipple snapped her attention back to John, who was watching her with raised, skeptical brows. Silently saying, clearly, isn’t this what you wanted? What I promised you?
And Rosa couldn’t muck this up already, no matter how much of a devious reprobate he was — so she stuck out her tongue at him, and then gave another hard, pointed rock against his hips. As if to say, what are you waiting for, then?
The heat inside her — which had again considerably softened — flared with delicious, immediate, deadly force. And in a sudden, stunning jolt, John’s strong hands yanked her down, close against his bare chest — and then flipped her bodily over, easy and powerful. So that she was on her back, blinking up at him, while he leaned on his forearms over her, boxing her in, covering her with warmth and hunger andsafety.
“Horfðu á mig,” he breathed.Look at me. But there was no looking away, it was an utter impossibility, and Rosa’s reverent hands slid up around his back, caressing him, adoring him, as he slowly, deliberately, fucked her into his bed. Every stroke a smooth, thrilling, impossibly powerful jolt of sensation, of sparking heat, of sheer, crackling ecstasy.
He finished with a howl, his upper body rearing up as his hips ground against her, his cock again firing out inside. Flooding her full of him,again, and Rosa could feel the liquid swelling, stretching her, until there was pain, and she was about to burst —
The awareness flashed across John’s eyes, and he wrenched himself out of her, away. So swift Rosa cried out, clinging back toward him — but it was too late, he was gone, and in his place there was — aflood. Surging out from between her legs with astonishing force, spurting onto him, spraying all over his bed, and — her fluttering hands snapped down to the furs, too late, too late — even pooling off the bed, and onto thefloor.
“Shit,” she breathed, casting a mortified glance across the room, to where Tristan and Salvi were most definitely still watching — but here was John’s hand, gripping at her face, and twisting it back toward him.
“You wish to learn, pet,” he breathed, so soft she scarcely heard him. “And you wish me to be an orc. Thus, I shall take pride in my helpless little pet’s messing upon my bed. And should you showaughtmore shame of this” — his eyes flicked toward Tristan and Salvi — “I shall make you lick it clean again, naked, whilst we all watch you.”
Fucking hell. Rosa’s swallow could surely be heard throughout the room, but she nodded, her face burning, ignoring Salvi’s low laugh from the bed opposite. And John, John was thoroughly enjoying this, and his smile was truly breathtaking, showing his sharp teeth, crinkling his eyes at the corners.
“Now you shall stand, pet,” he purred. “And show me how you look, after you have been fucked five times in a night. And mayhap” — those eyes sparked with wickedness — “you shall thank me, also.”
Gods curse the damned reprobate, but Rosa was doing this, he was testing her, he’d taken her like thatfive times, when until now he’d repeatedly refused to do so — so she nodded, and obeyed. Shoving herself off the side of the bed, standing on shaky legs, naked, holding her eyes to John’s. While valiantly fighting to ignore the worsening mess, streaming down her thighs, as three orcs watched. And as John’s finger made a little twirling gesture that clearly meant, turn around.
Rosa did, despite the still-surging heat in her cheeks, and she even managed a smile at John once their gazes locked again. “Thank you, my lord,” she breathed, her voice wavering. “For taking me like this, five whole times. And” — she drew in breath — “staying with me, as you did, this night.”
The approval flared in those eyes, bright and breathtaking, and finally John took pity on her, rising from the bed too, and reaching down for one of the rags he kept on hand. “Good pet,” he murmured, as he began wiping her clean. “This pleased me.”
The warmth bubbled higher as he dressed her, and brushed out her hair with his claws, and neatly braided it again. As he led her out of the room, waving a casual farewell to Tristan and Salvi, who were still together in the bed, though Salvi’s face was now buried in Tristan’s shoulder, and Tristan’s eyes gazed unseeing up at the ceiling.
“You know, my lord,” Rosa said, giving his arm a companionable bump with hers, once they were a good distance down the corridor. “You also neglected to tell me the truth about Tristan and Salvi. That they were actuallymated, before. Until Salvi betrayed Tristan, for awoman.”
John glanced vaguely down toward her, his brows furrowing. “Ach, I did tell you there were unfinished matters between them, did I not?” he said. “This woman wished for Salvi, and few orcs would scorn this chance for a son. Sons are the future of our kind. They are” — his eyes angled away, to the corridor — “what many of us most long for, from this life.”
Right. Rosa couldn’t seem to find an answer to that, at the moment, or even a question. Perhaps because — her gaze slid to his sharp profile, and held there — there’d been a new kind of honesty in it. A frankness she hadn’t heard before. The same kind of openness, perhaps, that he’d shown her in his pleasure-den, and even in the way he’d taken her, and made her show it off to him afterwards.Five times.
Almost as though John trulyhaddecided to trust her. Almost as though he’d decided to make her fully his pet.
And in doing so, he’d also decided to make hermore.
