“Bath,” he ordered, and this time Maria faintly registeredamusementin his voice, in the glint of his watching eyes. “Clean.”
Right,right, and Maria’s hand scrabbled for her other overall-strap, and somehow yanked it off her shoulder. And then she shoved the overalls downwards, all the way to her ankles — and after a moment’s awkward fumbling, she’d untied her boots too, tugged off her socks, and kicked the whole lot off into the surrounding mess.
It left her standing there barefoot in an orc’s bedroom, wearing only a men’s tunic and knee-length drawers, while a fully naked orc dispassionately watched from his bench. But he wasn’t speaking this time, wasn’t mocking her — at least, until one of his heavy black brows ticked up, and his huge hand gave an insolent, impatient wave toward her tunic.
Keep going, it clearly meant.Bath.
Maria’s teeth were gritting together, but the panic had simmered down to a manageable murmur again, and her fingers only slightly shook as they began unbuttoning her tunic. Working from the top downward, and slowly revealing the wide swath of fabric that tightly bound her breasts beneath.
Simon actually snorted at the sight, but thankfully still didn’t speak, and Maria somehow found the courage to keep going. Tugging out the tucked-in end of the binding, and then unlooping it around her once, again, again — until it, too, fell to the floor at her feet. Leaving her torso completely bare, her heavy breasts fully exposed to the room’s cool air. To Simon’s eyes, and his judgement.
And she couldfeelhis gaze prickling upon her, hot and close and surely critical. But curse it, she was doing this now, she was getting it the hell over with — so she rapidly untied the drawers too, and shoved them off onto the floor. Which left her standing stark naked before an orc, every secret and flaw shamefully bared for his watching, mocking eyes.
But for a hanging, shivering instant, there was only — silence. Thick, charged silence, tickling up Maria’s back, skittering across her bare skin. And when she finally dared to glance up, to find Simon’s watching face, he was just —lookingat her. His dark, glinting eyes slowly sliding down her naked form, lingering on the fullness of her breasts, the curve of her waist, the patch of hair between her thighs…
His big body had slightly shifted on the bench, his hand easing with deceptive casualness toward his own groin. And wait, that was because — something clenched low in Maria’s belly — the thick grey length of him was…moving. No longer dangling innocuously toward the floor, like it had been previously, but instead thickening, lengthening.Rising.
And perhaps he’d meant to hide it with his hand, but there was no possible hiding such a thing. Not with it visiblyvibratinglike that, jutting up and out toward her, dark and heavily veined, and rapidly swelling to a length and width that rivalled Maria’s entireforearm. And as she stared, her breath locked in her lungs, the smooth skin at the head of him slowly peeled down, revealing a dark, glossy cleft, a deep slit, and a thick bead of slick, viscous white, oozing from the tip…
Maria truly couldn’t move, couldn’t drag her eyes away. Couldn’t stop her hoarse, betraying moan as that growing bead of white at the head grew, and grew, and grew — until itburst. Running down the veined length of him in shiny, hungry rivulets, pooling and glistening in the black mass of hair below.
Oh,hell. Another unwilling moan had escaped Maria’s mouth, and she only distantly noted that Simon had groaned too, low and dusky in his throat. But it was enough, somehow, to drag her gaze away from that mesmerizing, thrilling sight between his legs, and up to his watching, judging eyes.
And theywerestill judging. Still roving over her naked body, lingering on her flushed face, her parted lips, her large, damnably peaked brown nipples. And most intently of all, on her own groin, which suddenly felt uncomfortably hot, swollen, hungry…
Simon’s other hand had jerked up toward her, making a motion with his clawed finger that clearly meant, turn around. And Maria should have protested, refused, launched into hysterics,something— but instead, she silently nodded, andobeyed. Spinning her body slow and careful, her heart thundering, her skin tingling at the silent touch of his eyes upon her back, her thighs, the bare swell of her arse…
And when she came around again, there was something new, something entirely unfamiliar, in those watching, glittering eyes. Something almost likeapproval. Like…awe.
“Come,” his low voice rumbled, his fingers beckoning, his eyes lazy, half-lidded. “Closer.”
Closer. Maria’s breath shuddered in her throat, but she somehow again nodded, and took a slow, tentative step toward him. And when his fingers beckoned again, she stepped again, and again. Until she found herself standing naked and shivering between his sprawled-wide knees, her breath dragging in that rich rising scent of him, her hardened nipples jutting straight toward his watching, greedy eyes.
“You hid your form from me,” he said, his voice a deep, husky purr, his black tongue slipping out to trail against his lips. “Youlie.”
He was judging her again,challengingher again — but he was also still looking at her like that, like she was a goddess who had materialized here before him. And through the wild, hurtling beat of her pulse, Maria somehow managed a snort, and even a respectable roll of her eyes.
“What, so rather than making you a rational, civilizedoffer,” she replied, her voice hoarse, “I should have just yanked these out, and shoved them in your face instead?”
Simon scoffed, loud and derisive, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Or his huge clawed hand, which had still been stroking that monster at his groin, and now — Maria twitched all over — circled cool and deliberate around the base of it.
“Ach,” he said finally, the word a low grunt. “These please me.”
Gods, he was so crude and vulgar and utterlyappalling— and yet, Maria couldn’t stop staring as his fisted hand slowly, smoothly begunsliding up. Milking out more of that thick, slippery white, spurting from that slit, streaking down to pool on his fingers…
“Touch them,” he breathed, so soft Maria scarcely heard him. “Show me.”
The outrage sparked and surged, somewhere deep inside — but then submerged again, drowning in the sudden sight of his black tongue, trailing slow, insolent,hungry, against his full, parted lips. While that brazen hand slid up again, perhaps gripping tighter, and the resulting white actually spurtedup, landing in a long wet streak against his muscled bare torso…
“Show me,” he repeated, deeper this time, an edge of command creeping into his voice. “Obey me, woman.”
And yes, yes, Maria had sworn to that, shehad— and again her shaky body somehow, impossibly, obeyed. Her fingers snapping up to her aching, swollen nipples, stroking soft and shameless against the too-sensitive skin.
The moan wrung out before she could stop it, burning through the room — and at the sound, Simon actuallylaughed. His broad shoulders shaking, his mouth curving up, showing a glimpse of sharp fangs against his full bottom lip. And it distantly occurred to Maria that she hadn’t yet seen him smile, and the sight was — it was —
Another moan wrenched from her throat, even louder this time, and Simon’s smile slowly slipped, shifted, into another sinuous curl of that tongue against his lips. Into his hand blatantly pumping himself again, faster now, spurting more of that slick white onto his own fingers, his own belly, and if he kept going, he would…
Maria moaned again, her betraying fingers now squeezing and caressing at the full weight of her breasts, plucking at her firm nipples. Sinking far too easily into her own familiar touch, the only touch she’d had inyears, and again, it was almost as though Simonapproved. His eyes dark and fluttering on the sight, his breath heaving through his huge chest, his hand moving with such filthy, flagrant ease…
