And as she looked, it distantly occurred to her that in this moment, the orc didn’t seem casual or effortless at all. That his easy, fluid movements were all tight, brutal control, and that beneath those half-lidded eyes, he was watching her. Weighing her. Applying considerable focus and skill to sway her, to seduce her, tocompromiseher…
“Why,” she heard herself say, her voice rasping. “Why me.”
The orc lurched a step closer, the movement oddly harsh and jerky — while the hand on that long grey heft had begun pumping faster, stronger. Coaxing out more liquid from the tip, until it had become a dangling string of thick, viscous white. Which — Gwyn’s throat spasmed — he reached to catch in easy fingers, and then kept stroking, rubbing himself all over with it, until his length was shining, slick, dripping.
But he was still watching her like that, still evaluating her, still not answering her questions. Just like he hadn’t truly answeredanyof her earlier questions, either, had he? And here in the fog, pinned in the power of his focus, breathing the dizzying green scent of him, Gwyn almost, almost didn’t care…
Almost.
“Why me,” she repeated, the words a croak. “Tell me.”
He came another step closer, and it was sheer relief in the haze, a swarming cloud of heat and hunger. His tall, powerful body so close, so resolved, his fluttering eyes drinking her up like that, his control cracking, slipping —
“Why,” she insisted, and this time she thrust a hand to his bare chest, stopping him, blocking him — and he visibly shivered at the touch, his heartbeat thundering against her fingers. His black eyes snapped wide, his body entirely still against her, his scent somehow just slightly sharper than before…
“No more,” she choked, to those eyes, “until you tell me.”
His body under her hand shivered again, as though Gwyn had just wielded some unspeakable power over him — and when his eyes squeezed shut, there was a sudden, inexplicable heave in her belly. He was going to refuse. He was going to ruin this. He was going to leave…
“Please,” she whispered, and without at all meaning to, she jerked closer. Deeper into that shuddering heat, that swirling rich scent — and into that brazen, audacious, dripping-white part of him, now nudging hard and strong against her. But she didn’t care, perhaps she even wanted it there, streaking its warm wetness against her too-thin sleeping-shift…
And the orcknew. He knew it all, in one swift glance downwards from those intent black eyes. And Gwyn could see his throat bobbing, his black tongue slipping against his lips, while his other hand lifted to absently stroke that tooth around his neck. Again, as if it meant something, as if it might answer for him, or even come to his rescue…
But she didn’t drop her eyes, didn’t relent. And finally the orc groaned, the sound quiet and hissing, almost like a sigh. Almost like… capitulation.
“You are… quick,” he said, his voice very low, somehow different than before. “Sharp. Wise. Careful. You learn from the earth and its ways. And below all this” — his hand slid up, nudged under her chin — “you are hungry. So hungry. Ach?”
Oh. Gwyn was frozen beneath his eyes, in the astonishing awareness behind his words, in the distant realization that his hand on her chin was still wet with his own slick. In his rich scent swarming her, part of her, just like his eyes, his knowing, his understanding. His sure admission that hehadbeen watching her, wanting her, and now…
“Now we mate,” he murmured, his voice a heated caress, low and sweet. “We sate all our hunger this night. Ach?”
And in that moment, in the heady weight of his voice his eyes his touch, there seemed no other recourse. Only holding her eyes to the truth in his — and then closing that last little space between them. Filling it with heat and power and craving, with the bare honesty of an orc’s bared body, his bared-open soul, pressed pure and powerful to hers.
“Yes,” she whispered. “We will.”
6
Gwyn’s words were met with a growl. A loud, guttural growl, deep and hoarse and objectively terrifying, rumbling from the orc’s mouth.
“Yes,” he breathed, his powerful body shifting closer against Gwyn’s, his huge heated hands dropping to grip her waist over her shift. “Mine.”
But Gwyn wasn’t alarmed, or terrified, or any of the other available appropriate responses. Not even with this audacious orc nowhere, his big hands running strong and possessive down her sides, while his face bent to bury itself in her neck, inhaling deep.
“Mine,” he said again, pulling away long enough to flash her one of those sudden grins, wicked and sharp. “I claim. Tonight.”
There was no arguing with the bastard, especially with Gwyn’s eyes fluttering like this, her breath gasping short and shallow. While the orc’s big hands kept roving, running over her too-thin shift, and then hesitating on the slight swell of her breasts, cupping one with warm heat, stroking the other’s hard nipple with his thumb.
“Comely woman,” he said, quiet, and in that instant the smile abruptly vanished, leaving only a hushed, steady intentness. “Ripe. I like.”
He liked. And that was oddly disconcerting, perhaps even beyond those hungry hands now gripping Gwyn’s bare hips below her shift, and sliding the flimsy fabric upwards. Undressing her, her distant thoughts shouted, anorcwasundressingher — but she could only seem to choke for breath, arch her body into the warmth of his touch, raise her arms so he could slide the shift over her head.
It left her standing fully naked and exposed in her kitchen, faced with an equally naked and exposed orc. An orc whose swollen heft — Gwyn shot a heated glance downwards — was currently leaking even more thick white, dripping it copiously onto the floor between them.
He saw her looking, of course he did, and one of those big hands went down to pump himself again, slow, fluid, slick. Coating himself even more with it, the scent of earth and green rising ever stronger between them.
“You like,” he murmured again, that lazy smile back on his mouth. “You welcome in you.”
In you. Gwyn’s naked body gave a hard, thrilling shudder, perhaps with fear or something else entirely, and suddenly here were the orc’s hands again, one of them still slick and sticky, sliding over her skin. Caressing strong and purposeful over her bare belly, her breasts, her arse, all sheer sensation and smooth, supple heat, and his face was in her neck again, his muscled strength so close, his deep inhale filling his chest.
