Oh. And while that was surely exactly what a devious orc would say — wasn’t it? — it almost felt like truth, glimmering like that in his eyes. And somehow Gwyn was smiling at him again, her cheeks oddly heating, her own eyes dropping. “Right,” she said, low. “Me, too.”
There was a heartbeat’s silence, a strange tightness furling through the air — and then Joarr rose to his feet again, drawing her up behind him. “Come, witch,” he said, his voice deceptively casual. “After all this, mayhap my mountain shall mean naught to you, ach? Mayhap no evenfrightenyou?”
Gwyn had been intently brushing off her skirts, fighting to ignore both the heat still swarming her cheeks, and the streak of telltale thick liquid now pooling down her thigh. Not to mention the truth of what they’d just done, she’d just copulated with an orc in a tree, a half-hour after she’d sworn never to touch the devious bastard again…
“Ach?” Joarr said again, a distinct note of challenge threading his voice — and when Gwyn furtively glanced up, the challenge was there in his eyes too, his brows lifted, the provocation curling at his too-expressive mouth. “You ken you face my mountain with such mettle, also? Show again how you are no only lord’s daughter?”
Gwyn’s eyes instantly narrowed, her fingers fisting at her skirts. “We’ve already agreed, for the purposes of this little exercise,” she replied stiffly, “that I’m not a lord’s daughter. I’m amidwife. Remember?”
But Joarr kept gazing at her, those brows raised, his mouth quirked. “Ach, I ken,” he said, voice cool. “But mayhap we leap one branch beyond this? Mayhap when you come to my mountain, you show more of your true heart, and your hunger? Mayhap you freely flaunt this before me, and all my kin?”
Wait. He wanted Gwyn to flaunt her hunger… before hiskin?! Meaning, of course, that this manipulative bastard was once again trying to manage the situation, and turn it to his advantage. Not only wanting to hide his defeat from his fellow orcs, now, but instead to show it as avictory. To show himself a clever, superior orc, who had recruited Orc Mountain a midwife…andwho still held said midwife firmly in his clutches. In histhrall.
“And why, exactly,” Gwyn said, clipped, “should I go even further out of my way to oblige you, orc? When I’ve already committed to one ruse to help you save face before your kin? Which was already anexcessivekindness on my part, and which, you must realize, you already didn’t deserve?”
Her voice had risen as she’d spoken, her eyes hard and demanding on his face. And for an instant, he just looked back at her, while something much like appreciation flicked through his eyes.
“You prove this to me,” he finally replied, his voice smooth, “and I shall prove more to you. You show me your mettle and your wits and your hunger for me, as you walk amongst my kin — then I show you more of thisfun. I give you fine frolic at my mountain youneverforget, even after you go north to wed this man. Ach?”
Gwyn immediately opened her mouth to protest again — she was never marrying Roy,ever,and she was still returning to Varrahan tonight, wasn’t she? — but Joarr’s quick hand had already clapped against her mouth, its close weight feeling abominably familiar. Warm. Perhaps even… welcome.
“I give you moredeft tongue,” he said, his voice low, as its slick, sinuous length blatantly slipped out, and curled at his lips. “I give you more deep relief inside you. Mayhap I even give you” — his other hand snaked up, and calmly, deliberately grasped a handful of Gwyn’s hair — “more ofthis.”
He’d very gently pulled, tilting her head back, driving a reflexive, helpless moan from Gwyn’s mouth — even as her frantically blinking eyes caught something, something new, flicking across his face. Something almost like…reluctance?
And thatwasn’tactually new, Gwyn realized, was it? And her stomach had suddenly seemed to plunge in her belly, the tingling hunger pooling away into uncertainty, intoshame. Remembering how he hadn’t intended to do it in the garden, either. How it had been her who’d pushed. Her who’d wanted more.
“But maybe — maybe you don’t actuallywantto do more of that, with me,” she breathed. “Do you?”
That was surely surprise, now, flaring in Joarr’s eyes — and then vanishing just as quickly as he twitched an overly careless shrug. “Ach, I wish it,” he said. “Only no wish to be part of…this.”
His hand had dropped from Gwyn’s hair, and now stroked casually down her arm, the claw of his thumb faintly tracing against her still-tender skin. The touch light, gentle, but still enough to make her wince, as more shame swirled up into her cheeks.
“It’s not the same,” she said in a rush, before she could stop it. “It’s not. Atall. Iswearto you.”
And gods, why did it matter so much, why was she frantically searching his watching eyes for his mockery, his distaste, hisjudgement. And why was she so damned relieved when he finally shrugged again, his head briefly nodding. His hand sliding up her arm again, over her shoulder, sinking back into her hair…
“Ach, then,” he murmured, as he again tilted her head back, the movement slow, careful,wonderful. “Mayhap I even give youthis.”
With that, he ducked his shaggy head down, and bent his face into herneck. Brushing her too-sensitive skin with hot breath, warm lips, his slick, twisting tongue, his…
Histeeth. Sharp, shocking, deadlyteeth, dragging against her vulnerable skin with gentle, painful, meaningful intent. Wrenching Gwyn’s breath into a loud, desperate, betraying cry, while the heat flashed to her groin, craving for more, more,more—
Until just as quickly, it vanished. Because Joarr had eased abruptly backwards, well out of her reach, both hands dropping slack to his sides. His brows again raised in a silent challenge, his eyes now studiously blank, as if he hadn’t been affected by that in the least.
“You like, ach?” he said, and his voice was all taunt, all insolence. “Wish for more?”
And gods, Gwyn couldn’t even slightly pretend to deny it. Not after all she’d just betrayed, and surely not with her breaths still heaving like this, her heart hammering, her face red-hot. And her eyes, her eyes searching his face, how it was so cautiously distant again, hidden beneath his mask…
And without thought, Gwyn lowered her gaze from his eyes, and instead found…that. That long, rigid hardness, flagrantly swelling against the front of his trousers. Saying,betraying, that yes, he surely wanted it too…
But wait.No. He still wanted more than that. He was seeking an angle in this, an advantage, avictory. This was all about him, always about him, and Gwyn had to think, why couldn’t shethink—
“This garden of yours,” she finally managed, between breaths. “Does it have other plants like chasteberry? Or any more mushrooms like the sulphur shelf?”
Something that again might have been appreciation flashed in Joarr’s eyes, and he slowly inclined his head. Finally betraying thatyes, the bastard, he’d grown that chasteberry plant himself — and that was another truth, another revelation, from this infuriating deceitful orc.
“Then these are my terms, orc,” Gwyn said, as firmly as she could, “I’ll do my damnedest to put on a good show for you at your mountain, but you also need to givemefree rein inyourgarden, like my great-aunt gave you. I get to do whatever the hell I want with it, and take back whatever seeds and cuttings I please. And” — her eyes narrowed at him, her traitorous brain suddenly lingering on thatdeceitfulpoint — “as long as you are touching me, you arenottouching anyone else. No one,nowhere. You got that?”
