She fervently nodded and speared another one, eating it whole this time, while Joarr did the same. And while she watched him over their pan, his long lashes fluttering as he chewed, his throat bobbing as he swallowed…
She had to force her eyes back downwards, focus on eating, damn it — and all too soon the food was gone, and Joarr was calling out what sounded like a goodbye to the two cooks, the black-tongue fluent and rolling in his mouth. And then it was back to the corridor, to his warm hand on her arse, while Gwyn kept her gaze on the floor, and fought down the ever-swirling mess of her thoughts. She was here for a reason. She was here to save her garden, and to help these women. She was most certainly not here forhim, especially when he still couldn’t be trusted, and…
“One more, ach?” he said to her, his voice very smooth. “And then back to garden?”
Gwyn nodded, and Joarr accordingly guided her into another corridor, this one looking distinctly familiar. And then another one, the opposite way they’d gone last time, in the direction of…
“You’re taking me to your old clan?” she asked him, the surprise too audible in her voice. “The Skai?”
That was surely surprise on Joarr’s face too, but he covered it up with a quick nod, a cool smile. “Ach,” he said, nudging her into another darker, twistier corridor. “Simon — who I have well known since I was an orcling — has of late gained a mate. Maria. I wish you to see her.”
Hewished. Suggesting that maybe Simon — or Maria — hadn’t actually requested this particular visit. And Gwyn had just opened her mouth, about to point out the potential pitfalls of this plan, when Joarr drew to a halt before a nearby open door, and twitched a wry, tolerant grin at whatever was within.
Gwyn stepped closer, met his amused gaze, and then followed it inside the room. The room where — she froze in place, her eyes wide — a truly massive, fully bared orc was standing, close against a fur-covered bed. And before him on the bed was a kneeling, also-bared woman, her arse high in the air, her back arched, as the massive orc slowly slid his equally massive pole of a prick inside her.
Gwyn gulped for air, for conscious thought — good gods, that thing was a freak of nature, atravesty— but somehow, impossibly, the woman was taking it, bit by shocking bit. Until the orc had somehow seated it all the way within her, his broad hips grinding flush against her bare arse. His deep groan burning through the room, his head tilting back, while the impaled woman gasped and trembled beneath him.
The orc’s drag back out was just as slow, just as deliberate, his thick length now coated in a glossy wet sheen. And as he held it there, just nudging it between the woman’s parted legs, he glanced over toward Joarr and Gwyn, his mouth curving into a sharp, thoroughly terrifying smile.
“Ach, we have guests, woman,” he said, deep and far too casual, as he slowly began easing himself back inside her. “Wish me to stop now? Greet guests?”
The woman’s groan was pure frustration, and to Gwyn’s astonishment, she didn’t even try to look toward the door. Instead she shook her dark head toward the bed beneath her, her entire body shuddering as the orc gave a deep, approving chuckle, and again sank himself all the way inside.
“Good woman,” he murmured, palming his big hand at her bare arse with obvious approval. “Then show them what more my brave mate can take, ach?”
With that, he shot another decidedly smug grin toward Joarr and Gwyn, as he drew all the way out again. Now bobbing fully free of the woman, his massive heft visibly dripping with thick white — and then he casually gripped that heft in his clawed fingers, and slid it higher up, delving between her full arse-cheeks. And then — Gwyn had to choke back her gasp — he again drove forward, breath by breath, until he was buried to the hilt inside her.
Gwyn couldn’t help a shocked, dumfounded look up at Joarr’s face — this couldn’t actually bepossible?! — but his glance back down toward her was still wryly amused. Almost as if he thoroughly approved of this little scene, of this orc and this woman so blatantly taking their impossible pleasure together.
And surely Joarr saw the disbelief in Gwyn’s eyes, because he only shrugged as the massive orc slowly picked up speed, driving in and out of the woman with smooth, purposeful strokes. “Maria is good woman, ach?” Joarr murmured, under his breath. “Work hard to please her mate, in all ways. He deserve this.”
Oh. So not only did Joarr approve of this, but heexpectedthis of a woman. Of a… mate. This… freeness, this shamelessness, to be eagerly taken and displayed, not even caring who was at the door. Not even when her orc was doingthat, and while Gwyn had previously attempted such things with Roy, she’d surely never found such pleasure in it. And she’d surely never looked like that, either, her body tall and ample and rich with curves, her hair a lovely mass of tumbling waves, her orc’s hands grasping at her generous arse as he drove inside faster and faster, his growls rising, his rapture etching into his face —
And when the orc finally finished, it was with a desperate, powerful roar, blending beautifully with the woman’s husky moans as he ground himself even harder inside her. Clearly emptying himself deep within, into where this woman had so proudly and easily accepted him.
Thisgood woman, Joarr had said. As though this, maybe, was what he truly wanted, rather than a skinny, plant-obsessed, self-destructive lord’s daughter, who he only saw fit to laugh at, and manipulate, and lie to, and…
Joarr’s hand had briefly grasped at Gwyn’s chin, tilting it up toward him — but she couldn’t seem to meet his eyes, and instead blinked intently at his chest. Until across the room there was a loud gasp, and then the sound of shuffling bodies and shifting fabric. “Simon!” came the woman’s voice, thin and strangled. “You could havesaid!”
“Ach, I did say,” came the orc’s low, indulgent reply, and when Gwyn tore her eyes away from Joarr, the orc was smiling affectionately down at the woman, who had yanked on a gigantic-looking tunic. “You honoured me in this, ach?”
His accent was very similar to Joarr’s, but his gaze sliding toward Gwyn was much warmer, his mouth curving into another true, sharp-looking smile. “It is honour to meet you, new woman,” he said. “Joarr’s scent smells sweet upon you. We have heard much of this Bautul blessing you gained him, ach?”
Gwyn couldn’t seem to find an answer to that, and thankfully the woman lurched forward, her hand held out, a sheepish smile on her flushed face. “Yes, we’resohappy to meet you,” she said. “Though I do apologize for the circumstances. Joarr, I’d fully expect, but —”
She broke off there, her warm eyes flicking brief but familiar toward Joarr’s face — confirming, surely, that this was a sight he’d often seen before. A sight he’d perhapswantedto see. And it took considerable effort for Gwyn to swallow, to paste the smile to her mouth as she shook the woman’s proffered hand.
“Please don’t apologize,” she said, too quickly. “I’m already becoming very accustomed to how things are around here, no trouble at all. I’m Gwyn, by the way, and I’m a midwife, and Joarr mentioned you might be interested in booking a consultation?”
Her voice had gone thin and high-pitched, her face sticky and hot, but thankfully the orc and the woman both kept smiling, the orc casting a bare, appreciative glance toward Joarr behind her.
“Ach, we should indeed wish for this, at once,” the orc said firmly. “I thank you, Joarr.”
A furtive look at Joarr showed him waving this dismissively away, though his eyes were still on Gwyn, his brow furrowed. And suddenly she couldn’t bear to look at him, and she dragged her gaze back to the woman. Thegood woman, Joarr had said.
“Well, if now works for you, let’s get started,” Gwyn said. “I’d like to begin with a few questions, if you don’t mind?”
No one minded, so Gwyn gratefully launched into her usual list, working through her questions one by one. Losing herself, finally, in the familiarity of it, the mental calculations, the needs of the patient above all else. It turned out that Maria was three months pregnant, just beginning to show, and though she’d experienced some fatigue and nausea so far, the physical exam, combined with her answers, suggested that thankfully, nothing serious was amiss.
