And as the warm breeze tickled Gwyn’s drying skin, swarming her with the scent of rich sweetness, the need to know somehow fluttered away, dancing off into the night air. Twisting, turning, toward her eyes sliding closed, toward quiet, warmth,peace.
She could stay, she thought drowsily, as she settled closer against him, safe. For now. She could see.
20
Gwyn awoke to a warm, reassuring brightness. Pooling soft across her face, flaring orange behind her eyelids.
She yawned and stretched, blinking her eyes open — and found bright blue sky above, scattered with puffy white clouds. And closer, the wizened branches of that old tree, stretching out high above her, and — she twitched, and huffed a laugh — dripping water down onto her bare belly, as if in some sort of backhanded morning greeting.
And wait. It wasmorning. Meaning that she’d slept all night on an altar, fully naked? While Joarr had gone — where?!
She sat up, her heart hammering, her eyes frantically searching — but no, wait, Joarr was there. Here. Rising up swift and smooth from where he’d been crouching, just at the edge of the clearing, his hands covered with fresh earth.
And when Gwyn peered closer, she realized he’d beenplantingsomething. Something that looked vaguely familiar, with its distinctive clusters of yellow flowers, and wait, wait —
“Is that a piece of my yarrow?!” she demanded, her voice shrill. “And my motherwort?”
Joarr flashed her an easy half-grin, his hands brushing off the dirt. “Ach,” he said lightly. “My scouts begin this, last eve. I tell them to take good care, and bring only two to start, so you can judge their work, ach? They water all the plants in your house, also. And leave new note on table, in close copy of your hand, saying of new job.And, they bring more clothes.”
With that, he nodded toward the north, to where Gwyn could just make out a few familiar-looking dresses, fluttering in the breeze. And a warm, convulsive shiver was whirling up her spine, and she felt herself slowly smiling back at him, her face heating. He was, once again, keeping his word. Keeping her safe. Bringing her plants here.Helpingher.
And as she kept smiling at him, the memories of the night before seemed to swarm up in a rush, clenching deep and hard in her belly. He’d worshipped her on an ancient altar. He’d called her beautiful. He’d said he wanted to get to know her.Her.
And gods, Gwyn wanted to believe it. Wanted to trust him so hard it ached. And she still had twenty days before Roy came back, nearly a month, aneternity…
So she drew in breath, and twitched a little jerk of her head. Meaning, maybe,Come here?And in return Joarr’s grin instantly broadened, showing off all his sharp teeth. Not smug, not mocking, but… warm.Wicked.
And as she watched, he brushed the rest of the dirt off his hands, and then sauntered over toward her. His steps smooth and prowling, his clawed fingers blatantly adjusting the thick, already visible ridge beneath the front of his cropped trousers.
Gwyn’s gaze snapped to the sight, her breath catching in her throat. And in return, he breathed a low, knowing laugh, and then reached down inside the trousers, and smoothly drew himself out. And then began stroking that solid grey length as he walked, the motions brazen, arrogant, impossibly casual, flaring even more furious heat deep in her belly.
And as he approached, closing the space between them, Gwyn found herself somehow sliding down onto her back again, her legs easing further apart. And Joarr didn’t slightly break his stride, didn’t even blink, as his knees met the altar, and that hard dripping length bobbed down toward her…
And with one last step, an easy roll of his hips, he drove himself deep within her. Impaling her fully upon him, with a single sharp, shattering plunge.
Gwyn’s cry tore through the air, her entire body curling up with the shock, the sensation, the sheer thrill of this orc suddenly sheathed to the hilt inside her. With the sight of him holding himself up high over her, his groin grinding hard against hers, his smirk curling across his mouth.
“You —bastard,” she gasped at him, even as her trembling hands found his warm chest, slid up behind his shoulders. “Arrogant —fiend.”
He was already drawing out again, his brows rising, his smirk quirking higher. “Ach, you wish for me,” he replied, with infuriating coolness, as he slammed back inside. “And I wish to feel wet womb, gorged full of my seed.”
Gwyn’s harsh moan was half hunger, half shame, because gods above, he wasn’t wrong, on either front. And this already felt far messier than it had the night before, far sloppier, and when he drove in again, faster now, she could feel the slick thickness oozing out between them, slipping out around him…
And damn him, but hewantedthat. He was even watching that, his black lashes blinking downwards as he drew out again, and drove back inside. And then again, and again, sinking into his usual punishing rhythm, faster, harder, deeper. But not always at the same angle this time, not straight and true, because this way it only worsened the pooling, spluttering mess. The sounds rising thick and obscene from between them, the sticky liquid spurting out around him, streaming down from between their joined bodies onto the altar below…
And gods, it had no right to feel so good. To look so good. Joarr’s lean muscled body over her flexing again and again in the sunlight as he furiously worked himself over her, inside her, his head bowed, his hair hanging over his eyes. While he blatantly drew up these sounds, dragged out this mess, wanting to make her sprawled and stretched and debauched beneath him, wanting to see her spurting his bounty…
And in one final, grinding thrust, a rasping bark from his throat, he poured her full again. Pulsing out more thick wet heat from the strength rooted inside her, emptying it as deep as it would go, watering her until she was sopping with his seed.
Gwyn’s own hunger was flying, now, straining, soaring into the sky — and finally, finally, it shattered. Her entire form wracking and writhing, her ecstasy scraping from her throat, her pierced heat clamping for the strength inside it —
But it was gone, gone,nowhere— and even as she shouted in mingled relief and rage, her hazy, blinking eyes caught on the sight, the shame. On Joarr holding her knees wide apart, so he could watch his own seed fountain out from within her, flaring out toward him in surge after humiliating surge.
Fuck. Gwyn didn’t know whether to laugh, or sob, or hide, her face painfully burning, her entire body trembling under his hands. The humiliation rising, roaring in her ears, what had she just done,why—
Until Joarr’s eyes glanced up, and held. Caught. Stilled under his fluttering lashes, glinting with something she couldn’t at all name. And tangling with the brief brush of his tongue to his lips, the visible bob in his corded throat.
“I —” he began, and then cleared his throat, swallowed again. “I like.”
