"I want to be with you." It comes out before I've planned it. "I've wanted this for a long time, Ellie. I held back because I didn't want you to feel rushed. Because you got out of a marriage where someone made every decision for you, and I wasn't going to be the next man who didn't give you space to choose."
She goes still against me.
"Maren would've wanted this." My throat tightens on her name but I push through it. "She made me promise I wouldn't spend the rest of my life alone. And Lily—" I almost laugh. "Lily loves you to bits. She picked you before I let myself."
"You feel guilty," she says.
"Some days. Less than I used to." I run my thumb across the back of her neck. "Maren would've liked you though. She would've sat at your desk and argued about book recommendations until you kicked her out at closing. And she would've told me to stop being an idiot and kiss the librarian."
Ellie's mouth twitches through the tears. "Did she actually talk like that?"
"Worse. She had no filter."
Ellie laughs. It's short, wet and catches in her throat, but it's real, and I realize she's the first person I've talked about Maren with who doesn't go quiet or change the subject. She just asked. Like Maren was a person worth knowing, not a wound she had to tiptoe around.
I look at her sitting on my couch with mascara smudged under her eyes and tears drying on her jaw, and the only thing in my head is:there you are.
She kisses me.
Both hands on my face, fingers against my jaw, her mouth pressing into mine. She tastes like salt and rain and she kisses me like she's done asking permission. I kiss her back. I grip her waist and pull her into me, she climbs onto my lap, knees bracketing my hips, and the sound she makes into my mouth sends a growl rolling through my chest before I can stop it.
Her hips shift against mine and my cock hardens under her, pressing against the seam of my jeans. She feels it. Her breath catches and her hips roll again, grinding down against the length of me, and my hands tighten on her waist hard enough to leave marks.
I stand with her. One arm under her thighs, the other across her back. She wraps around me, face in my neck. I carry her down the hall to my bedroom.
I lay her on the bed. She looks up at me, and I can scent every shift in her body. The nervousness running low under the arousal, the pulse hammering in her throat, the wetness pooling between her thighs. Her scent is so thick with wanting that my vision blurs at the edges.
I pull my shirt over my head. Her eyes travel the breadth of my chest, the green-grey skin, the scars across my ribs from a fight at nineteen when three men decided to prove an orc bleeds.
Her hand reaches up and presses flat against my chest. Her fingers barely span half the width. I cover her hand with mine and her whole fist disappears under my palm.
"Colt." My name in her mouth, quiet and steady.
I kneel on the bed and start at her wrists.
The scenting takes over. I press my nose to the inside of her wrist and breathe. Cedar-vanilla concentrates there, rich and warm, her pulse jumping under my lips. I trace up her arm, push the sleeve back, drag my mouth across the soft bend of her elbow. She shivers.I'm not rushing this. I spent years not touching anyone, now I have her in my bed and I want to touch every inch of her skin.I unbutton her blouse one button at a time until she arches toward me by the fourth one, and when I spread the fabric open and press my mouth to her stomach she gasps and grips the sheets.
I scent her ribs. The hollow of her hip. The soft curve of her belly where her skin runs warm and clean.Each place smells different. The crease below her breasts holds heat, concentrated sweetness. The dip of her navel carries soap and underneath itsomething that's just her, a note I've never found on anyone else. I press my mouth to the curve of her breast, drag my nose along the underside where her scent pools, and the sound she makes when my tusks graze her nipple goes straight to my cock.I close my lips around the peak, sucking slow, her back lifts off the mattress. I give the other breast the same attention, my tongue circling while my hand spans her ribs, and she's gripping fistfuls of sheet by the time I move lower.
I peel her jeans down her thighs and her underwear with them, and the scent of her arousal hits me so hard a growl tears out of me, low, rough and vibrating through the mattress.The wet heat between her thighs is overwhelming, sharp and sweet, every orc instinct I have zeroes in on that scent.
I don't go straight for her pussy. I press my mouth to the inside of her knee, scent the thin skin behind it where her pulse beats close to the surface. I drag up the inside of her thigh, slow, my tusks leaving faint lines on her skin, and she's trembling before I've reached the crease of her hip. I breathe her in there, press my tongue to the soft join of thigh and body, and she moans my name like a prayer.
When I finally put my mouth on her pussyI drag my tongue through her folds, slow, root to tip, and the taste of her—fuck. Salt and sweet and warm. My hands grip her hips, thumbs pressing into the soft flesh above her hipbones, holding her still because she's rolling against my mouth. The sounds she makes bounce off the bedroom walls.
I take my time. I learn what makes her legs shake: my tongue circling her clit in slow, tight strokes. What makes her fist my hair: two fingers pushing inside her, curling deep. What makes her back bow off the bed—my mouth sealed over her clit while my fingers fuck her in a rhythm that has her thighs tremblingaround my head. She comes with a cry that breaks in the middle, her pussy clenching around my fingers in waves, and I don't stop until the last tremor passes and she's pulling at my shoulders because she wants me closer.
I strip everything off. Her eyes drop between my legs and I watch the realization. My cock stands thick and heavy against my stomach, the look on her face cycles through shock to want in about two seconds.
"Are you on anything?" I ask. "Birth control."
"IUD." She nods. "I'm covered."
"Good." I run my hand up her thigh, spreading her legs wider. "Because I need to be inside you and I need there to be nothing between us."
Her breathing changes. I brace myself over her, one arm by her head, and the size of me above her—my shoulders blocking the lamp light, my hips between her thighs, makes her pupils blow wide. She wraps her legs around my waist and I feel the heat of her pussy against my cock, slick and wet, every nerve in my body fires at once.
"Look at me."
