My pulse stutters at those two words, and my face flushes.
“So,” I say, trying to find something to talk about before I lie down on the floor and saytake me. “I looked things up last night. You have a translator implant that is somehow making you be able to speak and understand me. Somewhere in your skull, a little chip is doing all of this in real time.” His ears tip, confirming. “But speech only. It doesn’t translate written words.”
“Yes.”
“So when you’re not being introduced to one hundred and six women, you can’t read to pass the time. What do you do all day? Fourteen months is a long time to lift weights and be a local legend.”
His ears freeze mid-tilt. His eyebrow comes down, carefully level.
“I train,” he says. “I cook. I study.”
“Study what?”
“Your world.” He reaches over and moves the bowl of mints one inch to the left, which is the first pointless movement I’ve seen him make since I met him. My spidey sense sits up and takes notice. He’s hiding something, adorably, whatever it is, because the tips of his ears have gone a deep pink. The pamphlet didn’t mention ear blushing, but I know what I’m looking at.
I let it go. He can keep his secrets for now. Besides, those massive hands are giving me ideas. According to the binder, orcs are big everywhere…
“Time’s up,” the handler says at the door, sounding genuinely sorry about it.
The thirty minutes they gave us is nowhere near long enough. For one, I didn’t get my hands on him yet.
My body protests as we stand. Being this close to him is a category-five experience. My nose is about level with the middle of his chest, and I swear the heat coming off him is like an oven.
We don’t move toward the door. The handler waits. Neither of us wants the meeting to end, and both of us know it.
“The stew was the best thing I’ve eaten in years,” I tell him, because it’s true.
He looks down at me, and I want him to swallow me whole.
“Maybe we could,” I start, and stop, because the sentence is headed somewhere needy, and being needy isn’t good. “Never mind.”
“Finish it.” Two words, and he waits. Fourteen months of history says he can do this longer than I can.
“Maybe we could do this again tomorrow,” I finish, and my voice only wobbles a little.
“Yes. Come back tomorrow,” he says and reaches out to take my hand. These massive hands could crush a chair, but all he does is squeeze mine gently before letting go.
He leaves, and I walk back to my quarters in a daze. If I wasn’t reacting to him before the stew, I’d think he dosed me with a sex potion. I can feel every inch of my skin brushing against the fabric of my clothes. The farther away from him I get, the more desperate I am to run back to him and find out exactly how big he is everywhere.
None of this makes sense.
I pass two women from the betting pool, and they’re saying the pool has him at seventeen words today.
They have no idea how many he just spent on me.
Even if he doesn’t talk much, I bet he moans when he orgasms. That’s the thought I take to bed with me and toss and turn on for three hours.
Chapter 3
The hearing drags by, and I count every second until it’s done. Somewhere between last night and this morning, I decide I’m going to fuck him today. It’s happening. I mean, if we’re supposedly destined for each other, why fight it?
And I swear this isn’t just the 3 a.m. Horny Me speaking. Or at least not mostly. There’s a very valid reason why this is a good idea. If he’s too big for me, we need to know this sooner rather than later, right?
Valdrek is already in the room when I walk in, and I suddenly wish I had sexier work clothes. I’m wearing a plain skirt with a button-down pink shirt, and my hair is up in a bun. Not exactly seductress clothing.
There’s a steaming cup of tea sitting on the coffee table beside the untouched mints. I want to ask him how he knew exactly when I’d be here, but he probably smelled me coming in this direction as soon as the hearing adjourned. The pamphlet says that’s a real thing he can do, and I’ve decided to find it flattering instead of alarming.
I expect more small talk, but as soon as I sit and take a sip of the tea, either something in it or the juniper smell of him bypasses my filter, and I ask him something honest.
