Page 65 of Protective Pucking Orc

I kept my hands moving on her calf now, gentle, grounding. She was melting into it despite herself, her spine going soft against the cushions, even as her eyes stayed sharp on mine.

“I thought I was giving you what you needed, what was best for you. I didn’t want you to think I was like your stepfather or Anthony, just handing you a future without giving you a choice. I was afraid that if I told you the gods have decided you’re mine, it’s done—” I shook my head. “I thought I’d be building you another cage. So I told myself I was protecting you by giving you the choice. Letting you decide whether to stay, whether to make my coffee, whether to let Rosa call me Dak.”

“Is that what you were doing?” Her voice was small.

I winced. “I think so. Torrk had to point it out to me; I was letting you choose, but they were small choices while I hoarded the big one. It was like I was deciding for you that you couldn’t handle the truth.” My jaw tightened. “Which is the exact thing Anthony did. Just dressed nicer.”

She was quiet. My hands kept moving. Outside, snow-laced wind ticked against the window.

“So this is me,” I said, “giving you the whole truth. You’re my Mate. That means I will protect you and Rosa with everything I am, not because I’m noble or something, but because you’re mine, and an orc does not let harm come to what’s his. Anthony could bring an army. He’d get through me when I’m ash and not before.”

I exhaled and pressed my forehead, briefly, to her knee. “You’re mine, Sofia. And I’m yours, if you’ll have me. That part’s still your choice. It’ll always be your choice.”

When I lifted my head, her eyes were bright.

“I don’t think I understand it,” she admitted. “The—knowing. The heartbeat thing. I mean, I feel something, but…I don’t know if I can know it the way you know it.”

“You don’t have to.” Relief loosened something in my chest anyway, because she hadn’t run, hadn’t shuttered, hadn’t looked at me like I’d handed her a leash. “You don’t have to feel it the way I do. You don’t have to let me claim you. You just have to let me stay close enough for you to find out if that’s what you want.”

Because I couldn’t claim her—not completely—until that happened.

She looked at me for a long moment. My ridiculous, brilliant human, turning it over, testing the floor.

“Then I accept it,” she said. “Your Mate Bond. Whatever it is. I don’t get it yet, but—” Her mouth curved, shy and certain at once. “I want to find out.”

My Kteer stopped howling.

For the first time in weeks, it simply…purred.

Thank fuck.

Until she was ready to accept me completely, I couldn’t claim her, couldn’t make her unequivocally mine…but I could show her what her words meant to me.

I came up off my knees, and she was already reaching for me, the towel forgotten, and I gathered her up against my chest where she fit like the gods had measured her for it.

“I have so many questions,” she murmured against my throat. “Like what a cah-teer is.”

I sucked in a breath when her blunt little human teeth nipped at my skin like she was going to give me a Mating mark. “Sofia, I cannot wait to teach you.” I carried her to the bed. “We’re going to have fun.”

She was chuckling when I pressed her into the mattress, and what male could ask for anything more?

Sofia

Mierda, sex with Dakvaar was everything I could’ve hoped for, and more. Who the hell knew about these instant-Os, and why weren’t more women clamoring to be boned by orcs? I guarantee if the secret of ridged cocks and the ability to give instant orgasms became known, human females would be lining up.

The point was: I liked his cock. A lot.

The ridges? Ay Dios, yes, please. Ribbed for my pleasure, am I right? He had twelve of them, and by the fourth time he boinked me, I could count them, they were that amazing. I’d thought coming on his face had been remarkable, but being filled up by his huge cock was even better.

And yeah, I came. Frequently. Besides the Insta-O—doesn’t that sound like the name of a cereal?—he could make me orgasm like two or three more times with those amazing ridges and his hands, before he ever came.

But there was something…off.

As intently as he watched me during sex, as much as those eyes of his glowed, he was…I dunno, holding a part of himself back?

He allowed himself to come, but not in me.

At first, I thought maybe it was a precaution, so I told him I still had my IUD, not that I’d been having sex with anyone else since I’d run from Anthony. It didn’t seem to matter to Dakvaar, although he didn’t say anything about it; he just continued to pull out and come on my stomach or chest or onto the towel he’d laid on the bed.