Page 90 of Wed to the Orc Captive

He stared at me, those eyes still twin flames, molten gold. His lips pressed together. “Aren't you afraid you'll regret this?”

“No.” The lump in my throat felt like it was my entire heart.

“But you are afraid.”

I couldn’t lie to him. “Yes.”

“What are you afraid of?”

I’d throw every last bit of dignity into the depths of this pool, if it meant keeping him. “I’m afraid,” I got out, “that I'll never get to kiss you again. I'm afraid we said goodbye before I ever got to say I love you. I'm afraid that I had one chance to keep you, and I ruined it all. I’m afraid⁠—"

His lips crushed into mine. And knowing I might have to let him go didn’t stop my arms from wrapping around his neck. Whatever held him back didn’t stop his hands from finding my waist, the bare skin at my back. He kissed me, and I kissed him back, and maybe if he knew how desperately I wanted him, how hungry my mouth was for his, then even if this was goodbye, if he couldn’t bring himself to love me, maybe someday he would be more ready to love someone else.

The blanket flowed in the water around us, sometimes dragging at my legs, a buffer between the firmness of his body and mine. He cupped the back of my neck, my face, my jaw, and he tasted like salt tears, like spring water and earth. He tasted like the bite of willow bark with honey.

He pulled back, just a hair, just a thread out of reach. His eyes were closed. “I’m not thinking clearly.”

My arms were still around his neck, and my knees brushed against him. “Do you have to?”

He shook his head. “I should take pains…not to hurt you.”

“You’re not hurting me.”

“You’re hurt…”

I pulled him back to me.

He let me. He let me draw him back into the kiss. His breath ran ragged against mine. He’d said he wanted me. When he breathed like this, I believed him.

His hand trailed down my back, clenched against my skin, and I was panting, my gasps mirrors to his. Then he paused. His mouth hovered over mine, waiting. He swallowed, like he was fighting something. “It’s just comfort you want? Just…just pleasure?”

I whispered. “Would it be so awful, to comfort each other?”

He nodded, and I didn’t know if he answered my question or his own, till he growled out, “Just…just comfort, then. We shouldn’t…we shouldn’t risk a child.”

It crossed my mind that I should tell him, about the draught in Bogdanna’s cottage. But nothing in this world was foolproof. Even Meg Thatcher had brought forth twins, two years after the quieting of her womb. Nothing was certain. If he didn’t wish for a child tying him to me, I shouldn’t risk it either. “Right,” I said. “We can hold each other.”

His mouth took mine again.

My legs wrapped around his waist, around the rough fabric of his breeches, and he pulled me to him. His hands were in my hair, on my shoulders. The blanket got caught on his arm, as he moved, and in one impatient move he yanked it off.

I intook air. He froze, like he stumbled at the intimacy. He was stopping. God, I’d been his wife. This shouldn’t stop us. I tangled my fingers in his hair and pulled him back.

The water was warm. I was weightless, painless, able to reach, able to take what I wanted to be mine. His body was hard and smooth against me, and I wanted closer, wanted everything, wanted him so much.

I pressed in against him. He buried his face in the curve of my throat, his shoulders going tense under my fingertips. “I’ve missed you,” I whispered, and he groaned. That sound, the music and the grit in it, it felt like everything.

I still couldn’t move parts of my back, even with the support and heat I wasn’t willing to risk it, but he gripped my leg, pulling me into him. “Nora,” he whispered, like my name was a medicine. “God, Nora…” But whatever he was saying, it was too late for me. He pressed me against him, again and again, like we'd never be close enough, like I wished I could claw the breeches off his skin and forget the consequences. His hands clawed in my hair.

I was trembling, and the heat was inside of me, like I was coming apart, like whatever made me strong was leaking away and I would let it.

I’d been right. I could comfort him. I was a mess, but I could do this. I clung, breathing in gasps that were either pleasure or sobs. He growled, and clenched me against him, tight, me raglike to his tension.

He released, and rested his forehead on mine. He was panting, but he didn’t shake. He didn’t tremble like I did. Maybe he’d always make me tremble. “God, Annora,” he whispered. “What do you do to me?”

I didn’t have an answer to that. Was this what being drunk felt like? I ran my fingers over the little hairs at the back of his neck, that divot on his shoulder, marveling over the delicacy and the solidity of that frame, the tiny details, the muscles carved out of rock.

Maybe someday, in Mereborough, alone with my blossoms and herbs, I could remember I’d gotten to care for him once. Maybe someday, when he found the right person, he’d know he was worth it. Maybe he’d be ready to belong to someone else. But I wasn’t ready to let him go. Maybe I never would be.