Page 17 of Claimed By the Orc Lord

Perhaps it was the lie that made me feel bold. I brought my hand up and carefully swiped my thumb across his mouth, catching the juices of the fruit that made his lower lip glisten. “Things here are… sweeter.”

He watched me as I brought my hand to my mouth and licked the taste of him from my skin, his breath hitching, his body swaying forward slightly.

“Seems that way. It’s not…” Kai’s lips pinched for just a second, and his fingers in his lap clenched, like he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. “This isn’t really… how things are supposed to be. Not where I’m from.” He dragged his eyes back up to mine. “Not where I have to go back to once I find Rainn.” The second half was said with more confidence, and I had to catch myself from snarling in response.

Going back? He wasn’t going back. I wasn’t sure that he’d take kindly to me explaining that there was no way for himtogo back until he took a mating bite. Unless that happened, the magic that created the portals wouldn’t let him return to his world—and the only way that was going to happen would be if he accepted what was sitting in front of him.

And if his friend was truly here, the same rules applied. There was no going back for either of them.

“But… Little Mate…” I finally spoke, choosing my words carefully as I leaned closer to him. “You’re herenow. Don’t you think you should enjoy the… sweet fruit… while you can?”

Sweet fruit. Impulses. Desire. Everything that was right in front of him.

He didn’t answer me, but he did part his lips and stick out his tongue again.

Right. Impulses and desire… and temptation. Being patient with my mate was going to be more trying, more testing, than any feat of strength I’d ever shown.

Chapter seven

Kai

Maybethebestwayto get out of the clutches of my captor was to play along with him—if he thought I was going to listen, that I believed his crazy idea that I was his mate, maybe he’d let me go, or stop watching me so closely.

The problem with that was when I played along, my body felt like someone was lighting a fire just beneath the skin. When I leaned in and took the fruit from Nash’s fingers, I could taste him on my tongue more than I could the sugar. Warm and salty, a flavor that ran all the way down.

It was seriously the dumbest shit, because I didn’t like this. I wasn’tlikethis.

I didn’t like big thick masculine fingers, and I didn’t think about what they could do to me.

And Ididn’twatch weird green monster men lick juice from their skin and have to immediately imagine one of those sad puppy commercials to stop my body from having a response.

Definitely not.

At the same time, playing along was the best way I could think to make this work—in Rainn’s books, it would have worked. Of course, in his books, playing along would have accidentally ended up with the guy falling in love with the monster, but that was fine.

Because I didn’t like guys.

And I didn’t like monsters.

And there was still a small part of me that wondered if I was going to wake up from a really weird dream with a new idea for my best friend to write for a book.

It took an entire week for Nash to finally leave me in his tent without my wrists tied, though at least he’d stopped securing me to the bed after a few days. It was weird—I’d half expected to wake up and find him on top of me more than once. There was this strange, pent-up energy that was so fucking suffocating I was surprised I hadn’t died from a lack of oxygen.

But… he behaved himself.

Even when I played along with him—even when I did my best to turn on my most charming smile when he was talking to me. He’d made it a ritual, hand feeding me every night… then he’d leave the tent, like it was the only thing that was stopping me from getting ravished.

The problem was, playing along was getting me nowhere and nothing except frustrated. It wasn’t because I really wanted him or anything like that.

But I was used to satisfying my urges whenever I wanted, however I wanted, with whatever girl from town I wanted.

And now…

Well, now I wasn’t even satisfying my urges with my damn hand, because Nash never left long enough for me to find alone time with Palm Solo.

The last thing I needed was him bursting into the tent with fresh water for the washbasin while I was trying to work out some of the sexual frustration slowly building up over the endless days of little almost-there touches.

After the third day, I had to admit to myself this probably wasn’t some weird dream. I had the inside of the tent memorized—I only saw the outside when I went to the bathroom.

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