Page 47 of Plucked By the Orc

“I belong to you,” she whispered, meeting his stormy gaze.

“Now, show me,” he said. “I am going to make you release everything inside and experience the most intense pleasure. Tell me you want that.”

Every fiber of being wished for him to claim her as his own. A throbbing, exquisiteneed demanded release from her body and very soul.

“I want you,” she breathed. His fingers ran along her bum once more, exploring the indentation, sparking more wetness between her legs and an urgent need to explode, to let him ravish every part of her. “I want you to take me. All of me.”

Iris’s hands clenched into fists around the pillows. His arms were on either side of her, his features looming in front of her, alive with lust. Duncan caressed her hair and face, then passionately kissed her again. She could taste her essence now on her lips, new yet familiar by scent. The scent of her own arousal, stronger than any she’d known before.

He moved down to her quim once more, his tongue lapping and rolling over it and then plunging even deeper inside to explore. Iris wriggled beneath him, her body completely his. All the energy condensed and released in one gratifying explosion. Iris screamed from sheer satisfaction.

And when she thought it was over, when his tongue withdrew, he remained there, caressing her quim with the same light touch as before. Only this time, he rolled her over to her side, so she could feel his cock against her backside, rubbing against her bum. He moved back slightly, and she was about to beg him to press against her once more. Then his hand traveled to her bum he stroked her between the cheeks. Iris had never imagined the pleasure this space might give her.

She had thought she had expelled her energy, but her desire heightened again, awakening like a dragon out of slumber. When she could stand the intense sensations no longer, she screamed once more, expelling everything in waves.

She felt like she was sinking into the bed, down beneath the earth, into a place of contentment she could never have envisioned. It left her completely relaxed and her mind utterly blank, save for one thought. Iris only wondered how long it would be until she experienced the sensation again. And never wanting to leave this bed, nor Duncan, for nothing in her life had ever made her feel more alive and truer to her nature.

Chapter Sixteen

Afterward, Iris lingered, nestled with Duncan on the luxurious eiderdown quilt—the likes of which she’d never seen before in terms of both size and comfort—in his giant four-poster bed. The sheets, once sweet-smelling and crisply folded, were crumpled around them. Iris stared at the canopy over the bed, the now familiar chevrons of his family’s crest.

Being a sensible woman and all, Iris understood the significant disadvantage of being an unmarried woman trying to make her way in London. At the same time, she had long given up on attracting the attention of any gentleman whom she might wish to do the honor of marrying.

Until she met Duncan Higgins.

She didn’t know how she could get by in life without him.

Still, a worming doubt lodged in the pit of her stomach. Curious as she was about his book, she was afraid to read anything about herself written in Duncan’s hand. She worriedover what he honestly thought of her. What she might extrapolate from his phrasing.

Blimey. She even sounded like Duncan now.

For all he might relish their tumbles between the sheets, she didn’t know how he felt about her. Not his creation, the woman who behaved as a right lady and would soon impersonate a countess, but the true Iris Gabbert. The woman she’d been when they first met.

At present, Iris put those troubling thoughts from her head. It was the sensible approach.

“This wee creature adores you,” Iris said as Boudica hopped on Duncan’s stomach and kneaded, purring agreeably.

He stroked the kitten’s chin, and Boudica looked at Iris, smug as you please.

“She wants me to know I’m but a bit on the side under this roof,” Iris commented. “And she’s number one in your eyes as you are in hers, that’s for certain.”

Duncan laughed at that. Helaughed. If someone had said she would earn a shilling every time the orc laughed, she’d have told them she’d be in the pauper’s house soon enough.

Was it possible she made himhappy?

Lying in bed, resting her head on his mammoth chest as best she could around Boudica’s warm little body, Iris could hardly remember the Duncan she’d first known.

She trailed her fingertips along his eyelashes, the outline of his nose, and the ridge of his eyebrows and jaw. She traced the muscular lines of his chest and up to the swatch of dark hair under his arm, admiring the shape of his triceps as he propped his head behind his arms.

At last, admitting herself beat perhaps, Boudica hopped down. With a final glare in Iris’s direction, the kitten trotted out through the door, which Iris had left ajar for this purpose.

More daring now, Iris ran her fingers along the sinewy, olive-green muscles under Duncan’s arm and the thick swatch of black hair, drawing in the rich aroma of his skin. She thought she had never seen anything as beautiful as this orc. Her Duncan Higgins. Her Duke of Barrington.

“It’s good to see you this way, you know,” she commented, stroking his chest with the back of her hand. A growl rumbled in Duncan’s throat. Now, Iris knew this could mean a number of things, not unlike the cat’s purr. But for the most part, it indicated desire. So she intensified her touch.

“What way?” he asked.

“Happy? At peace with the world? Not that I don’t appreciate that sour look you present. It has a certain charm. But I also like that you can let that go when sharing a bed with me.”

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