Page 22 of Hooked on the Otter Doctor
Svein bumped into me as he leaned in closer to Petra. “Have there been orgies? Where?”
Laughing, I pushed him off me. “You’re mated now. No orgies.”
“Don’t you know?” he said slyly. “Norlon mating ceremonies always end in orgies.”
“They do not,” I said, aghast. “I thought mating was all about being monogamous.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to do a group thing. It can just mean that everyone’s having fun at the same time.”
I blinked at him and then at Petra. She had a spoonful of ice cream halfway to her mouth as her face turned red.
“We’re going to have our ceremony at the end of the week,”Svein said ever so casually. “Helli’s not invited, of course, but your parents can…come.”
An involuntary retching noise left me before I could stop it, and Petra’s spoon clattered onto the table. Svein giggled maniacally and carried on eating his dessert.
There was no way I could ever attend a Norlish mating ceremony. No way. Right? I looked across the table to find Halaby smirking at me just before his foot traveled up the inside of my leg to my knee and back down again. So, okay, maybe I was a little turned on, but that didn’t mean I was up for attending an orgy. Yeah. Totally didn’t.
CHAPTER 10
TOBIAS
Icouldn’t stop thinking about sex in general as I walked with Halaby toward his cottage for the night, but more specifically my mind kept trying to conjure up an orgy of Norlons and humans. How it didn’t have to mean multiple partners but could mean exhibitionism. Why did a suddenly-vocal part of my brain really want the world to see that Halaby was mine?
“Should we run?” Halaby grinned down at me.
“Run?”
“You’re rather aroused. Have been for some time, actually.”
I huffed a laugh, embarrassed. “Well, Svein and Dyfor are going to have a mating ceremony at the end of the week. We’re invited.”
Halaby took my hand. “Seeing as how your cousin reminds me quite a lot of my friend Ghosha, I imagine he explained what usually happensafterthe ceremony.”
I nodded up at him and nearly tripped over nothing. “Uh, yeah, he did. I mean, assuming he’s right about the, um…”
“Orgy.”
“Oh, yeah, okay. He was right then.” I resisted the urge to fan myself as I took a deep breath.
Halaby chuckled and put his arm around my shoulders aswe walked into the area with the Norlon cottages. “Participation is entirely voluntary and so is the level of one’s participation.”
I cleared my throat and chose to keep participating in this conversation even though it was making my face burn because I had questions. And that strange new need to claim my mate.
“Yeah, Svein said, um, multiple partners isn’t required. Just the, you know, public part of things.”
“Exactly. We could simply eat and drink and talk with others. We could watch without joining in.” He placed his hand on the panel to unlock his door while smirking at me. “Or I could take you in a way that would make absolutely certain that everyone knows we’re mated.”
He calmly walked inside, and I hustled after him because now I needed to know everything.
“What way is that?” I asked.
“Well, that depends on you.”
“It does?”
A wicked grin spread across his lips. “Do you want to be discreet or obvious?”
“Oh.” I had to think about that. “Discreet like maybe people wouldn’t know what we were doing?”
