Page 81 of Halfling
His fingers skimmed up her back, feeling where the neckline met her shoulders. Her back was loose, her skin warm under the mass of her curls. Tracing patterns into her skin, he followed the column of her neck, the shell of her ear. Pushing back some of those untamable curls, he found her face easy in sleep, brows set in a gentle arch and those pink lips slightly parted.
He kissed a handful of those freckles he loved above her brow.
Holding his breath, he moved his hand down, feeling her shape. The neat dip of her waist, the generous curve of her hip. One of her thighs had found its way over one of his, leaving his leg between her own.
His cock burned hotter than iron from the forge between them as he palmed her supple thigh, feeling the give of it but the strength, too. He splayed his fingers across her flesh, kept from his by the barest slip of fabric.
Drunk on her scent and feel, Orek palmed her backside, sinking his fingers into the plush, giving flesh. It overfilled his hand, and he bit back a groan. Hooking a hand under her knee, he drew her thigh higher up on his, exposing her to his thigh. He could feel the heat of her cunt teasing the skin of his thigh.
Panting into her hair, he pulled her closer, as close as he could. Flush against her, his cock throbbed between them, hungry for more, for her, for the warmth he could feel so close.
He rolled his hips, desperate to relieve the building, maddening pressure.
A sharp breath, a groggy noise from her throat.
Orek froze.
Fates, what am I doing?She was asleep. She trusted him and she wasasleep!
As gently but as quickly as he could, Orek untangled himself from Sorcha. Everything inside him rebelled, goading him to stay, to see how deep into her warmth he could fall, but he forced himself from that bed and from her.
Stumbling across the room, Orek caught himself on the mantel. The air wasn’t as sweet here, an ashy note his nose disliked. It didn’t smell nearly enough ofher. He wanted—
He pressed his head hard into the cold, unforgiving stone, chest heaving.
Fuck, he’d almost—fuck!
He lost all sense around her, wanted desperately to just give in.
But she trusted him.
And he’d vowed to protect her, even from himself.
Shoulders bunched, spine locked, Orek kept himself from returning to that bed with sheer will. He gritted his fangs against his angry cock, sneering down at it and locking his knees.
Enough, he snarled at himself.Enough.This is the path you chose—now you must walk it.
And, because he needed to hear it—She doesn’t want you. Your clan didn’t. Your mother didn’t. She doesn’t, either.
That did the trick. Finally, all the hot desperation withered inside him—as well as all the hope and happiness. The truth could do that, and right then, he needed it. Needed the reminder that this was all he ever would or could be to her.
He’d best get used to it.
20
Sorcha looked up from where she tended the campfire, again wondering where Orek had gotten off to. They both had their morning routines, some of which required the privacy of the trees and thick underbrush, but he’d been gone for ages. She’d already spooned out his portion of porridge and added his preferred nuts, no fruit. Her own empty and cleaned bowl sat beside his cool, congealing breakfast.
She perhaps wouldn’t have worried so much over it if he’d taken Darrah, but the kit was currently trying to scale a nearby tree, playing at being a real raccoon.
In truth, she wouldn’t have worried so much either if they hadn’t spent most of yesterday’s journey in a stiff silence. The quiet had given her mind time to turn over what had happened—ornothappened at the inn.
She remembered waking in the night to his hand on her hip and being pulled close. The weight of his arm and blaze of his heat had soothed her into the deepest sleep she’d had since being taken from home.
When she’d woken again, it was to the feeling of him running his hands over her back and thigh. It was a delicious way to wake up, and she’d kept still to see what he did next. When he took a big handful of her backside and tucked her tight to him, she’d felt the hard, hot length of a big cock flush against her belly.
She’d been so lost in a wave of pure need that she hadn’t been able to do anything before he was jumping from the bed as if burned. Left suddenly cold in the wake of his retreat, Sorcha had stared through her lashes as he hunkered against the fireplace composing himself.
He stood there for a long time, but it still hadn’t been long enough for Sorcha to soothe the sting of it. What was she to think? That he wanted her but not enough?
