Page 85 of Halfling
He’d never kissed in his life, but that didn’t matter—all that did was the sucking friction of her mouth, how her fingers dragged and scraped at his hair, how her pleasure filled his senses and drowned him.
He sank into her kisses, following her lead, teasing her with the same touches she gave him. Sorcha pressed closer, crushing her breasts against his chest. When her tongue darted against his, he chased her, dipping inside the hot well of her mouth. A groan ripped from his chest and Orekgorgedhimself.
Sucking on her lower lip, Orek banded his arms around her, surrounded her with him, and pushed her back against the rocks. Her hands cupped his face, keeping him just where she wanted him to feather teasing kisses and nips across his mouth and cheeks. When she came close enough again, he claimed her mouth, desperate for more of her taste.
Finally, finally, he felt that hum she made against his skin, a shiver of pure pleasure skating down his spine when she hummed then moaned into his mouth.
Sorcha broke away to suck in air, and Orek’s head dropped to her throat. He kissed and nibbled her skin, working her pulse point along his fang and delighting in how it jumped against his lips.
“Orek,” she moaned.
The sound of his name on her lips pulled at something inside him.Have to be sure, have to make sure she knows.Clenching his fangs, he pulled back, chest aching as if a hole had been punched through it. “Sorcha, I…I don’t want…” Her brows shot up in concern, and he hurried to finish, “Don’t want you to think…you have to.”
“Don’t have to what?”
“This.” His face burned as he said it, the beast roaring at him to shut up and let her do whatever she wanted, no matter her reasons.
“Kiss you?”
His blush grew more violent, the heat radiating off his face.
“I don’t want you to think you have to—I’ll protect you no matter what.” She was giving him the oddest look, like he’d started speaking another language, and his stupid mouth decided the thing to do was blabber more. “Don’t want it out of gratitude, either. I didn’t help you to get something in return.”
Her arms fell away from him and her backside hit the rock with athump. She leveled him with a look, not quite a frown, but it seemed infinitely more dangerous.
“So I’m not supposed to kiss you if I feel I have to or because you saved me?”
He jerked his head in a nod and clenched his fists to keep from hauling her to his chest and demanding she forget everything he was spewing and just kiss him again, more,forever.
Her sudden snort startled him.
“Well, then, you can’t kiss me because I’m female.”
He blinked. “What?”
“You don’t want to be kissed out of pity or gratitude. Fine. But I don’t want to be kissed just because I’m here and female. I don’t want to think any other female body would do.”
His mouth opened and closed without anything coming out, like a fish that had jumped too far from the river.
“There’ve been no others,” he sputtered.
He immediately wished the words back, wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole, but she only gave a determined nod and motioned for him to help her down off the rock.
Orek opened his arms without thought, and she came to himwithout hesitation, palms planted on his shoulders and letting him swing her down to the ground. It took only a moment, the ease of it breaking and mending something inside him all at once.
The long breath she took as she considered him made him want to wretch.
“Even more reason to worry. I’m the first female you’ve spent much time around. How can I trust anything is real, then?” She gave him a significant look before bending down to pick up Darrah and her pack, and needy male that he was, he watched the curve of her backside the whole time, palms twitching to take great handfuls of that soft, round ass and pull her tight and close. To do what he should’ve done in that human bed.
She wiggled for him, and he groaned.
“Look,” she sighed when she’d hefted and straightened her pack, “I’m not the type to do that out of pity or gratitude. Some women do, sometimes they need to, but that’s not me.” She walked right up to him, a breath away with her head tilted back to look him in the eye. “Besides, we’re even.”
“Even?” he repeated. He was beginning to think he was a few steps behind in this debate with the way his head swirled. Or perhaps it was the lingering effect of her kisses.
She nodded decisively in that way of hers, so sure of herself. “I fished you out of that river and got you help. You saved my life, I saved yours. So we’re even. I have no reason to think I have to do anything out of gratitude. And besides, you’ve never made me feel like I did. So trust that whatever happens, it’s given freely. When you decide what you want and that you can trust me, just let me know.”
Her brows flicked in a sassy arch at the close of that speech, as if she hadn’t just knocked Orek’s life off its entire axis, and then she turned on her heels to saunter away. Something about that confident stride pulled at him, got that predatory part of him that wanted to chase and capture andclaimsparking again, and he snagged her arm before she could get more than a few steps away.
