Page 36 of First Comes Orc, Second Comes Baby
“Just a little physical violence,” Brahnt purred, though it was closer to an Orc’s version of a wheedle. It was only Snowkiss present to witness, and he’d already established his dominance. Not that she’d paid that any mind. “Just enough to blister your backside.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “No.” Then she dashed out of the room.
Brahnt followed. “Did you roll your eyes at me?”
“You bet I did, Mr. Grey,” the Human yelled over her shoulder. “We’re having pancakes and turkey bacon and I had a yearning for strawberry and jalapeño salsa.”
Thank the Allmother. Odd combo, but fine.
“Oh, and those weird rich boy eggs you had in here.”
Damn.
* * *
Charlotte decided the prudent thing was to let the Orc have some quality quiet time to cool down before Brahnt convinced himself to make good on the threat to blister her backside.
Especially since Charlotte was kind of into it, but only if it was play. That dubcon stuff was fine when reading a book, but she'd seen her dad strike her mom and vice versa and in real life that type of dysfunction wasn't sexy at all.
But if Brahnt was under control, and wanted to let off a little steam with some spanking and would honor a safe word, Charlotte was down. So down.
She mentally patted herself on the back because the old Charlotte would have been like, hell yes daddy spank me now what safe word?
But this was the new, emotionally healthy and pregnant Charlotte. And couldn’t kids hear inutero these days?
So she spent the day at her twins’ place, silent on pain of death because Caro was on this new 10,000 words a day kick and would strangle her if Charlotte interrupted her streak, which was on an entire three days so far.
Charlotte rolled her eyes where Caro couldn't see it. Authors were insane. Charlotte was glad she was only a dancer, much more balanced. You just did your eight hours of training five days a week, your one day of strength training, your one day off, kept abreast of the competition while doing the round of auditions, maintained your influencer accounts, monitored your diet and nutrition on a daily basis, and called it a day.
Much more balanced.
“Fuck yeah, day four,” Caro exclaimed, yanking her headphones off and tossing them, with apparent venom, onto the table. She was gentler with her laptop and microphone. “Fitty K book in a week coming up.”
Charlotte perked up. “You know what, that's an awesome achievement. Four days straight. You deserve a reward.”
Caro snorted, pushing out of her chair, and headed towards the kitchen. “Don't try to finesse me. What do you want?”
“Get me out of this apartment.”
Caro popped open the tab of a beer. Charlotte shuddered at the carbs. “Don't you have a man for that? Why are you at my place bugging me?”
Charlotte avoided her keen gaze. “There was a minor blow up this morning.”
“What did you do?”
“Why the hell does it have to be something I did?”
“Because I know you, and you are hell to live with. You bitch about boundaries, but you eat other people's food, wear other people's clothes, rearrange other people's furniture—”
“I’ve only ever lived with you.”
“I am the other people. I feel really sorry for your Orc. You're going to drive him insane. And he's got a mini you coming on top of it?” Caro shook her head and took a long swig of beer. “You couldn't pay me enough.”
Charlotte frowned. “Your support is overwhelming.”
“I support you. If he does anything stupid, I'll be over there and I'll kick his ass. But again, why are you hanging out at my place?”
“I may have posted a picture of his feet on Instagram. But I didn't tag him,” Charlotte exclaimed, interrupting Caro's sharp inhale. “Anyway, I’m letting him cool off. He mentioned something about blistering my backside.”
