Page 25 of The Orc's Captive Bride
But she’d spent five days learning that analysis and caution could only get you so far. Sometimes you had to act on instinct. Sometimes you had to trust the data your body was giving you even when your brain screamed that it didn’t make sense.
For one frozen heartbeat, he remained completely still, a cold, unyielding statue.
Then something broke.
His hand came up to cup the back of her head, his fingers threading through her hair. His other arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her against the hard strength of his body with enough force to make her gasp.
And he kissed her back.
Not gently, not tentatively, but hard and demanding and desperate, as if he’d been holding back for days and had finally run out of restraint.
Her analytical mind—the part that never stopped observing, categorizing, questioning—simply shut off. There was only sensation. The press of his mouth against hers and the hardness of his tusks against her cheeks. The warmth of his hands, one in her hair and one at her waist, holding her like she was precious and breakable and entirely his. The taste of him, foreign and familiar all at once as his tongue swept against hers, a claiming that made her knees weak and her blood heat.
She made a sound, small and surprised and wanting, and felt him respond with a growl that vibrated through her chest. Her hands found his shoulders and slid up to his neck. Her finger traced the edge of his ear and he shuddered, pulling her impossibly closer.
Yes.The thought was barely coherent.This. More of this.
She’d been kissed before—a few awkward teenage experiments, a couple of competent enough encounters that still hadn’t made her understand what all the fuss was about—but she’d never been kissed like this. As if it wasn’t about pleasure or connection but about something deeper, more primal. As if he was trying to mark her, brand himself on her soul.
Then he pulled away, and she stumbled, her balance compromised by the sudden loss of his support. She blinked up at him, her vision slightly unfocused without her glasses in quite the right position.
His eyes had turned solid black but his expression was stricken, as if she’d just done something catastrophic.
“Khorrek—”
“No.”
The word was harsh. Final.
He took another step back and the physical distance between them felt like a chasm.
“This cannot happen,” he said. “Cannot.Do you understand?”
“But—”
“No.”
He turned and opened the door, but then he paused with his hand on the frame, his back to her. For a moment she thought he might say something else. Might turn around. Might?—
The door closed behind him, and a lock clicked into place.
She stood in the center of the huge, luxurious room, her heart pounding, her lips still tingling, and her body humming with sensation and confusion and a frustration that had nothing to do with being locked in.
What the hell just happened?
Her analytical brain tried to make sense of the past five minutes.
He had kissed her back. Not reluctantly. He’d kissed her like he wanted her, kissed her with a hunger that had stolen her breath and her thoughts in equal measure. And she might not have a lot of experience but the massive ridge of his erection had made it clear that she wasn’t the only one aroused by the kiss.
And then he’d locked her in the room and left.
She wanted to scream, or break something, or track him down and demand an explanation, although given the locked door, that option seemed unlikely.
Instead, she took a deep breath, and then another, and forced herself to think past the arousal and confusion churning through her system.
Focus on practical matters.
She was in a locked room in a foreign castle in a different world, waiting to meet a king who wanted her for unknown reasons. Getting upset about a kiss—however mind-melting that kiss had been—wasn’t going to help her situation.
