“You treat me like it,” I shot back. “If you want me to…” I swallowed the words, heat creeping up my neck. “If you want me tostay, you can’t just expect me to sit around like some pampered doll.”
The wordstayhung between us, heavy and unspoken.
His eyes darkened, a dangerous glint sparking there. “Stay,” he repeated, voice low.
I realized what I’d just said and cursed inwardly, stepping back. “Forget it.”
But he didn’t let me.
In a blur, he pinned me to the rough bark of a tree, his hands braced on either side of my head. His breath was warm against my cheek, his body close enough to make my pulse stutter.
“You want to fight me?” His voice was gravel, deep and rough. “Or something else?”
I should have shoved him. I should have said something cutting. Instead, my hands fisted in his chest, and I pulled his mouth to mine.
The kiss hit like a storm. He was hard. Hungry. His teeth grazed my lip, and I bit him back, a sound low in my throat. His hands slid to my thighs, lifting me as if I weighed nothing, my back pressed against the tree, his body pinning me there.
Heat roared through me, dangerous and wild.
Then he stopped.
Just like that, he tore his mouth from mine, breathing hard, his forehead resting against mine for a moment before he pulled back.
“Not here,” he said, voice harsh. “Not like that. You’ll beg when it’s real.”
Something came over him. Something I didn’t quite understand. A sudden fierceness twisted his features for aheartbeat, quickly controlled. He stared at me long and hard, then let out a deep, shuddering breath, his nostrils flaring.
And then… he shook his head and lifted me up before I could protest. With one damn arm, and I felt his strength, his warmth, his bulging muscles.
Too much.
I’d never known anybodythisoverwhelming.
This damn orc… he carried me. Just… scooped me up as if I were weightless and walked back to the cave.
There, he laid me down on the furs, untouched, and left me burning.
GORRAN
The taste of her was still on my tongue.
I paced the mouth of the cave, the forest beyond painted in the bruised colors of twilight. The rabbits hung gutted and cleaned by the fire pit—cleaned with skill, precision even. I’d expected her to flinch at the blood, to fumble with the blade, but Mira had handled the work like someone who’d done it a hundred times.
The memory of her slender hands moving with quiet competence still burned in my mind.
She was inside now, crouched over the pot, the scent of rabbit stew mixing with smoke and pine. And I was out here, because if I stayed near her, I wasn’t sure I could keep my hands off her.
My blood ran too hot. My chest was tight with the effort of holding myself back.
She didn’t understand what she did to me.
One spark, one sharp look, and I wanted to claim her. Not because she was human, soft, andmineby orc law, but because every bite of her words, every defiant breath she took, drove me closer to the edge.
When I pinned her to that tree earlier, I wanted to take her mouth, her body… take everything until there was no fear left in her, only me.
But I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
