“It’s a good lake for fishin’,” he mused, oblivious to her inner turmoil. “I like to come early, when all the partiers are still sleeping off their night.”
“I used to go fishing with my granddad when I was little,” she confided, tightening her arm around his, easily able to picture his big silhouette against the early morning sun at the lake’s edge. “I loved it. My mom was worried I would turn into a tomboy and only let him take my brother after I started school.”
He harrumphed to himself before tugging her closer. “Me too. Granddaddy would take the lot of us, plus my cousins. Twelve kids, and he had us lined up like soldiers. Worked his fingers to the bone so that each one of us could go to good schools, be better than the generation before. Used to sit me on his knee and let me count his money, over and over again, addin’ it up, subtracting, dividing. Never was much of it, but I had the best math grades in my class every year.”
“My mom wanted me to major in Art History.” Lurielle wrinkled her nose at the memory as Khash chuckled. “She was furious with me when I did engineering. Then I met my boyfriend at the end of my first year, and she decided school was just a means to an end anyway and it didn’t matter what I studied.”
“And look at us now,” he drawled, pulling her to a stop, wrapping his arms around her. “Good jobs doing things we enjoy, eating chocolate cake and enjoying pantless fireworks. I don’t have any complaints, do you?”
She squeaked when he lifted her, as he’d done the previous night, and gripped his neck tightly as he kissed her. “Not a single one.”
His cabin was set back from the path, backing up to a small stream, and she understood why he found it peaceful. The moment of truth came before she was fully ready for it, but nevertheless, she shimmied out of her dress in his small bathroom, folding it carefully, placing her bra and panties between the folds.
You’re not really going to go through with this, are you? Completely naked, outside? Maybe if you’d joined that spin class…Lurielle pushed her ex’s voice aside with an annoyed grunt. “As a matter of fact, Iam,” she hissed at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She’d never done anything like this, and it was fine to be nervous, she assured herself, buoyed by her irritation at Tev’s continued presence in her head.
She’d done all sorts of new things since being one her own...she’d bought her house, got a dog, joined a group that went hiking through the Metroparks every third Sunday. She’d learned every nook and cranny of her new town, quaint as it was, and most of that she’d done completely on her own. She’d gone ziplining with Ris and Dynah at some farm, a completely terrifying experience, and slightly humiliating because there were weight restrictions on the lines, and she’d had to make sure she wasn’t zooming down one that would plummet her to her death, but still—she’d done it, had a good time, had even been hit on by some guy, a brawny minotaur. She was happy with her life and happy with herself, mostly, and she didn’t need to let the harsh critics of her past continue to drag her down.
She was not at all ready, but that was as ready as she’d ever be, Lurielle decided, creaking the door open with her heart in her mouth. The only light that showed was from the open front door, where Khash stood waiting patiently for her. Her heart stuck in throat as she gulped at the sight of him. He seemed slimmer without clothes, with his broad back and muscular arms unconfined. His full ass was perfectly rounded in the moonlight, leading to long, thick thighs. Khash seemed completely at ease, rolling one of his shoulders in the warm night air with a rolled up blanket under his arm, and when she stepped through the doorway, he turned with that lazy smile.
“Just pull that shut, darlin’. Let’s go find us our perfect spot.”
♥♥♥
Silva felt as though she were on a carnival ride. There had been a fair at one of the local farms the summer prior, and her date had dragged her onto the Spinning Vortex ride several times in a row, oblivious to the way she staggered, unable to keep the world from tilting and whirling.
It was how she felt now, as her hand curled tightly around the cue ball. Tate’s teeth were like needles dragging over her ankle, pressing to her skin as his cock pressed into her body, his teeth gentling just before he broke the skin, hilting in her fully, and Silva gasped at the sensation.
The apartment above the bar was huge, spanning the length of the entire building with giant windows overlooking the street beyond. She’d been able to see the twinkling lane below earlier, when she’d sat astride Elshona’s hips, watching a constant stream of orcs and the tourists they’d met moving up and down the block. She’d never experienced the sensation of her bare sex sliding against another woman’s, but with every slow pump of Tate’s hips behind her, her clit rubbed into Elshona’s, and both women had cried out.
Then she’d been spun, her thighs straddling the orc woman’s face, feeling that hot tongue slide into her once more. She’d never tasted another woman before, had never put her lips and tongue to silky-slick folds, but decided she wanted to try. Silva leaned down to give an experimental lick, then another, gripping Elshona’s muscular thighs for support. Tangy, certainly not unpleasant, and when she moved her tongue against that hooded pearl, she felt the reverberation of the bigger woman’s moan.
The pre-come soaked tip of Tate’s cock had been pressed to her lips next, slippery and sweet, pushing into her mouth until her jaw screamed in protest. She wanted to taste him, wanted him to make good on his promise of filling her mouth, but he held her hair tightly, controlling her movement, and pulled back every time she’d started to gag. Silva had lost count of how many times she’d climaxed by the time she’d been placed on the pool table.
The low lights of the apartment’s corners had been dimmed further, bathing the room in a pink glow as she stared up at the tall ceiling. Pressed tin tiles, she noted, giving the space a unique, vintage feel. Whoever had done the interior work truly had a wonderful eye for detail, she thought, as Tate pulled her legs to his shoulders and her bottom flush to the edge of the table, lining his cock up to her entrance.
Elshona had already begged off any more. Too over-sensitized, she said, too tired, starting to get a crick in her neck. Wondered aloud if her boss was going to give her the morning off, seeing how late it was already. Tate removed his teeth from Silva’s ankle long enough to singsong something in a language she didn’t understand, to which Elshona huffed. He smiled that malevolent smile, which Silva returned as widely as she was able, and then his teeth found her foot again; her ankle, her calf. When he released her legs to lean forward, covering her body with his own, she gasped, every bit of air in her lungs leaving in a greatwhoosh. She had thought he was fully hilted in her already, but this flush angle gave new meaning tofullness, and she cried out again and again with every unhurried thrust. His topknot had long ago begun to unwind, leaving silky strands of his glossy black hair loose around his long, slender neck, and Silva wrapped her fingers through the unconstrained hair as his teeth dragged at her throat, holding him there. Shewantedto be bitten.
“You should come home with me, dove,” he whispered instead, teeth needling into her earlobe and scraping the side of her neck. “Step through the clover and put all of that expectation behind you.”
She didn’t know how it was that he seemed to be in her head, knowing her thoughts, and she tightened her legs around him in response. His hips were now a relentless hammer against hers, the cue ball a terrible thing to grip for support, and his whisper an insidious current in her ear. Silva of the daylight hours knew one couldn’t trust the fae, that their promises were false and all their words poisoned, but, she reminded herself, he was Elvish too, and Orcish, and Silva of the nighttime wanted to believe his promises.
Her limbs trembled and her head spun, the shiny-smooth ball in her hand rattling against the table’s felted surface. Despite the fact she and Elshona both were rung out from an overabundance of pleasure, Tate’s movements had been slow and languorous all night—leisurely, shallow pumps, never climaxing; more watching than participation, but now Silva felt the urgency in his hips, the snap of his jaws as his teeth found her throat and shoulders.
She clenched around him with a gasp for a final time when his dagger teeth broke her lavender skin at last, crying out as her back arched off the green felt. The cue ball rolled across the table, out of her grasp as she spasmed, feeling Tate’s spine ripple with his own release above her. Slow and languorous again, as he’d been the whole night, drawing out his pleasure with her in long spurts. Hot tongue replaced sharp teeth, as he slumped in her arms, laving at the blood that welled where he’d bitten her. The room pitched and her head swam, and all she was cognizant of was Tate’s lips and Tate’s voice, softly kissing her chin, her nose, the spot where he’d bitten her, calling her his Silva of the nighttime.
♥♥♥
The smoke and noise from the bonfire bled through the trees as they walked. The trail had been quiet until then, and with every step, she tried to convince herself that she was more comfortable being naked out in the open air. At least, until two large bodies appeared before them: two orcs, making their way up the trail slowly. The men were similarly unclothed and deep in conversation and paid her and Khash little mind as they passed.
The bubble of panic that had grown in her chest as the orcs had drawn nearer dissolved into a giddy heat at the way they’d barely looked askance at her jiggling thighs and untoned arms; a giddiness that carried her up the hill on weightless feet, that had her squeezing Khash’s giant hand, his fingers laced with her own. Her heart was a timpani when she gingerly lowered herself to the thick quilt he’d spread on the grass, attempting to be as graceful as possible. The sky was a wide-open canopy of stars above them, reminding her of the old observatory at home that she’d been to once, but the stars held little interest when compared with the big orc beside her.
Khash’s voice was a heavy slur, pooling around her in the warm night air, and Lurielle was certain that whatever he was saying was probably funny and clever, because it always seemed to be, but she didn’t hear a single word of it. Adrenaline raced through her veins, and all she wanted to do was kiss him. Her hand looked tiny in the center of his broad chest, as she sat up slowly, turning to face him. His heavy-lidded gaze set her blood to a slow simmer, much like the steamy water of the thermae the previous night, that slow, lazy smile stretching his mouth. She was barely aware of the fact that she’d lowered herself to him, not until his big hand cupped the back of her head as their mouths met.
His full lips were softest, sweetest thing she’d ever tasted, and she wondered again how she was supposed to return to the real world the next afternoon, putting this weekend behind.
You were supposed to be here having fun, stupid. Drink champagne with your friends, get laid, not go falling for someone.They’d done the first part, she considered, thinking of the outsized bottle of champagne the handsome, creepy server at the bistro had foisted upon them. Lurielle could see no reason why she couldn’t make the second part a reality. The fact that she was falling for him could be put aside for the moment, she encouraged herself. It would hurt worse in the morning, maybe, but right now...right now she felt brave and beautiful, and there was no time like the present.
His skin was warm as she slid her palm over his chest, circling his nipple until it pebbled beneath her thumb. From her vantage point, she was able to look down the long expanse of his body and watch as his cock slowly inflated, the way it twitched when she gave the same nipple a pinch and rubbed circles against his stomach. It jerked against his thigh when her fingertips traced down that dark trail of hair from his navel, and his breath stuttered against her lips when she paused to kiss him.
