“Aye. I was raised by my mother’s kin. Silmë elves. My father was an orc.”
“Oh,” she breathed, her voice barely a whisper. “I’ma Silmë elf.” It was silly that the knowledge somehow made him even more attractive, but she couldn’t help the way her stomach flipped at his words. The featherweight pressure on her wrist continued unabated, and Silva wondered if he could feel the way her pulse jumped from his touch, as she pressed her thighs together.
“An exceptionally beautiful one,” he murmured, prying her fingers from the glass she’d taken from him. “My mother,” he continued, draining the remains of the glass with a tip of his head, “was half-fae. If I were a betting man, and I am, dove, I’d confidently wager that’s a shade more scandal than a lovely little Silmë elf can handle in one evening.”
There was something different in his lilting voice, a note of clipped finality that shook her from her giddy stupor, and her forehead creased as he began to gather the array of glasses before her, pushing them to the back edge of the bar for collection.
“If you’re going to pretend to know everything, you should try being right,” she blurted, wrapping her fingers around his wrist, staying his hand. Silva of the night time, the girl she’d been at school, particularly after she’d loosened up a bit with some liquid courage, was fearless and bold with a carefree laugh, and she was not ready to say goodnight.
Hewasright—it would have been an incredible scandal at the club, to be mixed with not one buttwodifferent species, even more, to have even an ounce of true fae blood! She remembered reading that elves had once been the favored consorts of the high fae, favor which had been rescinded as the centuries passed and Elvish life-spans grew shorter. A terrible scandal, but she’d not admit that to him, and besides, it didn’t matter to her. “You might have grown up with other elves, but you don’t know me.”
Tate cocked his head, clearly amused by her response. She thought the fae blood in him explained that terrifying smile as it stretched once more, but rather than giving her pause, as it absolutely should have, Silva found herself leaning closer.
“Are you the kind of faerie who collects names?” She crossed her ankles demurely, brushing her toes against his leg as she did so, and gave him her most innocent look. “Do I belong to you now?”
He huffed out another small laugh with a shake of his head, calling out to the bartender. Silva didn’t understand the words the two men exchanged in the guttural Orcish language, but the glasses before her vanished, the bar wiped down. She didn’t understand the words they spoke, but Silva could tell they were friendly and familiar, a surprise considering the way they’d been avoided. The grizzled orc mumbled as he turned away, quickly retreating back to the other end of the bar, but her companion hadn’t missed his words.
“Best be sleepin’ with one eye open, boyo,” Tate called to his back, and the big orc laughed, a rough scrape of a sound as Tate turned back to her. “Strictly speaking? Yes, I suppose I am...but your name is safe from me, dove. Can’t say I find names very interesting.”
“Hmm, that’s not very exciting of you. Whatdoyou collect?” The breath she’d been taking stuck in her lungs then, as his hand pressed to the center of her back and his head lowered. Exhilaration rippled through her, culminating in a tingle of arousal between her thighs as he traced her lips with the tip of his finger before moving his mouth to her ear. He smelled like sandalwood, spicy and warm, but there was something else there as well, something wild and crisp, something that made her want to dart her tongue out like a kitten and taste his skin, which wascompletelyuntoward, and not the kinds of thoughts an elf of good breeding should be having.
“Secrets,” he breathed into her ear, that tingle between her thighs turning into a constant ripple. The loose strands of his silken hair brushed her cheek, his breath was a molten heat on her neck, and when the needle-like pierce of one of his crowded teeth grazed her earlobe, Silva thought she might slide off the barstool in a flood of arousal. “I collect secrets, dove. Shh...that’s a secret.”
When he released her, sitting up to scan the pool tables again, she gripped the bar tightly, gasping for air that her lungs suddenly felt like they’d been denied. Before her, a tall glass of ice water sat where her collection of empty glasses had been.Get a grip! You’re acting like a human!
“We’re switching to water?” she asked weakly, taking a small sip from the icy-cold glass.
“Aye, we are.” His big hand raised, long fingers pushing a lock of hair behind her long, pointed ear. “Because I’d very much like to kiss you, little dove, but I need to know you’re not completely off the lash first.”
Silva choked out a laugh, taking up the glass and swallowing another gulp. He wasn’t what her grandmother would consider a good match, but Silva of the night time didn’t need to care. There was something strangely appealing about him, about his shining eyes and that terrifying smile, and she wanted to learn more of his secrets. She was, she decided, taking another gulp of the water, very glad she’d decided to go wandering that night.
♥♥♥
“We’re going to chalk today up to being a learning experience,” Ris called out, dropping her bag on the floor inside the door. “We’ve got to beat the other sightseers, or else we need to get these guys on their own somewhere. Otherwise, we’re never getting laid.”
The gnoll had been satisfactory. He’d been overeager and too excited, hadn’t been able to go more than one marginally satisfying round. Still, he’d kept his thick finger circling against her as he’d thrusted into her from behind, the resulting orgasm being good enough. She’d not come all this way for good enough, Ris reminded herself. Tomorrow needed to be better.
“Did you guys just stay in? Luri? Silva?”
As she turned away from the small refrigerator, tipping back half a bottle of water, Ris realized the small apartment was still and silent. “Hello?”
The bedrooms were empty, and the small living room was abandoned.
She was the first one back for the night.
“Un-fucking-believable.”
♥♥♥
“There are jets!” Lurielle exclaimed with a little shriek, feeling the water burst against her thigh. The echo of her laughter around the marble room no longer made her cringe; she’d been in the steaming pool of water with Khash for close to an hour, laughing for the majority of it.
He worked in finance, she’d learned, was the middle child of a family of seven, had grown up in a small Orcish community in the deep South, where he’d lived until grad school. He played a brutish-sounding popular Orcish sport on weekends that he explained was similar to rugby; he lived in a high-rise apartment building in the city with his bullmastiff but was house hunting for a home of his own. The easy back-and-forth of their conversation possessed none of the awkwardness she'd experienced with guys before, none of the silences and strained laughter she would have expected from a first meeting. It was the nicest date she’d ever been on, Lurielle thought with a massive pang of regret, wishing she’d met him someplace else, someplace that wasmeantto be a date and not an anonymous hook-up.He’s here to relax and get laid, not meet someone.He’d essentially said so when she’d mentioned the spots the cute server has advised them to check out.
“Too crowded and noisy for my tastes,” he’d laughed in that deep, sticky-sweet rumble he had. He visited the hamlet once or twice a month but made little use of the resort amenities, from the sound of it. “There’s a beautiful lake, just down that way...much nicer than a pool. We’re surrounded by hundreds of acres of countryside. If I wanted to sit on a deck, I could do that from home. There are some excellent restaurants in town, just as good if not better than in the city. And occasionally, I get to enjoy some beautiful company for the evening.”
The smile he sent across the bath seemed to melt something inside of her, and Lurielle twisted at his words, knowing that she was being patently idiotic.
“Just occasionally?” She kept her voice and smile light, and her eyes turned to the water, avoiding his hooded gaze. “Handsome brute like you? I find that hard to believe.”
