Lurielle had come to the conclusion that the reason his family and the thought of spending time with them stressed her so completely was twofold. This was a place that valued continuity. Pockets within the community with each orc’s name on it, pockets that were expected to be filled. Khash was proof of what happened when one disrupted that. The shiny golden boy with a foot permanently out the door, his fluffy black wool hidden, but undeniable. Lurielle’s entire life was the result of reinvention, and that was directly at odds with everything that this place was.
The other part of it was how hugely and loudly they loved. It made her uncomfortable.
Even when his sisters sniped and poked, even when they offered advice she hadn’t asked for, they meant well. Even when their words had a sheen of malice, she knew that deep down, theygenuinelymeant well. That was perhaps the hardest part to accept. This wasn’t the snide, cutting world in which she had grown up. She had no doubt that his sisters were more than capable of slicing her to ribbons, but they would be giving her a passed-down recipe, a homemade quilt, and advice that came from the heart in the same breath.
“You survived again, Bluebell. You’re gettin’ to be an old pro at handling this clan, I think.”
She laughed, dropping against him as his arm came around her, closing her eyes. Lurielle breathed in the woodsmoke smellof the fire someone had lit at the back of the house. Here, facing the woods, the forest stretched long and unbroken, and the smell of it had replaced the grass clippings from earlier.
“Does it ever get easier?”
His laughter was a rumble of thunder behind her. Their lives had changed so much since that very first weekend in Greenbridge Glen, but some things hadn’t. She still wanted to be caught in his downpour and always would.
“Easier? No. Never that. But you find your voice. And it gets easier to use it. And I think you’re already learning that, darlin’ . . . in any case, we won’t need to come back until his naming ceremony.”
At that, she turned in his arms, her brow furrowed.
“I don’t want to keep you from coming back, Khash. This is your home. This is the family who loves you. I’m not going to force you to come back if you don’twantto, but don’t ever think you can’t because of me. I know I look dainty, but I’ll kick someone’s ass if I have to. You married a survivor. I can get through a weekend with your sisters whenever I need to.”
He was laughing before she’d even finished. “Bluebell, you go talkin’ like that, what am I supposed to use as an excuse?” She gasped, pushing against him lightly as he laughed, trapping her in the strong circle of his arms. “Well, you know I appreciate it, darlin’. We’ll see. Once he’s a bit bigger. But when we get home, I think we need to take some time, just the three of us. Let’s go to the cabin, put real life on the back burner another day or two.”
“That sounds perfect to me,” she’d sighed, leaning into him.
Which was how she found herself, naked as the day she was born, her thighs stretched wide, straddling his body as he reclined on the picnic blanket they’d put down in the grass.
She would never get tired ofthis.
The thick shape of him inside her, stretching her open, the meat of him dragging against her inner walls in a way that madeher breath hitch on every thrust. Her small white hands were splayed across the dark green expanse of his chest, her nails digging in for purchase as she rode him a bit harder, her clit finding the friction it needed against his pubic bone. He had a hand at her hip, the other cupping her ass, keeping her steady, helping her ride his cock.
It had occurred to her, as she dropped her head back and he caught an engorged nipple in his mouth, that they had been here before. Exactly in this spot, on this same blanket, doing this exact same thing.
Now, though, the jiggliness of her ass and her dimpled thighs didn’t even register as a concern. She couldn’t imagine being that elf again, putting herself through such trials over trivialities. Now she had real things to worry about, like high-fructose corn syrup and the best brand of toothpaste for tiny teeth. Being a good mother and setting a good example. The width of her ass would never be important again.And it wasn’t actually important then.
His hands kept her tipped at just the right angle, allowing her to grind against him in the way she needed, and she was close.Soclose.
“Bluebell, I’m ready to fill this perfect pussy up. Are you going to come for me?”
The first pop of the fireworks above their heads made her gasp, falling forward against him. Khash took the opportunity to catch her lips with his own, her whole face fitting between his thick tusks. Her vision was spotty, her lungs unable to draw a full breath as they hitched, and when his thumb pressed between their bodies to move circles against her, she was lost.
A shimmer of sparks lit the sky, red and purple and gold.
Lurielle came with a moan, tightening around him, her muscles contracting around his shaft, her spine quivering when he came with a grunt. She felt the hot pressure within heras another explosion boomed above them, and she continued to move against him, relishing the slippery wetness of it. He continued to rub her clit until she tightened again with a small cry. Weaker, but enough to turn her to jelly.
She dropped against him, limp as a fish, as Khash chuckled.
“Still my favorite song,” he whispered into her hair, kissing her neck.
She was able to hear the small, indignant wail coming from inside the cabin, almost falling sideways off his body in her haste.
“Darlin’, that boy’s not going anywhere. You’re going to wind up falling in the grass, twistin’ a little bitty ankle. Then what am I supposed to do? Carry both of you?”
She was laughing when she pushed herself to her feet. “You know what? Just for that,yougo get him. I’m taking a shower.”
She had washed herself of the evidence of their dalliance in the grass, pantsless time with Bluebell and Khash, but it had been too late. There was no doubt in her mind that it happened that night, as the sky lit with fireworks once more, her son crying inside.
Kael’s birthday had passed shortly after, blissfully low-key. A tiny cake, decimated by his fists, frosting in every crevice, up his nose, in his small, pointed ears. His little baby teeth were perfect little pearls, and there, at the edges of his gums, the tiny bumps of his tusks, not yet ready to break the skin, but a pointed reminder that he’d be yowling until they did.
Khash had blown out the candle with him, as the whole clan cheered from the other side of the tablet screen. Kael had looked at the smoking remains of the candle with an open mouth, as if the absence of the flickering flame that had been there offended him utterly.
