Droko gave his head a single, ponderous shake.“The goblin’s hatred runs deep.But he would never risk his own skin for the sake of revenge.He’s a survivor.”
Just like me.“Then how did Gorgul find out?”
“Does it matter?The ivories are cast.”Up close like this, Droko felt so impossibly huge.A great hulk of an orc who could stand up to anything.And yet, his expression was so resigned, so profoundly sad, that it pained me to even look at him.
I’ve heard talk of heartache before.Nothing sadder than a bedboy who actually believed it when a paying man called him special.Always figured I was too much of a realist to fall in love—that maybe I was just born without the sort of feelings that left those sorry boys pining away at the window for someone who never intended to come back for them.
Maybe I’d evenpridedmyself in keeping my heart so untouchable.
And maybe that really had been the smart thing to do.Because here, now, faced with the thought of never seeing Droko again…it felt like the beating muscle had been ripped right out of my chest.
“Please.”I knuckled the sting from my eyes, stretched up on tiptoe, and cupped his strong orcish face in my hands.“Don’t send me away.”
Droko stiffened, and I wondered if maybe I’d only succeeded in firming up his resolve….
Until he hitched me up by the armpits, swung me around, and pinned me to the wall.
19
DROKO
Archie.
His sweet human scent was rubbing off all over me, but I just couldn’t stop myself.The taste of his breath scudding over my palate, the sweep of that agile tongue—
The memory of it sliding across the sensitive tip of my cock….
I shoved him against the wall.He was so light I could pin him there with hardly a thought, yet so limber that even through my rigid leathers, the feel of his thighs wrapping around my waist was enough to drive the breath right out of me.
If I’d been worried for him, maybe I could have stopped myself.But Archie had found a way out—he would soon be free—so it didn’t matter if he was covered in my scent.Maybe it would even help him get away, masking his exotic musk beneath the more common smell of orc.A thin excuse.But I was desperate to believe it.
I shoved our mouths together, needing to smell him, taste him—to bathe in the human otherness of Archie’s scent.Orcs don’t kiss, not on the mouth.Too many clashing tusks.But Archie’s mouth fit against with mine as though they were made for one another.
He gasped.It landed like water on parched earth.I slid my hands beneath his shirt to make him do it again.The feel of his hot, smooth skin—so soft—the dip of his spine, the rippling of his muscles as he shivered beneath my touch.…
I’d thought to wring some choice sounds out of him, but now I was the one biting back a moan.
I wanted more.Wanted to wrap my arms around him.To taste every inch, to explore the delicious depths of his humanness.To let his scent sink into me, to force it into my pores until I was so full of him that even once he was gone, he would still be a part of me.
I worked my hands lower and cupped his sweet, rounded arse in two firm handfuls.He arched his back, pushing his hips against mine as his breathing shifted into something ragged and unsteady.The scent of human arousal filled my senses as I shifted his body to grind his crotch against my lower belly.
“Droko…please,” he breathed against my mouth, and I rolled my hips so the friction found him right between his spread legs.The scent of arousal intensified.And then he threw back his head and bared his pale, slender neck.
Whatever scant control I might’ve still possessed immediately shattered as my cock strained hard against my breeches.
I’d hooked a thumb into his waistband and was nigh ready to tear his clothes from his body when he said, “Please…come with me.I can’t lose you.”
The reality of what we were doing reared its head—the danger, the futility—and I couldn’t go on.My hands dropped to my sides, numb…and Archie slid down until his feet touched the floor.
Voice rough, I said, “You don’t know what you’re asking—”
“The hell I don’t.How long will you play this crazy game, constantly worrying you’ll be found out?The odds are against you, and eventually, you’re gonna lose.”
“But my clan—”
“I don’t give the even the slightest damn about your clan.They sacrificed you to save their own hides.And as far as I’m concerned, they can find some other scapegoat to take your place.”
He was right, of course.But I couldn’t go.I might not have chosen this burden, but it was still mine.Walking away from it was…unthinkable.
