He did it again. And again. Each thrust finding that spot with a precision that could not be accidental, the ridges of his shaft dragging across it with every withdrawal. The pleasure built in layers, each stroke adding to the last until she could not tell where one sensation ended and the next began.
His hand found hers in the furs. His fingers laced through hers, massive and rough, and he pinned her hand beside her head. The gesture was possessive and tender at once, claiming and anchoring, giving her something solid to hold onto while her body flew apart.
"Look at me," he said.
She opened eyes she had not realized she'd closed. His face was above hers, close enough that his breath mingled with hers. His features were drawn tight with restraint, the tendons in his neck standing out like cables, and she understood suddenly how much control this was costing him.
Her fourth climax hit without warning, her whole body seizing around him. Her inner walls clamped down on his cock mid-thrust, and his rhythm shattered. He drove deep and held there, his massive frame shaking, a roar tearing out of his chest that rattled the weapons on the wall.
She felt him come inside her. The pulse of it, hot and copious, flooding her in spurts that seemed to go on forever. His hipsjerked against hers, grinding, as though he could get deeper if he only pressed hard enough. The ridges of his cock seemed to swell, locking him inside her while his seed filled her completely.
Then his arms gave out.
He collapsed onto her—mostly. Even in extremity, some part of him remembered she was smaller, and he caught most of his weight on his elbows. But his chest pressed her into the furs, his face buried in her hair, his breath coming in great heaving gusts against her temple.
She could not move. She was pinned beneath seven and a half feet of sated orc warchief, his cock still buried inside her, their bodies cooling in the aftermath.
She had never felt more content in her life.
His mouth moved against her hair. She felt rather than heard the words, his lips shaping them against her scalp.
"Stay."
Not a question. Not quite a command. Something in between.
Her hand found the back of his neck. The skin there was damp with sweat, the muscle beneath still trembling with aftershocks. She spread her fingers through his hair and held on.
"I'm not going anywhere," she said.
He made a sound against her hair, and she felt the last of the tension drain out of his massive frame.
They lay tangled together in the dying firelight, his heartbeat slowing against her chest, hers still racing beneath his weight. She catalogued the sensations: the pleasant ache between her thighs, the stickiness where their bodies joined, the cool press of his tusks against her temple.
She should probably say something. Something meaningful about what they had done, what it signified, what came next.
Instead, she yawned.
His chest vibrated against her. That rumbling laugh again, felt more than heard.
"Sleep," he said. The word was half-growl, his voice roughened to gravel. He shifted his weight, and she felt him soften inside her, felt the slow slide of his withdrawal. The loss of him left her hollow, aching in ways that were not entirely unpleasant.
He rolled onto his side, taking her with him, tucking her against the furnace of his chest. One arm curled around her waist, his hand splaying across the small of her back. The other reached down, snagging a fur that had been kicked to the foot of the bed, and dragged it over them both.
She should clean up. She could feel the evidence of what they'd done trickling down her thigh, cooling in the air. She should probably have thoughts about that. Complicated thoughts. Feelings about the intimacy of it, the implications.
Instead, she burrowed closer to his chest and let her eyes fall closed as his heartbeat carried her into darkness.
Chapter 16
Targesh woke before dawn.
Thirty years of border warfare had stripped the luxury of deep sleep from him. His body surfaced at the first light, alert and ready, before his mind caught up to where he was.
Then his mind caught up.
She was still there.
Verity lay on her side facing him, one arm tucked beneath the pillow, the other curled against her chest. The furs had slipped to her waist in the night. Her hair had escaped its pins entirely, dark strands fanning across the pillow and tangling with his own where their heads had rested close.
