The footsteps passed. Faded.
His thumb resumed its slow circle over her clit, slick with her arousal. She clenched around him, the soreness from last night flaring bright and then melting into heat. He added a second finger, stretching her carefully, his tusks grazing her neck as he bent to inhale at her throat.
"You smell like me."
His free hand slid up her side, palm flattening against her belly, fingers splaying wide enough to span from hip to hip. He pressed there, feeling the softness yield under his touch, and groaned softly against her ear.
"This," he murmured, kneading her flesh with reverent pressure. "I cannot stop thinking of this. How you give beneath my hands. How much of you there is to hold."
His fingers curled inside her, finding that spot that made her vision spark, while his other hand roamed higher, cupping her breast through her dress. He thumbed her nipple, already peaked and sensitive, and she arched into it, her body chasing the sensation without permission.
Footsteps again. Closer this time. Voices murmuring, two warriors discussing patrols, their boots scuffing the corridor stone.
Targesh didn't stop. His fingers thrust deeper, his knuckles dragging against her inner walls. She clamped a hand over her mouth, muffling the whimper that tried to escape. He was hard beneath her, his cock a rigid line pressing up through the layers of fabric.
The voices paused outside the door. Laughter, low and easy. One warrior said something about the southern ridge.
Verity's pulse thundered in her ears. She was exposed like this, skirts hiked up, his hand buried between her legs. If they looked in—if they so much as glanced—
Targesh's thumb pressed harder on her clit, rolling it in tight, insistent circles. The pleasure built sharp and fast, coiling lowin her belly, her body clenching around his fingers in desperate rhythm. His tusks scraped her collarbone, leaving faint red lines on her skin that would linger beneath her clothes.
The voices moved on. The footsteps faded down the corridor, swallowed by distance and stone.
Targesh bit down on the curve of her shoulder.
She came, her body seizing around his fingers, her hand pressed so hard against her mouth that her teeth cut into her palm. He worked her through it, his thumb never faltering, his fingers curling and stroking until she was shaking apart in his lap, until the pleasure crested and broke and left her gasping.
He withdrew his hand slowly. Brought his fingers to his mouth and sucked them clean, his eyes never leaving her face.
"Good," he said. "Now. Ask me what you came here to ask."
She couldn't think. Her mind was white noise and aftershocks, her body still clenching around nothing, her thighs trembling where they bracketed his hips. He was still hard beneath her. He had not taken anything for himself.
"I—" She swallowed. Tried again. "I need to tell you something first."
His expression shifted. The heat banked, replaced by something watchful. "Then tell me."
She climbed off his lap. Her legs nearly buckled, but she caught herself on the edge of the table, fingers gripping scarred wood. She needed distance for this. She needed to not be touching him when she said it.
"My brother died at Thornfield Pass," she said. "Four years ago. The twenty-third of Harvestmoon. A border skirmish. His body was never recovered."
Targesh went very still.
"I came here to find out what happened to him. The official Valdaran report was—" Her throat tightened. "Threeparagraphs. Circumstances prevented retrieval. Remains could not be located."
"You have been searching the archives for records of that skirmish."
"Yes."
"You did not tell me this when I asked about your interest in border conflicts."
"No."
His hands rested flat on the table, fingers spread wide. She could not read his expression.
"What did you find?" he asked finally.
"Your annotation. Page 147. Brenneth's brother Torunn." She swallowed. "This morning I went to the tannery. I asked Brenneth about it. He told me—" Her voice caught. "He told me the orc dead are buried where they fell. That Torunn is in the high pass. And the Valdaran dead that couldn't be retrieved—"
