"Different how?"
Another deep inhale. His hands tightened on her hips, and she felt the tremor running through him.
"Fertile," he said. "You smell... ready."
Heat flooded through her that had nothing to do with embarrassment.
She'd known, on some level. Had felt the familiar signs her body gave her each month, had noticed the timing and pushed the thought aside because there was too much else happening. But hearing him say it—knowing his senses caught what hers could only guess—
"Is that something orcs can...?"
"Smell? Yes." His forehead dropped to her shoulder, his breath hot against her skin. "No wonder every time I looked at you across that courtyard, all I could think aboutwas—"
He cut himself off. His jaw clenched against her collarbone.
"Tell me," she whispered.
"Getting you alone. Taking you. Filling you until my scent is so deep in you that every orc in Northwatch knows exactly who you belong to."
Her whole body clenched at his words. "Ralvar—"
"I'm not suggesting—" He pulled back, meeting her eyes, want warring with care. "If you're not ready. If you don't want—children aren't something we have to—"
"Do you want them?"
The question stopped him. Emotions flickered across his face—hope, fear, longing so deep it made her chest ache.
"I never let myself think about it," he admitted. "But yes. With you, yes. I want everything. I want to watch your belly grow with my child. I want to teach them to track and fight and carve bone. I want to grow old with you in these mountains and know that when we're gone, something of us continues."
Delia thought about the life she'd expected. A worksite in the frontier, endless labor, "accidents" that happened to workers who grew too weak. She'd expected to die young and unmourned, her body worn out by a system that saw her as nothing but labor to be extracted.
And now she was here. Wrapped around a man who loved her, in a home where she belonged, being asked if she wanted to create life.
"Yes," she said. "I want that too."
Joy and disbelief and hunger broke across his face. "Delia—"
"But first," she interrupted, pressing a finger to his lips, "I want you to stop holding back."
His eyes went dark. "What?"
"You've been so careful with me. So gentle. And I love that, I do. But we're bonded now." She leaned in, pressed her lips to his ear, and whispered: "Show me what you've been holding back."
The sound he made vibrated through his whole body and into hers.
Then she was moving, being turned in his arms, set on her feet at the edge of the bed. Palms flat to the thick furs, ass presented, back arched instinctively as he stepped behind her.
"Tell me if it's too much," he growled against the nape of her neck. "Tell me if you need me to stop."
"I don't want you to stop."
His hand moved down her spine, over the curve of her hip, between her thighs. She gasped as his fingers found her already wet and aching and began to stroke.
"So ready," he murmured. "You're so ready for me. Can feel how much you want this."
"Please—"
“Not yet.” His fingers worked her slowly, two now, curling deep, thumb circling her clit in tight, merciless spirals. His other hand came around to cup her breast, pinching her nipple until she cried out. “I’ve been waiting all day. Let me enjoy this.”
