Andoh, it was good. Warm, and sweet, and surely fresh from its…source. And she just kept drinking, dragging its succulent honey deep down her throat, swallowing it in gulp after gulp. Until the goblet was entirely empty, and she was tilting it high, willing out one more glorious drop, one more, oh…
She set the empty goblet back on the tray with a clatter, lifting her chin, licking her sweet-tasting lips. All while holding Rathgarr’s watching eyes, and perhaps even raising a silent challenge of her own. What would he do now? Would he really just hand over a week’s survival, for that?
But Rathgarr wasn’t flinching, wasn’t dropping his eyes from hers. And in a swift, efficient movement, he grasped for her hand, and pressed the coin into her palm. Its cool weight just lying there, so real and powerful against her skin.
For an instant, Geva couldn’t breathe, and instead just sat there, holding his glinting eyes, and feeling the weight of his coin in her palm. The more she pleased him, the more he would pay. More… fair. His… helpmate.
The new, tenuous truth of it — that bright simmering challenge of it — seemed to hover between them as they finished eating, as Geva washed and dressed, now with that precious gold coin tucked into her satchel. And as they walked together out onto the road again, her hand was already curling against Rathgarr’s big bicep, her happy-helpmate smile plastered firmly to her face.
She could do this. One step at a time. One month, and then the sea.
“You said you’d pay twice as much,” she murmured toward him, after gaily waving at a cluster of staring passersby, and even stroking her hand suggestively against Rathgarr’s bicep for good measure. “If I drink it straight from you again. Why does that matter?”
“This shall greatly strengthen my scent upon you,” Rathgarr murmured back, making a show of indulgently patting his big hand against hers, as if he in fact welcomed her over-enthusiastic stroking. “And make it clear to my kin that you have eagerly done this, as a true orc’s mate oft would. Most of all if they were not mating the…customaryway.”
He’d angled a brief but telling glance down toward Geva’s skirts, and she fought through her irritation to frown at him, chewing at her lip. “And the other orcs will be able to tell we’re not doing it thecustomaryway, you said?” she asked. “Is that because they can smell it?”
Rathgarr nodded, and then assumed a tolerant, toothy smile as Geva waved toward another passing couple, and even took the liberty of blatantly stroking her hand up and down his chest this time. “Right,” she replied. “So perhaps” — her head tilted, her fingers absently spreading wider against his tunic — “perhaps it would be best if we tell your relatives that our unusual —abstinence— is at my request. We could say that I’m very nervous about having children, and wanted to wait a while longer, because my mother nearly died giving birth to me. And that part is true, if that helps at all.”
Rathgarr’s glance toward Geva was surely surprised, and perhaps even… appreciative? “Ach, I ken thisshouldhelp,” he said slowly. “Some orcs can sense falsehood, and many more shall feel ill at ease if one’s scent does not match one’s words. So the more truth we can speak, the more they shall accept this.”
That made sense, and Geva gave a slow nod. “So that can be our story, then,” she said. “No…customaryactivities, between us. But then, you say, I would otherwise be…”
She shot Rathgarr a regretful grimace, and in return he grinned again, showing those sharp white teeth. “Welcoming all the other joys to be found with an orc,” he said archly. “Painting yourself with my scent. Drinking up my sweet seed.Beggingme to fill your rump, if I cannot have your womb.”
Geva groaned and rolled her eyes at him, but her whispering, uncooperative thoughts had already flicked back to that shiny new coin tucked in her satchel. Twice as much, he’d said. Fivetimesas much.
“So in the unlikely event that Ididchoose to drink it straight from you again,” she ventured, and gods she was not proposing this, shewasn’t, “how much effort, precisely, would I need to put into this?”
She was thinking about the unfortunate incident back in her room at the Fitzwalds’, and how Rathgarr had at least done most of the work — but predictably, he was now shaking his head, and snorting a hard, dismissive laugh.
“Ach, you humans,” he said contemptuously. “How about this, kitten. Just the same as the rest of it, ach? The better work you do when you suckle me, the more I shall pay.”
Geva glowered viciously toward his smug, scheming face, and opened her mouth to snap back at him — at least, until a wagon appeared around the bend up ahead. To which she assumed a worshipful smile, stroking her hand up and down Rathgarr’s torso, while also letting her fingernails dig in with what she hoped was painful pressure.
“So two coins is the base rate for sucking you?” she asked him, still smiling, sliding her scraping hand rather lower than she meant. “What’s the upper end, then?”
The wagon had finally passed them by, and Rathgarr’s indulgent smile had soured into something vicious too, his eyes flashing on hers. “Try it,” he growled, “and find out, woman.”
Geva’s stroking hand had somehow —unthinkably— slipped even lower, finding that hard, impossible ridge beneath his trousers. Because yes, he wanted her to try him, totesthim — and suddenly there was a strange, shivery longing, burning low in her belly. He wanted this from her. No matter what rubbish he spouted, he wanted…her.
“Fine,” she hissed back. “Where?”
Rathgarr blinked at her, and for an instant, his eyes looked very wide — but then he jerked his head toward the nearby forest. “There,” he purred, all cold haughty control again. “On your knees in thedirt, poppet, with anorcstuck in your throat.”
He was baiting her, Geva well knew, being the incurable bastard she already knew him to be — and before she could think better of it, she lifted her chin, and spun off toward the trees. She wasnotgiving him the satisfaction of winning at this.Shewas going to win, and he was going to pay. Through his smarmy whiteteeth.
But despite her determination, her resolve faltered when she stepped into the trees — gods, itwasdirty, mucky and swampy, and did she really need to kneelherein her clean clothes? But then Rathgarr brushed past her, striding along a narrow path, deeper into the forest. And when Geva irritably followed, it was to the realization that he’d found another dry, mossy little clearing, tucked within the protective shelter of the surrounding trees.
“Still so eager now, my sweet?” he drawled, as he sank down onto a large stone, his knees spread wide, his mouth curled in a contemptuous smirk. “Ready to kneel before your orc?”
Gods, he was horrid, he was so utterly enraging — but he was also still sitting there, waiting, watching her with strange, flickering eyes. And somehow, somehow, Geva was stepping closer, and closer… and then she clutched up her skirts, and sank to her bare knees on the ground before him. Only distantly noting that the moss was blessedly soft and dry — because oh gods, she was kneeling between an orc’s thighs.Thisorc’s thighs. And what the hell was she thinking, she couldn’t truly be doing this, rising to this,meetingthis…
But the devious bastard was already loosening his belt, dropping that heavy broadsword to the side — and then shoving his trousers a little downwards. Releasing that huge, shocking sight beneath, already ruddy and swollen, bobbing out toward Geva’s waiting mouth…
“Ach, poppet?” Rathgarr’s low voice murmured, as his clawed hand slid brazenly toward it, stroking up and down that thick, veined length. Casually easing out more and more of its rounded head from beneath that soft grey skin, and oh, she wasn’t staring, her mouth wasn’t watering, itwasn’t…
“Ach?” Rathgarr said again, even huskier this time, and oh, that was already a glossy bead of white, pooling in that deep slit, so close to Geva’s caught, staring eyes. And she could just lean a little closer, just breathe it in, perhaps just a light little taste…
