Geva could heartily agree with that, and in the following days, she threw herself into being the best mate, and the best teacher, she could possibly be. Doing everything she could to bring Kesst and Rathgarr together, while fighting to ignore all those quiet, nagging uncertainties. The way Rathgarr would pull away again and again. The way he kept disappearing for long stretches of time, without offering any kind of explanation where he’d gone. The way he still glared at Ulfarr every day he brought Sune to class. The way he spent more and more time in the sparring-room, battling with Sigarr and Abjorn, until the previous softness in his belly was nearly almost gone, replaced with ridges of hard, solid muscle.
Geva’s efforts at ignoring all this were considerably helped by the fact that Rathgarr still kept coming to class every day, not only continuing to support her daily teaching with Tristan, but also leading an imaginative variety of exercise activities each morning. In addition to the wall-climbing, he and Killik had arranged tree-climbing in the garden, swimming lessons in the pools, and hide-and-seek around the mountain, along with more mundane tasks like weeding, tidying, and mopping floors. And one morning, he’d even brought Othan in again, and had had Geva and Othan play their drums together, while he and the orclings danced merrily around the tables, stomping their feet as the beats bumped and swirled around the room.
The daily clan-led activities had continued to become even more intriguing as well, often building on what had come before, or combining several clans’ skills together. Alma and Baldr taught a Skai sign language class, which helped so much in communicating with Sune that Geva asked them to continue it every week. Another Skai-Grisk class turned out to be pet care, led first by Ella, who apparently had three adorable little dogs, and then by a young, laughing Skai named Tryggr, who introduced an ornery black cat named Cat.
And afterwards, if Rathgarr disappeared without explanation for the rest of the afternoon or evening, Geva bit back the lingering questions, and fought instead to keep showing him. To keep supporting him, doing her best, seeking that new way. Focusing on how he kept tending to her, feeding her, choosing her clothes, braiding her hair. How he kept asking for her tales, when they were together in bed in the dark. And how they kept taking their pleasure together, sometimes multiple times each day, with ever-increasing shamelessness, on both Geva’s part, and his.
“I wish you over my lap, poppet,” he told her late one afternoon, as they finished tidying up after the end of the schoolday. “Rump up. Now.”
He’d been sitting sprawled sideways in one of the schoolroom chairs, and Geva made a face at him, even as she scrambled to comply. Bending herself over his spread knees, her upper body uncomfortably propped on the nearby table, while he began sliding up the short skirt of her shift.
“But wait,” Geva gasped, her head jerking up. “I’m expecting Tristan to come back with Rosa, we need to review the lesson plans for —”
But Rathgarr’s firm slap at her bare arse stunned her to silence, and so did the way his hand lingered, caressing her stinging arse-cheek before slipping lower between. “Behave,” he murmured, dark and low. “Tristan shall smell this long before they come, and should they wish to stay away, they shall.”
Geva could only splutter and gasp, writhing against the feel of his smoothly stroking fingers, slipping up and down her crease. Not moving with any sort of urgency whatsoever, just teasing and taunting her, bringing her helpless gasps higher and higher, until —
Until Tristan and Rosa indeed strode in, both of them with large stacks of paper in their hands. And neither of them seemed to take any notice of Geva’s highly compromised position, even when they both pulled over chairs, and sat down across from Rathgarr at the table.
“So before we begin, I’d love to ask Rathgarr a few more questions about pamphlet distribution routes,” Rosa was blithely saying, glancing between Geva’s flushed face on the table, and Rathgarr up behind her. “If you two don’t mind, that is?”
Geva truly could not speak, while Rathgarr, utter bastard that he was, chose that exact moment to finally slip his finger up inside her slick, quivering heat. “No, not at all,” he replied easily, as his finger blatantly swirled, making a wet squelching sound. “Our schoolmarm may yet need some time, before she is able to speak.”
Gods curse him, because both Tristan and Rosa again glanced toward Geva’s flushed face, Tristan with a soft ruefulness, Rosa’s with a rather delighted deviousness. “Well, that’s reallyquiteserendipitous, because I actually have quite a lot to get through,” she said brightly. “Now, do you have any contacts near Kentnek?”
Rathgarr drawled some sort of answer, but Geva couldn’t hear it through the ringing in her ears, and the feel of Rathgarr settling a second finger close, and slipping it up inside, too. And then blatantly circling and scissoring them, bringing up more wet, obscene sounds, while she helplessly gasped, and Rosa just kept on asking incessant pamphlet-related questions, each one more elaborate-seeming than the last.
“Fuck,” Geva gasped, without even slightly meaning to, as Rathgarr’s thumb — which had been sliding up her crease — gently, purposefully prodded at that tight clutch of heat, while his fingers kept moving below. And in answer, his other hand again gently slapped her, hard enough that she could feel the soft flesh jiggling, feel the heat stinging across her bared skin.
“I said, behave, poppet,” ordered Rathgarr’s low voice. “It is in very poor taste to disrupt our meeting with your cursing, most of all in a schoolroom, ach?”
Oh, gods damn him, but she was painfully biting her lip, because that thumb was slowly circling, pressing its way inside. “You must forgive my unruly mate,” Rathgarr blandly said to Tristan and Rosa across the table. “She only loves to be filled by her orc, and cannot contain her joy at this, ach?”
Geva’s fury was wildly flaring, and with it, oh, oh, was the sheer, sharp surge of release, rocking and reverberating through her trapped, trembling body. Clamping her again and again around Rathgarr’s invading fingers, the sounds even more obscene than before, while he kept himself held deep, and huffed a low, satisfied laugh.
“There, there, poppet,” he purred, as he drew everything out, and gave another gentle slap at her arse before pulling her shift back down again. “All better, ach?”
Geva glared bitterly back toward him, but in return he flashed her his most stunning grin, wide and warm and wicked. And then he drew her back onto his lap, settling her close, his arm curling around her waist, as his head bent down, and gently kissed her forehead.
It was enough to throw her off-kilter once again, to the point where she could still scarcely speak throughout the rest of the meeting. And it wasn’t until Tristan and Rosa had finally left that she seemed to find her voice again, even if it was still choked and thick in her throat.
“You — unbelievable — ingrate,” she hissed at him, elbowing him in the stomach. “What — in all the gods’ unholynames— do you think you were doing?”
But there was the grin again, so dazzling it set something flipping in her belly. “I knew Rosa had more to ask me of these pamphlets, ach?” he said. “If I was bound to endure all her questions, I thought I ought to findsomejoy in this.”
Oh. Well. Geva fought to muster up at least a little more outrage, glaring at him with sharply narrowed eyes, but he just laughed, and shook his head. “Do you wish to teach me a lesson, my prim little schoolmarm?” he drawled at her, as he nudged her up to her feet. “To punish me for all my misdeeds, mayhap? Mayhap someday. If you are very,verygood.”
Someday. Very good. Those words catching, clawing, in too many impossible ways, holding her still and staring, as Rathgarr’s smile went a little wry, his head again shaking. “Now, I am off for a spell,” he said. “I shall meet you later for supper, ach?”
Geva could only seem to nod at him, and then stare at his retreating back as he strode out the schoolroom door. Her breaths heaving harsh, her hands clutched almost painfully to the edge of the table, while something reckless and hopeful swirled in her chest.
Because that — that had been another challenge, with an unspecified end date. A challenge that hadn’t included a single mention of their seven remaining days. If she was good. One step at a time.
So when Rathgarr reappeared some time later, again without offering any explanation about where he’d gone, Geva crushed down the ever-present impulse to ask, and instead smiled, took his arm, and accompanied him to dinner, which she’d again arranged with Kesst and Efterar. It had begun to feel like a familiar routine, though tonight Kesst had decided to cook in the Bautul garden. So after some good-natured arguing between Kesst and Rathgarr in the kitchen over the menu and ingredients required, they all headed outdoors, into the garden’s clean, chilly evening air.
It turned out that there was a small firepit available to use, with low stools surrounding it, and dry stacks of firewood nearby. And while Geva and Efterar watched from their stools, Kesst and Rathgarr bustled about above them, working together with easy efficiency. Rathgarr starting and banking the fire, while Kesst set up the pan over it, and then began slicing and frying the ingredients as Rathgarr handed them over. And Geva found herself exchanging a companionable glance with Efterar, who was looking just as fondly amused as she felt.
“You two are so good at this,” Geva said lightly, earning equal, almost comically suspicious glances from both Rathgarr and Kesst. “You must have spent so much time cooking together, growing up.”
