I kicked a spider rat that scurried across my path along the wall of the keep. It squeaked and splashed into a puddle in the ditch, its tails lashing in the air. Unable to face anyone, I wandered aimlessly in the shadows by the walls outside of the keep.
Khala lied to me about her husband’s death. What else could she have lied about? Everything I knew about her could be a lie.
Yet I couldn’t summon any anger toward her. I wished I could just remove Khala out of my thoughts and from my heart. But she had made it so deep under my skin by now that I feared getting her out would break my fucking heart.
My chest ached. My vision turned blurry as my eyes pricked behind my eyelids.
What the fuck was that? Tears?
I was not going to cry like some love lost puppy.
Yet I feared that was exactly how I would spend the rest of this fucking night if I went to my house and stayed there alone.
It must’ve been way past midnight when I finally entered the keep. Instead of going home, however, I headed straight to Burul’s tavern. Alcohol never solved anything. But maybe it could give me a few hours of oblivion and a bit of reprieve from the agony of my heart breaking into pieces.
CHAPTER 12
KHALA
Iwoke up with a smile and hugged the pillow that still smelled like Grat. I loved his scent that was a heady mix of pine in the forest, moss on the ground, and smoke of a delicious meal cooked on a fire—the scent of a man who was not afraid to break into sweat during hard work, a hard fight, or an equally hard fuck.
Grat would never try to mask his scent with some rose water or fancy cologne. He wouldn’t dress up his words to make them sound like something they weren’t either. He was as real as a breath of fresh air, and I loved that about him.
I pressed my face into the pillow, breathing in his scent. I wished he was here, wrapping his strong arms around me, kissing my lips, and letting his big hands explore my body. I remembered the amazing sensation of his thick finger moving inside me. I pressed my thighs together, but without his hand between my legs, I felt empty and needy.
A warm wave of arousal washed over me at the memory of his touch. I knew my own hand wouldn’t feel the same, but I slippedit between my thighs anyway. Before Grat, this had been my only way to experience pleasure from sex.
I cupped my breast, imagining it was his large, calloused hand fondling me. I opened my legs for my hand, pretending it was his finger sliding inside me.
Lust rippled through my body with heat.
“I don’t fuck gently,”his booming voice echoed in my mind.
And now I wondered what sex normally was like for this big, burly man. He’d learned to be gentle with me because I asked him to, but I always sensed his restraint when his muscles tensed and his hands trembled.
What would it be like if Grat fully unleashed his lust?
Curious, I let my imagination run wild.
I imagined his hands gripping my hips, his teeth biting my breasts, and his massive cock pressing against my entrance.
A sharp shot of arousal speared through my body, coating my fingers with it. I pumped my fingers in and out of me with the image of Grat’s massive body covering mine.
He’d lift my hips, arching my back, to impale me on his giant cock. I almost felt the stretch, the burning pleasure as my body would adjust because, at least in my fantasies, I imagined I could take his cock whole, up to his heavy ballsack, even if my inner organs rearranged and my belly bulged out to accommodate his girth and length.
I dug my heels into the mattress, rubbing my clit furiously.
“Just like that, sweetheart.”Grat’s deep voice rolled through my mind, resonating with tantalizing vibrations though my body.“Take it all like the good girl you are.”
Pleasure burst through me, erupting with a soft cry from my throat. My muscles trembled, rocked by hot waves of an orgasm. I came on my hand harder than ever, wishing it was Grat’s cock instead.
A warm, happy feeling curled around my heart like a purring kitten. I wished Grat was here. Never in a million years would I have thought that I’d find an orc—a bog orc—so irresistibly attractive.
I didn’t know much about bog orcs before coming to the Wetlands, but during the short time that I’d known Grat, he had disproved everything I thought I knew about his kind. Grat was smart, diligent, and caring. He possessed valuable skills and extensive knowledge, as well as an open mind and willingness to learn and accept new things.
In many ways, Grat was far more deserving than many of the people from my past who thought themselves noble, refined, and above everyone else.
And now, Grat was courting me.
