"Oh," she said. It came out breathless.
Varek's hands settled on her hips, steadying her. His thumbs traced slow circles against the curve of her waist, the same motion he'd been making for the past hour, but now she could see his face while he did it.
"Better," he said.
"Better for what?"
"For seeing you."
Heat prickled up the back of Mab's neck. The hall was emptier now, but a handful of warriors still lingered at the far tables, finishing their meals, talking in low voices. Any one of them could look up and see her perched in their war-leader's lap like a hen on a fencepost.
"People are watching," she said.
"Let them." His hands tightened on her hips, not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough that she felt the shape of each finger through the linen. "They can look all they want. They won't touch."
Varek's palms spread wide across her back and pulled her forward.
Mab's breath caught. Her chest pressed against his, the thin linen of the nightgown doing nothing to disguise the warmth of him, the solid breadth of muscle beneath his tunic. Her hands slid from his shoulders to his chest, fingers splaying against the rough-woven fabric.
His nostrils flared. He leaned in, not to her mouth, but to the curve of her neck, and inhaled.
The sound he made was low, animal, a rumble that started in his chest and vibrated through hers. His nose traced a line from her collarbone to the soft skin beneath her ear, and she felt the brush of his tusks against her jaw, dragging lightly across her pulse point.
"I've been breathing you in all morning," he said against her throat. "Every time you shifted in my lap. Every time you leaned back against me."
His hand closed in her hair, tilting her head to give him better access to her neck. His breath was hot against her pulse.
"Do you know what I thought about while I fed you?" The words vibrated against her skin. "I thought about feeding you other things. My fingers. My tongue. My cock."
Mab gasped. She had never heard such filth, but somehow his voice made the words feel less like vulgarity and more like promise.
"I thought about laying you out on this table," Varek continued, his mouth moving against the hollow of her throat. "Pushing this nightgown up around your waist. Making you come with my mouth while my men finished their breakfast."
"Varek," she said in a scolding tone.
"That's my name." His teeth grazed her pulse point, not quite a bite, and she shuddered. "Say it again."
"We're in the middle of the hall."
"We are." His tongue traced the spot his teeth had touched, a wet heat that made her thighs clench around his hips. "And I'm not going to do any of those things. Not here. Not yet."
His hands slid down from her waist to the curve of her hips, then lower, fingers pressing into the soft flesh of her thighs through the bunched linen.
"But I want you to know what I'm thinking." His voice was a growl against her collarbone. "I want you to know that every time I look at you, I see you spread open beneath me. Every time I touch you, I imagine where else my hands could go."
His fingers kneaded her thighs, slow and deliberate, and Mab's hips tipped forward without her permission. The movement pressed her against him, against the hard ridge she could feel through his leathers, and Varek's breath hissed between his teeth.
"There," he said. "That's what I want. You, moving toward me. Not away."
Mab's hands fisted in his tunic. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat, her wrists, the soft place between her thighs. She should be mortified. She should be pushing away, putting distance between them, rememberingthat she was a scullion in a dead woman's nightgown and he was an orc war-leader.
But his hands felt like they belonged on her body. His voice felt like it was reshaping something inside her.
"I've never—" She stopped. Swallowed. "No one has ever talked to me like that."
"Do you like it?"
His hands hadn't stopped moving. His thumbs stroked the soft flesh of her inner thighs, and when she didn't answer immediately, he pulled her hips forward, grinding her against the hard length of him.
