Page 35 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

“You are poking me,” she said vehemently.

“Poking…?”

“With your prick,” she practically growled.

He laughed, angling his pelvis backward. He had indeed gotten himself quite bothered there, and his erection had been pressing into her, over the top of the saddle. He likely had scooted himself in closer without thinking about it, liking the feel of her warmth there. He had been lost in his fantasy about her. “Apologies, warrioress. That is not entirely within my control. I cannot help that that part of my body likes you. I don’t think I’ve made any secret of that.”

“We have just come from a tower of dead men,” she said. “We have just left a city with dead children. How can you possibly be aroused at a time like this?”

“Well, you’re very… pleasantly shaped, as you know, and I am holding onto you, and—”

“Think of something else and make it go away,” she ordered him. “Think of dead children, think of your guilt, think of that woman’s twisted leg who stole your horse, I know not, but make it go away.”

“It’s not exactly the way it works, I’m afraid,” he said. “But I will keep my distance from now on.”

She scoffed.

He laughed. It felt good to laugh.

GATHREN HAD NOT had a man’s member hard and eager and pressed into her in some time, and she had rather forgotten the thrill of it. It was strange in a way. She was not sure that she much cared for the act at all, and she felt that once she started on it, it was always disappointing, but the feeling of a man being aroused by her, it was a pleasing feeling.

It was like power in a way, knowing that she could do that to a man, make him react in that way.

But it wasn’t truly power, she knew, because she did not control the man’s arousal, and he did not control it either.

That was what made it so thrilling, perhaps, the lack of control, the wildness of it all, the way that she could sense that it could grip them both and send them off into some kind of spiraling inevitability, the rush and crush and the undeniableness of it.

Also, it made her feel desirable.

Sometimes, she hated feeling desirable, it was true. It was like a burden, like something that she could not get away from, and it was so prurient and base, the way men slathered over her breasts and hips, especially when elf men did it.

But not always.

There was a part of her that sometimes simply felt it as the brush of a feather of pleasantness. She would feel a little shivery and pleased.

She probably was so harsh with him because this was one of those times. She had no reason to feel such a surge when she realized what was pressing into her, that Iahir was hard for her, that he had wrapped his hands around her and plastered himself into her from behind, that the rhythm of the horse was likely gently rocking her body against his arousal.

She should be appalled, so she pretended to be appalled.

He, of course, found her anger amusing, which only made her more angry.

The seething feeling eventually swallowed up any thrills or surges she was feeling about it.

They rode on.

Soon enough, he was directing her which way to go to arrive at an inn where he could get a horse.

They dismounted, and he looked a bit paler than usual, she thought. He was smiling very widely, however. “Perhaps you might rest your horse a while,” he said to her. “And you must be hungry. It’s past luncheon.”

They had been riding for some time. She noted that the sun was heavy, past noon, and she wondered if that made sense. When had they left the city? How long had they been traveling? What had the side trip to Matlinrir cost them?

“I could buy you something to eat, warrioress,” he said, that smile of his practically eating up his face.

“You think they will allow me into the tavern?”

“They will if I throw enough gold to them,” he said, still smiling.

“You’re going to tell them I’m your whore, I suppose.” Her nostrils flared.