Page 41 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

“I’m embarrassed because I lost control of myself. Did you lose control of yourself, warrioress?” Now, there was a gentle tendril of teasing to his tone.

Had she? She did not know. She did not know what it was about this man. Could she deny that he was beautiful? That his features and his golden hair and his elegant fingers and his amused voice were all—well, what did his amused voice have to do with the other things, actually? She held onto the reins and turned to look at him, furrowing her brow. The horse slowed a bit.

He slowed his own horse, which was a new mount he’d gotten at the inn. She was still on the horse she’d brought from the capital. “Why did you do it, that’s what I don’t understand,” he said, his voice very deep. “Do you find me enticing, warrioress?”

She only shook her head at him. She must, mustn’t she? She must be enticed by this man, but that was foolish, because he had no real regard for her. “Doesn’t matter if I do, my lord. I would have to be utterly stupid to allow you any liberties.”

“Well,” he said, “if you find me enticing too, it’s not as if I’d be the only person getting something out of it.”

She snorted. “Oh, what would I get out of it?”

“Well…” He shrugged as if this was obvious. “Pleasure.”

She raised her eyebrows. “And perhaps that’s not enough for me.”

He turned away, seemingly thinking this over. He turned back. “So, what else would you want? Perhaps I can escort you home in addition to that.”

She urged her horse faster, moving away from him.

He caught up to her. “Now, you’re definitely angry.”

“I cannot believe you are trying to negotiate your way between my thighs,” she said.

“You cannot?” he said. “Why not?”

“Well, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t act as if I want it as badly as you and then start offering to pay me for my services.”

“That wasn’t payment. I didn’t offer you coin.” He thought about it. “Do you want coin?”

“I am not one of your whores,” she said, and went even faster.

He caught up to her again. “You’re the one who said the pleasure wouldn’t be enough for you.”

“Obviously, what I meant was that I want something beyond that from a man who I allow into my bed,” she said, nostrils flaring.

“What?” he said, sounding thoroughly confused.

Could he truly be so very dense? She shot him a look of pure vitriol. “Oh, Haem smite you, my lord, I have been the plaything, the curious oddity, for too many men. I wish for something more than that. I wish a man to want me and to… to…”

“What?” He pressed her.

She felt embarrassed. “To love me, I suppose,” she said, feeling miserable about it.

He was quiet.

She kept talking. “I know this with us is never going to be like that, and I don’t even know if I can bear it at all, because I don’t see myself ever being able to quite be whatever it is that wives are even supposed to be, but I cannot be this, not anymore. I need a man to treat me as if I’m worth something, as if I am something he does not wish to harm but to…” She didn’t know. Her voice got quieter. “Cherish.”

Then, there was no noise except the hoofbeats of their horses against the road for several long moments.

“Oh,” he said eventually, in a different voice.

This made her furious. “All right, you have gotten me to make myself into a sentimental fool, my lord. Promise to drop the subject, if you please.”

“No, no,” he said. “It surprised me, is all. It’s such a, um, such a common sort of thing to say, I suppose, but then that would make sense, because you are not born into the nobility, and I can’t see why you would think of it the way that people of my birth think of it, and I was being rather an idiot myself to expect you to, and I’m ever so sorry, really.”

“Common?” she repeated. “Now, you’re trying to insult me?”

“We did have that conversation about orcs wanting to rise into the nobility, didn’t we?” He winced. “Well, apologies again.”