Page 13 of Bound to the Orc Warlord

His clever hands slice a cream-colored piece of linen into precise little squares. When he lays them over the salved wounds, his warm palm molds them to my skin, pressing them into place, and they stick like band-aids.

Dravarr lets out a little of the rope, and I float up until I “stand” in the air in front of him. His dark eyes study my legs with an intensity I can feel, and I shiver.

He runs the cleaning cloth up one calf, soothing the abrasions with cooling wetness. My skin tingles, feeling refreshed. Dravarr repeats his attentions on my other leg and rewets the cloth.

At the hem of my skirt, he pauses for a moment, then pushes the thin green fabric up and into my hands, his frown a command to hold it out of his way. A part of me wants to gasp and shove it back down, but I’ve already flashed him twice, so of course he doesn’t think anything of seeing my thighs again.

The firm pressure of his hand between my knees spreads my thighs, and the cool cloth slides over my abraded skin in soothing relief. He moves even more slowly than before and stops to rewet the cloth before touching my other inner thigh.

Next, he opens another of the pots, which exudes a light floral scent. The paste is thinner and colored a pale blue-lavender. Like before, he starts with my calves, but unlike before, this time he touches me, skin to skin, his big hand moving up my leg with gentle strokes that paint little licks of fire across my skin. As he finishes my second calf, the tips of his fingers graze the back of my knee, and I stifle a gasp, never before realizing it could be an erogenous zone.

He gathers more of the lavender salve and taps at my knee in command.

Floating in front of him, I spread my legs wide again, a flush of excitement filling my cheeks, my chest.

He strokes up my inner thigh, his movements slower than ever.

My entire body tingles as he inches higher, and I hang suspended, caught between the conflicting desires of wantinghim to stop because this is too much—too soon, too intense, just all the “toos”—and wanting him to keep going.

Wanting him to slide right up to my pink panties and press the back of his knuckles against my throbbing clit.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Dravarr

My moon bound bride’s skin glides like silk under my hand, the smell of her heady and ripe, even over the scent of elderflower salve.

That damnable scrap of pink teases me, hiding away everything I most wish to see. I snarl at it as if that will make it slink away and leave my bride bare for me to feast upon. Insensate thing that it is, it ignores me and continues to cover her sex.

I want Ashley so much I can barely make myself attend to her other thigh, but she deserves my care. Her small size and delicacy extend to her skin, which has been abraded by the rough bark of the pines.

And from being splayed wide around me as we ride.

I growl, remembering the feel of these glorious thighs squeezing my hips.

I spread the healing ointment over her other inner thigh, my fingers lingering long past the point that the tonic has absorbed. I rub little circles into her skin, each touch a promise of what I long to do to her.

Ashley’s breathy little gasps make my cock twitch as the scent of her arousal perfumes the air, all female andmine. My bride wants this, too, and the realization drives my hand higher—

“Are we going to make camp here?” Midnight paws at the rocky ground with an impatient hoof. “Because I’d rather go play with the water nymphs than watch the two of you for a second longer.”

The burble of the water grows louder, the nymphs calling to my mount, “Come play! Come play!” Fingers and hands of white foam rise from the crests of impossible waves.

“Are you sure your father was a pooka and not a kelpie?” I glare at Midnight, frustrated at being interrupted. The water-loving horse fae have all the mischief of the pooka, but in kelpie, it takes a dark and dangerous turn.

“Of course, I’m sure.” She snorts and tosses her mane. “Mother has excellent taste in studs.”

“I didnotneed to know that,” I growl.

She whinnies a laugh, then watches me with assessing gold eyes that make it clear she still expects an answer.

“No.” I replace the lids on the medicinal pots. “We won’t make camp here. It’s barely noon. We have hours left of travel time.”

Ashley sees me cleaning up and drops her skirt, hiding her thighs and the pink cloth that’s become the bane of my existence.

Her dress, as fetching as it is on her, will not protect her skin.

I would have stopped sooner to tend to her hurts, but I’d wanted to put enough distance between us that the sluagh couldn’t find us again easily. Now that they’re cared for, they need the chance to heal.

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