Page 10 of Lost to the Orcs

We glare at each other for a time. Him in stubbornness, myself in anger. Though, truly, I know it is a losing battle.He will bathe me himself if I make things difficult. I have garnered that over the past few days. In fact, I recall when I nearly peed myself because he wouldn’t walk away. Instead informing me that he will strip me if I do and I can be held in only my cape or naked. It does not matter to him. I’d had to bite my lip and swallow my pride.

I snap the cape off and stand on my pained feet, yanking my skirt down to the floor. I stand defiantly in the nude before him. His eyes are wide with admiration as they traverse my flesh. I can almost feel them like thousands of hands on me. My nipples peak beneath his gaze and a rush of heat clenches my core. I watch every nuance of emotion cross his features. How his lips firm in some resolve to not touch me. A pink flush on his cheeks. And his nostrils flaring as he smells my own arousal. Just as he looks like he’s about to come to a decision, I turn my back to him, take a running start before cannonballing into the water.

When I surface, I smirk at the now drenched Orc on the shore. My mirth only lasts a second when I realize the water makes the pants cling to him in ways that I secretly want to. And then it turns to horror as I watch him watching me. His hands at his waist band. Oh. Oh no. I turn away, trying to get to the edge of the lake and hull myself up.

I don’t hear a splash. I don’t hear anything. But suddenly, hands are spanning my waist, fingers nearly touching on either side, and I can feel the heat radiating off his chest. “Now I must wait for my cloth to dry.” There’s a smile in his voice. I don’t look at him. My whole body is flushed like a tomato, I just know it. “Swim with me?” He whispers it in my ear as if the trees were listening in. His breath on my wet skin makes me shiver.

He’s never been this bold. Yes, he talks, he teases. But we’ve never been naked, together. So close. He turns me around. Our bodies facing one another. I don’t look down. I will not look down. My gaze skitters over the water for a second.ONEsecond. Before I stare at his throat. My own is dry. I can’t speak.

“Mmm.” He hums. He does that for two reasons. When he is thinking deeply. Or because something has pleased him. And the heat in his gaze tells me he is quite pleased. If I could get any redder, I’d be neon. He lifts a hand and grazes it on my shoulder. “What are these?”

I look and see him tracing my freckles. I clear my throat. “Freckles. Some people say the spots mean your skin was kissed by the rays ofthe sun.”

“Sunkissed. The sun kisses you lots, eh?” He grins. His sharp teeth doing stuff to me. Making me squirm.

“I guess.” I shrug feeling my ears burn. “But I never actually went outside. Yet I have freckles where—” I don’t complete that sentence. Because I was about to say there are freckles where the sun has never touched and I don’t know if I want him to know where those are.

“Where else?” He purrs, golden gaze hooded, looking at me as if he can just imagine where.

I shake my head, “Doesn’t matter.” A nervous chuckle escapes my throat like a frantic rabbit being chased by a predator. “Where’s the soap?”

His grin broadens as he shows me a rag tied around a lump he’d somehow held while holding me. I hadn’t even noticed. “Need help, lost mate?”

Scrabbling for words, I mumble a dissent before snatching the soap rag from him and scrubbing my body ruthlessly while he swims lazily around. Which I stubbornly do not track except with my peripheral.

When I’m red and sore from my scrubs, my feet and the slice throbbing in pain, I have a better handle on my libido. I hope. “Here!” I toss the soap in the air and it narrowly misses his head. He jerks to a stop. “Sorry!” I squeak. “How do I dry?”

He doesn’t reply and I slowly swim to a flat rock warmed by the sun. It’s borderline hot. But it’s just what this cold breeze has me needing. I arrange myself so that I’m not overtly flashing the Orc in the waters, but I know he can probably see nearly everything.

I feel myself fall into a light doze and it’s not until a shadow falls over me that I crack open my lids. I track the water droplets on a grey green thigh. Skittering up and over his pointed endowment, over his pubic hair, to his toned stomach and abs. Pecs. The column of his neck. To the lust filled look on his face. “You will burn, pretty.” I blink. Pretty? I am suddenly wrapped in the cloak. Covered from shoulder to toe. He tsks. “Your cheeks are pink.” That’s because I’m so damn embarrassed. I don’t remember the last time anyone called me pretty. Hot. Yes. Sexy, I’m pretty sure I was told a time or two. But usually, it was vulgar. Or a one-night stand. Nothing like how U’snar says pretty.

He says it like he’s painting my skin on a canvas. As if my body was a song he wishes to sing morning, noon and night. My flush deepens and he shakes his head. “Come. I weel take you t’ ‘he shade. You are hot.” Very. Oh my god I’m so hot. He takes me into his wet naked arms. Oh, I’m gonna faint. Does fainting mean he’ll give me CPR? Should I have pretended to drown?

He sits me on the grass before pulling out a spare pair of pants from his pack and dressing. His back to me I get a glorious view of all those backside muscles. Calves and thighs that would have taken me years to get. And thatass.

Once covered, he walks back to the bank. I watch him wash my skirt and his mud-soaked pants. Good thing they were already a kind of ugly brown so the stains wouldn’t show that much. Plus, I don’t think people here have the same kind of discrepancies about stains and whatnot as we do on Earth. He lays them on the rock where I had been dozing before returning to me.

“Tell me more of your tribe.” He hadn’t really told me much since the first day. Usually, we walked in silence. There isn’t really much to talk about when we’re in the middle of nowhere or dozing off because of medicine. Hell, I don’t even know how he knows we’re going in the right direction. I mean, obviously, he must know. Otherwise, his prediction on the lake would have been incorrect but nope. Right on the dot.

He purrs. I know it’s not really a purr but the hum he emits right now, really sounds like it. And it’s both comforting and arousing. Though, I’m pretty sure I’m just in a perpetual state of arousal at this point. Just can’t click the ‘off’ switch it seems. Either that or it’s fucking broken. Wouldn’t be surprised if the male short circuited me.

“Jaeda made it. She brought great joy t’ many. Big brood o’ Orclings. Jaedason was first; strong chief in training. H’nash was second. He was also a dream weaver. An’ Irf’s sire. Narod was third, annoying Orc. Grug was fourth, an’ felt he must compete. Tilge was sixth but she was small.” He cups his hands like he were going to drink water from the lake. “Tilge was born early. She lived four days. Many o’ ouer people grieved ‘he loss. Even if we feared for her. As female orclings are always small.”

“You sound like you knew her.”

He nods. “I held her.” He mimics the action of holding a baby. “Was older by six full seasons. Tilge was Jaeda’s last kit. When Tilge died, Jaeda made Jaedason chief. He was only 29 seasons. Very young for chief. But Jaeda was in grief an’ died no’ long after Tilge. Said she couldn’t leave her t’ ‘he After alone. She loved her Orclings. But most were grown. Except her daughter.” He reaches into his pack and hands me a rag. I use it to wipe away the tears I hadn’t noticed were spilling down my cheeks.

“And you.” I add for him, as he seems to have forgotten that fact.

He nods and gives a sad smile. “And me. Jaeda was kind. Loved all her orclings an’ their orclings. She sang t’ us. Gave sweet names. Hugged us. Taught us. She was a great dam.” His honey eyes hold the memory of this female. Who loved her children. Cared for them.

“Are not all Female Orcs kind?” If his mother was kind surely there are others.

He harrumphs. “No. Not all are kind. Some feel they must be strong. Stronger than other Orcs. Their Orclings are raised by their sires, who might no’ have learned love an’ care from their own.”

“What about the human moms? I mean, I can’t be the only human who an Orc has wanted to mate.”

U’snar takes out some stale bread, a handful of berries and some nuts from a pouch in his bag. He splits his bounty with me. “Humans are worse.” That surprises me. Especially if he wants me as a mate. With my brows nearly meeting my hairline, he smiles at my expression. Wiping a crumb off my cheek he adds, “Not you. Others.”

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