Page 35 of The Outcast Orc

I grunted against his neck. “It heals.”

“It’s just…I feel responsible….”

“The knife was in the goblin’s hand. Not yours.” Besides, I could hardly feel the wound right now over the throbbing ache in my cock. I skimmed my tusks over his tender neck. His impossibly smooth skin played across my lower lip, delicate and salty. So vulnerable.

And, apparently, so sensitive.

As my chin bristles scraped over his tender flesh, his breath caught and his arousal scent spiked—just as a telling hardness prodded me in the thigh. “Why does this please you?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Can’t you tell?” Quinn said on a breathy laugh. “You’re my type.”

I stopped nuzzling him, confused. “An orc?”

“A man.” He sank his fingers into my hair and encouraged me to go on. “I always went for the big ones. But they tend to act like they’re doing you a favor. Lucky to get a tug on my dick in return for my troubles, let alone…” one hand ranged along my shoulders while the other cupped my cheek in a gentle caress. “This.”

I pressed a knee between his legs and hitched him up higher so I could really bury my face in his scent, to breathe him all in, to lose myself in his arousal. As he rode my thigh, a broken sound escaped him. My haze of lust faltered, worried I’d shoved too hard and hurt him. But a grind of his hips—accompanied by a spike of the earthy scent of want—urged me to keep going.

“Damn, Marok—I’m gonna nut on you like a fourteen-year-old kid rubbing himself off at the bathhouse.”

“Do it,” I rumbled as I licked his collarbone to see if he tasted as good as he smelled.

Delicate salt blossomed over my tongue.

More than just good. Delicious.

“Yes—that—oh fuck.”

While my ragged breaths fanned his throat, Quinn rutted hard against my thigh. The sounds of pleasure wrenched from him drove me wild, made my blood surge hot. His muscles went taut, and he stilled, gasping…and then the telltale earthen scent of his spend enveloped my senses.

For just a moment, I was lost to the scent of the human.

For just a moment I was happy.

For just a moment, I’d forgotten who I was. And what I’d lost. And why I was even here.

But even a moment was more of a reprieve than I deserved.

Quinn slid off my thigh, raking his hair from his forehead, and reached for the lacings on my breeches. I shoved his hands away. “No—you don’t want my scent on you.”

“I may beg to differ.”

“Listen to me.” I pushed him back against the wall. A pink flush of satiation warmed his cheeks. He regarded me with heavy-lidded eyes and not a trace of fear. “I’m here to warn Ul-Rott there’s an attack coming from the south, and my words are falling on deaf ears.”

“Well…does the news have to come from you?”

“Do you think you could deliver it better?”

“Me? Hah. They’d be more likely to listen to the mules. But Borkul always seems to have your back. I mean, he’s a goof, and pretty much the last guy I’d put on watch, but the stigma that’s following you around doesn’t extend to him.”

Before I could second-guess myself, I grasped Quinn’s face in both my hands and pressed my forehead to his. Head to head—heart to heart. Did humans do this? No idea. But what use was it to deny how I felt?

“I will tell my heart-brother—and save the clan.”

20

QUINN

Marok was my type.

---