Page 34 of Bread with the Orc
Sudden? I snorted a laugh. “You know I’ve been watching you for months—long before we ever spoke. When I saw you crying outside my shop, that was the opening I’d been hoping for. Oh,dkaar,” I soothed as I watched tears fill her eyes. “This Mate bond didn’t create my feelings—itconfirmedthem.”
“The Mate bond…it isn’t just biology?”
There was hope in her gaze, I saw it now. I just had to convince her.
“I love you, Laney Wong.” I squeezed her hands and ducked my chin so I could meet her gaze on her level. “I love that you turned my empty bakery—my emptyself—into a home. Not just for us, but for the whole town. I love—I love how you clean when you’re nervous, or when you’re bored. That very first day, you picked up a rag and cleaned my counter without asking?—”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her gaze locked on mine.
“Hush, I’m expounding.” I softened the command with a slight smile. “I love how you concentrate when you make tea. I love that tea means so much to you, you want to share it with the world. I love that you care so deeply about this town that you’ve mademe—Harmony Glen’s grumpiest recluse—give a shit about it too.”
When her lips curled into a reluctant smile, I felt victory course through me.
With a relieved sigh, I let my shoulders slump. “Beloved, I don’t care if you can’t love me back, but don’t you dare think I lied to your father about loving?—”
“I love you!”
The way her eyes widened after blurting out the words told me she hadn’t meant to confess like that, but when she dissolved into giggles, I felt myself smiling, and tugged her into my arms.
“You’re not just saying that, are you?” I growled fiercely. “You wouldn’t lie about something like that.”
She poked me in the side, then wrapped her arms around my waist. “I’ve been holding in those words for weeks, Dorvak.I love you. But all you ever talked about was Mating and claiming andbreeding, and I wasn’t sure there was room there for love.”
I pulled her away to stare incredulously down at her. “Female, what in the ever-loving shit do you thinkforevermeans? I told you that you were mine and I was yoursforever, right? I told you there would never be another for me. I told you we were bound together.Forever.”
She scowled. “Saying,You’re stuck with me foreverisn’t the same asI love you, Laney.”
Since she’d lowered her voice into an adorable impression of me when she’d said that, I burst into laughter and lifted her until our noses were even.
“I love you, Laney. You’re stuck with me forever.”
“Good.” With a shy smile, she leaned forward and kissed me gently. “Because I love you.”
I wanted her—Gods below, I’d have to be dead and ashed before I stopped wanting my Mate, but right now, Ineededto show her how much she meant to me. Surely she could feel my erection pressing against her core as I held her?
“Dorvak…” she whispered.
Somethings still needed to be said. “Dkaar, what I said downstairs? To your father and our neighbors about being Mated? To an orc, that was a public claiming. A marriage announcement.”
Her nose wrinkled. “Humans don’t quite work that way.”
“I realize that. And if we’re ever going to have any hope of your father accepting me as your Mate, we need to do things properly. Laney, will you marry me?”
When her smile bloomed, it lit up the whole room. The wholeworld. My whole life.
“Because you love me, Dorvak?”
“Because I love you. And because you love me.”
“Then yes.” She tipped forward, her lips inches from mine. “Iwillmarry you. On one condition.”
MyKteersuddenly stalled as I cast about for what I could promise her. “Which condition?” I rasped out.
Her smile grew right before her lips met mine. “You take me to bedright now.”
Chapter Thirteen
Laney
