Page 30 of Crave
Nothing except the tight clasp of her arms around him, her mouth under his a suction of yearning, those amazing muscles within her.
Orcs weren’t built for orgasm. Their world was too hard, too sharp-edged, their hides too thick.
Vug, who was he kidding? From the moment the doors had opened between theDeepWanderand the IDA transport, wondering about Kinsley had set him on a collision course to destroy his belief in what an orc had to be.
The truth rolled through him like something out of a romance novel, rippling through his muscles and near stopping his heart. The ichor blazed in his veins like some strange map guiding him out of the space he’d known before.
“Come with me,” he rasped, barely holding on. “As they do in the books.”
Eyes dazed, she blew back some wayward strands of her two-toned hair. “This one was for you.”
“Together, remember?”
But the melting in her gaze destroyed him, and he burst into his own constellation of ecstatic stars. Luckily, that sturdy orc hide let him thrust into her a few more times until she too found her release.
Her rapture expanded through him into another galaxy of stars, all the feelings colliding until he could hold no more. His vision went dark, darker than space, and he collapsed over her. Some small remnant of awareness kept him from crushing her, barely.
For a small eternity, the only sensation left was the sound and movement of their ragged breaths, slowly easing into a peaceful rhythm.
This was why those unromantic males fell asleep, he decided groggily.
He might be the least among orcs, but he rallied some inner strength to raise himself enough to roll over, still holding her close, while he drew the coverlet around them. He bonked his head on the back of the bunk, but he didn’t even care, not with Kinsley sprawled warm in his arms, the scent of her perfuming the air until his antennae felt stained with her bliss.
To his delight, she held onto him with matching ferocity, even with only half the hands.
“Now that I know they end happily, I will reread my books all the way to the end,” he murmured. “And I will probably re-reread the good parts too, though they can’t quite compare to…that.”
With a faint hum, she tipped her head up to blink at him. “Thatwasn’t in my grandmother’s books. If it had been, maybe I would’ve…” She let her head fall back to his chest with a sigh.
It wasn’t quite a happy sigh, which made him tighten the arm he had around her shoulders. “Would’ve what?”
When she shrugged, he thought she was protesting his grip, and he reluctantly loosened his hold. But then she tucked herself more tightly against him, so he wasn’t sure.
“Not that I think any book has all the answers,” she said. “But…maybe I would’ve just thought more about what I really wanted.”
When she didn’t continue, he kept his careful clasp on her and also stroked her hair gently with a free hand, wishing he had more hands to hold and comfort her. “I’ve thought a lot about it,” he admitted. “Because in case you hadn’t noticed, I think about things a lot. But it didn’t get me as far as I hoped either.”
She laughed a snuffling breath against his naked chest. “About this far?”
“I knew I wanted to show that I could be a valuable member of the crew,” he said. “Now I’ve instead shown that I can’t—plus stolen a shuttle, endangered lives, and abducted an alien.”
“That was what I wanted too. Except kind of the opposite.”
He peered down at her. “You wanted tobeabducted by an alien?”
She snuffle-laughed again. “No. I meant about showing I was worth keeping around.” She sighed. “That’s how I got in trouble and had to leave Earth. Not that IknewI was leaving Earth, of course. But why I had to get out of town quick. I wasdonetrying to prove to my uncle I deserved a place with his crew.”
“You haven’t really mentioned your family, other than your grandmother.” Sil felt his way carefully, as if he were piloting through an asteroid field—one riddled with ambushing explosives. “Your uncle had a crew? Like the orcs?”
“Except not at all hard working and loyal. Again, kind of the opposite.” She tucked one fist under her chin. “He’s a small-time con man. After my grandmother died, I went to live with him. He taught me…well, nothing good. He ended up stealing from some businessmen—Adeline’s ex-husband’s business, actually. Except Adeline’s ex was stealing too, and he was better at it. Anyway, it all went bad, really bad.” Her laugh this time was harsher. “Afterward, when my uncle wanted to ‘not work so hard’ by scamming senior citizens, people like Grams, I’d had enough. I caught wind that Adeline was leaving…and I followed her.”
When Sil folded his hand over hers, he felt her throat ripple against his knuckles when she swallowed hard. “You made mistakes. But at least you didn’t keep making them.”
“By running away?” She shook her head, ruffling her hair under his chin. “I’d been trying to buy my uncle’s love—or at least a place to stay with his crew. Turns out, I was worth exactly nothing. Even the IDA knew it.”
“They were wrong.” Putting one finger under her chin, he lifted her face to his. Not for a kiss but a searching look. “You mean so much more than what you could take for them, with however many hands.”
Her lashes fluttered a moment, as if seeking to evade him, but then she met his gaze. “Maybe you’ve read a lot, studied a lot, and yeah, you’ve literally sonogrammed me, but you don’t knowthatabout me. Not whenIdon’t know that about me.”
