Page 25 of Orc's Little Human
"So tell me," I breathe, close enough now that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. "What am I to you? Prisoner? Pet? Some kind of sick entertainment?"
His jaw clenches, muscles jumping beneath scarred green skin. For a moment I think he might actually answer, might give me the truth I'm desperate to hear.
Instead, his hand moves to cup my cheek, thumb tracing the line of my cheekbone with surprising gentleness.
"You're trouble," he says quietly, his voice rougher than stone. "The kind of trouble that gets people killed."
My breath catches in my throat. The warmth of his palm against my skin sends shivers racing down my spine, and I hate how right it feels. Hate how my body wants to lean into his touch despite everything.
"Then maybe you should kill me," I whisper. "Save yourself the headache."
His thumb stills against my skin. "Maybe I should."
But he doesn't move away. Doesn't drop his hand or step back or do any of the things a smart man would do. Instead, he stares down at me with those molten gold eyes, and I can see my own confusion reflected back at me.
Whatever this is between us, whatever force keeps drawing us together despite every rational reason to stay apart, it's getting stronger. More dangerous.
And I have no idea what that means for either of us.
12
KORRATH
Ineed to step away, but I can't. I can't take my hands off of her, and I really, really don't want to.
She wets her lips, and I can't stop my gaze from dropping to them. "Are you going to?"
Her question hangs in the air between us like a blade waiting to fall.
Should I kill you?I wonder.
The words echo in my mind, but all I can focus on is the way her gray-blue eyes hold mine without flinching. No fear. Just defiance wrapped in something that looks dangerously close to invitation.
Fuck, she's beautiful. Standing here in the firelight, copper hair escaping its braid to frame her face, skin flushed with anger and something else I'm afraid to name. Every rational part of my mind screams that I should step back, put distance between us, remember that she's human and I'm orc and this can only end in disaster.
But rationality has been slipping away from me since the moment I first laid eyes on her. There's something about Selene that calls to something deep in my bones, something that makesmy blood sing and my magic stir restlessly beneath my skin. I've tried to ignore it, tried to tell myself it's just the novelty of having a human woman under my roof.
I was lying to myself.
"There are so many other things I'd rather do to you," the words rumble from my chest before I can stop them, rough and honest and charged with weeks of suppressed hunger.
Her breath catches, pupils dilating as she stares up at me. The pulse in her throat flutters like a trapped bird, and I want to press my mouth there, taste the proof of her racing heart.
"Then do them," she whispers, and those three words shatter every last thread of my restraint.
I move without thinking, hands spanning her waist as I lift her against me. Her legs wrap around my hips instinctively, arms winding around my neck, and the feel of her body pressed against mine sends lightning through my veins. She's smaller than I am, delicate in the way humans are, but there's nothing fragile about the way she clings to me.
When I claim her mouth, it's with all the hunger I've been fighting for weeks. All the need I've refused to acknowledge. Her lips are soft and warm and they part under mine with a gasp that I swallow down like salvation.
This isn't what I expected. I thought it would be simple—just physical release, just taking what I want from a woman who clearly wants it too. But the moment our mouths meet, something inside me roars to life. My magic surges, singing through my blood like molten metal, and suddenly I can't tell where I end and she begins.
She kisses me back with a fierce desperation that matches my own, her fingers tangling in my braids, nails scraping against my scalp. The small sound she makes when I deepen the kiss goes straight to my cock, and I press her harder against the wall, needing more contact, more of her.
Her taste is intoxicating—something uniquely her that makes my head spin. I devour her mouth like a man starving, like she's air and I've been drowning. My hands roam her body, mapping the curve of her waist, the softness of her thighs where they grip my hips. Every touch sends sparks through my nervous system, and I can feel my magic responding, humming just beneath my skin.
What the fuck is happening to me?
I've had women before. Plenty of them. But none of them ever made me feel like this—like I might actually die if I don't have more. Like touching her is both salvation and damnation wrapped in one perfect package.
