Page 39 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll
My cock pulses hard inside her, the sudden clench of desperation and relief. I drop my head to nuzzle the freckles along her collarbone, tasting salt and smokewood. "Need your taste tonight. Tomorrow. Waking with your breath on my chest."
"Suppose I'm stealing strawberries again?" She bites my shoulder, the sting merging with pleasure.
"I'd burn every goddamn field to keep you fed." Slow, possessive roll of my hips. Her inner walls flutter tight, rippling sensations through me. "Plant you roses instead. Let your thorns tear at me."
She throws her head against the fence post, curls snagging woodgrain. A gasping moan escapes as her legs lock around me even harder.
The splintered wood prickles my spine through the shirt she managed to salvage – some soft cotton thing smelling faintly of sweet hay and Tessa. Silence settles, thick and warm as honey, besides our breathing: mine a slow, settling rumble low in my chest after the frantic storm, hers light puffs against the sweat-damp skin where my tunic gapes open. She doesn’t speak. Neither do I. The air between us hums with the knowledge etched onto every scorched nerve ending and trembling muscle.
Her head rests over my heartbeat, her body a compact weight molded perfectly against the entire length of my side, tuckedunder my arm. One of my ruined hands strokes absently down the curve of her back, over the russet skirt crumpled around her thighs. Her skin is impossibly soft beneath the fabric. My thumb finds the knob of her spine near her neck, stroking the tender skin just beneath the wild halo of her hair.
She sighs – a sound deeper than sleep, a vibration of utter, bone-deep saturation – and curls her hand possessively over the muscle covering my ribs. Her nails scrape lightly through the smears of soot and dried blood still caking my side. Not a demand, not a question. A claim. Gentle, undeniablyhers.
CHAPTER 19
TESSA
The morning light filters through the shop’s front window like honey through cheesecloth—slow, golden, and impossibly soft. It bathes the wooden floor in warmth, catching on the edges of dried marigold garlands and glass jars filled with clove buds and cinnamon curls. Normally, this light soothes me. It hushes the world and tells me to exhale. But this morning, my breath is all tangled up in the sight of Drogath sitting at my worktable, his massive frame hunched like he’s trying to take up less space, his coat shrugged off and tossed over a chair, and his thick, veined forearms streaked with angry red burns.
He’s quiet.
Too quiet.
And not the brooding, grumbly kind of quiet he wears like a second skin. No, this is a silence stitched from pain and sleepless hours and maybe even regret, though he’d never say that aloud. He winces as I press a damp cloth to the worst of the burns, the raw skin along his left forearm pulsing a bright, angry pink that makes my stomach turn.
“You need to stop throwing yourself in front of fires,” I murmur, dipping the cloth in my cooling chamomile salve and wringing it out with trembling fingers.
His eyes flick up to mine. “Didn’t exactly have a volunteer line.”
“Well, congratulations, you’ve earned yourself a lifetime ban from open flame,” I say, trying for lightness. “I’ll have Tara enchant the hearth if I have to.”
He doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t even smirk.
Instead, he studies me like I’ve changed since last night. And maybe I have.
I’m not sure what shifted exactly, but something deep in my bones no longer wants to fight. Not him. Not this. Not the ache that’s lived inside me since he came back and stirred it all up again.
“Drogath,” I whisper, dabbing gently at the burn near his elbow, “what happened?”
He watches for a long moment, like he’s weighing the cost of honesty against the weight of silence.
Then he speaks.
“There’s a man named Greaves,” he begins, voice low and gravel-rough. “He runs a shell company—Kestrel Properties. He’s been trying to buy out land around here for months. I started blocking his bids when I saw his name on a contract for Bramley’s cousin’s orchard. Bought up a few plots myself under dummy corporations. Made noise in the right places. Stalled where I could.”
“And the woods?” I ask, because I have to know. My fingers are still on his skin, but my heart is bracing.
He nods, slow and reluctant. “I got wind he was eyeing that stretch behind your garden. I tried to shut it down. But he’s slippery. Started coming at it sideways—pressuring folks, sending his men in at night to scope. Last night, I caught onetrying to light a marker fire. Bastard panicked, torched half a grove. I got him out, but the wind turned fast.”
I don’t speak.
Because if I do, I might break.
He saved the trees. The same trees I used to dream under. The ones I used to tell him secrets beneath.
“You didn’t tell me any of this,” I finally say, my voice shaky but warm.
“I thought if I handled it, you’d never have to know,” he admits, jaw clenching. “But I see now… that wasn’t love. That was cowardice wearing a good intention.”
