Page 22 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll
“You’ll die for decorative shrubbery?” My bellow barely carries over the storm.
“You’ll play martyr hauling them?” Her knee jabs my thigh. Useless. Adorable.Infuriating.
I fling her over my shoulder. She howls, drenched skirt slapping my hip.
The shop door groans when I kick it. Warmth hits first—clove candles, rosemary oil, her angry panting. I drop her onto the counter with a thud.
“Ass!” She vaults off, curls plastered to her neck like ink. Her boots squelch across the floorboards as she jabs the fireplace. “You’ve ruined half the garlands?—”
“They wereruinedthe moment the sky pissed on them.”
Her tea kettle slams onto the burner. Steam shrieks. “You don’t get to muscle into my life and start settingprioritiesfor me.”
“Someone has to when you’re playing martyr in a thunderstorm!”
The words hang, raw. I rub the pocket watch through my vest. Her spine stiffens.
“Where is this really coming from?” She whirls, fingers coated in wilting petals. Her voice cracks. “You vanish foryearsand now you’re policing my shrubbery?”
Lightning flares. The truth lodges in my throat, jagged as broken glass. “Vashnar found out about you.”
Tessa freezes.
The name curdles the air. Vashnar—rival, monster, architect of half the scars hidden under my sleeves.
“He doesn’t touch flowershops,” she whispers.
I laugh, hollow. “He’d raze entire markets to see me bleed. I needed distance. Armor.” My hand flexes, phantom blade-hilt heavy. “If he’dtouchedyou, I’d have scorched the Continent to ash. Would’velikedit.”
Her throat bobs. Rain streaks the windows, but her silence is worse.
“You think I’m still that girl who needs saving?” she says softly.
“No.” The word guts me. “I’m the bastard who’s terrified of failing you twice.”
Thunder shakes the rafters. Candels gutter.
Her laugh sounds broken. “You left.”
“You lived.”
Something shatters in her face. Her hands fist my soaked shirt, tugging hard. Our foreheads crash together.
“Say it again.” Her breath hitches.
“I’d burn the world for you.”
She kisses me. Desperate. Feral. Her teeth catch my lip. I lift her onto the countertop, jars of lavender spilling. A flower crate crunches under my boot.
She tastes like rainwater and rage, and the tiny noise she makes when my tusk scrapes her neck could end empires.
Her teeth sink into the meat of my shoulder—sharp reprimand, sharper need. I grip her hips hard enough to leave thumbprints, her soaked skirts hiked around her waist and panties discarded on the floot. Rain lashes the windows as I slide home, my cock stretching her pussy with ease.
"Still want to argue about foliage?" My groan rumbles against her throat.
Her nails carve rivers down my spine. "Justmove!"
I do. Slow. Torturous. Dragging out every inch until her curses melt into whimpers. Her walls clench, demanding, but I trap her squirming against the counter. The scent of crushed lavender erupts between us.
