Page 7 of Orc the Halls

He nodded at the table. “You need more meade?”

“Yes,” she said. “Excellent idea.”

He steered them over there and they exchanged their mugs for freshly filled ones, and then his arm migrated from around her shoulders to the small of her back. “Let’s go this way,” he said, guiding her over the stone walkway, away from everyone.

They ended up sitting on a wooden bench behind a large pine tree, out of view of the party. There was a heater there, positioned for the bench, which had blankets and throw pillows on it.

Hiljd sat down, shaking her head. “Tom totally wants this to be a sex party.”

“Yeah,” said Gunnar, sitting down. “I mean, that was the impression I got of this thing. My friend Erik, he and his wife totally strong-armed me into showing up here, saying that I should ‘meet someone.’” He drank a big gulp of meade. “I mean, even assuming I’d bang a stranger at a party because neither of us are wearing clothes, how would that be a person you’d want to settle down with, right? Imagine saying you met the mother of your children at a sex party. Like you’d want someone who’d do that to be the mother of your children.”

She drew back. “Everything out of your mouth appalls me.”

“Uh, message received, lady.” He drank more meade.

“Talk about double standards.” She gulped at her own meade. “It’d be fine for you to hook up at a sex party, but not a woman.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. It’d be fine for a woman to have done that, just not one I was going to marry.”

“I have a strong urge to throw this meade into your face,” she seethed.

“Nah, I mean, she could have done it in the past or something,” he muttered into his meade. “Just… I wouldn’t be attracted to someone in that way if she was like that with me at the beginning.”

“So, she could have sown her wild oats, and then—”

“Yeah, and then she’s ready to settle down,” he said. “So, she’d be serious or whatever.” He shrugged. “I don’t mean it to be a thing. It’s just how I feel. I can’t help what I’m attracted to.”

She rolled her eyes. “Helpless, my ass.” She drank even more meade. She bit down on her lip. “Well, here’s the thing. Idon’tlike you, but… you’re…” She let out a breathy sigh. “Do you want to hook up at this sex party?”

He laughed.

“Youkissedme.”

“You sat down on the couch next to me and practically threw yourself at me.”

“Sitting down on a couch is a signal to kiss me?”

“You know it was,” he said.

Fuck him. Fuck him for being right about that. Fuck him for being horrible and yet so very sexy in an awful caveman way. Fuck. Him.

Yeah, that was what she wanted to do. “I haven’t been with anyone in, like, a year,” she said. “And it was my ex-husband’s best friend, and I was very drunk—”

“You’re kind of a wild woman, huh?” His voice was husky.

“No!” She wanted tohithim. She didn’t. She didn’t hold with that idea that women should be able to shove or slap men or anything like that.

“I mean, can we pretend you are? Because it’s making me really hot. You’re so, um,confident.”

She snorted, slugging down the rest of her meade.

“I haven’t been with anyone in longer than a year,” he said. “I’m not exactly drowning in pussy here.”

“Shocker,” she said darkly.

“If we’re going to hook up, can you at least pretend to be nice to me, so that I don’t feel like a pathetic sad sack who lets a woman destroy me if she acts vaguely interested?”

She groaned. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be mean. I can’t even believe I’m thinking about doing this.” She couldn’t. It wasn’t even like her. Well, maybe she didn’t know what she was like. She’d barely had time to sort out her sexual preferences before she’d had a mating bond, which sort of took control of her body and made her, well,mate. She was pretty sure that she was usually reticent, however. Except, sometimes… sometimes, she felt as if maybe she did have a little bit of a wild woman in her. Sometimes, the wild woman took control, and she was just along for the ride. “I’m going to need more meade if we’re doing this. Go get me some.”

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