Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

GA'REK

I barely get the chance to speak to Piper as the day winds down.

I'm intimately aware of her, though, the way she brushes past me to grab a pastry or a sandwich, the high-pitched musical patter of her speech with customers. The black tea and flour scent of her skin, always out of reach and tantalizingly close all at once.

By the time the crowd wears out, it's nearly full dark outside, thanks to the earlier evenings and the grey clouds hanging low over the town.

The contentment that rolls through me in spite of the exhaustion of having to deal with people for hours is a new and welcome feeling.

A job well done in the Underhill was met with the taste of copper in my mouth. Sore muscles if I was lucky, stitches and broken bones if I was not.

Any day that ended with me still on the right side of my sword and not skewered by the business end of someone else's was a good day.

This is infinitely better, though I'm well aware of a surplus of physical energy I have left to burn at the end of the workday.

Although, I can think of a few ways to burn it off that are infinitely more pleasurable than anything I could have done in the Underhill…

And they all involve one pretty brunette witch.

I lock the front door after the last patron leaves, flipping over the sign to read ‘closed.'

It's just us left in the shop. Not an unusual thing, but for me to still be here after we've cleaned and finished the day's work?

That is strange.

"Ah, so. I usually make dinner upstairs…" she says slowly. Piper winces, her nose wrinkling. "Make is sort of not, ah, reality, though. It's much less make and much more ‘scavenge what's edible.' Then I drink a cup of chamomile tea from Lila's teashop, read or draw and go to sleep. Most nights." She clears her throat, her fingers working nervously at the apron tie she's double wrapped around her waist to keep it in place.

I want to unwrap her.

I want to untie the little bow she's made at the front and tease her as I take it off her body, then the clothes beneath.

My cock gets hard at the thought, and I adjust my own apron, too turned on to be embarrassed by the way my body is responding to every little twitch of her lips. Her gaze dips from my face to the small canvas cloth that does very little to cover my clothes, much less my body, and I stifle a groan.

I have to get myself under control.

Piper Paratee is more than just some idle lay to pass the time and enjoy in the moment.

I like her. I respect her. I want her.

I am not about to scare her off by taking that small, strong hand and wrapping it around the hard length of my cock. I'm not about to take her by her firm ass and hoist her onto one of the many tables in The Pixie's Perch so I can lap at the sweetness between her thighs.

I grit my teeth, my tusks digging into my lower lip at the force of my vivid daydreaming.

"I don't usually make dinner, you know?" she continues, waving her hand at the now empty and perfectly clean displays. "I'm usually too tired after baking all day to bother. But I could whip us up something?—"

"I'll take care of you," I growl at her, and she blinks at the force of my words, like she's not sure what I mean by them.

By the Underhill, I'm not sure what I mean either. Now that we're alone, and the prospect of sleeping next to her with just a wall between us looms large in the future, I can barely control my need for this woman.

Maybe convincing the newly arrived witch to take my room at the inn was a mistake. Maybe sharing living quarters with this beautiful woman, this witch that I've wanted for weeks now, is a mistake.

Piper's tongue darts out as she licks her lower lip, and this time, I do groan.

Her eyes widen, and I know she's heard me.

My cock jumps at the idea of her listening to me moan her name, and a wet bead forms at the tip, dampening my trousers.

"I can take you out tonight, and you can tell me what you need me to do to make you come…"

She makes a startled sound, her lovely cheekbones turning rosy.

"To make you come to your senses about having me help you with the autumn festival," I quickly finish.

What the fuck has gotten into me? I'm about as smooth as a senile dragon's hide. All I can think about is making her come. Apparently so much so that the powers of language are starting to fail me.

"Honestly…" she bites her lip, and I have to look away from the way it changes color under the pressure. I want to watch her nipples do the same. Are they pink like her lips, or duskier brown? Are they small and perky or round and full?

I want to find out. The sooner the better.

I make myself inhale slowly, forcing thoughts of what are surely perfect breasts far from my mind. Food and help. That is what I am promising.

And if I do well enough, perhaps she will consider me a bedmate… or maybe even a real partner.

I've never been shy about what I want, and right now?

All I want is the kitchen witch blushing across the room at me.

"Or the Night Market?" she asks quietly. "Have you done that yet?"

"The Night Market?" I repeat. "Is that with the booths down in the square?"

"You haven't been yet?" Her face lights up with the question, and I want nothing less than to take her there immediately.

"It sounds perfect?—"

"Unless you're too tired to go, which I would understand. I know I asked you to get here at the break of dawn?—"

"I want to take—" I interrupt, but she forges onward, her face growing more stressed by the second.

"If you want to go to the Rowdy Wolf, that's fine too, I don't want to pressure you," she finishes.

I stare at her for a long moment, trying to decide how to tell her what's on my mind without terrifying her.

"I want to do what will make you happy, Piper," I finally tell her. I lean against the front door, crossing my arms, every fiber in my being wanting to cross to where she stands, stiff and unsure, and make her understand that. "I think the Night Market sounds like fun."

She brightens considerably, that light of excitement I've learned to look for back in her eyes. "Really?" she asks, tilting her head.

"Really," I tell her.

"Oh," she slaps her forehead, and I take several steps towards her, wanting to kiss the spot she's hit, before I realize I'm already spiraling towards the point of no return with her. "I forgot. You'll probably need to go get your things from the inn first, right?"

I laugh out of confusion. "What things?"

"To sleep here. Your sleeping clothes, toiletries, that sort of thing."

"I sleep naked," I tell her, still slightly confused. "What sort of clothes do people normally wear?"

Her face turns red. Not the pretty rose I'm used to when she's flustered, but a full-on cherry shade of crimson that makes a laugh bark out of me in surprise.

Piper blinks, her mouth opening, then closing again.

"I didn't mean to upset you," I tell her slowly, loving the delicious way her throat moves as she swallows. "Or be coarse. I don't have things to collect. I wash my clothes every night, I sleep naked, and put them back on in the morning." I shrug a shoulder, and a muscle twitches in her temple.

Her gaze drifts down my body, and when she bites her lower lip again, I nearly jump over the counter and press her mouth against mine in a fierce kiss.

A delicious scent perfumes the air, and it's not the first time I've scented her desire… but it is the first time I'm fairly certain I've caused it.