Chapter 4

August

I don’t know what I expected from an orc’s home. I know they’ve been part of this island for over one hundred years. They work as police officers, search and rescue, gardeners, and brewers. Gorgeous yet disturbing monsters aside, they’re part of society’s fabric.

So why did I think Bjorn was going to carry me off to a cave? I’m not sure. Ashamed, but undaunted, I inspect around while he fiddles at the stove, making tea for us. Boxes everywhere. No furniture. Just stacks of cardboard boxes that look like they’ve been rolled across the country and floated to the island.

“Are you moving?” I ask, inching closer to the tiny kitchen, made tinier by Bjorn’s giant frame taking up all the breathing room. His back muscles ripple under his flannel shirt with each movement he makes. His neck flexes as he turns to look at me. I’ve heard a lot of women talk about how strong and angry orcs are, but I’ve never heard anyone talk about how soft their gaze can be. Bjorn’s eyes have the same calm in them that they had on the mountain earlier—like the banked coals of a fire.

“Just moved in. Yesterday.” Bjorn hands me a blue mug, then sips his own. We stand awkwardly in the kitchen. I try not to touch him, but gods, it’s difficult.

“You act like you know your way around for just moving here,” I say, bobbing the tea bag up and down in my mug. He nods and huffs out an almost laugh.

“I grew up here. This is my first time back in five years. Needed a change of pace and scenery. What about you?”

I sigh. I was enjoying hearing his deep voice vibrate through me. “My cousin, May, grew up here. My mom and I used to visit, so I have fond memories. Mom passed away a few months ago, and I’ve been a bit... nomadic since then. Lost. Moved in with my cousin May two weeks ago. But now, after today, I can’t go back.” Shrugging, like it’s not a big deal that I lost my mom, and now I’m essentially homeless, I yawn loudly. My mom always said I could wake the dead with my yawn. I sip my tea, floral yet spicy. I like it.

With a grunt, Bjorn sets his empty mug on the counter and walks away. His arm brushes against mine—there’s no way around it. Fire sears my arm where we touched. Why am I torturing myself this way? He clearly does not want to have anything to do with my idiotic ass, who tried to climb a mountain on a dare.

After hearing a couple of thumps that are not my heart pounding, I follow the sound. Bjorn is on his knees, creating a nest of pillows and blankets. He looks up when my toes reach the edge of the nest, rests his meaty hands on his thick thighs. “I should have put you straight to bed. You will sleep here. I’ll be down the hall if you need anything.” Something rumbles inside me at him on his knees before me. Something dangerous.

“You don’t have a bed?”

“No, I only moved what fit in my truck. I’ve been sleeping in a chair I borrowed from my brother.”

“Well, thank you?” My voice goes up at the end, because I don’t know what to do with any of this information. I don’t know what to do with his kindness.

Exhaustion hits me like a semi-truck. Yawning again, I stretch, then pull off my sweater. I’m finally starting to warm up. There’s nowhere to put it, so after holding it awkwardly while I spin in a circle looking for a chair, I finally drop it to the floor. Whatever.

My eyes catch his, and there’s clearly more than warm coals in his eyes now. His nostrils flare as he stares at me. Looking down, I forgot what I was wearing. A long-sleeved, skintight red thermal. And beneath that, perky nipples. They’ve been like that all day because of the cold. Of course, I’m not cold now. Bjorn clears his throat and stands.

“You will thank me in the morning. The bathroom is down the hall,” he says begrudgingly. And with that, he walks down the hall to what I guess is the bedroom and closes the door. But not before my eyes see the bulge in his pants. The enormous bulge that makes my mouth water.

“Well, goodnight, I guess,” I whisper into the silent room. Once he is out of sight, I take off my pants and thermal shirt. It’s a camisole, panties, and socks kind of night. Snuggled into the nest, under the mountain of blankets, I think for a moment how funny it is that he has so many blankets and no bed. But that’s as far as I get; sleep overtakes me.

When I wake, it’s still dark out. My phone, with ten percent battery, tells me it’s two in the morning. I should be asleep. Rolling over, I try to match my breath to the gentle snores I hear coming down the hall. But I can’t, too deep, too long. He must have the lung capacity of a whale. When I focus on his breath, I remember the way his arm brushed against mine. The way he held me when he carried me here from the brewery. The way he helped me down the mountain without judgment. His eyes in the light—teasing and also ablaze with intensity that doesn’t scare me, but maybe it should.

Eventually, I limp out of bed, forgetting for a minute that my ankle is injured. Fire shoots up my ankle and leg. Catching myself, I bite my lip before I yell and wake Bjorn. I find mouthwash in the bathroom, then attempt to tiptoe toward the snores. There’s enough moonlight streaming in through the window to see that Bjorn is asleep in the only chair in the entire apartment. I don’t understand it. Why didn’t he make himself a nest?

His skin is a silvery green in the moonlight, and his fangs have a slight gleam in them. The sight of him makes me shiver, which has nothing to do with the cold and howling wind outside.

“You going to say something or just stand there staring?” His rumble awakens me further, his raspy voice resonates somewhere between my thighs. I swallow hard.

“Why—” words leave my mind. My feet shuffle forward of their own accord. Now that I’m up, the chill in the air on my bare legs and arms makes me shiver.

His sigh doesn’t sound annoyed, just tired, like my presence woke him from a long hibernation. “Your scent,” is all he says.

My scent woke him up? Or my scent caused him to stuff himself into a recliner made for a man—not an orc?

“I can’t get back to sleep.”

“That’s because your bed is in the other room.”

“Ha. You’re funny at two A.M. Where is your bed?” Before I can think of anything else to say, to ask, he’s up. Towering over me, I don’t think I was cognizant enough on the mountain to realize just how massive he is. At eye level, I’m looking at his chest—very muscular and well-defined chest. I gulp. He isn’t wearing a shirt, just a pair of sweatpants that do little to hide how muscular his thighs are, or how hard he is. I gulp again. My fingers itch to caress his skin.

“Your scent is driving me mad. And I don’t have much willpower at two in the morning. So unless you are prepared to be ravaged, I need you to go back to your bed.” How many times can one girl gulp in the span of just a few minutes? I smile a little, because I like the idea of driving the gigantic orc mad.

“By ‘mad’, do you mean—” I don’t get to finish, because Bjorn’s lips press against mine, kissing all logical thoughts from my brain. One of his large hands knocks aside my hands making quotation marks, then cups the back of my head, keeping me close. As if I would leave. His other teases up and down the side of my arm, causing chills, before resting on my lower back. One finger plays with the waistband of my panties. I let myself get swept up in his kiss. In the smoothness of his lips. In the exoticness of running my tongue over his fangs, of savoring his massive hard planes against all my soft curves.

When he releases me, it’s just enough to rest his forehead against mine and purr like the happiest cat in town. I gulp a breath of air.

“You are the most amazing creature I’ve ever met. Brave. Sexy. Stubborn. Now, please go to bed.” The words sound almost painful as he whispers them. “I’m no good for you.”

“No. You don’t get to decide what’s good for me. You don’t get to kiss me like that, light me on fire, then walk away for me to burn all by myself. That is not a kindness.” My whisper has an edge of slightly furious that he’s pushing me away.

Tucking my hair behind my ear, he asks, “What would be a kindness?”

“Tending to my fire,” I whisper, my heart thumps a million miles a minute, as I’m not entirely sure what that will entail, what that will look like with our sizes—our differences. He cocks his head like he is listening to something.

“Your heart sounds erratic. Are you sure?” Words fail me, so I nod.

“August,” he groans my name. My heart melts. “Your head and your heart clearly don’t agree.”

“Yes. I’m sure,” I say with the same confidence I had when I thought I could climb the mountain alone. What could go wrong?

With that one sentence, he swoops me up again and carries me back to the nest he made. Back on the squishy blankets, I sigh in delight. I’m warmer already. His hands stroke my legs, seemingly knowing where the knots in my calf muscles are. Slowly, he makes his way up and down my legs—to the top of my thighs and hips, then down to my one good ankle. In between strokes, he places gentle kisses along my torso, lifting my camisole to expose my stomach, dipping down my waistband to my hip bone. Kisses flit up to my shoulder, along my collarbone, my neck, back to my lips.

Inside me, part of me is fire, part of me is boiling water—churned and unsettled, needing more. When his hand reaches the top of my inner thigh again, I spread my legs wider. A whimper escapes me, making me blush. I never whimper, but Bjorn has a spell over me. One of pure craving and ecstasy.

“You like that, little goat? You like my hands on your skin. My lips teasing you.” When I don’t answer because my brain is a catlike puddle, purring in delight and oblivious to the need for words, he stops. Hands and lips off, he leans back on his haunches.

The absence of his hands startles me. Propping myself up on my elbows, I can see his erection through his sweatpants, and there I go, gulping again. It’s an architectural thing of beauty.

“Answer me, August.” I love the way my name sounds on his lips.

“I—what was the question?” I’m glad it’s dark so he can’t see me blush.

“I asked if you liked this. I need an answer before I continue.”

“What? If I don’t, you’re just going to walk away? Go sleep in that stupid recliner with your giant hard-on?” My eyebrow arches and my lip twitches in a smirk. A voice in my mind reminds me I’m playing with fire, but fire is the only thing that matters.

“Our species and size differences aside, consent is very important to me. You need to be a team player.”

“Team player? As in, more than one of you?”

“Gods, no!” He chuckles, then shifts to lie next to me, careful to leave millimeters of space between us. I bring my foot over to his leg, and he removes it from his body. I make a pouty face, and I wonder who I’ve become in the last twenty-four hours. Whimpering? Pouting? This is not me. “I mean, you have to be an active participant with me. Only me.” The only is a growl that makes me quiver from head to toe.

“What do I have to do for you to believe me when I say yes?” One fat orc finger makes little circles, starting at my shoulder and working its way across my chest, slowly sinking lower toward my breasts which continue to betray my excitement with their pointed peaks.

“Say it again,” he growls into my ear, his finger tantalizing my skin. His skin is so smooth. I swear my finger tingles from the sensations of touching him, just like my chest tingles. Maybe he has magic tingly skin?

“Yes.” The word is a squeak as he twists my nipple.

“Yes, what?” Cool air tickles my skin as fingers once again leave my body. I can’t believe he is going to make me say the words out loud.

“I want this, with you. There, that better?”

“Much better, August.” He yanks down my top, his mouth hot on my breast as he sucks, his tongue licking my nipple, teasing. My brain scrambles as I moan and arch my back to him. Fingers claw and dig into his skin.

He growls, then blows over the top of my nipple. An involuntary groan escapes me. I pull down the other half of my top to expose my other breast. Bjorn just laughs at me. His deep rumbling is the best thing I’ve ever experienced. It vibrates through me.

He does the unthinkable. He stands up. “Wait! Don’t leave!”

“I’ll be right back.” Squirming, I cover myself with the blanket and wait with a stupid pout on my face. When he steps back into the nest and sits down next to me, my center tightens and twists with an intensity that has me breathing hard.