Chapter 5
Chapter Five
HOPE
“I have one more question.” At this exact moment, that is.
The more I learn about him, the more I want to know.
Right now, though, I really want the answer to this question, because those tusk teeth of his are going to make kissing very interesting—if his answer is yes.
“Humans kiss for a bunch of different reasons, including romance and sexual passion. Is kissing part of troll intimacy?”
Sunset’s glow reflects off the water, making his dark eyes twinkle.
For a beat, he’s silent, and I’m sure he’s deciding how to carefully word his answer.
Then, his big hand is beneath my chin, tipping it up while leaning in and bringing his mouth to mine.
His lips are soft, the kiss gentle yet firm as he teases the seam of my lips with his tongue.
I open for him, our breath mingling and tongues meeting.
Sparks rocket through me, and I shamelessly moan into his mouth.
He responds with a deep rumble, his hand sliding around my neck to the back of my head.
His fingers tangle in my hair while he adjusts the angle of our kiss, causing one of his tusk teeth to press against my cheek.
So. Hot. It takes conscious effort to hang on to my shoes instead of dropping them into the lake and wrapping my arms around him so I can climb him like a tree. Instead, I use my free hand to unbutton his shirt to where it’s tucked into his jeans, then press my palm against his bare chest.
Another rumble vibrates through our kiss, then he pulls back, leaving me breathless and blinking up at him.
“Don’t stop,” I whisper, my body tingling and ready for more. So much more. But with each passing second of silent staring instead of tangling tongues, the fire he ignited inside me sputters. “I thought you liked it as much as I did.”
“Perhaps more.”
I cough a little laugh. “Um, I don’t think that’s possible. I was about five seconds away from asking you to take me home and do whatever preparation you need to do so this could become a sex date.”
On a long exhale, his fingers leave the back of my head, sifting through the length of my hair before settling over my hand where it still sits on his chest. “I want you in my bed, make no mistake of that. But not simply for a night of sexual gratification. That’s not how I see you.”
There’s that sweetness again. “We could have multiple nights. All the nights I’m here, or as many of them as you want, anyway. Hooking up wasn’t on my vacation itinerary, and…”
“You said ‘and’ not ‘but,’” he says when I don’t complete my thought. “And what?”
“And I know how ridiculous this is going to sound on a first date, after one kiss. And I know the logistics of what I’m about to say are not great because you’re a farmer with more daily responsibility than I can imagine, and I live four and a half hours away.
And I know I’m assuming a lot by saying any of this.
But—see, there is a ‘but’—” I wink up at him, and his chest vibrates with a silent chuckle.
“I don’t see you as a vacation hookup. I would accept this being a temporary thing if that’s what you wanted—”
“It isn’t.”
Seconds slide by with only the sounds of nature filling the air. The gentle, rhythmic lapping of waves. Faint birdsong, probably from the trees, which are now dark silhouettes beyond the shoreline.
I fight the urge to say more. Ask more. Talk until everything is hammered out and pinned down to within an inch of its life.
To talk for the sake of talking. But Ogram seems perfectly at ease with the pause.
The calm quiet. And of course, he does—he’s told me multiple times that he’s a solitary creature.
If this date has any hope of becoming more than a one-off, more than a vacation fling, I need to get comfortable with Ogram’s preference for… less.
“Okay.” That’s all I allow myself to say. Holding my tongue and keeping my lips closed, I smile intentionally, the way I would if I were having a posed photo taken. Against my will.
Based on how high his eyebrows rise, my expression must look as unnatural as it feels.
Seven seconds. That’s how long I hold my me-ness in before releasing a pained sigh of defeat. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Do what?” he asks, his eyebrows descending lower than their usual resting place.
“Resist talking. Babbling. Silence isn’t my natural state, as I’m sure you’re already aware. But you’ve stepped out of your lane tonight, and I really want to make an effort to meet you in yours.”
The final word is barely out of my mouth when he wraps one arm around my waist, pulls me tight against him, and kisses me. This time, I don’t need him to adjust our angles, I just melt beneath him, tilting and opening and getting lost in the taste and feel of him.
“Feel free to shut me up that way anytime,” I say when he breaks the kiss, presumably so we don’t pass out from lack of breathing.
The joke falls flat, his eyebrows pulling together at the bridge of his nose as he releases me and takes a step backward. “That is not why I kissed you.”
“I was just teasing,” I say, but it’s not enough to change the way he’s looking at me.
Maybe because he knows it’s not entirely true.
A dog barks as it runs up the beach, the sharp sound bursting the metaphorical bubble around us.
“Sorry to interrupt!” the dog’s owner calls, waving at us as he trails behind his bounding canine. “Have a great night!”
Automatically and without speaking, we return the polite gesture, our arms dropping once the man’s back is to us.
“I would never do something to silence you,” Ogram says before I can get a word out.
“I kissed you because I wanted to. In that moment, I wanted to because, even though we are just beginning, you once again considered my needs and preferences, and you were willing to put them above your own comfort.”
“An unsuccessful attempt that lasted less than ten seconds, but of course I tried. I’ll continue to try.”
“I don’t want you to do that,” he says, taking my free hand in his. “I enjoy everything about you, just as you are, and I would not change a single thing.”
Swoon. Seriously. “Okay, but if I ever just talk too damn much and you’ve had enough for a while, please tell me, okay?”
“I will agree, though only to give you peace of mind.”
Shaking my head, I snort a laugh. “You’ll get sick of my nonstop talking. Everyone does.”
“I am not everyone.”
It’s true. Not because he’s green and huge, or any of the other superficial qualities that make him different. Because he’s good, kind, thoughtful, sweet, gentlemanly, and sexy, all at the same time. “I know you’re not.”
“Good.” He squeezes my hand gently. “Never curb your expressiveness with me. Your voice is beautiful. Like music to my ears,” he says, angling his head to provide a better view of the tall, pointed green flesh in question. “And trolls’ ears are quite sensitive.”
“Hearing-wise, you mean. Or, as in, sensitive to the touch?”
“Both.”
And now I want to reach up and touch them to see just how sensitive they really are. But if ear play is the thing that’ll unravel him, I’d rather not be ankle-deep in a lake when I find out.
Stepping to my side, he tucks my hand through the crook of his elbow, carefully folding my fingers over his massive forearm.
“Shall we make our way over to the boardwalk and head back to your cabin?” He tilts his head at the unspoken question that must be written on my face.
“Where I will say goodnight to you at the door.”
“You could come in instead. It wouldn’t be a sex date.
It’d be a date that includes sex.” I huff when his big body rumbles with amusement.
The irritation doesn’t last—it’s just a little sexual frustration.
More than a little, actually, and that’s new for me.
Sex has always been a take-it-or-leave-it thing.
After kissing Ogram, I want to take it all and take it now.
“Waiting for another time is important to you?”
“It is.”
“Then it’s important to me too,” I say as we resume walking.
Water gives way to wet sand that squishes up between my toes with each step, then dry sand that sticks to my skin everywhere the water touched.
We reach the boardwalk and I rub my feet against the smooth wooden slats.
Then each foot against the opposite leg.
Some of the sand falls away, but not enough to be rid of the crusty, prickly layer so uncomfortable and distracting, it threatens to suck all the good feelings out of my mind.
“Allow me to help,” Ogram says, crouching before me and placing one of my feet on his knee.
The sun has set and the moon hangs in its place, joining with the streetlamps dotting the boardwalk to bathe the area is subtle white light.
Enough light for me to see the muscles flexing and moving beneath the shirt stretched taut across his shoulders and back, and how small my foot looks between his large green hands as he gently brushes the sand from my skin.
Having sand removed from my feet should not be an erotic experience.
Tell that to every nerve ending in my body.
Each swipe of his palm is like a tug on an invisible thread anchored between my legs.
By the time he moves to my second foot, I’m biting my bottom lip to hold back a moan that belongs behind a closed bedroom door, not on the beach boardwalk.
My knees go into jelly mode, and I sway a bit.
“I have you,” he says, his hand molding to the dip of my waist. “Hold my shoulders if you need to.”
Need? Oh, I need. Just not in the way he means.
Placing my hands on his shoulders does the opposite of steadying me.
My palms seem to have a mind of their own, sweeping over every broad, solid inch I can reach before moving to his ears, where I trace one long, erect point with the tip of my index finger.
“Should I stop?” I ask when he tenses beneath my touch.
“It is best if you do.” Returning my foot to the ground, he grips my hips with both hands and holds me firmly while leaning in and pressing his face against my dress, his nose nudging the fabric between my thighs.
He inhales deeply, then looks up at me with hungry eyes.
“I want you more than you can imagine, Hope.”
“I want you too, so why are we fighting it?”
“Because, the way your scent is affecting me, I’m not certain I could resist rutting were I to be inside you.”
“What if I don’t want you to resist?” For a split second, there’s wildness in his eyes, and I think—no, I hope—he’s about to fold me over his shoulder and cart me off to some shadowy spot and make good on his words.
Then he rises, nostrils flaring and chest heaving as if he’s just exerted himself. “There is more to the rut than deep, relentless penetration.”
“Just so you know, saying you’ll give me ‘deep, relentless penetration’ is doing the opposite of scaring me off.
” It’s part teasing, part flirting, and based on his unflinching intensity, neither thing hits the mark.
“Okay, I’m listening. Tell me the ‘more’ that you think I won’t be able to handle. ”
“The rut is nature’s way of assuring species continuation.”
“Species continuation?” Oh. My mouth goes dry and my panties do the opposite. “As in, you’d be intentionally trying to…impregnate me?”
“Yes.” That single word comes out deeper than any other he’s said to me.
I’ve never given motherhood or children much consideration, and what little thought I have mustered on the subject sure didn’t happen on a first date. But none of those dates were with Ogram.
Wildly premature as it is, I can picture myself with a big round belly and Ogram by my side. Imagining a family with him is like one of those blissful, soft-around-the-edges dreams that happen in the place between awake and asleep. The kind you never want to end.
“Now you understand why I must be careful.” His calm, even-toned voice snaps me out of the fairy-tale vision.
“Because you don’t want to get me pregnant.”
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Because I do.”