Chapter Thirteen Ingrid and King #2
King stops, mouth sealed, eyes still doing that gosh darn melting, pleading look that I thought only puppies could give.
“I want you to get better. I just can’t hear ‘down on one knee’ stuff so soon,” I pant, trying to steady my breathing and put out the fire between my legs with calm, rational thoughts.
King’s eyebrow arches. “Ingrid? No man has ever gone down... on his knees for you?”
Oh, fuck. No calm. No rational. Just the dirty parts of all the romance novels that I read and will never live. I skirt the question as my face flames. “You can’t get down on your knees for a long, long while, buddy.”
He laughs. The bastard! And it’s so smug—but his smile is so sweet. “But you have a couch in there. A floor. A bed...”
“King!”
He stands up slowly. The bulge in his pants is so much more obvious now. I have to pull my eyes somewhere else. Anywhere else. Cobwebs in the ceiling vent. Dog toys in the corner basket.
That was a mistake. Even slowed down by crutches, he moves faster than I’d think possible. I guess he’s a fast learner—especially when motivated. He’s out of the kitchen and halfway to the stairs of my little townhouse.
“What are you doing?” I demand, chasing after him.
“If I can’t go down on my knees, I’ll go flat on my back. That chair wasn’t working out,” he looks over his shoulder, sauciness in his smile. “But I’d make a better one.”
“I’m not going to sit on your lap right now,” I say with as much sternness as I can manage.
King licks his lips. “Of course not. You’re supposed to sit on my mouth.”
Cockiness is sometimes the cheaper, drunken cousin of courage.
I can toss off confident words, sexy grins, and walk (okay, hobble) around Ingrid’s home like I own the place, but my palms are so wet I’m afraid I’m going to slip off my crutches and bust my face as well as my knee, and my heart is racing.
Yes, I want to make love to her. Bury myself inside of her and feel her tight hole swallowing up my knot, wrapping around it without an inch of room to spare—but that would hurt her without knotting tea.
Besides, I’d get something out of it, maybe more than her.
That’d be “King the taker.” That’d be “King who wants his ego stroked.”
The guy that I want to be, the guy that’s more than the ability to put it in the net, wants to show that I can give.
Okay, and yes, I’m going to come in my pants if I get to see and touch Ingrid in any kind of intimate way. If she actually does let me lick the source of that amazing aroma that tickles the back of my brain and screams “mate!” I might need to buy her a new set of sheets.
“King the taker” isn’t dead, he’s just... better behaved.
“Sit on your—”
“I want to make love to you and make you scream my name, and make you come, and spoil you with pleasure.” The words, the list of reasons and wants, come rattling out of my mouth, very unsuave.
“I want to be close to you and look up at you and see you bucking and grinding on me, feel all your soft curves smothering me—fuck, I want you, Ingrid, but I’m not in a position to give you a good time in another way, so.
.. So, could I give you this? Because I want to?
” Because I love you. I think that’s what this is.
I love her. I want this more for her than for me, and I don’t want this as a step to the next thing.
I just want this. “I don’t expect you to do anything but get worshipped like the queen you are.
” My Queen. When I marry her, she’ll be a “King’s” wife, and that’s a queen.
And she deserves that title. She’s had fire and sweetness in her from the second I met her, and enough firepower to cut through the fog I’ve been in since I got hurt.
Since I stopped being King Silverbow, son, student, and guy who liked to play hockey, and became King, Orc All-Star, destined to be in the majors and live the high life.
“The stairs...”
I shake my head, cutting off Ingrid’s hesitant protest. The stairs? That’s the objection? “You could go back to the kitchen and move the pizza box. I’d rather eat out than have delivery.” God, I hope she thinks that’s witty.
She’s so pretty when she blushes, especially because she gives off this air of having it all together. Getting under her skin in a good way makes my heart bound. “But I... That’s not something I do,” she finally explains in a soft voice.
“Oh. Like, you don’t believe in it? The—mouth stuff?” I trip over my words, but hey, at least it’s not my crutches.
“No. I’ve never done what you’re describing. I mean, I was with someone who—it was quick.”
“I could be quick.”
Ingrid laughs. “You try hard to be whatever someone wants you to be, don’t you?”
Wow. My girl is a sharpshooter, because that comment went right into the subconscious and under some armor I didn’t even realize I was wearing.
“I don’t know where the line between being what they wanted and what I wanted got blurred, but it’s clear now.
I want to do this with you, if you want to.
I want to do things how you like, because then I’ll like it, too.
I could never be happy if you weren’t,” I whisper, and it’s true.
“Well. Upstairs, then. But my room is a little bit of a mess.”
“I don’t mind. My leg is a little bit of a mess.”
“Speaking of body parts. I’m not... I would say I’m comfortable in my body—but I don’t share it. Sharing it makes me uncomfortable. Nervous.”
I shake my head. She really can’t see how gorgeous she is. “What if you can tell how much I like your body and I thank you—repeatedly—for sharing it with me?”
Ingrid doesn’t say anything, just sidesteps me and heads up the stairs. “Coming?” she asks.
I nod. And you will be, too.
Iturn the lights off, but I don’t know if that matters. Do Orcs see in the dark? How much?
My nerves make my stomach tight, and I worry about the whole idea of “sitting on his mouth.” That’s too much, right? It’s just an expression?
King sits on the edge of the bed, hands on my hips.
He’s tall enough that with him sitting on the bed and me standing, we’re the perfect height to keep kissing.
The perfect height for his hands to slowly start massaging my waist, and then my thighs.
I wait for things to get pulled down or off, but he doesn’t.
Just lies back and scoots over, groaning softly as he drags the clunky immobilizer with him.
“I’ll be careful not to bump you,” I say, voice broken by uneven breaths.
Guess I climb on. Guess I act brave, even though all I can picture is him pushing me away, and I steel myself for learning that this whole getting an oral orgasm isn’t going to happen. It’s in books. I don’t think it’s in real life.
Sweats drop. Soaked panties follow. My big green ride awaits, but I snuggle up to his side. “We could just do this. I like this,” I say, chickening out.
King sounds thrilled. “You do? Okay! I like this, too.” He cuddles me under his arm and easily pulls me onto his chest, like I’m a blanket he’s pulling over himself.
I wait for the tone to shift, for King to start insisting—and he doesn’t. I’m the one half-naked and wriggling. Wanting to kiss him. Loving the way he strokes my hair and keeps sighing. “You sound happy.”
“I’m so happy,” he chuckles and squeezes me.
“I’m sorry if I was pushing you earlier.
I thought it would be something you liked.
I like this. I like just being around you, but I hope one day you might want to do more.
Is that okay to say? Is that like... I don’t know. Is that a creepy thing to say?”
“That you want to do more when I want to? No. That’s not creepy.
And I do want to do more—I just know I shouldn’t.
Because... It’s so soon.” Yeah. That’s the reason that I’ll give.
There are more, bumping around in my brain while I ignore them, marveling in the fact that I actually feel “delicate” in this guy’s arms.
“Yeah. Yeah, I bet this does seem fast. That might be my fault.”
“Definitely your fault,” I mumble, but there’s a smile in my voice.
“I mean, because the only ‘relationships’ I’ve had in the last couple of years have been one-night encounters on the road,” he says, making air quotes with his fingers.
“And because I’m an Orc. Orcs often spend all their time with their clans, and they meet up a few times a year for a gathering of clans.
It’s a big deal, right? And if you see someone you’re interested in, you have to speak up then, before the clans all go back to their own lands.
You can’t be afraid to speak, or you lose your chance.
But you get being brave and taking a chance.
” He tugs the sleeve of my shirt. “War Maiden.”
My heart speeds up right after it had begun to slow. “War Maiden?”
“Navy parents. Brave and stalwart.”
“Stalwart is not a sexy word,” I warn him.
“It is to me. Everything about you is sexy, Ingrid.” King smiles up at me, and a long curl of still-damp hair tumbles from my bun and over his face. He smooths it back, eyes following it as he tucks it behind my ear.
Lovestruck. Even in the darkness of the room, where everything is shadowy and dim, that’s the only word for the look on his face. My face drops to his, lips brushing, then anchoring.
Anchoring. I’m already settled. I have my home. He has his. We have our lives, our careers, and all of that, but I realize afresh... I don’t have my “person.” The one whom I feel comfortable with, safe with, in love with.
Mrs. Y was right. I don’t need that, but I want that. Maybe I ought to let myself get it.
When King’s hands land on my back and scoot down to my cheeks, I don’t stop him. When he kneads me with his strong hands, I involuntarily grind down against him. “Okay?” I whisper.
“Perfect.” His fingers move over my hip, and his hand turns into a cup, palm against my short curls and fingers over my lips. “Better?”