Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Stevie
Who did this to you?
I felt something inside me shrivel, just like it did anytime I saw a loving father-daughter relationship in a movie or whatever. I was ashamed of my asshole of a father, and embarrassed Garrak had guessed.
Forget Dad, forget the LeClair brothers. Maybe this was my chance to disappear and get away from it all? Maybe I could tear up my return ticket and hitchhike up north and reinvent myself and—
The fuck are you kidding? You’re going to land in trouble, just like you always do.
Still, I couldn’t hang around here. Couldn’t keep throwing myself at a male who made it clear he didn’t want me, who was even now making a noise like an angry animal. Was that growl coming from his mouth or his chest?
When I tried to tug my wrist out of his grip, his hold on me tightened.
“Who did this to you, Stevie?” His voice was quieter, more threatening, and my gaze snapped to his.
He was furious. With me? My pulse sped, and I found myself responding. “My—”
Luckily, I had the sense to snap down on that answer.
I’d given him a false name because in that moment, I hadn’t wanted him to know my own father had called me a whore—had essentially whored me out to cancel his debt.
Now, though? Now that Garrak hadn’t even taken the offer? Now the shame was almost overwhelming.
So I dropped my gaze to his chest again and chewed on my lower lip. “Hendricks,” I whispered, knowing he’d guessed the truth. “When he told me about this trip, I told him I had plans for the weekend, and he didn’t like that.”
I winced, remembering how tightly Dad had grabbed my arm. Garrak’s hold on my wrist wasn’t nearly that tight, but it was firm. I wasn’t getting away. Could he feel how rapid my pulse was?
“He sent you here to deliver the letter in person, and didn’t tell you that you were the debt repayment?”
My gaze was locked on his chest, so close…if I swayed forward just slightly, I could lean against it, lean against him—and where in the hell had that thought come from? “Yes,” I whispered.
It wasn’t the first time my father had used me…just the first time he’d been so open about it. It was the first time he’d threatened me to go through with it, though.
Let’s be honest; I wasn’t terribly afraid of going to jail.
I’d done a few overnights over the years, before Dad could scrounge the money to bail me out, and I’d done the same for him.
At least they fed you, and you had a bed there.
No, jail wasn’t all that scary compared to some places I’d spent time.
You know what was scary? The thought of pissing off people who didn’t bother with trials and lawyers and sentences.
The LeClair brothers weren’t the kind of men who went to the cops when you cheated them.
They were the kind to drop you into Lake Pontchartrain with cinder blocks tied to your feet, so you’d disappear completely.
The fact that they’d drop my father in next to me for the scam he pulled—the scam I helped with—wasn’t going to make me feel any better when the crabs started to eat my eyeballs.
You’re panicking.
Hell yes, I was panicking!
“Stevie.”
His low voice said my name in a firm, commanding tone, and I couldn’t help that my gaze snapped to his, my entire body responding to the control I heard. My lips parted, but no sound emerged.
Garrak held my gaze, and as I watched, his nostrils flared, inhaling slowly… I found myself matching him, inhaling…and then exhaling when he did. Another inhale, another exhale, and my shoulders slowly relaxed.
“Good girl,” he rumbled, and I found myself slowly warming.
He hadn’t released my wrist, and I realized he was running the pad of his thumb—the one with the claw he’d used to slice open my father’s letter—over my pulse point. Did he know how much those tiny circles were doing to calm me down? From the way he was watching me, maybe he did.
“Good girl.” This time, he murmured it, and when he tugged on my wrist, and I stumbled toward him, I knew in that moment I would follow him wherever he wanted.
Garrak stepped back, pulling me gently into his home. Dimly, I heard the door close behind us, but I was still staring up into his dark eyes, mesmerized.
A moment ago, I’d been on the verge of hyperventilating. But now? I felt…almost outside of my body. I was watching me, watching the way I had calmed. My fear wasn’t gone, but I was breathing normally, my heart had slowed…
And it was all thanks to this deliciously built male holding me.
Oh.
I remembered the way my body had reacted to him, back before he’d read that letter—had it been only a few minutes ago?—and suddenly knew that whatever shit my father had sent me here to do, it wouldn’t completely suck. Garrak had cared enough to soothe me, he’d called me good girl…
Slowly, almost in a daze, I pulled on my wrist, and his hold came with it. This moved me closer to him, close enough I could feel his warmth, close enough I could stretch up on my toes…
My free hand went to the back of his neck, pulling his mouth down to mine. I knew he was strong enough to resist me if he wanted, but he seemed bemused more than anything. There was a slight smirk on his lips before they met mine, and then I stopped thinking.
Because kissing an orc was like nothing I had imagined.
Or maybe it was just this orc?
Damn, Garrak could kiss! His lips were wider than anyone I’d kissed before, fuller.
Thicker. And those tusks? I was intrigued enough to allow my mouth to wander over one, and the way he growled, his hands going to my hips to pull me flush against him, told me they were as sensitive as I’d hoped.
My tongue stud clicked against one, then I teased the seam of his lips…
Then he was bending over me, taking control of the kiss, his own tongue pushing mine out of the way to play with my lips.
It took me a moment to realize what was different; Garrak’s tongue was ridged.
My hand, now free of his hold, rested on his chest, and I wondered what else would be different about his anatomy.
That pulse was back between my legs.
I told myself that stupid letter didn’t matter. The debt didn’t matter. I was going to enjoy this.
Wasn’t I?
Garrak
My Kteer raged.
I’d spent the day in front of a computer—definitely not my favorite place—struggling with spreadsheets and numbers.
Dinner had been leftovers, and I’d just been sitting down to unstrap my leg from my aching knee when the knock had come at the door.
I’d thought it was Mrs. MacKinney from down the hall, again with her petition to allow window planters…
And fuck, had I been wrong.
I’d gone from intrigued, to anger, to arousal, to rage, and now…? Now my Kteer, that primitive part of me which had kept my race alive for generations, had given up trying to control all those emotions and just focused on the feel of this female in my arms.
The female who’d been given to me.
Mine take claim fuck taste hunt claim CLAIM!
Stevie had kissed me, and her mouth—her tongue—was like nothing I had experienced. The piece of metal in her tongue was intriguing as hell, and I couldn’t help but wonder how it would feel against my skin. The kiss had been…
Instinct.
I’d seen her panic, had acted instinctively to calm her. Apparently, my intriguing little human had liked the way I commanded her, because she’d pressed herself against me, and when she’d reached up to draw my mouth to hers…
Well, good intentions could only take you so far, you know?
My palms slid up her sides, my cock reveling in the feel of her curves in my arms, the faint scent of her arousal. Mine.
But then my palms reached her torso, and my hands were big enough that my thumbs could brush against her breasts. I wasn’t squeezing her, but the pads of my thumbs found her nipples—hard beneath her t-shirt and bra—and I stroked them.
If I’d been thinking rationally—if my Kteer hadn’t been urging me to fuck taste claim—I would have said I was hoping for a moan, or a spike in her arousal.
Instead, my pretty little female stiffened in my arms.
That response—and the sharp, acrid scent of her fear—finally allowed me to gain control of my primal urges. My Kteer howled mutely in frustration as I forced myself to pull away, to straighten.
I stood there, holding her small frame between my palms, my thumbs against her nipples, and stared down at her. Her expression was carefully neutral, but I could smell her uncertainty, and the pulse at the base of her neck fluttered wildly.
There was arousal there, yeah, but also fear.
And that, more than anything, allowed me to drop my hands from her.
Stevie smiled—flirtatious, sassy—but it didn’t reach her eyes. Here was a female used to hiding her true feelings, and I was a little amused that she couldn’t hide them from me.
“What’s wrong?” Her hand slid from my shoulder to rest against my chest, matching the other. I wondered if she could feel my heart beating beneath her palms. If my Kteer were an organ, she’d be able to feel its silent howling in frustration at my control. “Don’t you want this?”
This. She meant Don’t you want me, and I had to force myself from curling my lip in disgust at the thought of Stevie referring to herself in such a way.
“Doesn’t matter what I want, sweetheart.” My voice was gruff as my hands dropped to my side. “Your scent is telling me you don’t want this. When I fuck a woman, she’s not going to be scared of me.”
Her eyes had widened slightly at my crudeness, and she opened her mouth to lie. “I’m not scared—”
“I’m not going to fuck you, Stevie. I want Hendricks’ money, not his whore.”
It had been deliberate, using the same offensive term that asshole had used. He’d sent her to whore for him, thinking that would be enough to cover his debt?
But instead of dropping her eyes in shame, my intriguing little human’s nostrils had flared, and she swayed toward me, lips parted, gaze intense.
Huh.