7. Orlagh
SEVEN
Sweet sunlight.
I’d called it a date earlier without thinking, unleashing a torrent of texts to try and save face—fan mail! pastries! pay no attention to the desperate elf in the corner!—that makes me physically cringe just to contemplate now. I guess I’d just assumed, hoped, that he was just as borderline-hypnotized by the same heady haze of attraction that I was. That last night was more than just a series of weird practice hook-ups after a sexually charged evening and that he’d gone from neighbors to sort of co-workers to dating at the same breakneck speed I had.
But he didn’t take the out I gave him in our texts, did he?
Because now that he’s here, now that I’m staring into his ocean blue eyes as I sit across from him at my favorite decoupaged cafe table, hummingbird heart fluttering away while he insinuates my cunt tastes sweeter than that sugar-filled abomination I crafted for him…
This is a date date, and it’s pretty clear that we’re absolutely on the same page—the page that hasn’t stopped thinking about the way our soapy skin felt sliding against each other in the shower, about the heat between our locked eyes as he pinned me down in bed and spread my legs wide, trailing tusky kisses down my stomach, or about how giddy and dizzy and alive we’ve made each other feel since the moment he opened his door in those irresponsibly thin sweatpants.
“Well,” I lean in a little to catch his eye again, licking my lips. “I’d be more than happy to serve you something sweeter after this. If you’d like.”
Rok leans closer too, the gigantic chair creaking beneath him as that magnetic, lopsided smile curls slowly around his tusks. “It’s a date, sunshine.”
The oversized mug of, essentially, crystalized sugar looks almost minuscule cupped in his enormous green hands. I can still feel the ghost of those thick fingers digging into the flesh of my hip, wrapping around my wrists, curling deep inside me until I shattered again and again and again.
My foot finds his under the table as I shift in my seat, cunt clenching and fluttering in time with that hummingbird heart in my chest, both ready to take wing. Thank Solstra for wool tights—without them this chair might need reupholstering.
“So, first date here,” I breathe, slipping out of one of my sequined mules underneath the table and dragging the tips of my stockinged toes up past his knee. I stop at his belt buckle, toeing at the ticklish spot beneath his delightfully big belly that I discovered last night. “Second date at my place after?”
“Oh, no ma’am, that would be scandalous.” Rok sets his coffee down, throwing an impressively casual look over his shoulder as he captures my creeping foot beneath the table. The little gasp that escapes my lips threatens to melt into a moan as he slides the pads of his thumbs along the arch of my foot—a decidedly un-ticklish spot of my own that he discovered last night—and he smiles down into his cup. “Second date will be the walk back, of course. Then third date at your place, if your offer still stands. Unless you drive?”
“I don’t. Wait, you don’t drive either?”
“In this city?” Rok shakes his head. “Where I can’t walk, well, I can grab a bus or take the subway, call a cab if I need to. Always seemed pointless to drive.”
I pause before taking a sip of my latte, a little taken aback by his reply. “That’s literally what I’ve been trying to explain to Brix for years. I can catch a subway to Trader Josie’s, grab a week’s worth of groceries, take the subway back again, and still make better time than half the cars stuck in traffic.”
“Oh, I know it,” he laughs, “and in rush hour, no less!”
We bond over our mutual frustration surrounding the severely underutilized public transit options Galtree has to offer as we munch on the scones I’d laid out. He wasn’t lying about that sweet tusk—before long, only the savory ones are left.
That realization sets my heart fluttering anew, sparking an internal barrage of joyous exclamations that it’s a sign I’m staring at and not just a half-eaten plate of scones. The smell of him—blood orange and woodsmoke and him—momentarily overpowers the swirling scents of fresh grounds and spice and freshly baked pastry in the air. And I have to wonder… how does he suddenly smell more familiar to me than the coffee shop I’ve worked at for years?
Rok clears his throat, pulling me from my thoughts, back to massaging my foot again. “I do know how, though. To drive. Learned back home in Brok’hal, down south? Big country out there, nothing like here.”
I take up my mug, slipping out of my other mule as I sink back into the gigantic wingback, begging attention with my left foot as well. “I’ve never had the pleasure of traveling there, but I hear it’s beautiful. What made you move to the city?”
He shrugs, fingers still working their magic. “I wanted to cook, see something different. Be somewhere different.”
“Different from what, exactly?” I ask, taking a deep drink from my smoked hazelnut latte, swallowing a moan as he drags two knuckles along the back of my heel.
“Well, Brok’hal may be big country, but it is it’s own small fucking world. Old clans, close knit, sequestered. And I didn’t exactly fit into the mold I was supposed to there, too, uh… too soft for the kind of life someone like me would be able to make. Not tough enough.”
“Not tough enough? You?”
“Yeah,” Rok laughs, his gravelly baritone like a balm to my soul, sending shivers down my sternum, “me. Big old softie. I didn’t relish killing the boar, just churning the spit. I wanted to… well it sounds simple, small, but I wanted to cook in a real restaurant in the big scary city, do something that felt right for me, not just stay in that small commune and take up the lumber trade or mine or hunt. Mama helped me get out. Sent me off to Galtree with half her savings and a suitcase full of bramble-berry handpies and pine sugar, bless her.”
A sharp pang snaps in my chest at how warm his smile is as he talks about his mother, at the idea of being able to reminisce fondly of one who pushed you towards your dreams instead of getting swallowed up by bitter memories of one who tried to force you into an impossible mold of her own making.
“Supportive and sweet,” I pull my feet back, slipping my shoes on as I take another long drink from my mug, trying to shake off those old hurts, to focus back on Rok, on getting to know him. “Well, you’re a lucky orc, I’ll just say that. And you’re doing it now, then? Cooking?”
“Sure am.” He sits up a little straighter, shoulders spread wide as he places his elbows on the table. “Had to start from the ground up, mind you. No fancy school or connections in that beat up old suitcase Mama gave me, but… I made my way to where I want to be, or damn close to it at least. You familiar with Dinners Dragons?”
There was a billboard on East Yavin I used to pass on the way to Wolf’s before we got the apartment, one that always drew my eye; a handsome moon elf in gleaming, silvery plate with a crown of stars upon his head, a petulant looking human in black and white armor with a jagged, wicked looking sword bared before her, and an orc, blessedly underdressed and overly oiled, baring his bronze-capped tusks in a feral roar, Locals Drink Free on Fridays! flashing in neon beneath them.
My eyes widen as I swallow a mouthful of scone.
“No way. That crazy dinner theater place?!”
Rok smiles at the telltale squeak of excitement in my voice. “Yeah, you been there?”
“No,” I laugh, “and honestly, I’ve always wanted to check it out, but… well, I make it a rule to keep out of the pleasure district. Sun elves loooove spending their money in those hotels and casinos—the ones rich enough to, at least—and I really, really don’t want to run into anyone from back home.”
He nods, brow furrowed. “Huh. Never thought of it before, but you don’t see many sun elves in Galtree that ain’t tourists. You might be the only one, sunshine.”
I give a mock little curtsy in my seat, which he awards with some polite applause. “I’m pretty sure I am because most never travel anywhere outside of Fair Isle, really. Not unless they’re mega rich, lounging in some penthouse somewhere, and Galtree is a favored spot for sure.”
“Not you, though; you came to stay. How long you been in the city, breakin’ down stereotypes?”
“Five years. Well, almost six. And no, I was too… stubborn? I guess? And I didn’t like the way my future looked if I stayed on my small island, either.”
“The, uh, one full of folks you don’t want to run into again,” he says. There’s no judgment in his voice, but I can tell he’s trying to give me an opportunity to expand upon my earlier statement.
“The very one. My family is…” Wealthy. Speciesist. Political. “…prominent there.”
Rok hums noncommittally, taking off his scarf as he leans back into the cushioned velvet, revealing the same three-headed dragon shirt he’d had on the day that we met. “Big money, big plans?”
“Precisely. A future meant to make everyone happy except for me.”
“What did that future look like, if you don’t mind me asking?”
I mirror his movement, settling back into my own enormous chair as I pick at the chive and cheddar scone in front of me.
“Honestly? Comfortable. Comfortable on the surface, at least. Decades planned in advance, and certainly not by me. A strategic marriage and a gilded cage of wealth and expectation and seclusion. I didn’t want to live on that island my whole life married to someone I hardly knew, wondering what I was missing in the real world beyond it, who I might be missing.”
“Well hells, look at us having all sorts of things in common. Orlagh, I…” he starts, stopping up short when I meet his gaze.
“What?” I whisper, hardly able to breathe. That electricity between us is back in full force, the tension building, and I swear I see the lights flicker.
A loud clattering noise breaks the moment and I turn to see Brix wincing over what I assume must be every coffee mug ever in existence shattering on the floor behind the bar. I give her that look, the fucking-really-right-now look, and she has the decency to look chagrined, but not before giving Rok a little wink.
“I swear to Solstra, she’s always a flirt but she’s usually not this ridiculous. Now,” I turn back around, resuming my assault on the pastry. “You were saying?”
Rok grabs my hands, stopping me from picking at the scone. “Nothing, nothing. But… how ‘bout we take that walk now, continue this conversation on the move? Honestly, your pal Brix eye-fucking me while we chat is just a touch uncomfortable.”
As if on cue, Brix pops another bubble.
“She’s harmless,” I laugh. “But one of these days I’m going to get her to admit that she’s a half succubus, because she is always, always trying to make customers squirm. Gets great tips, though.”
We wave bye to Brix on the way out and I show Rok the button that controls the door size so he doesn’t get stuck this time around.
“It’s new tech! A lot of places in Oldtown have them installed now since its way, way cheaper than arcane reconstruction, not at the mercy of municipal permitting.”
“Oh yeah? How about Aethelthorpe’s Delicatessen? I’ll never forget…”
We tookthe long way back to Cockatrice Commons, walking hand in hand beneath the blooming dogwoods that lined the riverfront promenade. Spring in Galtree was always gorgeous, but today, with the pink blossoms scattered beneath my feet and the easy conversation I shared with the orc next door, it was positively enchanting. Talking frankly about our childhoods with the gentle lapping of the river beside us, comparing all the surprising similarities and differences in the sequestered societies we were raised in, debating the best pizza place so vehemently that we stopped foot traffic and caused a scene.
It was the best second date I’d ever been on, even if it did sort of bleed into the first; the more time we spent getting to know each other, the harder I started to fall.
“So,” Rok guides me to the railing, caging me against it protectively as an alarmingly large number of goblin cyclists zoom down the path, “now that we’ve gotten to know each other a bit better, tell me how you got into cam work.”
I graze his leg with my knee, enjoying the proximity of his powerful body, the heat rolling off of him.
“It doesn’t bother you?”
His brows knit together as he shakes his head. “No. Why would it?”
“Well, my ex…” I trail off. Should I even be talking about Wolf? It’s only our second date and he’s already come up so many times it’s borderline laughable.
“He didn’t approve? Add that to the list of reasons why he’s a fucking moron, I guess.”
“I guess I’ll have to,” I laugh, letting my hands glide up his arms. Sun above, but I just want to touch him. “And, to answer your question… my first year here was kind of rough money-wise. I never wanted for anything growing up, so being out on my own was a tough dose of reality, made me realize just how lucky I’d been in some ways. Anyway, my roommate was a dancer and did some cam modeling, and she sort of showed me the ropes on OnlyFannies while I was looking for work. Eventually I started part-time at the coffee shop, but now that Zoya brings in the kind of money she does, I don’t really need to work there. It’s fun in its own way, though; plus I love coffee.”
“Well, that makes one of us. But I gotta ask… What made you pick that itty-bitty shiny bikini to do your thing in? Not that I’m complaining. I mean, you saw my figurine, the comics. There can’t be any doubt in your mind that I am 100% Zoya’s target market, even though it’s the Orlagh underneath that truly makes my heart skip a beat.”
Sunbeams, he’s sweet.
“Pure chance, actually. Lhysa—my old roommate—suggested I dress up like a comic character to gain a following quicker. I did a tremendous amount of research in the form of one internet search, came across that badass warrior heroine, and…”
“Became every nerd with taste’s fantasy just like that, huh?”
“Yep, just like that.Sometimes you just sort of know, you know?”
Rok brushes a bit of my hair back behind my ear, cerulean eyes sparkling. “Yeah, I think I do.”
“Besides, it was an easy costume to make,” I whisper, right as his lips brush mine, breathing fast. Rok pulls back with an eyebrow raised.
“Hold on. You made that bikini?”
“Yeah,” I shrug, twining my fingers in the unruly hair at the nape of his thick neck, “sewing and needlework were the only skills of mine my mother ever approved of. Until I started using them to go to masquerades and faires outside of Fair Isle, that is.”
“Orlagh,” he laughs. “I made that warhammer. Made that shoulder armor and those breeches, too. Been sewing with these fat fingers for twenty-eight years.”
“Well, look at us, having all sorts of things in common.” I whisper, arching into him on tiptoe, hands gripping his hair as I pull him towards me. When our lips finally collide, the rail hard against my back and his cock hard against my stomach, it takes every ounce of restraint I have not to scale him like the green mountain he is and take him to the ground then and there.
I’m breathless and smiling when we finally pull apart. “Onward to my place, then?”
It’smidafternoon by the time we stumble into the elevator at our apartment complex, laughing so hard that my sides ache. I wipe away a tear as I lean against the handrail, shaking my head. “I guess that’s what you get for picking a fight with a minotaur.”
“Now hold on,” Rok laughs, stepping in behind me with his hands up, palms out defensively. “I don’t pick fights, they find me. He took a swing at my friend!”
The elevator doors close and he steps closer, bracing an arm against the wall behind me.
“I gotta say, Orlagh, I’m still not convinced that this ain’t all a dream.”
“Want me to pinch you?”
“Listen, sunshine,” he says, bracing his other arm and leaning in closer. “I’m never gonna say no to you putting your hands on me.”
Rok closes the distance with a kiss, the cool smoothness of his tusks a sharp contrast to the warm, soft brush of his lips against mine. A low, hungry growl rumbles in his chest as his tongue ventures slowly into my mouth, parting my lips. His mouth is enormous compared to mine, his tongue massive, and I open wider at his invasion, sliding my own tongue against his.
I wrap my arms around his thick neck as he lifts me up, seating me on the handrail and pressing me back against the wall of the elevator. My legs wrap around his thick waist as my fingers bury themselves in his hair, grabbing, stroking, clawing; desperate to deepen the kiss.
He tastes a little like the confectionary coffee I made him, like sugar and cardamom and vanilla, but underneath that is a different kind of sweetness; one that’s purely Rok—citrusy, smoky, him—and I lose myself in it, lose myself in the touch and taste and feel of him until I realize… the elevator isn’t moving.
I break the kiss reluctantly, groaning as he chases my lips, nipping and sucking all along my neck.
“Rok?”
“Hmm?” One of his tusks drags up the column of my throat and my back arches; his hands slide over the small of my bowed back, pressing our bodies closer.
“Oh, goddess, that feels so good, but… Rok. We aren’t moving. Did you push the button?”
“Oh, fucking hell…”
He swings me around with him and I shriek merrily, gripping onto his broad shoulders and locking my legs behind him, laughing so hard that I snort.
“Stay still, godsdamnnit, I got to get—” Rok struggles to reach his arms around me as I scrabble higher up his body, gripping the back of his head and pulling his face to my breasts with a devious little giggle.
“I’m sorry, sir. Was I distracting you?”
Next thing I know I’m dangling over his shoulder, my shrieks getting sillier and shriller by the second, and once he presses the button for our floor he smacks my ass, spinning me around and around until I can barely manage to hang on without upending my purse in the process.
He finally plops me down and spins me to face my door when we’re in front of my apartment, hands roaming my ass and hips as I dig dizzily in my purse for my keys, convinced they’ve fallen into some pocket dimension designed to torture me.
“Oh, my apologies, ma’am,” he whispers, resting his head on my shoulder. I break out in goosebumps and a fresh set of giggles as he presses his lips to my ear, still on the hunt for my keys. “Am I distracting you?”
I give up when he peppers kisses up the shell of my ear, all the way up to the tip, turning to face him and wrapping my arms around his neck again, pulling those sweet lips in for another delicious kiss. Thick, hungry fingers bite into my hips as he groans in my mouth.
“Orlagh, if you don’t open that damn door, I’m gonna get down on my knees and lick that sweet little cunt of yours right here, right now.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
His hands are under my dress, calloused fingers catching against my wool tights as they glide over my hips. My eyes flutter closed when his thumbs meet at the apex of my sex, gliding slowly over the soaked fabric, already so wet that it’s drenched through my underwear and clear to my tights.
“Fuck, you know I will. I’ve had a very particular sweet tusk all afternoon and that coffee sure didn’t cut it.”
When he hikes the hem of my dress up and falls to his knees, I almost drop my purse, losing the keys again in the madness within. When he presses his lips to my center, I do drop my purse, but manage to grab the strap at the last second. His hot breath over the damp fabric pulls a moan from my lips, and I start digging in my bag again with renewed fervor as his tusks dig into me, desperate to get inside and have him fuck me with his fingers, his mouth, and that gigantic, velvety cock.
“I’m serious, Orlagh. This is our third date, ain’t it? I’m calling my mama to tell her all about you tomorrow morning, so my propriety is officially out the damn window. You’ve got roughly ten seconds until I’m ripping these fucking tights off and fucking you with my tongue, right here, right now, until you’re screaming so loud they hear you over in building V. I’ve dreamt about being with you since the moment I laid eyes on you, sunshine, and I can’t wait another fucking minute.”
My fingers close around the keys and I pull them out with a triumphant moan, grinding myself against his face as I jingle them, feeling for the one I need with my eyes closed.
“Hurry up, buttercup, or you’re gonna be waving good evening to Dimitri down the hall with my tusks spreading you wide, have to tell that kitty cat of yours to come back for kibble another time.”
“Wait, kitty cat of m?—”
His hands move up to my breasts, my waist, and a jolt of desire pulses through me, so sharp I can’t think, can hardly breathe, but somehow Solstra grants me her favor and helps me get the right key in the lock.
I stumble backwards with a smile, turning to place my purse on the kitchen counter so I can tear off my clothes and scale him like the sexy mountain he is, when I’m stopped dead in my tracks by a confusing and horrifying sight.
My apartment is absolutely trashed.