Chapter Eighteen Fantasy
S hower. Lotion. Silky bathrobe that Diana gave me for being her bridesmaid—it’s a dark cranberry red, and I’ve only worn it once.
I wish I were wearing it for Douglas in more than just spirit. That’s right. Tonight, we shared dinner. We’re having dessert alone—but I’m hoping we’ll be together in our imaginations.
My thighs clench, and parts of me are dripping wet despite being toweled dry. Is it wrong to go to bed thinking of him touching me while I know he’s touching himself?
My eyes drift to my cell phone. It’s tempting to call him, to ask to hear his voice, rough and growly with heat as he fantasizes about me.
It’s also totally taboo. I barely know him. I’ve already gone too far asking him to “think of me while I think of him” tonight.
I chuck my phone onto the bedside table next to all my books, allergy medicine, multivitamins, and nameless junk. There’s no space, and everything falls and scatters beside the bed.
Not sexy. This room doesn’t scream seduction. It screams, “I really hate cleaning my house after standing for twelve hours a day.”
Funny, but if Douglas were here, I don’t think he would give a damn about anything but me. That gives me the good, low-down trembles.
In my head, I’m always the hostess, the girl with her A-game and her game face firmly in place. On the few pointless dates I’ve had, I was careful to be the very best version of myself—even if that meant I wasn’t much like myself at all.
That was a long time ago.
Douglas got the real me—and he likes me, just like I am.
Likes me? More than likes me! We almost went to third base in the middle of the coffee shop, for God’s sake.
Georgie can never, ever find out about that.
And I probably had salad dressing breath. Or coffee breath.
I didn’t even think about that once he touched me. I didn’t notice anything about him except, well, him.
That has to be lust. Love. Instinct. Needy, primal, fuck-me-in-the-woods-while-I-bite-your-shoulder stuff.
Funny how kissing a guy can rewire your brain. Earlier this evening, I was freaking out about handing him a pen that had been in my back pocket. Now? Well, I know how his teeth feel against my throat.
Pen etiquette isn’t really an issue after a guy has turned you into a whimpering puddle in his lap.
My insides throb again, an empty aching deep between my clit and my belly, an empty space waiting to be filled by something... sizeable .
I climb into bed slowly, savoring this part of the evening instead of falling with my usual exhausted flop.
The rest of the world drifts away except for everything but the way he tastes when he kisses me. The way his cock felt so hot against my leg, even through my jeans and his kilt.
I arch my hips off the bed as if my needy gesture will bring my dream lover here in tangible form. I want that full feeling. To feel something stretch as my body molds to him, a new sensation I’ve never felt before.
Hands start to wander. One goes to my breast, one to my clit, rubbing in steady, teasing circles that get harder the longer I think about him. When I close my eyes, I try to pretend it’s his hand. Pressing harder. Squeezing. Pinching. I feel a little tug of magic helping me with this experience, and my brain goes hazy as it flows through me. My hands are my own, but they move as I imagine he’d use them, palming my breast roughly under the fabric of my robe until it slips down my back. My other hand drifts over my curls, fingertips kissing the soft, wet outer lips before stroking through the heavier wetness within.
So wet for me. I hear his words in my ear and feel his kisses trailing along my neck.
Fingers line up at my entrance, and I know this part is unrealistic. My slender fingers are no match for the girth and length I felt under Douglas’ kilt.
I have a little clit buzzer in my drawer, something small and thin. It may seem silly to wait, but I want to wait, to feel that first stretch, to know that he’s the only one who has ever been inside of me—and besides, this is the one spot where I inherited the Orc genetics.
Even though my muscles grip tight around the single finger I slip in, I can feel the way they give, feel the deep, reaching ache that begs for something the size of an Orc cock.
My eyes close, and I fall all the way back, hands on autopilot, squeezing, rubbing, and thrusting.
Douglas is the only thing I see behind closed eyelids. The streak of gray hair amongst the dark black only makes him more mysterious and sexy to me. The way his tusks frame his smile makes him look dangerously charming. Predatory.
“Fuck.” I hiss as my thumb dances on my clit, imagining it’s his hand. “Bite me. Mark me.” I want to dig my hand into his scalp, hold him close, and feel every nip and possessive scrape of his tusks and teeth against my skin. Want to be covered in him. Filled by him.
Two fingers press inside and up, seeking the magic spot under my clit, the spot I want to be welded to his cock as I stretch and spread around him. I want to feel that strain and pop as he goes deeper than anyone ever has, that sudden burst of fullness when I take his knot.
Orc females don’t need knotting tea. I wonder if I will, or if I’ll be naturally stretchy and slippery enough.
Honestly, I don’t care if I’m ready for that the first time. We’ll find out together.
A shiver of anticipation runs through me. I know Douglas is more experienced, but I still think that anything we do together will be new to both of us in some ways.
In my head, he whispers, “ I love you.”
And he means it.
It’s supposed to be sexy and husky but instead—it’s just happy.
Tears spring to the corners of my eyes. Apparently, my hormonal controllers are on strike.
Or maybe it’s because part of me believes that Douglas and I are alike in one very important way.
We’ve never been truly in love before.
“Don’t worry, baby. I’m here. I’m here, and I’m going to love you back...”
MY TOWNHOUSE STILL feels like a stranger’s home. It’s got a few dozen unpacked boxes and minimal furniture. Shipping things overseas is no easy task, but at least IAC can flex its muscles, and I know it’ll all be sorted out. Last I checked, my remaining items will be sent over from the Binghamton Airport in a day or two.
Standing in the upstairs hall, I look between the bedroom and the bathroom (which will have to be enlarged and made Orc-sized by some of the local magic-users or contractors. Between the new, sterile bed and the slightly too-short shower, I choose the shower to live out the fantasies plaguing me.
It’s been a long, long time since I felt like this, since I had a woman’s electrifying scent in my nose, the taste of her lips lingering on mine. I feel like I’ve just come out of a long walk in a cold, numbing fog, and suddenly, I’ve stumbled into this lush, sunlit world.
“That’s very poetic,” I snark, turning on the tap in the shower. “Believe the term you’re looking for is horny like a rutting stag.”
Both, my inner voice decides. Georgia makes me feel awake and alive in all the pretty and practical ways, in ways that would fill up a whole book of sonnets.
And she also makes my knot ache for the feel of her soft walls stretching around it, keen to hear the moan of fullness she’d make as I bottom out in her slick, sweet tunnel.
It’s maddening to know that she’s here in this development, only a few streets over or maybe even just a dozen houses down, exploring the body that I want to make mine.
Painfully close in terms of distance and yet so far out of my reach.
Speaking of pain... I strip everything off and kick it into the hall. I’ll worry about neatness later. Right now, little details don’t matter, and that’s a shocking feeling after being locked in a mathematical prison for the last decade.
This place is a fresh start.
Guilt stabs me. Nicola never got this chance. Maybe if we’d realized sooner we could have gone our separate ways... A million maybes and none of them ever change anything, do they, Dougie?
No. No, they don’t. All the maybes in the world won’t rewind time, won’t bring her back.
You’re here now, and so is Georgia. What are you going to do about it, laddie?
And then—that’s it. No hours of wallowing and grieving. No cold fury that seals me inside my own head.
Tonight, hot, wet thoughts that are made for the living invade and rule, and I finally feel as though it’s fair to welcome them.
The shower fills the room with steam and a fresh, pleasant scent, something clean and floral they used to clean the place, I bet.
Whatever it is, I lean into it, closing my eyes and stepping under the spray as best I can.
The shower head adjusts, and I set it to its highest height and most diffuse setting, bathing in a warm, tropical waterfall.
Georgia. Georgia in a little red two-piece swimsuit, under a waterfall with me.
My hand goes around the shaft of my swollen cock. I wonder if her fingers would close around it. Wonder how her little puss will stretch around it.
Silky pre-cum sluices over my crown, thick and slippery. I turn so the water won’t wash it away and I can pretend it's her juice coating me. “Easy, darling,” I whisper, squeezing tight, pressing down.
I’ll get her ready. Bury my face between those thighs and let the backs of her legs rest on my shoulders. Scrabble my tusks along the plump lips that hide my treasure.
I know she’s no little shy virgin for all that she’s been waiting for her “Mr. Right.”
Could that be me? Could I have the honor of being the first to taste her?
The images in my head are purely pornographic at this point, close-ups of quivering pink flesh and a deeper pink slit. Parting her with my fingers until she has no secrets left, loving her with my tongue until her shyness melts and she grinds herself against my mouth.
My fist pumps harder, a steady slide up and down as I hear her breathy gasps in my head, imagine her wetness on my chin.
Good and sloppy, my sweet. Easier to take me when you’re already soaked and you’ve come a good few times.
I want to do that for her, to hold her in one arm and just use my hand or even one of those pretty pastel buzzing things all the women fancy to make her orgasm again and again until her muscles are nothing but blancmange.
And then I’ll roll on top of her. Cradle her in my arms.
The fantasy deviates. My Georgia wouldn’t be any passive little participant. Who am I kidding?
Georgia would probably get on her knees and suck me seven ways from Sunday until I spurted all over her breasts and in her mouth. She’d look me in the eyes—I can see her sucking on my tip with a purely devious smile.
She wants me.
No one’s ever wanted me like that.
“Oh, God!” The first tight tremors of pre-orgasm shift from knot to tip, warning me that I’ll come before long, even if I want this fantasy to last for hours.
We’d both be clawing each other in a frenzy, limp and sated or no, desperate to have this feeling. This connection. Letting bodies do what hearts and souls have already done.
Join.
“She’s mine. You’re mine, pet,” I rasp, lost in my mind’s playground. Georgia slides down my shaft, rubbing her clit with one hand and guiding my hand to her breast with the other. She sinks on me, down to my knot, and then I’m the one to hold her hips while mine surge up, force in, and claim what’s mine.
One fist locked under my crown and one squeezing rhythmically around my knot sends streams of hot cum across the formerly pristine wall of my new shower.
Next time, it’ll be in her.
“I DIDN’T KNOW IF I should call.”
I pull my silky robe across my chest as if Douglas can see me through the cell phone’s screen. “I didn’t know if I should, either. I’m so glad you did.” My face is flushed. My thighs are wobbly.
I would gladly go again if he were suddenly in the room with me.
There’s a pause. An awkward silence.
“I wished you were with me. And I was suddenly sad, thinking that this place has given me a new start, a chance Nicola never got. Well, maybe one I should have been able to give her but failed to deliver.”
My heart twists. “Douglas, I’m so sorry.” This was a mistake.
“No, no. For the first time in years—it was just a thought. It passed. It didn’t become hours and hours of stewing on it, wishing for a million things in the past to change. I can’t change any of that. I can only change things moving forward. Thinking of you, pet. That was purely inspiring.”
Pet. My father calls my mother that sometimes, along with love and lover and a dozen other private endearments. I always hoped it would happen to me, too. “I was thinking about you, too. Wishing you were here.”
“Mm. Wishing you were here. Knowing you’re not far was maddening.”
I smirk. “Was it? Did you want to come over?”
“If I had, I wouldn’t have left until morning.”
“I think you mean tomorrow evening . I would have worn you out. There’s no way you’d be walking out so soon.” I flirt and then put my hand over my mouth. That sounds like I know what I’m doing. I don’t! What if he expects some sexual gymnast, and I’m just a very enthusiastic beginner?
“Ah, Georgia,” he chuckles, voice tired. “If I had my wishes, I’d walk through your door and just stay. Sort of a stray cat that keeps hanging around because you fed it once.”
“I thought I was the pet,” I quip.
“So you are. I admit I enjoy it when you curl up on my lap.”
My hips shift. “I’d be happy to sit there anytime.” I want to sit on his lap. Sit and rock against his hardness until we both come, or sit and ride his cock until he knots me and we’re trapped there, wrapped around one another.
I have no self-control. My fingers return to the warm, gooey center of my womanhood and start rubbing the wetness around my clit.
“I should go. You’re going to make me— That is, if I’m not careful, I’ll make a fool of myself.”
“Men who make fools of themselves for their women are the best kind,” I blurt. I don’t want him to go. I want to hold his warm, low voice in my ear forever. Closing my eyes, I can almost imagine he’s the one touching me.
“Oh, give me time, Georgia, love. I’ll probably do that more often than you’d like. Remember, I’m rusty at this—and I don’t think I was good at it to begin with.”
“You mean courting or sex?” I blurt.
And then, I die. I stop breathing. My insides freeze. Thank God you can’t actually die of embarrassment.
“At all of it, I suppose. I don’t know. Maybe you’ll give me your opinion on the former in a few days.”
I swallow. “My opinion of you is already sky-high. I’m sorry. I don’t always think before I speak.”
“Then we’re a good match. Sometimes I think so much I never get ‘round to openin’ my mouth.”
We laugh and sigh in unison.
It’s oddly perfect, having this relative stranger so in sync with me.
Maybe knowing he’s a little nervous makes me more confident—or maybe that’s just who I’m blessed or cursed to be.
“I thought you were amazing.”
“At dinner?” he asks.
“No. For dessert,” I whisper, voice heavy with suggestion.
“Aye? What did I do that you liked?”
My throat seals up for a moment, probably scalded by the flaming hot blush covering my face.
“You’ll have to give me hints, pet.”
“I will. I liked everything that you did. The best part is that you’re here, even when I’m done— I mean...”
“I know. What you mean,” Douglas comforts.
“You’re real. You’ve had a lifetime of missing someone you lost, but I’ve had a lifetime of wondering if I’d ever have anyone at all.”
There’s a somber silence. “I might hide away from life sometimes, but I promise I’ll not hide away from you. And if you want to know the truth—you were bloody amazing, too.”
“Hints, mister. Share and share alike.”
“Hm. I didn’t get any hints.” His voice is teasing. Playful.
I can picture his smirk, and I love it.
“Come over tomorrow night? I’ll bring dinner and accounting crap.”
“I was actually thinking of asking you to come over, but purely in a professional sense.”
“You need a barista?”
“No, but I could think of covering you in cream and eating you on my counter.”
I sit up straight. “What?”
“Oh! Oh, my God. I can’t believe I...” Douglas’ brogue turns so thick as he stammers an apology that I can’t even catch all the words. “I...”
“Let’s save that for the third date. Why did you want me to come over?”
“Didn’t you say that you charm the backroom to accommodate big groups?”
I think back over the course of our conversation. We talked about catering and the way I sometimes turn one of the small rooms in the back into a larger room to host monthly speed-dating events, or birthday parties, or baby showers. “Ye-eees?” I’m confused.
“Spatial magic? Right?”
“Uh, yeah, but—”
“My shower’s a wee bit small for an Orc. Think you can enlarge it?”
“Oh! Me? No. My magic would hold for about twenty-four hours. You want Tessa Roscommon or Madge for permanent enchantments. I’ll text you Madge’s number. I’d bet money that she’ll have an enlargement charm ready to pick up by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Amazing. The clan wise woman has nothing on the Pine Ridge coven.”
“It’s a handy group of people to know,” I say.
“So... There’s no good excuse for me to get you over for dinner? Or would you like to go out? Wait, that’s probably foolish. You spend all day in a coffee shop, you probably hate the idea of going to another restaurant to eat.”
I can picture Douglas getting anxious, thinking things aren’t going well, but in truth, I’m charmed by everything he offers.
“I’d love to come over or go out. I thought you might need more time to unpack.”
I hear rustling and a sigh. “You’re right. You make me forget myself. Forget to think. Well—think about anything but you.”
“That’s flattering. Tell you what—you unpack two plates, some silverware, and a couple of chairs, and I’ll bring dinner and some work. Be there at six-thirty?”
“Perfect.”
“Oh. And you’d better keep your countertop clear.”
“Had I? So I didn’t put you off with my little joke?”
“Hell, no! That was... that was really hot.” My hand caresses my throat, and I puff a breath of air over my steaming face. “But if it was just a joke—”
“No. It wasn’t. But I would never... I would never presume. I just felt so comfortable speaking to you. It’s rare, pet. I can’t tell you how rare.”
“That’s even better than the sexy fantasies, Douglas,” I murmur, holding back a yawn. “That feeling of being safe with someone.”
“Mm. You feel safe with me?”
“I do.” It’s not even a question. It’s weird, but I do. I feel that even though I don’t know Douglas well, I know certain unshakeable things about him. He values me. He would never let anything hurt me. He’s scared. He’s trying. And I’m someone who makes him less scared. Happier.
“I should let you sleep.”
“Yeah. I get up at an ungodly early hour every day. Between four and five.”
“Right, then. Sleep well, beautiful.”
Beautiful. He called me beautiful. “Good night, handsome.”
“I’ll see you in my dreams.”
I hang up with a smile. I know I’ll be seeing him in mine, too—and when I wake up, he’ll be just a phone call away.