Chapter Twenty-Five #2
He flipped them in one smooth motion, her back on the mattress, his body between her legs, so fast she yelped and then laughed, and the sound of her laughter during sex was something he’d never known he needed until he had it.
“Plans that involve my mouth,” he said, kissing her throat, “between your thighs,” kissing her collarbone, “until you forget how to spell your own name.”
“That’s a high bar. I’m an excellent speller.”
He slid down her body, pressed her legs apart, and licked a slow, broad stripe from her entrance to her clit. She jolted, her laughter dissolving into a moan, and her hand found the back of his head.
He knew her body now. Knew that the first minute needed to be soft, gentle, lapping strokes that let the arousal build from simmer to boil.
Knew that she liked it when he hummed against her, the vibration making her thighs twitch.
Knew that the flat of his tongue worked better than the tip until she was close, and then she wanted pressure, focused, relentless pressure on the left side of her clit while two fingers curled inside her.
He gave her all of it. Played her like an instrument he’d spent months learning, reading her responses through the bond, the spike of heat when he sucked gently, the low pulse of deeper when he curled his fingers, the fluttering clench that meant she was close.
“There,” she gasped, her hips rolling against his mouth. “Right there, don’t stop, don’t, ”
He sealed his lips around her clit and sucked in rhythm with his stroking fingers, and she came with a full-body shudder, her thighs clamping against his ears, her back arching, a sound leaving her that was half moan, half breathless laugh, like the orgasm surprised her with how good it was, even after all this time.
He kissed her inner thigh, her hip bone, her stomach, and crawled up her body. She pulled him down and kissed him, licking the taste of herself from his lips.
“Speller status?” he asked against her mouth.
“Compromised. But I’d like to see you try harder.”
He grinned, really grinned, the one that showed his tusks, the one he’d spent years hiding from the world, and settled between her legs. She reached down, wrapped her hand around his cock, and guided him to her entrance.
“I love this part,” she murmured. “The way you feel right before, ”
He pressed forward and they both exhaled.
The slow, slick slide of him entering her, her body opening around his thickness, the stretch that always made her gasp before dissolving into heat.
She was wet enough that he sank deep in one smooth push, bottoming out with his hips flush against hers, and the fullness of it, his cock buried to the root, pressing against every sensitive wall, made her toes curl.
“, that,” she finished breathlessly. “I love that.”
He began to move. Slow, rolling thrusts that made her eyes close and her lips part. No urgency. No desperation. Just the deep, unhurried pleasure of two people making love because the morning was golden and the world was quiet and they belonged to each other.
She clenched around him deliberately, a slow, internal squeeze she’d learned could shatter his composure, and watched his jaw clench and his arms tremble.
“You,” he gritted out, “are going to be the death of me.”
“What a way to go.” She did it again, tightening her inner walls in a deliberate pulse, and the sound he made, half growl, half groan, entirely undiplomatic, sent heat flooding through her belly.
The playful rhythm shifted. His thrusts deepened, his hand sliding beneath her hips to tilt them up, and the new angle sent the thick head of his cock pressing directly against the spot that turned coherent thought to static. She moaned, loud and unguarded, her nails digging into his shoulders.
“Right there,” she gasped. “Don’t change anything, just,there, ”
He didn’t change anything. He was, she had learned, an exceptionally good listener. He held the angle, the depth, the pace, steady and relentless, each stroke driving a little more air from her lungs and a little more heat into the coiling pressure at the base of her spine.
She slid her hand between their bodies and pressed her fingers to her clit.
He watched her touch herself with eyes gone dark and molten, his rhythm never faltering, and the combination, his cock filling her, his gaze devouring her, her own fingers circling in the exact pattern she needed, built the orgasm like a wave gathering height. Slow. Inevitable. Immense.
“Come with me,” she whispered. “I want us to go together.”
He let go. Stopped holding back, stopped modulating, let the orc surge forward.
His pace quickened, each thrust harder, deeper, his breath coming in rough growls that matched the slap of their bodies.
She matched him, rolling her hips up into every stroke, her fingers working faster, the pleasure spiraling up and up until,
It broke. It rolled through her in long, luxurious waves, not the sharp detonation of their first time or the fierce blaze of claiming, but something warm and expansive and so thoroughly satisfying that she laughed through the aftershocks, delighted and wrung out and incandescently happy.
Drake followed her. His hips stuttered, his face buried in her throat, her name on his lips in the orcish form that only a bonded mate would use.
She felt his cock pulse inside her, the warmth of him spilling deep, and held him through every shudder.
Her fingers traced lazy patterns on his back while the bond thrummed with a satisfaction so deep it resonated in her bones.
The mate bond sang. Not the urgent, desperate song of bonding or the fierce blaze of claiming. A deep, steady melody. The sound of two lives harmonizing.
Afterward, they lay tangled in the sheets while the sunrise finished painting the mountains.
Harper’s laptop sat open on the desk, the Ironpeak Independent’s homepage glowing softly.
Drake’s diplomatic briefings were scattered on the floor where they’d been swept aside by more pressing concerns.
Two people who had spent their lives performing for others, finally real with each other.
She propped herself on his chest and looked at him. “I’m going to write about everything, you know. Our whole story. The truth.”
He smiled. The real one. The one that lived beneath every mask and belonged only to her. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
“Even the embarrassing parts?”
“Especially the embarrassing parts.”
She laughed and kissed him and reached for the laptop.
Outside, the Cascades held the light the way they had for a million years, patient, permanent, unmoved by the dramas enacted on their slopes. Inside, a journalist who had lost everything and found it again opened a new document and began to type.
The story continued.
THE END