Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rowena
I had to admit, the Battleborn hot springs were amazing.
I could say that ‘twas my favorite part about the village, but whenever I considered that, I’d remember how welcoming and friendly everyone was, and how they all supported each other and pooled their resources for the good of the clan, and I’d decide that the people were the best part of Battleborn Village.
But the hot springs were fairly ‘fooking remarkable’, as Issa would say.
Someone long ago had piled boulders around two sides of the springs—which bubbled out of the ground near a cliff—to protect the third side. The water smelled faintly of sulfur, but that was overpowered by the scents from the peat firepits ringing the pool.
Now, Vrogul was crouched before one, coaxing the embers—apparently no one had been here for a few hours—back to life. When he sat back on his heels and grinned up at me in success, my heart gave a little lurch.
Today in the village, had anyone else seen how bothered he was by the demands of his liege’s kin? He hadn’t made excuses, but he clearly didn’t want to deliver the ore. Why?
He rolled to his feet then bent to begin untying his boots, and my heart clenched again, but for different reasons. He was undressing…he’d been serious about bathing with me. Having me wash his back.
I reminded myself that the orcs didn’t seem to have the same taboos about nudity—or even pleasure—that I was raised with. Mayhap to Vrogul, stripping naked to bathe with me was completely normal and natural.
Or mayhap it meant…more.
To hide my shaking hands, I turned away and reached for the bodice of the blue gown. My stomach was flip-flopping and a slow, steady pulse built in my core, causing me to ache. Not in fear.
In anticipation?
As wool fluttered to the ground behind me, I took a deep breath, held it, and tried to force my pulse to slow. Aye, I remembered the way he made me feel the day we sparred, and now my traitorous body was already throbbing in expectation and hope, but…he was my enemy, wasn’t he?
“Rowena.”
He stepped up behind me and I shivered at the way his voice caressed my nape. My eyes fluttered closed, trying to simultaneously drink in these sensations and worry for the future.
“Dkaar, I asked ye here to speak with ye.”
“Not—”
My voice cracked. I swallowed and tried again, my fingers still on my ties.
“Not to have me scrub your back?”
I could hear his smile.
“Aye, I’ll no’ deny I’ve been yearning to feel yer hands on my skin.”
Oh God, why did my knees just go weak?
“But I ken yer people have different opinions on bathing. If ye’re uncomfortable—”
And just like that, my hackles rose, unwilling to back down from a challenge.
“I am not scared to bathe with you,” I snapped, my fingers attacking the ties once more. “I am not afraid of you.”
“Good,” he murmured, his lips inches from my skin…then he backed away. “I’ll keep my back to ye while ye climb in.”
There was laughter in his tone, but challenge as well. I wasn’t going to allow him to win.
Besides, had he just admitted he’d been dreaming of me as often as I’d dreamed of him?
These last few nights—days, hours, minutes—had been both torturous and exquisite.
I’d done my best to hold myself still in the bed we now shared, when really I was desperate to curl up against his warmth and strength.
I’d spent my life having to be strong, and I was finding it completely addicting to be around someone who could care for me so easily.
An enemy.
But…was he?
A splash behind me.
“Rowena, lass! Cease yer dithering!”
And I found myself smiling as I stepped out of my gown.
True to his word, Vrogul’s back was to me, so I felt bold enough to pull my chemise off before stepping into the water.
Issa said ‘twas her father who’d added these stone steps down into the pool—for his elderly mother to be able to access the water, she’d said, which I thought was adorable.
They were handy, and I was able to quickly lower myself into the steaming water in order to hide my body.
Are you certain you wish to hide it from him?
Nay. Nay I wasn’t.
But was I expected to?
“Are ye in?” he rumbled, turning for the soap he’d left on the ledge. “Good. I need to speak to ye, and I might as well do it while washing yer hair.”
He’d said it so matter-of-factly, it took me a moment to catch up.
“Washing my—what?”
“Yer hair, lass. ‘Tis the stuff growing out of yer head. Ye’ve been huffing and pulling on that braid for days, and I’ve been dying to run my fingers through it.”
“I—”
Oh.
I stood there, holding my braid over my shoulder, staring at him.
When Vrogul grinned, his tusks gleamed, and I remembered the way they felt against my skin.
His expression slowly changed; nostrils flaring, lids lowering slightly.
“Och, lass, dinnae tease me so,” he murmured, the water forming a vee behind him as he moved steadily toward me. “Ye’ve already tormented me near out of my mind.”
Had I been a weaker woman, I might have backed up at the hunger in his eyes, which now gleamed bright green. But I raised my chin, my breath short in anticipation.
“Torment? I am the one who has to sleep beside you, thinking of—”
When he reached me, I bit down on my words, but Vrogul didn’t stop coming.
Instead, his hands went to my hips and he lifted me, the soap forgotten.
I was smaller than him, aye, but he lifted me eye-to-eye with him, and it seemed so very natural to wrap my legs around his waist as his hands supported my arse.
“Thinking of what, lass?” he growled, lowering his mouth to my shoulder—nay, my neck.
‘Twas instinctual to tip my head back, to allow him greater access. When his tusk nipped at my skin, I gasped and writhed against him, my bare cunny sliding against his hard stomach beneath the water.
The sound he made was somewhere between a groan and a growl, with a low rumble coming from his chest when my arms went around his shoulders.
“Thinking of this,” I gasped in confession, which turned into a moan of my own as his mouth moved down my throat.
Then he was lifting me again, just enough so he could reach my breast with his mouth, and I used one hand to eagerly heft my nipple toward his lips. What had I been concerned about? All previous thoughts and worries flew out of my head as I rocked against him.
Vrogul made the most delicious noises when he sucked and licked and murmured words I couldn’t understand. He shifted his stance so he was lower in the water, one hand supporting me as his other…
Dear God, his other hand!
His fingers found my core beneath the water, one knuckle sliding between the pearl of my desire and his hard body. When that pressure found me, I groaned out loud and nearly lost my hold on him, falling back to drape over his arm.
But he kept me safe.
Vrogul’s lips and tongue kept me on edge, teasing, sucking, tormenting. That gloriously wide tongue was ridged, just as Issa had told me orc males’ cocks were, and I allowed myself to slide downward just slightly, to feel the tip of that cock brushing against my arse.
I wanted him.
He might be my enemy, but I wanted to feel pleasure with Vrogul the Stormseeker more than I’d ever wanted aught else in my life.
Now.
I tugged on his hair, pulling his chin upward so I could claim his mouth myself. He made a sound of surprise, then his lips curved beneath mine as he shifted his hand so the heel of his palm rested against my cunny.
When he curled his fingertip upward to slide along my wet cleft beneath the water, I bucked against him.
We moaned into each other’s mouth, then that finger slid inside me.
‘Twas thick.
‘Twas callused.
But ‘twas not ridged. ‘Twasn’t what I wanted.
What I needed.
But I couldn’t seem to form the words, because Vrogul’s tongue was teasing mine, and then another finger slid into me, and he was stroking me from inside as his palm ground against my clitoris and I—
I exploded.
Right there in the pool, I ripped my mouth away from his, threw my head back, and screamed as my climax burst over me with white-hot intensity.
Vrogul continued to stroke me, his palm providing the exact pressure I needed as he whispered words to me I couldn’t understand.
When I could finally breathe, I dropped my gaze to him to find him staring at me, his gaze glowing green, as if I were the most incredible thing he’d ever seen. As if I were a roast venison haunch and he was a starving man.
As if I were a goddess.
‘Twas a heady, powerful realization.
His fingers continued to move, the slowest, softest strokes imaginable, my inner muscles still spasming around them, a warm daze creeping along my limbs…but I was feeling mischievous.
So I stretched up to brush my lips against his, grinning naughtily.
“You said you wanted to speak with me?”
Vrogul blinked. Then he blinked again, and I felt his muscles relax slightly.
“Aye. Ye…I…” He exhaled and shook his head. “Speak…to ye.”
My grin grew. He was this distracted after making me come? What would happen were I to reach around and grab his cock, stroking him the way I had been imagining?
But I was having fun dragging this out.
“Oh?” I asked innocently. “About Dallin and the mainland Battleborns?”
A little furrow appeared on his brow when he frowned.
“What?”
“You wanted to talk to me about what happened today, what Dallin demanded?”
He just stared at me, his green gaze confused. I resisted the urge to kiss the furrow on his brow, mainly because it would mean pulling away from his hand, which was still pressed up against me—inside me—in the most delightful way.
Instead, I cocked my head to one side.
“Vrogul the Stormseeker, why do you continue to bow to Callor?”
I felt him stiffen, felt his hand curl away from me.
“What?” he repeated, his voice now hoarse and adorably befuddled.
“Callor is the chief of the mainland Battleborn, aye?” He’d told me of them, and how his father had founded this sept. “How long do you intend to prostrate yourself to him?”