CHAPTER 3 — Where’s the Harm ? #3
My answer seems to please him. He regards me steadily, then braces his weight on one hand on the bed—making his shoulder muscle bunch, which makes me swallow and clap my knees together—and he pats the coverlets with his other. “Come here. Sit with me.”
Less reluctantly than I would have guessed, I join him. I’m seated maybe a foot away from his knees, which are spread with a wide stance to accommodate the breadth of his package or the tiny pillow he’s using to cover his package.
“Lie down on your front,” he suggests, and when I throw him an alarmed look, he holds up a hand. “As I said, I mean to rub the tension from you, I won’t do more.”
Hesitating, shooting him wary looks, I crawl fully onto the bed and ease down, neck straining to watch him.
Big, elegant, but still masculine-shaped fingers press gently on my shoulder, indicating I should flatten to the bed all the way.
Feeling more vulnerable by the second, I fold my hands, tuck down, and rest my cheek on them.
So very, very naked, Roarg lets his pillow fall and grabs something from the nearest nightstand. There’s a soft clink of a pottery lid, and then a burst of a subtle, sweet smell fills the air. It’s a tropical scent, something relaxing but festive.
Roarg makes a humming sound. “I’m going to oil you up.”
My body goes rigid. “I don’t want to take off my clothes.”
He doesn’t even hesitate. “Then don’t.” His voice is easy and calm. He leans in, and what feels like his nose nudges the back of my head, making my thighs twitch and my back zip with a too-aware-of-him charge. “Lift your hair.”
I plant my elbows in the mattress, press my forehead into the comforter, and reach back to gather my hair and draw it along the side of my neck, exposing my nape.
Roarg lays his hand on the cleared spot, and I jump at the contact.
He doesn’t move. “Is the oil too cold?”
“No.” To the contrary, it’s as hot as his callused skin. I can’t help but think the oil will probably do his work-roughened hands some good.
He begins to knead. He focuses his attention just above the neckline of my dress, warming me. And then he starts to dig his thick fingers and heavy thumb into the sides of my throat, the areas under and behind my ears, and all my little muscles in between, making my neck go limp.
With firm pressure, he glides his fingers along the tops of my shoulders, digging deep into my muscle tissue until he’s hampered by the sleeves of my dress.
Without pausing, he goes back to the center of my nape and works with gentler brushes along the back of my neck, takes more time stroking behind my ears—who knew that felt so good?
Then he carefully corrals my hair and pulls it over my other shoulder to give him unfettered access to the other side, showing it the entirety of his skilled ministrations.
I feel like I’ve become one with the bed, that I may never move again.
So I remain still when he gets up and returns with what must be a towel.
His hands are dry when they touch my nape next, and this time, he skims his touch over my clothing—staying politely on top rather than trying to slide under.
He proceeds to work over my dress as if the double layers are absolutely not an issue. I’m glad, because the dress gives me the illusion of safety, and I really can feel him perfectly fine despite the barrier.
Humming softly, he moves slowly along my back, leaving no spot ignored, his touch firm and soothing.
And it must be the dopamine high, but when he fans his long fingers out along my spine, the area between my legs starts to heat.
As his hands press hard from my ribs all the way to my hips, I shift under him restlessly.
He eases closer to me, naked knee to my cloth-covered ribs.
He massages me until I turn into mousse pudding. And despite his state of dress—or lack thereof—he doesn’t make it sexual. And I’m still completely clothed—sans the panty raid by his wives—so his hands manage to somehow feel utterly professional.
A sense that’s matched by his manner. His voice is curious but neutral when he asks, “Where are you from, Stephanie?”
I’m not sleepy, but my mouth is slow to respond I’m so relaxed. “Earth.”
He chuckles. “We’re all from Earth. The middle realm.” He’s quiet a moment, his hands kneading right above my hips, making me bite back a groan of satisfaction. Then he slides up and digs with particular skill right under my shoulder blades where I happen to have a recurring pinched nerve problem.
(It’s from flopping on my side to read books. The angry nerve is killer, but the book-devouring is so worth the pain.)
But as Roarg nails the exact point with his massage powers, a flood of tension drains from my whole body.
“Well...” I tell him, sounding drugged, “I must be from a whole different realm.”
“Are you already married?” he asks softly.
He’s asked it so softly—so gently—that my eyes start to sting. “No.”
His touch turns even gentler. “You can tell me if you are. I will see you returned to your mate.”
A little of my tension returns as I raise myself up enough to resettle my folded hands under my chin. “I appreciate that. But I don’t have a husband, or even a boyfriend. A man waiting for me is not why I want to go home. I want to go back because that is my home, not here.”
“How far away is this home?”
I sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t have any idea where my world is from this place, or how to get back.”
His hands freeze their enchantments. “How is that?”
I sigh. “I’m telling you. I was magicked here.”
“Your speech is different from ours. Is our land different from yours also?”
“So, so different,” I confirm. “I rode in a beheading wagon today.”
Now it’s his turn to go tense. I feel it in his hands as they still on me. He even pets me slightly, right at the back of my neck, just a ghost of a touch right where a blade might strike. “I’m very glad Namak?ga spared you a prisoner’s fate.”
“You and me both,” I huff.
“Hmm.”
The drugging effect of his ministrations is bad enough, but his concern just now has set off some dangerous flutters in my body.
I may not know the man, but he sure knows how to stroke all my buttons.
And the moment I register this, I have the naughty thought, He probably knows how to stroke my actual button too.
A mental visual flares like a Fourth of July firework—Roarg’s big hand shoving my dress up and slipping between my legs to get access, to ease this throbbing need that he’s stoking to ripping, feverish life.
Panicked at my body’s receptivity, I start to sit up.
To my relief, Roarg not only lets me, he helps me, offering me a hand.
I take it, twisting to look up at him—and I stare.
His pupils are dilated, making his eyes look black. His inhales are slow and even—but they’re also deep, flaring his nostrils, making his bare chest expand, forcing his many muscles to ripple and flex deliciously.
It’s obvious that touching me has fueled a desire in him too.
I don’t know if he can spot the signs of my own excitement, if he can see that I’m equally affected. My thighs feel slick, soft, and too warm. I have the urge to shimmy my hips, although I fight the impulse.
But as I stare up at him seated so close to me, on his bed which smells like him, a good, appealing smell, I’m hornier than I ever would have imagined.
Additionally, I’m a little disgusted that this is the most prep work a man has ever expended to get me to this level of turned on. It’s kind of appalling.
The fact that Roarg has gone to this level of effort is nice.
I haven’t had sex in forever, and suddenly I’m interested.
If I lie back down and give him all the green lights, he’ll take over.
I won’t have to think, just enjoy. It doesn’t have to mean anything, and if this massage session is any indication, he’ll make sure I’ll feel good the whole way through.
I start to turn away from him to adopt a belly-down complacency pose—but Roarg catches my shoulder, thumb brushing up and down as he rasps, “You vow you have no mate?”
His full attention is on me, and he’s searching my eyes with earnestness and heat.
My shoulders rise and drop helplessly. “I really don’t.” And very deliberately, I pull out of his loose grip and lie down again.
He returns to massaging me, although strangely, he doesn’t acknowledge any of my come-hither cues. When he starts slicking oil along my legs, tenderly teasing my calves, I arch my back and moan—
And I expect him to escalate this. To climb over me, straddle my knees, and shove my dress up.
Not only do I expect him to, by now, I want him to.
But he doesn’t mount me. He doesn’t do more than skate the back of his wrist at my hemline. He turns his attention instead to my feet, kneading them, rubbing oil into them, slowly and methodically driving me insane.
Huffing, out of my mind with sexual frustration, I shove up and start clawing at the shoulder brooches of my hangerok.
“What are you doing?” he asks, voice husky, hands wrapped around my ankles—which come perilously close to brushing my butt as I sit back on my knees.
I shoot him a mortified look. “I can’t believe you’re making me say this out loud, but I need sex. I want you to have sex with me right now, please.”
Roarg’s hand covers mine at my dress’s strap. Which nearly makes me melt in relief, because I assume this is his cue that he’s taking over.
I blink in confusion when he re-pins my brooch.
“Stephanie,” he starts, voice strained as he forces me to meet his gaze with only a finger placed gently along my jawline.
“You will speak plainly what you’d have of me.
Know that I will always want you to voice your wishes rather than making me guess at your thoughts or your will.
Leaving me to sort through guesswork between us will never end well. ”