Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HALEY
The lock clicked.
Tolrek turned back toward me, the distance between us maybe ten feet. The gym was small, and we’d been closer than this moments ago when I’d risen from the bench and walked over to him.
Ten feet felt like miles.
He crossed the space, and I tracked each step. The sequence was already visible. I knew where it would end. No question this time. This wasn’t the corridor or the stairwell, where we’d both pretended surprise. Where we’d been interrupted. This was both of us knowing exactly what we were doing.
I stayed where I was. This was an active choice. I could’ve walked to the door and left or stepped back or done any of the dozen things that would’ve signaled this was a mistake. I did none of them.
He stopped in front of me. A towel lay around his neck, white against the green of his skin. He didn’t reach for me. Just looked at me like I was the only thing in the room.
The safety of invisibility wasn’t available to me anymore, and I didn’t want it back.
His hand came up. One hand, slow enough that I could follow it. His palm found my jaw like it had outside my apartment, his fingers settling against the pulse point in my throat.
My heart kicked hard against his touch. There was no hiding the response this male drew from me every single time.
The warmth of his hand registered before anything else. The gym was cool, the air conditioning working overtime in a space that probably didn’t see much use this late.
He leaned down.
This kiss was different from the others, without urgency. He had time and he was using it, his mouth moving over mine with the kind of intention that made my knees weak.
I understood the difference between someone taking something and someone offering it.
This was an offering.
My hands found his chest. His shirt was still damp from his workout, the fabric clinging to muscles I could feel even through the material. He made a sound low in his throat when I touched him, between a growl and a groan that I felt more than heard.
He drew back enough to look at me again.
After studying my face, he took my hand, his so much larger than mine. He led me a few steps to the weight bench along one side of the room, and I followed without questioning where we were going or what would happen when we got there.
He sat first, straddling the bench to face me.
Then both hands came to my waist, the span of them nearly meeting at my sides.
Every other large male I’d known had used size as authority, a way of establishing hierarchy without words.
Tolrek had arranged himself so I was at his level while standing, so I could see his expression and he could see mine.
He made me feel like he was holding something he considered valuable, and I’d spent so many years being invisible in this world that his attention, turned on me like this, made my chest tighten.
He guided me down to straddle the bench facing him, his hands steady on my waist until I was settled.
We were close enough that I could see the scar above his left eyebrow.
The chip in his left tusk. Details I’d noticed in the corridor weeks ago, the first time I’d really looked at him.
I knew his face the way I knew footage I’d reviewed a hundred times, but this was different.
This was being allowed to look without pretending I wasn’t.
I’d come to this gym because I couldn’t let him sit alone with what the game had cost him. His pain felt like mine, and that was the line I’d told myself I wouldn’t cross.
I crossed it now, and I wasn’t stepping back.
He kissed me again, his hands moving from my waist into my hair.
My hands found his chest again, my fingers spreading across the damp fabric of his shirt. His heart beat hard enough that I could feel it through my palms.
He pulled back to glance down at me.
Three weeks ago this would’ve been harder. I would’ve dropped my eyes or deflected or found some way to create distance without physically moving. I’d spent years building that particular skill, the art of being present without being seen.
He remained completely still, the way large males rarely were. It read as full attention. He’d been still like this before. In front of my door. While standing in my office doorway. And at the park with Beau. Always choosing presence over motion.
This was who he was, and I was falling in love with him.
I wasn’t working toward it. It was simply there, already finished, the way some things arrived without warning. This wasn’t only want because I couldn’t locate where the want ended and the rest began. They were tangled too tightly together.
I didn’t know how to hold this alongside everything else, though.
My father didn’t know. I had a good job, one people would almost kill for.
The season was just starting, and the team was watching.
I didn’t have a plan, and I’d spent my life making plans because not having one meant living with chaos.
For the first time in years, I wanted something badly enough that not having a plan wasn’t a reason to let go.
I reached for him instead of waiting, sliding my hands beneath his shirt to stroke his skin. He sucked in a sharp breath.
The kissing escalated. His hands moved from my hair to my shoulders, and down my back. Mine moved too, finding the hem of his shirt and pulling upward. He helped, reaching back to grab the fabric and tug it over his head in one motion.
I pressed my palms against his bare chest, pulling in the heat of him. I’d been watching footage of this man for weeks, trying to find the truth, and it was in front of me all the time.
My jacket came off next, followed by my shirt. The fumble of sleeves and fastenings made it more real.
His hands went to the clasp of my bra, finding the hooks with more dexterity than I expected from someone his size. The fabric loosened and I helped, sliding the straps down my arms.
He froze.
I watched his face as he looked at me, and the expression there made heat swirl low in my belly. His eyes darkened, his breathing changed, and for a long moment he just stared like he was committing my shape to memory.
His hands came up. When he cupped my breasts, a moan ripped up my throat.
“You’re beautiful,” he said softly.
He brushed my nipples with his thumbs, using the lightest possible touch, and I arched into his hands. He did it again, circling, watching my face to see what I liked. When I gasped, he made a growl low in his chest.
His head lowered.
On the first touch of his mouth, I dug my fingers into his shoulders. Hot and wet, his tongue circled one nipple before his lips closed around it and he sucked. The edges of his tusks scraped lightly against the sensitive skin of my breast, a reminder that this male was all orc.
He took his time with one breast and then the other, his mouth and hands learning me with the same attention he brought to everything he did. When he grazed his teeth across one peaked nipple, I whimpered.
At some point I started to tip backward from the intensity of this moment, but he caught me, one arm behind my back, holding me steady while he continued.
He drew back and stared at me, his gaze open in a way I’d never seen.
He shifted his position, his hands guiding me to lie back on the bench. His hand cradled the back of my head, lowering me down rather than letting me drop. The bench was narrow, and he braced one hand on the floor beside me.
Tugging the towel off his neck, he placed it beneath my hips.
He removed my pants slowly, watching my face, not my body. He was checking in, using the only language he spoke naturally, observation instead of words.
I felt small on the bench, while he was enormous as he moved lower to crouch between my knees. I wasn’t intimidated by our size difference. I felt safe instead of trapped.
Before he did anything else, he glanced up, making eye contact. A beat of stillness settled around us, his way of asking.
I didn’t look away.
He accepted it and lowered his head.
His mouth found the inside of my thigh first and kissed, which wasn’t where I had expected. He took his time, kissing his way up.
When his mouth finally reached where I wanted it, I stopped thinking in complete sentences.
The first stroke of his ridged tongue was devastatingly slow, a broad swipe that made every nerve ending I had concentrate on that one place. I gasped, my hips jerking up, and his hand on my belly pressed down with enough weight to steady me without restricting movement.
He made a sound against me, something between a groan and a growl, and I felt the vibration of it everywhere. His breath was hot, his rough tongue hotter, moving in long, deliberate strokes that suggested he planned to take his time.
My fingers found his hair, tangling in the dark strands. I tried not to pull but couldn’t help it when his tongue did something that made coherent thought impossible. He didn’t seem to mind. If anything, the small sound he made suggested he liked it.
His tongue circled my clit, learning exactly what pressure I needed. Not too light and not too hard. Then he flattened his tongue and licked from bottom to top in one stroke that made my thighs shake.
I was panting now, small gasping sounds I couldn’t control. His other hand slid up my thigh, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin there.
When his tongue slid inside me, I arched so hard I almost came off the bench. Only his hand on my belly kept me in place. He did it again, his tongue thick and ridged and warm, penetrating. I was desperate for more of everything.
“Tolrek,” I cried out, his name broken into syllables.
He responded by closing his lips around my clit and sucking, his tongue still working in small, focused circles while he slid a finger inside me. The dual sensation was too much and not enough and exactly what I needed all at once.
As he pumped his finger, adding another, the tension built higher and tighter, until I was balanced on a blade’s edge. My thighs trembled. My breathing came in short gasps. My hands in his hair tightened, pulling him closer.
His tongue moved faster, the pressure perfect. He was reading the rising pitch of my breathing and the tension in my body the way he read developing plays on ice.
The part of me that catalogued, measured, and tracked patterns had disappeared. It never had before. I couldn’t have recovered it even if I’d wanted to.
When my orgasm hit, it came from somewhere deep I hadn’t known existed.
The first wave crashed through me, making me cry out.
His mouth stayed on me, and his fingers continued to pump, gentling but not stopping, drawing it out as a second wave followed.
Then a third. My back arched. I fisted my hands in his hair.
Sounds came out of me, helpless, feral things I couldn’t have held back even if I’d tried.
The waves kept coming, each one rolling through me with enough force that I lost track of how many. He eased me through it, his tongue softening but not leaving until the last aftershock had faded and my body went boneless on the bench.
He rested his head against my inner thigh, his chest heaving against my leg, his breathing as ragged as mine. When he finally lifted his head to look at me, his lips were wet, and his eyes were darker than I’d ever seen them. The expression on his face was raw, unguarded, and it made my chest ache.
I stared at the gym ceiling, at the fluorescent lights that were too bright, and the acoustic tiles that had water stains in one corner.
He moved up, sitting back on the bench beside me rather than over me. I pushed myself upright on shaking arms, and we sat side by side on a weight bench at midnight. I would’ve laughed about it if I could’ve found the breath.
Neither of us spoke.
By now, I knew his silences. The careful ones in hallways and elevators, loaded with everything neither of us was saying. The comfortable ones in the restaurant and on the bus, when not talking felt like its own kind of conversation.
This one felt different from all of them. It didn’t need anything from me. It wasn’t waiting.
I didn’t want to move through it too quickly.
“Haley,” he said softly. Just my name in the specific tone he used when something was significant.
“Yes.”
I wasn’t going to be able to walk this back, and I didn’t want to. My father’s face appeared in my mind, followed by the job and the season and the team. All of it was still there, waiting for me to pick it back up and figure out how to hold it alongside this.
Just not yet.
He helped me dress, handing me my shirt and pants and holding my jacket while I shrugged into it. Then he tugged on his own shirt.
I retrieved the towel from the bench and tossed it into the bin near the door.
He paused while I gathered myself and walked beside me to the door. After unlocking it, he held it open, and we moved into the hallway together.
We didn’t hold hands, but we remained close, our arms touching.
At my door, he waited while I found my key card. My hands were steadier than I expected as I held the small rectangle of plastic over the reader without fumbling.
The light turned green.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. Then I remained in place, listening.
He remained in the hall, waiting. When I turned the deadbolt, the sound of it carried through the door. His footsteps moved away. Down the hall. He opened a door and closed it carefully behind him.
I leaned against the wall and stared at the hotel room, taking in the standard layout with a bed, desk, and chair. The window looked out over a parking structure, a lit billboard, and the grid of an unfamiliar city working its way through the night.
I should not be able to hold this and everything else at the same time.
But I was going to try anyway.