20. Traig
CHAPTER TWENTY
TRAIG
Her mouth was on mine, and nothing else existed.
I kissed her like I’d been starving for it. Like the nearly three weeks of waiting and watching and wanting had been compressed into this single moment where she was finally, actually mine.
My hands found her waist, pulling her closer. Then her hair, threading through the tight curls. The curve of her jaw, tilting her face up so I could kiss her deeper.
Her fingers worked at my buttons, fumbling, urgent. One came free. Then another. She made a frustrated sound when the third wouldn’t cooperate and yanked harder.
A button pinged off the wall.
My shirt hung open now, and her hands slid across my chest and abdomen, exploring. Every place she touched burned. I pressed closer, pinning her against the wall with my weight, and she made a small satisfied sound that drove straight to my cock.
This was too much, too fast. We needed to slow down. Talk about what had happened with the notebook. Make sure she actually wanted this and wasn’t just—
I pulled back, leaning my forehead against hers.
“I shouldn’t have read it,” I said. “I’m sorry. I just—”
Her hand covered my mouth.
“Stop apologizing and touch me.”
The words landed somewhere below my belly, holding me in place.
She dragged my hand up from her waist to her breast, pressing my palm against her through her shirt. “I want your hands on me. I want you to stop thinking and just feel us.”
My control cracked down the middle.
I kissed her again, harder this time, my hands sliding under her shirt to find warm skin. She gasped against my mouth, and I swallowed the sound, holding it close.
She was choosing this and us.
I pulled back enough to see her face. Her lips were swollen from kissing, her eyes bright. Her chest rose and fell rapidly under my hands.
“We don’t need to rush this. We have time.” But did we?
Still, I needed to know she wanted this.
Her hands came up to frame my face, her touch gentle despite the urgency between us.
“All I can think about is you,” she said clearly. “I want this. Whatever you want to give. It’s not rushing. This is showing what we mean to each other.”
The last thread holding me together snapped.
I dropped to my knees.
The movement was abrupt enough that she gasped, her hands flying to my shoulders for balance.
Even kneeling, I barely had to tilt my head back to look up at her.
The size difference between us had never been more apparent.
She was small and human and perfect, and I was on my knees in front of her.
I’d been waiting my whole life to worship this woman.
My hands found her hips, settling there, stroking the soft skin above her waistband. She shivered from my touch.
“Let me—”
She nodded before I could finish, her fingers tightening on my shoulders.
I undid her pants slowly, taking my time despite the urgency thrumming through my veins. The button slipped free. The zipper came down one tooth at a time. I hooked my fingers in the waistband of her pants and slid them down her legs, taking her underwear with them.
She stepped out of both, one hand braced against my shoulder, the other flat against the wall behind her.
Her legs were already shaking.
I hadn’t even touched her yet, and she was trembling. Knowing she wanted this made something primal in me surge to the surface.
I looked up at her. Her eyes locked on mine, watching me watch her. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. A flush spread across her cheeks and down her neck, disappearing under her shirt. I wanted to see how far that flush went. Wanted to touch every bit of her skin with my hands and mouth.
I lifted her, settling her thighs over my shoulders, one hand spanning her lower back, the other gripping her hip.
“Show me everything,” I said against her thigh.
“I’m yours.”
The trust in those two words undid me.
I kissed her inner thigh, not where she needed me yet. She made a small sound, half-gasp, half-whimper, and her fingers wove into my hair.
I kissed higher. She tensed, her thighs tightening against my shoulders.
The first touch of my tongue made her jolt, her hand flying to her mouth to muffle the sound.
I paused, looking up at her. “No one’s listening now. Scream all you want.”
Her hand fell away. “I’m not used to doing things like this.”
“It’s just us.” I kissed her thigh. “Just you and me. No one else.”
She nodded, and I tasted her again, slower this time, discovering what made her breath catch. The ridges on my tongue dragged across her clit, and she made a soft sound, shock and want in one exhale.
“Is that—?”
“Yes.” I did it again, watching her eyes lose focus.
“Oh my god.”
A rumble built in my chest. I kept going, paying attention to her responses like I was doing vital inventory. The flat of my tongue made her breath stutter. The ridges made her grip my hair. Humming made her thighs shake against my shoulders.
But I wanted more.
I pulled back enough to speak against her inner thigh. “I want to use my hand.”
“Yes, please.”
I shifted my grip on her hips, supporting her weight with one arm while my other hand moved between her thighs. She was slick and hot, and when I slid one finger inside her, her whole body jerked.
“Traig—”
“Do you like that?”
“Yes, yes, more…”
I pumped my finger slowly, savoring how tight she was around me, how her body adjusted to accommodate my size. She was small everywhere, and I was not, and the thought of eventually being inside her made my vision go hazy.
One finger became two, thick enough that she had to breathe through the stretch. Her head fell back against the wall, her mouth opening, and I returned my tongue to where she needed it while my fingers moved inside her.
“Oh, oh…” She couldn’t form full sentences anymore. “That’s—the ridges and your fingers—I can’t—”
I found the spot inside her that made her cry out, and stroked it while my tongue worked her clit. The combination of ridged tongue outside and thick fingers inside made her shake so hard I had to tighten my arm around her hips to hold her steady.
She fisted my hair and held on.
When my tusks grazed her clit, she gasped my name.
I did it again. And again. Letting the edges scrape gently against her sensitive skin while my fingers pumped inside her and my tongue slid in steady, relentless circles.
“Traig, I can’t hold on.”
“Don’t.” I pulled back enough to speak against her. “Show me what I do to you. Give me everything.”
I sealed my mouth over her clit, sucking while my fingers stroked inside her, and she came apart.
Her whole body went rigid before she shattered, crying out my name. Her body clenched around my fingers, fluttering, and I kept my mouth on her through all of it, drawing it out until she pushed at my head.
“Stop. Too much.”
I lifted my head, easing my fingers out slowly, kissing her inner thighs while she came back down.
I caught her, pulling her into my lap as we both slid down the wall. She landed against my chest with a breathless laugh that turned into a shaky exhale. She clutched my shoulders, pressing her forehead into my chest.
My hands were shaking. She took them in hers, threading our fingers together.
“You have a ridged tongue,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I’d read about it. Not that there’s much about intimacy with orcs on the web, but wow.” She laughed, breathless. “I don’t have words. My brain has stopped working.”
I settled my chin on the top of her head, breathing her in. “Good.”
We sat for a long moment, her weight warm in my lap, my arms wrapped around her. I’d keep the rest of the world away for as long as I could.
She smelled like me now, my scent layered over hers in a way that made every possessive instinct I had sit up and take notice.
“I’m afraid the scribe will tell you that you have to return to the kingdom,” she said. “That your parents already decided and we’re just waiting for them to take you away.”
The words landed like stones in my gut.
“Then we have now,” I said. “However long now is.”
“Is that enough?”
“It has to be, because the alternative is not having this at all. Not having you. And I can’t go back to when you were the woman at the desk who reorganized my filing system. I can’t unknow everything about you.”
She pulled back enough to look at my face, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
“I can’t either,” she whispered.
My chest split open, making room for her.
I kissed her forehead. Her temple. The corner of her mouth.
“We don’t go back,” I said. “We go forward for however long we have. We’ve chosen each other and nothing the Council says can change that.”
Heat bloomed on my inner left wrist, impossible to ignore. I pulled back from her, my hand coming up. The skin there glowed, silver light tracing lines I couldn’t quite make out yet.
“Traig?” Willa asked, looking up at me.
I lifted her left arm, finding the same silver glow on her inner wrist.
“What is this?” she asked, tentatively touching the mark.
The lines brightened, becoming clearer. Every orc knew what the symbol meant.
She stared down at her wrist. “Is this—?”
“Mating marks,” I rasped. “The kavresh symbol.”
Her eyes snapped to mine. “The one we told the scribe we didn’t have? But we weren’t trying to make it happen.”
“It doesn’t work that way.” I took her hand and kissed her symbol. “It appears during moments when emotions are strong, proving the bond is real.” I had to stop and breathe. “No one can accuse us of pretending any longer.”
She lifted my hand, studying our marks. “What does kavresh mean?”
“The person whose happiness determines your own.” I stroked her mark. “In the old language, it’s not just about love. It’s about choosing someone’s joy as your responsibility. Their wellbeing as your priority. It means I can’t be happy if you’re not.”
Her eyes filled. “That’s what I wrote in my notebook. That you notice when I need things. That you count my happiness.”
“Because your happiness is mine. Your safety is mine. All of it.”