I remembered the flare of his nostrils, the widening of his eyes, and my cheeks flushed with heat in the aisle. It'd been almost a week since I’d left the cottage. The same amount of time I'd spent with Khell, I'd now spent away from him. And still, that orc was able to smell Khell on me. How long would that last?

I chewed on my bottom lip and wondered if I cared. I hadn't been thrilled with arousal by the new orc. It'd been more like the comfort of seeing something familiar. My time with Khell'ar had taken my fascination with orcs and replaced it with an obsession for one in particular.

I still felt his claws digging into my ass at night, his tusks scratching their way up from my breasts to my throat, his cock pumping inside of me.

"Hey, honey, you need any—"

"I'm good!" I squeaked out, jumping in place and remembering that I was not in the dungeon of the cottage, waiting to find out what Khell had planned next for us, but in an aisle of my favorite hardware store.

I pressed my thighs together, ignored the older man who'd come to see what a young woman in a skirt was doing in the lumber aisle, and rose up on my toes to grab what I needed.

CHAPTER 19

Khell’ar

"This the last of them?" Rafe asked, nudging his boot against the boxes I'd set by the front door of the apartment.

I grunted, my back to Rafe, checking in each door to be sure.

"You're getting even chattier in your retirement," he called to me.

I grunted again and then stiffened as he started to chuckle. Raphael, or Rafe, was a fellow—formerly fellow, I corrected myself—MSA employee, and the only one of my non-orc friends who would cheerfully help me move from one apartment to the next. Orcs were out of the question for the time being. If any of them knew about me mating and then letting Sunny walk away without knowing the truth, they'd beat me into the ground and tell me to stay there until I was ready to try sprouting again.

All Rafe had said when I’d explained why I'd left MSA was a thoughtful, "Huh."

"Wanna get a hot dog on our way to your new place?" he asked, stacking the boxes and lifting them all at once. Rafe was tall and wiry, with pristinely carved muscle, but I had no doubt we were evenly matched in strength. In truth, he probably had me beat. Gargoyles had the strength of their stone forms, even when they walked in their flesh.