Khell purred, head lowering to nuzzle against my hair. "No. No, you are too perfectly suited. You are orc bait, petal."

I snorted at that and tilted my head back, but found Khell's gaze solemn.

"One of my kind would've sniffed you out eventually, hunted that pretty cunt down, and claimed you."

My lips parted but I couldn't form a word, and Khell just took it as an opportunity to kiss me, tongue stroking in to tease and twine around mine.

Did he mean that, or was it pretty words he felt paid to say? Would he have hunted me if we'd met in the city? If I'd seen Khell in the park or the grocery store or at a bar on a night out with Natalie, would I have been brave enough to meet his eye, dare him to come speak to me?

The honest truth was probably no.

My heart ached and clenched in my chest, and I wrapped my arms tight around Khell's shoulders, clinging to him and begging for more in the kiss.

* * *

"We're staying the night here?" I mumbled as Khell tucked blankets in around us in the deep, round pit of a bed.

"We are."

He'd turned the lanterns in the room down to the smallest little flickers of light. Deep underground as we were, it could've been early evening or dawn for all I knew. Our bath had been slow and thorough and gentle, stirring up arousal without feeding it into another session of fucking. I'd fallen asleep and woken again in the nest, Khell settling in with a plate of food that he let me feed to us both.

Now fed and bathed, I found myself surrounded by the heat and muscle of my—

I blinked in the dark, my throat tight.

My partner. Not my orc. Khell wasn't mine.

Maybe so many days together like this was a mistake for my first experience. I didn't know how to accept the intimacy Khell offered for the sake of my comfort without the gestures affecting my emotions.

I didn't want to leave, didn't want this fantasy I'd paid for to break apart. I couldn't even imagine the reality that was only days away, and I couldn't imagine Khell as part of my real life. He was too vivid, too consuming. He certainly wouldn't fit in my small coach house bathroom.

"What's sore?" Khell rumbled into the top of my head.

I'd been growing tense, barely noticing Khell's hands stroking and soothing at my back and hips. Since "my heart" was too melodramatic an answer, I settled on, "My hips, but just a little."

Khell made that lovely growling purr sound that vibrated through his whole chest, and his arms circled me, rotating my limp and rested body slowly until my back was to his front. His legs curled up behind mine, chin at the crown of my head, making him a comically large spoon.