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Joel's medium-toned skin darkened. “No sweeter than you, love.”

I watched them exchanging looks like they had their own quiet language. A lifetime of trust built through small moments. Love that had settled into something solid, something deep.

I’d never have that. Even if I let myself dream of a woman tucked against my side while we sat beneath the stars, her laughter carrying on the night breeze, it was nothing more than that. A dream. Especially with a woman like Beth. She’d never been meant for my world.

I glanced at the cart, making sure all our belongings were secure. The sorhox pulling it would ride at the back, following like it had been trained.

“All ready?” I asked the group.

“Sure are, partner,” Pete said with a grin, his hand extending out to squeeze his new wife's before releasing it.

Two happy couples should make this first excursion evenmore fun.

The others shouted out that they were ready, and after I’d mounted Ebar, I guided them out of town.

Beth urged Barg to walk beside Ebar.

“Is everything alright?” I asked. She must have a problem. She wouldn’t seek me out just to talk.

Would she?

“I'm going to be an old hand at this before the day's through.”

That was neutral enough. Still, I guarded myself for her to express a concern. Maybe she’d decided this would be too much, that she didn’t want to go with us.

“We won't ride long.” I hoped that would reassure her. “It'll take time to acclimate everyone to riding and Mary's not wrong to say that she'll be sore by the time we stop. You too.”

She shot me an odd look. “Will you massage my ass if I am?”

I nearly choked. My hands twitched, and I couldn't stop imagining?—

Stop. My body stilled. My mind froze. And my smile fell. I couldn't think about her in that way. Shouldn't.

Beth was only joking, playing at something, though I didn’t know what. She didn’t realize she could cut me open with even one teasing word. A woman like her didn’t belong with an orc who’d smelled like leather and a campfire most days. She deserved a male who could give her luxuries. Pamper her. Not offer only a life of dirt and long days in a saddle.

I forced a chuckle, though the sound came outjagged. “You might want to ask someone with gentler hands than mine.”

Beth tilted her head, studying me with those sharp, assessing eyes of hers. For a second, I thought she might laugh it off, keep it a joke so things would remain easy between us.

“Maybe I don’t want anyone else’s hands,” she murmured.

My pulse hammered in my ears, rapping out a brutal, thudding beat. Did she know what she was saying or what those words did to me? I forced myself to glance away, to focus on the horizon rather than the way her lips curved, the way her fingers tightened on Barg’s reins. It had to be a joke. Something playful, teasing. She couldn’t really mean she wanted me to touch her in that way.

My poor old cock kicked up, shoving itself against my pants. The coorails hummed. This woman… She was tearing me apart but piecing me back together again. What would it be like to touch her in that way, to stroke every part of her body?

I’d die—quite willingly—for the chance to do something like that.

If she truly meant it, I didn’t know how to handle it. I exhaled through my nose, keeping my expression neutral. “Careful, Beth. You keep talking like that, and a male might get ideas.”

“Good,” she said, her voice soft and almost as unsure as I felt inside all the time.

My breath would not move in my lungs. I could not think of anything to say.

She didn’t mean it. Not really. My small house was humble. Fates, I didn’t even have a mee-croo-wave like I’d heard all humans did.

Rough trail rides would be followed by preparing our own meals with simple pans and utensils, washing in a plastic pan at a sink with only tepid water most of the time. One shower per day in a tiny stall. The bathroom at the campsite wasn’t even next to the bedroom.

I snorted. Bedroom? Call that a tent where you couldn’t stand upright.