Page 18 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll

DROGATH

T he truck’s wheel vibrates under my palms. Fourth lap past the gravel turnoff to Maple & Mallow. Ash coats my tongue, but it’s not from the smoke pouring over the eastern ridge—it’s from the silence. Twelve hours since she walked away. Twelve hours since I became the man I swore I’d bury.

Business reports rattle through my skull like loose screws. Acquisition percentages. Lease terms. Damage control. None of it sticks. Just echoes. Just noise.

“You missed the Parker account analysis, sir.” My assistant’s voice slicks through the truck’s speaker, tinny and nervous.

I crush the phone under my boot.

The smoke finds me first. Thick black plumes swallowing the last light of sunset. Sirens wail in the distance, but I’m already skidding my truck onto the curb near the burning storage sheds. Villagers scatter like startled hens as I leap out. Heat licks my face.

“How many inside?” I snarl at a woman clutching a screaming toddler.

“J-just the two Calhoun kids! They were playing?—”

The roof groans. I don’t wait.

Burning splinters shred my palms as I wrench the door off its hinges. A girl’s shrill cry slices through the crackle of flames.

“Here! We’re here!”

I find them huddled under a wool blanket, eyes wide as coins. The boy’s maybe six, face streaked with soot. His sister’s grip on his arm leaves crescent moons in his skin.

“Hold your breath,” I bark, scooping them both against my chest. Embers bite my neck. The boy whimpers into my ruined shirt collar.

“You’re squishing us!” the girl snaps, all fire despite her trembling.

“Complain later,” I grunt, kicking through the collapsing doorframe.

The crowd parts. Whispers follow— Thornhold property. His fault. Arson. I set the kids down by a paramedic van. Their mother seizes them, sobbing.

“Sir, your hands—” a medic starts.

I’m already walking.

The orchard air tastes like cider and burnt regrets. I press my forehead against the split-rail fence, charred knuckles bleeding into the wood grain. Her voice hooks into me before I hear footsteps.

“Drogath.”

I turn. Tessa’s eyes drink in the ruin—the blistered skin, the melted copper cufflinks, the way my breath hitches when she steps closer.

“You idiot,” she whispers.

“Didn’t do it for applause.” My voice cracks.

She flinches at the blood smearing the fence. “Why does it always have to be grand gestures with you? Why not just talk ?—”

“Because I’m no good at it!” The words tear loose, raw. “Because every time I open my damned mouth, I ruin things. So I fix what I can. Even if it’s just carrying kids out of fires. Even if it’s you hating me for it.”

Her hands flutter—angry, trembling birds—before she shoves me hard. “You don’t get to play martyr. Not after?—”

I catch her wrists. She freezes.

“You think I wanted this?” Blood dots her sleeves. “You think I enjoy sweating through board meetings trying to outbid my own damn investors?”

She stills. “What?”

“The land purchases. They’re mine on paper. Not theirs. I’m funneling every copper into keeping the deeds out of speculators’ hands.” I release her, breath ragged. “Not that it mattered. Still burned. Still couldn’t... I didn’t save you.”

Her fingers brush my jaw. Lavender and smoke.

“You’re an idiot,” she whispers again, softer.

“Not arguing.”

Then she’s against me, all fury and fractured hope, her mouth desperate on mine. Salt and rosemary. Blood and wildfire. Her nails dig into my shoulders like she’s trying to carve the truth straight into bone.

I let her.

Her fingers knot in my burnt collar, tugging me down to meet her mouth again.

Charred fabric rips. I taste copper where my lip splits against her teeth, and the groan rumbling through my chest isn't pain. It’s relief—violent, desperate relief.

She wrenches my soot-streaked coat off my shoulders, nails scraping over my pectorals beneath my tunic.

"Stubborn, burning man," she gasps against my jawline, working the buttons at my waistband. "Always charging into wreckage."

"And you’d let me?" I manage, though her palm sliding over my cock through the ruined trousers steals my breath.

Her laughter is raw silk. "I’d follow you into it."

My burnt hands tremble. Can’t grip her properly. I sweep an arm around her waist instead, lifting her. Her legs lock around my hips, russet skirts hiking. The split-rail fence groans behind me as I brace her against it.

"You’re. Not. Ready." Each word scrapes out of me. Need’s a living thing clawing up my spine.

Her pupils devour the amber in her eyes.

"You burnt down my patience three hours ago.

" She sinks down, impaling herself slowly on my cock, taking me inch by scalding inch.

"Thorns and mercy, Drogath—" Her gasp fractures as she sheaths me fully, her inner muscles fluttering around my shaft like a heartbeat.

Movement erupts from both of us. No finesse—just raw collision. Her hips arch forward to meet each thrust. I drive up, the friction tearing sounds from her lips she buries against my throat. Sweat mingles with soot on her collarbone.

"Tighter," I rasp. She clenches instinctively, hot velvet walls closing around me. "You’re… hellfire wrapped in velvet."

Her teeth catch my earlobe. Grazing, biting. "All yours." Her whisper shakes with the force of my next stroke. "All this, all mine?"

"Yes." It’s not a word. It’s a vow ripped from a place deeper than lungs. My thumb finds her clit despite the bloody blisters. Calloused pad rubbing tight circles. "Always."

The wood splinters dig into my back with each thrust, her pussy clenching a rhythm against my cock that steals breath.

Lavender and woodsmoke cling to her hair.

"Mine," I grit out, dragging my hands down the sweat-slick curve of her spine.

Fuck the charred knuckles, fuck the blisters.

I need to feel every goddamned inch of her.

"And if I said forever?" Her voice is wrecked glass, sharp and shimmering. Her thighs tremble around my hips.

"Already yours." My mouth finds the pulse hammering wild in her throat. I lift her higher, driving deeper, the angle drawing a choked cry. Her pussy pulses again and again around my cock. Sweet impossible pressure.

Her palms press flat against the muscles of my back, nails like soft thorns. "So deep. Feels like?—"

"Home." The word punches out, raw. "You in my arms. Always like coming home." My thumb traces the seam of her ass, her shudder an electric current against my skin.

She surges back against me, matching every brutal thrust. "Need you all the way," she pants. "Every scar. Every burned damn secret."

My cock pulses hard inside her, the sudden clench of desperation and relief. I drop my head to nuzzle the freckles along her collarbone, tasting salt and smokewood. "Need your taste tonight. Tomorrow. Waking with your breath on my chest."

"Suppose I'm stealing strawberries again?" She bites my shoulder, the sting merging with pleasure.

"I'd burn every goddamn field to keep you fed." Slow, possessive roll of my hips. Her inner walls flutter tight, rippling sensations through me. "Plant you roses instead. Let your thorns tear at me."

She throws her head against the fence post, curls snagging woodgrain. A gasping moan escapes as her legs lock around me even harder.

The splintered wood prickles my spine through the shirt she managed to salvage – some soft cotton thing smelling faintly of sweet hay and Tessa.

Silence settles, thick and warm as honey, besides our breathing: mine a slow, settling rumble low in my chest after the frantic storm, hers light puffs against the sweat-damp skin where my tunic gapes open.

She doesn’t speak. Neither do I. The air between us hums with the knowledge etched onto every scorched nerve ending and trembling muscle.

Her head rests over my heartbeat, her body a compact weight molded perfectly against the entire length of my side, tucked under my arm.

One of my ruined hands strokes absently down the curve of her back, over the russet skirt crumpled around her thighs.

Her skin is impossibly soft beneath the fabric.

My thumb finds the knob of her spine near her neck, stroking the tender skin just beneath the wild halo of her hair.

She sighs – a sound deeper than sleep, a vibration of utter, bone-deep saturation – and curls her hand possessively over the muscle covering my ribs.

Her nails scrape lightly through the smears of soot and dried blood still caking my side.

Not a demand, not a question. A claim. Gentle, undeniably hers .