Page 5

5

Cedar

H er breathing quickened as the orc lord led her through the camp, toward his tent.

“Please,” she said, trying to pull her wrist out of his grasp. “Please don’t do this.”

He ignored her, and his grip was much too strong for her to get away. Before they reached the tent, he caught sight of the orc who had chased her— Orgha , she thought his name was—and waved him over.

“Prepare a bath,” he said in her tongue, as if this was for her benefit. “I must wash off before I take her to my bed.”

Cedar’s whole body shivered. She thought of the orcs dancing around the fire, the thick cock sliding in and out, and nothing she felt made sense. It was as much terror as thrill, and the damn alcohol was muddying her mind, blurring everything into a single new sensation that made her thighs clench and her heart race.

When they reached his tent, Cedar knew putting up a fight would get her nowhere. Lord Kargorr was three times her size and built like a bear, and nothing she did would change how this all ended. So she came along inside as he pushed open the flap, hardening herself, shoring up all the sturdiness she’d built in the years she’d starved and worked under Lissa.

Inside the tent the fire was already burning. Kargorr tugged her to the bed where she’d slept earlier and pushed her down onto it, and she wanted to retreat inside the furs and hide, even though this was going to be her torture chamber, too. Then he left her there, walking to a rack on his wall.

She waited on the bed as first, he took off his necklace, a leather strap covered in teeth, and then lifted off a cloak made of bones and hung it up. Next came his thick leather jerkin with fur around the edges, and he took his time removing each hook. Two orcs entered with a heavy copper tub, and a third brought a bucket of hot water. More buckets came, filling the tub as Kargorr removed everything that kept his body hidden.

Underneath there were scars, yes—but one stood out against the rest, thick and white, crossing from his shoulder all the way to his hip. Even his muscles had changed in those places, where some blade had torn him asunder. Kargorr turned around, and one tusk rose up when he found her staring.

But he didn’t gloat. He didn’t need to. She was admiring him in the way she might admire something beautiful because it was flawed, a tree because of the lightning that had struck it in half. He had experienced deep pain when this happened, and she wondered what that was like.

“I obtained this at the same time,” he said, gesturing at the scar across his face, “as this.” He was staring back at her now as his hands dropped to the laces of his hip guards, then his breeches. Finally Cedar had the sense to look away, pretending she was observing the orcs who came and went with even more hot water. Soon the tub was full, warm steam rising from the top, and she couldn’t avoid looking at him any longer.

It was as big as she had feared, if not more. Between corded, green thighs hung a creature Cedar almost didn’t recognize. His cock was darker than the rest of him, the skin wrinkled as it lay dormant. Even then, she thought, it was too much. Too big. Too everything. At the base, Cedar noticed the thick bulges, two undulations that made it even more deeply unfamiliar to her.

When Lord Kargorr saw her staring, it twitched. But he didn’t seem to care one way or another as he climbed into the bathtub. It was only when she remained there on the bed, frozen, that he spoke to her.

“Get in.” It wasn’t a command, but merely two words ground out in his strange accent. He didn’t need to issue commands to get what he wanted. In fact, he hadn’t raised his voice to her once—not yet, anyway.

Cedar stood in front of the tub, working through her mind what this required of her. She would have to get in there, naked, with him, unless she wanted to soak through all of her clothes. He watched as she turned around and pulled up her shirt, along with the stays that kept her breasts in place. The cold night air struck her bare skin, even this near to the fire, and made her shiver all over.

“Hurry up and perhaps you can get warm,” Kargorr called to her, tapping the tub. Cedar tossed her shirt to the side and hooked a thumb into the band of her skirt, which she pulled down next. After that, nothing was left.

She turned around, covering herself, and headed toward the tub.

“Hiding is pointless,” Kargorr said, his eyes not leaving her face. “I will see it all, many times over.”

Many times over. A shuddering breath whooshed out of her lungs. He was right. There was no point. But still Cedar kept her arms crossed across her chest, simply on principle, as she climbed into the tub. She found his legs parted in such a way that she could sit between them, and she fit there as if she was meant to. The water was warm, so warm, and Cedar couldn’t help a gasp of pleasure as it rose higher with her added presence, all the way to her chest. She saw how filthy she was now as the dirt came off her skin. He was even filthier, with arms darker than the rest of him, still caked with blood from the raid. His cock, thankfully, was hidden down below where she could avoid looking at it.

For now.

From the floor, Kargorr picked up a basket and set it on the edge of the tub. It held rags and soap, and when she gave it a curious look, he held out his arms.

“Wash me, little deer.”

Was that all? Cedar could wash him. If this delayed the inevitable, she would wash him well and thoroughly, all night long.

She snatched up the rag and soap and set to getting him wet, then beginning with his hands, soaped him. His fingers were thick and wide, with black nails that became sharp at the tips. She washed underneath them first, then up his palms and wrists, one hand at a time. Everything about him was strange, eerie, foreign. The water ran brown with dried blood as she reached his forearm, forcing her to lean further and further forward.

Cedar worked hard never to look at his face, never to acknowledge that she was in the water with him, completely naked with nothing to hide her. She treated it like a job, doing her best to scrub and scrub his green skin until his arms were shining and clean and the water no longer was.

“There’s more,” Kargorr said, and at last, she glanced up at him. His eyes were sharp, heated, and his huge lower jaw was clenched tight. He ran his hands down his chest and back up to his throat again, showing her exactly where he wanted her.

She crawled toward him in the water, forced to wedge herself between his thick thighs to reach that far up his big body. Something moved against her leg, but she did everything in her power not to look down at it, to pretend it wasn’t there, as impossible as that was. No, his hidden cock occupied a whole corner of her mind as she reached up and dragged the rag down his chest, smearing dust, rinsing it off, and swirling the water around until he gleamed. The higher she reached, the farther she had to lean forward, until something soft but sturdy pressed at her belly.

Cedar’s breath hitched and her hand slowed, her focus now on that object making itself known. But Kargorr didn’t speak. No, a low chuckle vibrated his chest, and he reached out to cup her hip, dragging one hand up her side. When she finally regained her composure, she steeled herself not to think of the hand or the cock and only of accomplishing her task. She scrubbed harder, but his fingers kneading the skin down her side grew harder to ignore as they brushed over the swell of her breast, and then down under the sweep of her ass. His cock swelled thicker and harder under the water, the head reaching the surface and rubbing her with every circle of the rag on his chest. Each long stroke of his hand left a blaze of heat behind, a heat that radiated across her, spreading to all her fingers and toes.

And then Cedar had nothing left to clean. She shrank back to the other end of the tub, more afraid of herself than she was of him, regretting how she’d leaned into his touch. She wanted more, even more, and that couldn’t be right.

“Now,” Kargorr said, breaking the heavy silence in the tent, “I want you to clean yourself.”

He leaned back in the tub, hanging his arms off the sides, and watched without regard for the heavy cock floating in the water in front of him. Any other time Cedar would’ve been happy to get clean after days of hard traveling—especially traveling while slung over someone’s shoulder for miles and miles on end—but with those hot, dark eyes digging into her skin, she felt paralyzed. Slowly she reached for the rag and the soap again and scrubbed her shoulders, then her arms, dunking them each under the water. She brushed her armpits, and when she lifted her hand into the air to reach better, Kargorr brought one of his own hands down to his crotch. He seized his cock in his rough palm, and she paused where she was, her eyes drawn to his fingers where he wrapped them around himself, squeezing and stroking.

“Keep going,” he said, his voice lower, huskier.

She nodded quickly and resumed scrubbing, moving from one armpit to the other, trying not to watch as his hand gripped his cock harder. It stirred something ugly and deep inside her, an empty pit that was slowly filling with heat. His brows lowered further as she reached her breasts with the rag, and here she paused, uneasy at how much she longed just to brush it over her nipple.

Kargorr’s eyes bored into her, dismantling her, daring her to deny herself. So she swept the rag over the hanging globe of her breast, and her breathing sped up.

“Ah,” hummed Lord Kargorr as he leaned back further in the tub, his hips sliding closer to hers. “Does that feel good?”

“No,” she said instinctively, and his mouth curled in a smirk as if he didn’t believe her for a moment.

“You’re not clean yet.” He grunted as he continued to pump his hand along that thick beast between his thighs.

Cedar nodded and swept the rag down her body, then up over her nipples to her throat and neck. His gaze was intense, sharply focused on her and only her, as she drew it down to her belly and circled it.

Then, abruptly, Kargorr released himself, his cock dropping from his hand.

“Get out,” he told her, a harshness to his voice. Those dark eyes of his were focused with a painful precision on her and that feeling returned, the terror mixed with thrill. Surely he would want to use that cock now. With her nipples still peaked and warmth coiling in her belly, Cedar had a traitorous thought. What if she wanted it? That big, scarred body that had seen so much—what would it feel like? Would that massive thing between his legs even fit inside her?

She thought of the orc woman crying out in pleasure, of the wet cock moving in and out of her. Cedar trembled, whether in fear or anticipation, she didn’t know.

At last, she obeyed, climbing out of the tub. She shivered the moment she left the warm water. Lord Kargorr stepped out after her, his cock jutting straight out in front of him like a spear. He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the bed, and Cedar stumbled along behind him with a yelp. Rather than pushing her onto it, he snatched up one of the furs and wrapped it around her body.

“Dry off.”

Kargorr stood by the fire while she whisked the fur over her skin, his eyes never leaving her. They burned into her, searing the skin off her bones, revealing to him her bare skeleton. She turned away and pulled the fur tighter around herself.

“It won’t do you any good,” Kargorr said as he padded toward her, reminding her very much of a wolf that had once attacked her pigs. He slowed before reaching her. “You can set it aside, or I can tear it off of you.”

Those were the choices. So she slid the fur off her shoulders, and he took it from her, hanging it on a rack by the fire. Then he closed the distance between them, taking her chin in his hand.

“Lie down,” he told her, a husky edge to his voice. “Now.”