"It's... too big," Sylvana exclaimed, staring in shock and fear at the massive green pillar of flesh.
The thing was lying on her stomach, almost reaching up to her breasts. Its sheer girth and length were a terrifying thing to behold.
"It's too big! It will split me in half!"
Valkar blinked. Then, to her mounting indignation, his shoulders began to shake.
"This is not funny!"
"A little bit funny." He pressed his lips together, failed, and let out a rumbling breath. "Mother said I am big."
"Your mother was not talking about this!" she shot back, her violet eyes blazing.
"She said a big orc makes a strong mate."
"THAT IS NOT THE POINT!" Sylvana's face was a shade of crimson she'd previously reserved for extreme embarrassment. "It's a matter of practicality! Of structural integrity! It is simply not… compatible!"
'The orc is actually trying to flirt with me. While I'm panicking about his... monstrosity.'
Sylvana covered her face with both hands.
'Great Mother Tree, what have I gotten myself into?'
A deep rumble escaped Valkar's chest.
"Are you laughing?!" she demanded from behind her hands.
"No."
"You are!"
"Maybe a little."
"YOU BIG GREEN IDIOT!"
Despite her embarrassment, Sylvana couldn't help but notice the amused expression on his face. The bastard was enjoying this!
Valkar leaned closer, brushing a strand of raven hair away from her face.
"We can stop."
His words immediately caught her attention.
"You... would?" She slowly lowered her hands.
"Yes. I do not want to hurt my mate."
For a moment, Sylvana simply stared at him. Then her expression softened.
'This idiot...'
She reached up, placing her palm against his cheek.
"I don't want you to stop," she whispered. "I just need you to be a little more patient with me."
"Mother says I should say this." He cleared his throat and put on his gravest face. "I will not hurt you. If it is too much, you say stop, and I stop. Even if I am almost done. Even if I am in the middle."
"..."
Sylvana stared at him. It was such a ridiculous, solemn little vow, and it undid her more thoroughly than any clever speech could have.
"In the middle?" she repeated faintly.
"Orc honor." He thumped a fist against his chest. "Also orc mothers."
"Hehe~..."
A breathless laugh escaped her, and with it a little of the terror drained out. She was still afraid, but it was a different kind of fear now, the fluttering kind, like standing at the edge of a high branch before a jump she had already decided to make.
"Then we go slowly," she said. "Very, very slowly."
"Slow." He nodded. "I am good at slow."
Valkar proved it.
He laid her back against the bearskin as though she were made of spun glass, and his mouth found hers again, unhurried, until her fingers loosened from the death grip she had on his shoulders. His hand drifted down her ribs, over the soft plane of her stomach, and paused at the waistband of her leggings.
He looked up. Asking.
Sylvana swallowed. Then she lifted her hips.
The cool air touched her, then his palm, hot and broad, and her whole body arched off the hides with a gasp that echoed off the mossy walls.
"Good?" he rumbled, voice dropping lower, rougher.
"I... yes. Gods, yes. Just..." She had no words. Elven poetry, six languages, and nothing for this. "There. Don't stop."
He did not stop. His thick fingers moved with a patience that was almost cruel, circling, learning, retreating when she tensed and returning when she sighed. He watched her face the entire time, his amber eyes dark and molten, drinking in every shiver as though each one were a gift. When her thighs began to tremble, he bent and kissed the inside of her knee, then higher, and she realized what he intended a heartbeat too late.
"Valkar, you don't have to; that is not..."
He looked up at her from between her legs, his expression so open, so genuinely curious, that the rest of her protest died on her lips.
"Mother also said to taste everything before you eat it," he said, as if quoting a profound culinary proverb.
"Hehe~..." Sylvana choked on a laugh that was half sob. "Your mother… is a very wise and very strange woman."
The first slow stroke of his tongue shattered her composure completely.
"Ahh~" Sylvana clapped a hand over her own mouth, mortified by the sounds clawing up her throat, but he caught her wrist with infinite gentleness and drew it away.
"No hiding," he murmured against her. "I want to hear my mate."
So she stopped hiding. She wound her fingers into his hair and let the moss-scented dark swallow every shameless sound she made. He worked her with the same devoted concentration he had shown when learning her body map, adjusting at every hitch of breath, until the coil inside her pulled tight, tighter, and snapped.
"Valkar...ah... Mother Tree, that is—"
Whatever she meant to say dissolved into a broken moan when he sealed his mouth over her clit and sucked, gentle at first, then stronger when her thighs started trembling around his head. Thick fingers stroked the slick entrance of her body, circling, teasing, never pushing inside until she was rocking up against his face and making soft, desperate sounds she had never heard herself make.
One thick finger finally eased into her.
Sylvana's back arched clean off the hides. The stretch was nothing compared to what waited for her later, but the careful way he curled that finger and found a place inside her that made white sparks burst behind her eyes was devastating. He added a second finger only when she was wet enough that the slide was easy, scissoring them gently, stretching her while his tongue worked in steady, relentless circles.
"Too much," she gasped, even as her hips chased every movement. "It's—Valkar, I'm going to—"
"Then go," he growled against her. "I want to taste it."
And with a shuddering, violent sob that was equal parts pleasure and humiliation, she did.
Her release washed through her, a hot, liquid wave that left her shaking and breathless and utterly exposed.
Valkar held her through it, licking and stroking until the last tremor left her boneless and shaking. Only then did he lift his head, lips and chin shining, expression almost smug.
"Good?"
Sylvana stared at the mossy ceiling, trying to remember how lungs worked.
"You… absolute beast."
He crawled up her body, careful with his weight, and kissed her. She tasted herself on his tongue and should have been scandalized. Instead, she pulled him closer, licking into his mouth with sudden hunger. His cock dragged heavy and hot along her thigh, leaving a wet trail.
When he finally settled between her legs again, the broad head of him nudged her entrance. Sylvana's breath hitched, but the sharp edge of fear had softened into something hotter.
"Slowly," she reminded him, gathering some courage and wrapping her fingers around his cock as far as they would go. His head dropped to her shoulder with a ragged groan.
"Slow," he agreed hoarsely. "Sylvana... you must... not move your hand like that, or I will not be slow."
"Really?" She stroked again, fascinated by the velvet-rough heat, the way it jerked in her grasp. He shuddered, muscles corded in his back. "Like this?"
"Ah... Mother's mercy."
A wicked, unfamiliar satisfaction curled through her. The proud shield maiden, who had never once been bested by a man, had a mountain of an orc trembling at her touch. She toyed with that power for a few more breathless moments before the ache inside her demanded more.
"Now," she whispered. "Please."
The word tasted strange, vulnerable.
"Be in me."
The first inch stole the air from her lungs. He was so much thicker than his fingers. Her body fluttered and resisted, then slowly, slowly yielded.
"Breathe," he said softly, forehead pressed to hers. "Look at me. Only me."
She looked. She breathed. And as her body softened around him, he pressed forward, a fraction at a time, murmuring in his rough tongue words she did not understand but felt like warm hands on her spine.
It stung. Then it stretched, a deep, startling fullness that made her feel pinned, possessed, in a way no sword ever could. She dug her nails into his back, and he froze, trembling with the effort of holding himself still, sweat beading along his brow.
"Too much?"
"No." She shook her head, tears pricking at her lashes, though not from pain alone. "Just... give me a moment. You are... so large."
"I know. I am sorry."
"Don't apologize, you great green oaf." A shaky laugh. "Just stay there."
He stayed. He kissed her cheeks, her eyelids, the corner of her mouth, until the sharp edge of discomfort dulled and a deeper, honeyed heat began to unfurl in its place. She shifted her hips experimentally, and they both groaned.
"Move," she breathed. "Valkar, please. Move."
"As you wish."