Page 19 of Orc'd At A Wedding
I should apologize. I should extract myself and return to my side of the bed and reinstate every professional boundary I just incinerated.
"I warned you," I say instead, my voice coming out lower and rougher than I've ever heard it.
She lifts her head, her eyes finding mine in the darkness. Her pupils are blown wide, her lips slightly parted, and I can feel her pulse jumping against my palm where my hand still rests on her hip.
"You did," she agrees.
Neither of us moves.
The rain continues. Thunder rolls somewhere in the distance. Her scent wraps around me, and I am acutely, devastatingly aware that the only thing separating us is a few layers of fabric and the last fragile thread of my professional code.
"Bliss." My hand flexes against her hip, fingers spreading. "Tell me to let you go."
She looks at me for a long moment, her expression unreadable in the low light.
"No," she says.
The thread snaps.
CHAPTER 7
BLISS
Igasp.
Not because I'm shocked to find myself wrapped around him like I'm trying to win a full-body wrestling championship, but because the sound he just made with that deep, chest-rattling groan that I felt more than heard, has turned every nerve ending in my body into a live wire, and I'm suddenly, acutely aware of exactly what I'm pressed against.
"No," I say, and my voice comes out breathless and entirely too honest.
His hand flexes against my hip, his fingers spreading wide enough that his palm covers an absurd amount of skin, and his eyes lock onto mine with an intensity that makes my stomach drop straight through the mattress.
For one perfect, suspended moment, I think he's going to kiss me.
For one perfect, suspended moment, I want him to kiss me more than I've ever wanted anything in my life.
Then he moves.
Not toward me.
Away.
He extracts himself from the bed with the kind of rigid, mechanical precision that makes it very clear this is not a gentle untangling but a tactical retreat, his massive body going tense and controlled as he physically removes himself from the equation. The sudden absence of his heat leaves me cold, the mattress dipping and then springing back as he stands, and I'm left lying there in a tangle of sheets, staring up at him in complete confusion.
"I apologize." His voice is flat, professional, utterly devoid of the rough edge it had thirty seconds ago. "That was inappropriate."
I blink.
"What?"
He doesn't look at me. He crosses to the chair where his perfectly folded clothes are stacked, his broad back to me, every line of his posture screaming discomfort. "I violated the terms of our agreement. It will not happen again."
"Olog, I literally told you not to let go?—"
"You were half asleep." He pulls a crisp white undershirt over his head, the fabric stretching across his shoulders before settling into place. "I should have maintained appropriate boundaries regardless of your state of awareness. I take full responsibility for the lapse in professionalism."
I sit up, clutching the sheet to my chest, my brain struggling to process the abrupt shift from the heat of that moment to this cold, formal distance. "You didn't do anything wrong."
"I compromised the integrity of the service." He reaches for his dress shirt, shaking it out with sharp, controlled movements. "It will not happen again."
