Page 9 of Finding Her Luck
Scooping her up in his arms, her naked chest met his. He was warm. Hot to the touch, a fire burning in the bellows of his massive chest. Each sensation took shape one by one in her mind. He was hard under the sleek softness of his skin, muscles curving against her with each breath he took. And he smelled good. Trying to understand these observations distracted her enough that she missed the part where the male walked forward into the river.
She was looking at his face, attempting to connect the appallingly nice feeling of his heat and smell, when he said,
"You stink. Wash."
And dropped her.
She fell to his feet screaming, into the water, getting a mouth full of it, her bottom hitting the rocks. She was going to drown. He was going to drown her. The thought was there and then gone. She sat up, gulping air.
He'd dropped her in the shallows, where the water would reach barely to her calves if she was standing.
"Son-of-a-bitch. You bastard, you rotting corpse eating, mangy stupid bastard. That was not funny."
These Orkis delighted in shocks and surprises.
He left her a moment, went to the shore to get something, and returned with a splash.
Deep voiced and disapproving he asked, "Wash Corrin's mouth too?"
She snapped her mouth shut on her curses, growling in anger.
Sitting in the shallows with her, the monster pulled her into his lap. He had something from his gear palmed in his hand that he began to slick over her. Neck. Shoulders. Corrin didn't like where this was going. The feel of his plate sized palms washing her like a baby was too incongruous to begin to assess.
"Untie me, I can do it myself. Why am I still tied? None of the others are tied. My arms are going to fall off." She let herself make outraged, unhappy noises as he turned her like a turkey on a stick to wash the back of her neck, her upper back.
"Corrin is runner," he said.
"I'm too tired to run. And you have those war beasts that can find anything and are faster than any dog or horse I've ever seen. Where would I run?"
He grunted.
"Please untie me," she said again, meaning every bit of the supplicating sound she heard in her own voice. He held her head out of the water with his knee, but his washing hands had now gone down to her bottom. His touches had slowed. His fingers digging in to the flesh he found there. Palming her shape. She wiggled, shifting her hips away from his touch.
"Stop now," he demanded.
"Don't do this. Whatever you're doing, don't." Cold fear went through her. Colder than the water, colder than the air, an icy prick of sudden clarity. She wasn't repulsed by this monster. What he was doing felt good. One hand gripped her neck, keeping her face safe from accidentally inhaling a lung full of river water, the other working over her bottom, his fingers starting to curve between her legs.
"No." She kept trying to wiggle as he worked. Jerking as hard as she could with renewed energy. "Don't. Don't do that. Get your creeping hands off me!"
He pulled her up out of the water and a sudden stinging pain hit her on the left butt cheek. He'd spanked her. "Stop now," he repeated. She hadn't been spanked since she was six and got into the store of honey and made a mess of the stuff.
He'd spanked her. Corrin couldn't stop her pointless resistance. He touched her where no one touched her, took her clothes, exposed her. He handled her and tossed her about and refrained from answering simple questions. Of course, she kept moving, shouting, cursing him.
He shifted his hold to get better access. And then, in rapid succession, he began hitting her bottom over and over, every part that wasn't under water.
Corrin howled.
Her voice echoed over the river water back to her ears, punctuated by the sound of the spanking. She couldn't accept the outrage, the ridiculous injustice and unfairness of this punishment, of the whole day. Of her whole life.
The stinging became a heated pain. No matter how she cursed him, shouted at him, and raged, he didn't stop, his arm didn't tire, his broad hand hitting her bottom in a relentless barrage. To her horror, tears returned, and her screams turned to broken, breathless sobs. She could do nothing. He would do what he wanted. She couldn't stop him.
Whatever was going to happen would happen.
"Corrin, finished?" he asked. With a shift of his knees, he lifted her head and her hot bottom was covered by cold river water, washing away the heat. "No more fight. Let wash." His voice a deep, threatening rumble in her ear and against her back.
That rumble of his continued. A deep, rough, echoing vibration. She'd never heard anything like it. Not waiting for an answer, he began again. Standing her up between his legs, he faced her away from him and began to wash her. A thick finger brushed between her ankles and the bindings there fell away. Claws. He had claws that sliced through the ropes as easy as her knife down the belly of a fish. Sitting, he had no problem reaching up to her shoulders. Her wet braid was also released, her hair an unraveling wet curtain down her back. She felt his fingers comb through it, move it out of the way. His hands brushed thorough, unhurried touches over her body, gently moving her bound arms, down her sides, again at her bottom. He tugged one leg. "Open."
She whimpered.
