Green

Author's Note:

Hey everyone! OK I literally just wrote this because my Pathfinder character got laid and I needed to blow off steam. Heh. Names have been changed to protect innocent RPGers! It's just a short stroke piece, so I don't anticipate any follow-up installments. Tell me if you had fun in the comments, though! Happy one-handed reading!

~Eris/D&T

* * *

Was it wrong for Iatanna to have taken one of the tiny rooms at Uli's Wyvern with the foolish hope for a knock on her door?

She lay on her back on the straw-stuffed mattress, one knee cocked up at the ceiling, flipping one of her daggers into the air and catching it by the hilt over and over, a fruitless attempt at soothing repetition in the yellow lamplight. She should have gone back to the wagon with the others.

That tavern was crowded enough. You could've found other company.

The idea of her mere presence a room or two away from the ranger was putting the balance within the Company at risk. They needed absolute trust to fight as a unit, each member laying down their life with the certainty any of the others would defend it. If this went badly ...

But Iatanna didn't want 'other' company. And this very wrinkle was trouble enough in itself.

An owl hooted outside. Her worries were, in all likelihood, irrelevant. The hour was late, and she ought to be leaning her boots against the foot of the bed. They had a great distance to travel the next day, and the fallen scribe ought to be asl—

Taptaptap.

A knuckle on wood. Iatanna's heart tried to mutiny. She nearly fumbled the dagger.

Sloppy.

Her eyes bored into the back of the door, every muscle frozen.

Taptaptap

.

And why assume it was him? Had they not failed to procure that favor for Arlak Pfen? She cringed. Or more fucking werewolves?

Werewolves do not knock on doors. Get up.

She swung her feet to the floor, blade still in hand. Padded to the door on silent soles, stopping with one hand on the latch, the other ready for nonsense.

"Yes?"

A throat cleared.

"It's me."

Iatanna's pulse sped.

"It's Zajar."

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.

She lifted the latch. Cracked the door a handspan.

"I'd like to speak with you." His eyes flicked down to the weapon in her grip, and his brow furrowed. Iatanna swallowed chagrin. Sheathed the blade.

"Right," she said. "Sure." She opened the door wide enough to let him pass, popping her head out after for a quick survey of the night. No observers, as far as she could tell. If everything went to the Hells, the rogue would deny it all.

The ranger had taken a seat on one of the tired old chairs next to the room's single, tiny table. Without that cloak of his, no less. He no longer bothered with the disguise among his allies, at least when strangers weren't around. He'd risked revealing his parentage, the Company had rewarded him with acceptance.

When he would speak, she could see his mother—just as human as Iatanna—in the tilt of his brows, the bridge of his nose. Sometimes at the corners of his eyes, the way they gathered when he was amused. But the rest was his father, without a doubt. Blunt jaw, tapered ears. A hint of tusk threatening from lower lip. Not nearly as unnerving as a full-blooded orc, but still. Menacing.

Possibly in a way that had this flutter troubling her belly.

Pull yourself together.

Iatanna leaned her backside against the window ledge, an arm's length from the now-closed door. Nearest the exist was always a good idea. She folded her arms over her chest.

"Well?"

If feigning nonchalance while holding the cage door closed on rampant anxiety was a marketable skill, she could be earning a living right now.

Oh wait. It is. And you are.

"Iatanna ..." He pushed a handful of stray dreadlocks back over his head and focused on the floor. "My mother ... well." Turned yellow eyes to her at last. "What did she say to you?"

She let out a

huff

of amusement.

Here we fucking go.

"You know," she said, "I've stood before pirates and thieves and half the liars in Raven's Mercy, but ... your mother." She shook her head. "She might have asked me every question but how many grandbabies I was going to give her."

Orcish eyes grew wide. He sat up straighter.

"Oh yeah," Iatanna went on, "she wanted to know how long we'd known each other." He was turning red, which defied logic under grey-green skin. "She wanted to know what sort of

work

we were doing together." The ranger let loose a stammer of half-finished syllables, but she had him on the back foot; all the better for her. "She wanted to know if I planned on making a

career

of this."

By the end, she was smiling. Advantage: Iatanna.

Zajar began to gesture. "I ... I am ... my mother has assumed things. About us. I have to apologize."

"Can't say as I blame her." Thank the fucking goddess she could wear confidence like a mask. "I haven't been home in years, but if I brought someone home to my parents with an eye for

me

, my mother would've asked them a million questions, too. And not been nearly so polite about it."

"Well, that makes sen—wait,

what

?"

His cart wheels had jumped the rut. The whole affair lay overturned in a ditch. They were either going to soar or crash into the ground right now, and leave a crater a league wide. No other options.

"Someone with an

eye

for you?" His hands were on his knees. "What ... what are you saying?"

Iatanna couldn't even bring herself to speak it. She shrugged. Smirked. Made a vague nod in his direction.

The half-orc strung a mismatched necklace of words together that made no sense whatsoever. At least a third of them were in Orcish.

"I ... don't know what to ..." He flung a hand in the air, forming sentences at last. "I've never been in a—in

volved

with anyone. I spend all my time in the forest, for fuck's sake." This was nothing like the violent focus she'd seen when they'd fought in that shipwreck.

Gods, you're going to horrify him out of the room.

"Zajar." She pulled a hand free to gesture at him. "The first time we fought together, I almost died. The last time,

you

almost died." He nodded at this, shoulders easing. "This is a dangerous life. For all we know, a

short

life. If we're going to spend half our time trying not to die, I don't see why we shouldn't spend the other half enjoying ourselves." She swallowed. Jumped headlong. "That is, if you're interested in my company."

He blinked at her. Too many heartbeats passed.

The ranger came to his feet, and the room seemed to shrink as he made his way to the door.

And there he goes. What have you done? Should've kept your mouth shut!

The latch slid home with a dull clack. Zajar loomed, not outside, but there, between her and the bed.

"I believe I would like to enjoy the pleasure of your company."

For a moment, fear paralyzed her limbs.

You got what you wanted. Now what?

But he was male. He knew what he wanted. Why complicate it?

Iatanna stepped around him with an inviting smile and sat on the edge of the mattress. Leaned back, weight on her palms, one foot tucked beneath her.

He turned to face her, but moved to the middle of the room. Piqued by his game, she arched a brow and let her eyes wander a rude path from his knees to his shoulders.

Built like a fucking fortress.

"I, um ..." Zajar smoothed palms down his thighs, and looked everywhere but at her. "I haven't ... really ..."

She sat forward, balance shifting onto knuckles, all momentum stopped. "W—you ... never?"

His mouth went into a grim line.

Her head tilted, ear cocked toward him, as though she hadn't heard right. "Even ... paid for it?"

Everything about him darkened. "I should leave."

The rogue unfolded like a butterfly blade, off the bed in a glimmer of motion and between the half-orc and the door. She stopped him in mid-step, five splayed fingertips feather-light in the center of his chest. Iatanna was tall enough for a human, but their height difference made her reach.

"No," she said. It was less of a demand than a wish spoken aloud. "Just ... I didn't know."

Her eyes traveled north to meet his, and found inertia. He didn't want to leave, but where did they go from here?

Not even a hand's breath of space stood between them, and Iatanna let the silence breathe. Some buzz of energy grew at each point where her touch laid over his shirt. She wet her lower lip with her tongue and ghosted a smile at her own clumsy reactions.

The corner of Zajar's mouth twitched. Possibility again, rather than forfeit.

Her smile warmed further. She tipped a small nod at the chair and gave him a hint of a shove. "Sit down." Again, more of a playful suggestion than anything else. Once found, Iatanna knew better than to poke sore spots.

He sat. Knees spread in that male way, hands coming to rest where thigh met hip, thumb and forefinger bracketing masculinity on either side. Patient again. Waiting.

Oh, yes.

Iatanna had been waiting. Too long.

She knelt to unlace a boot, eye contact unbroken. Slid one foot free. Then the other. Her fingers worked her belt apart, even as she stood, and the whole thing—daggers, pouch, and all—dropped to the floor in a heap with the boots. A sweep of her foot had them shoved under the bed.

Zajar absorbed it all, inscrutable.

When her fingers moved to work on her bracers, however, Iatanna knew an instant of panic. After the leather, at some point it would be her shirt. He would see the scars. He would ask her if—

Stop it. Stop. It.

She shook the thought away and picked apart the buckles, setting the bracers aside with the rest. Now was the time, but the rogue had to will her feet to move.

Hell's teeth,

he's

the virgin. Quit acting like a scared rabbit.

In and out, she took a breath.

And made her way toward trouble.

Quick and smooth, before she could second-guess, Iatanna straddled his legs. Aside from bringing his knees closer together for her, the orc's son made no move. Well. Other than to spare a glance down to where her thighs parted around him now. He raised a brow.

Of course. Her move. Still her move. She just wasn't used to this.

"Now, you're grown," she began, tracing a pair of fingertips along the neck of his shirt, "so I know you're capable of telling me when you've had enough." This much was obvious, but tonight was new territory, and not just for him.

"You're stalling," he said.

Again, with the skip in her pulse.

"Maybe."

Her touch lifted to his jaw. Iatanna leaned in, risking another step.

The ranger pulled away, focus shifting from her mouth to her eyes and back. She could see his chest rise and fall. He was not calm.

There could be no retreat for her. Not if she wanted this.

Iatanna smiled, far softer than her usual taunting smirk. "You don't kiss?"

Maybe among orcs it ... didn't happen? But he had to have seen it somewhere. A public square. A tavern.

His features shifted. Caution lowered to a simmer. Almost too subtle to notice, Zajar tilted his face.

Iatanna kissed him.

For a heart-wrenching moment, the effort was all hers. But then he came along.

At the returned press of lips, her eyes drifted closed. At the first venture of her tongue, sliding along his upper lip, he inhaled. More. She settled into it. His mouth opened. They got to know one another.

The rasp of his tongue was something just outside human, but not unpleasant against hers. And the jut of those lower canines was a new fascination. Not sharp enough to be a worry just now, but a reminder. This was all foreign. She only had half an idea what she was doing.

His hands came to settle on her thighs, warming her skin through the breeches. Her fingers laced behind his neck. The further she sank onto his lap, the less she doubted his interest. Fucking hard and nudging the back of her leg. Some things were different, but others? Always the same.

Iatanna sat back and couldn't repress a stupid grin. Zajar was less balanced, his jaw slack, eyes questioning. She plucked at his shirt.

"Take this off."

Now his arms came back. They folded across his chest.

"You first."

Her smile showed teeth, and she tapped him on the lower lip once with a finger. "I like the way you bargain, ranger." Iatanna took a breath.

In for a copper ...

A few tugs had the tail of her shirt loose from her breeches. She crossed her arms and pulled it over her head. Dropped it to the floor.

Now she had his full attention. The defensive fold of his forearms loosened, but something stopped him. If only to banish awkward silence, she raked a hand through her hair, settling the dark mass back behind her shoulders.

Whether it was the movement that broke him loose, or the lift of her bare breast, Zajar's palms came back to her thighs. Only now they were sliding. To her hips. Her waist. His thumbs pushed over her belly, those dark nails of his, almost claws, dimpling the flesh. She hissed and tilted her hips, an arch coming into her back.

Her breast was in his hand. Both of them were. And no sooner had his touch discovered tight nipples, opening

that

new doorway to sensation, than he descended and she was lost.

She was in his mouth. Goddess, that tongue, those teeth were pulling at her. One of his arms had curled behind her back, supporting her where she would've lost her balance. The other hand had crossed over her backside, and fingers dug into the meat there, possessive out of nowhere, as he accepted her offering.

Some whine happened in her throat, and her hips ground.

"Zajar."

Yellow eyes looked up, a predator pausing over the feast of a kill.

"Too much?" he said.

Blood sang in her ears. "No."

His head ducked again, and he took her in, mirroring his affections on the other side. She had nothing with which to compare it. He didn't try to seduce, to be smooth or play some game. He just devoured; sucking, biting. The hand at her back stole around to test the give of her free nipple, tugging past her threshold of pain, mauling the teardrop of flesh. Pale, seashell pink pillowed under grey-green, and Iatanna moaned.

When he left off, she could feel the flush in her cheeks. She had to breathe through an open mouth. There was no mistaking the ridge of lust, hot on the back of her thigh, and when he met her eyes again, it was with a wolf's smile.

It didn't matter what he had or hadn't done before tonight. Zajar had a taste for it now. A feel for how it ought to be.

Things would go quick, now. Too quick, if Iatanna didn't do anything about it.

He settled back in the chair and she took the opening to tug at his shirt again. "Come on," she said. "Your turn."

Now it went like nothing. The half-orc's shirt was gone, hoisted from the back of his neck and discarded with hers at their feet. Uncertainty shed with half their clothing.

And it was indeed his turn.

His turn to be stared at. His turn for hesitation to slow her touch.

Iatanna moved down instead of up, fingertips tracing a collar bone, a flat expanse of muscle.

Goddess, look at him.

She needed his mouth again, and leaned in. He gave it, kisses far less restrained this time. And now there was

so

much heat,

so

much skin. Everywhere they touched was hot like stone in the summer sun. Her breasts flattened over his chest, and she was not shy about rocking her way higher to fit them together at the hip.

As the lewd pantomime continued on his lap, the ranger's noises of enjoyment were a warning. Iatanna had to extract herself before she made a literal mess of things.

She broke the kiss with a nip of teeth and levered herself up off his chest. Had her thighs slipping between his, one after the other, as she slid to kneel on the floor.

He followed her movements with heavy-lidded confusion and a lazy smile. "Iatanna, you don—oh,

fuck

."

She palmed him through coarse linen. Pushed the heel of her hand along his length. He was on the edge already, she could see it in his fingers, curling into fists atop his thighs. The way his breath came through his mouth.

Iatanna couldn't help herself.

She closed the distance and tasted her way down every perfect, shirtless rise and valley, the hand between them making promises to his erection all the while. A scatter of coarse hair followed the dip of his navel, leading her lower, lower.

Fingers accustomed to picking locks and copying tiny script began to work on the lacing to his breeches. And then a hand was on hers. Iatanna stilled and raised her eyes.

His brow had furrowed. "You don't have to."

Despite the vulgarity of her intentions, it might have been one of the sweetest things the rogue ever seen. She brushed a kiss along his knuckles.

"Shh." Her hands resumed their work. "Let me take care of you."

The half-orc probably had no idea how little time she was about to spend 'taking care' of him. Perhaps another night—if he wanted another—they could come back and try this again.

His cautioning hand had fallen away, and the way Iatanna could feel him controlling the speed of his breath had a steady hum building between her legs. She tugged his breeches open. Had him out.

It would be worth it to be sore in the morning. Sweet gods.

She stroked his cock through the circle of her fingers, and couldn't resist dragging the velvet of him along her cheek. Zajar hissed. A clear bead of dew formed at his tip, where he was somehow ruddy in the same way he'd blushed when she'd fumbled her way into this whole situation in the first place.

Yes. Another night. This was his first time, and he was not—

Iatanna took him into her mouth. Sank down once.

—going to last.

Salt was on the back of her tongue in jets. Fingers dug into her shoulder and Orcish profanity burst out overhead, panic and pleasure at once, the sound of her name somewhere in the middle. She swallowed him down, milking him for those last grunts of satisfaction.

When she rose to assess the damage, Zajar's head had fallen back. His ribs rose and fell. "Iatanna, I'm ..." He swallowed to wet his throat and looked down at her again. At himself, spent, hanging against rumpled fabric. "I wasn't trying t—"

"Stop." She shook her head. Smiled. "You needed it. Now we can take our time."

"You did that on purpose." It was an accusation. Not an entirely unfriendly one, but still.

Her grin widened. "Yes."

The ranger tried to right himself in the chair, and the wood gave an ominous creak. Iatanna chuckled.

"Come on," she said, pushing herself to her feet. "Before we have to leave extra coin for destroying furniture."

She was peeling off the last of her clothing, breeches and socks, even as her steps grapevined backward to the bed. There was no point in hiding now. By the time she sat, making a face at the scratchy mattress, Zajar had stood and was doing the same. He still had boots to lose, however, and it gave her more time to stare.

And stare she did. Tendons shifted over his wrists and forearms as he bent to loosen leather. Muscle corded thighs when he shucked off breeches in the lamplight. And the way his shoulders moved ... Iatanna found herself uncurling her toes.

There was something pleasing in their symmetry of opposites. He could lose someone in a mountain range, she in the alleys and tunnels of a city. He spoke the languages of beasts, she of men and their ilk. The ranger was perhaps a darker shade of morally ambivalent than Iatanna, but it would be a denial to say this was the first time her attraction had fallen on such a one.

When he met her eye, nude at last, she couldn't help the catch of her breath. Zajar approached, and the bed sank under his weight as he joined her to sit on its edge. He bent a knee and pulled one foot up onto the blankets, the other still on the floor so he might make a space. A space into which he pulled Iatanna, arms coming around her waist, dragging her back against his chest, until she sat much the same way.