The Inn Ch. 04

"Oh, but she is," Leyna said happily. "Told me so herself."

All right, enthusiasm – get your jogging shoes on.I'd addressed those unsent undertown letters to Laluthe the Lumply and the Tinkervolde brothers. With the right sword in hand, Laluthe could hew her way through a whole platoon, while the Tinkervoldes had a machine they called the Earth Arrow that could carry a half-dozen passengers hundreds of miles in a day, tunneling through solid stone. Juliette Ravendark wouldn't meet any of these people until book five, but they all showed up in the sequels after that, so I knew plenty about what they could do and what motivated them.With Laluthe and the Earth Arrow on my side, there might even be hope of getting at Amia the Pristine in Necromanata's dungeons.That would upset the dread wizard's applecart for months.

"I guess you're right then," I said, looking from Leyna to Galufrand and back. "If I can get her to take the letters, that will definitely be a stroke of luck. Do you think she'd do it?"

The sage raised a hand pedantically. "Most people will do things that aren't out of their way if you can provide them reasonable incentive. The question is, what will this orf's be?"

My enthusiasm took a minor tumble. I'd gotten a fair enough look at the hulgriff rider before her glare made my eyes shy away. She had on a practical but finely cut tan-and-brown outfit – vest and breeches and fluffy-sleeved shirt, and well-polished riding boots to go with them. And a long-hafted battle-hammer hanging from a strap at her belt, jewels showing on sides of its polished head. So she didn't appear to be hurting for money. If her "reasonable incentive" didn't run along the lines of ten or twenty pence, was I prepared to offer an alternative?

"Ha!" Leyna said, grinning and poking my shoulder with a fingertip. "They can't all be welfs, Simon." When I scowled, she gave me a kinder pat where she'd poked. "Don't worry, I'm sure she's as susceptible to coins as anyone else. Or maybe she could use some of your scribe-work."

I considered making a joke of it with some remark about the orf wanting to 'dictate' a letter. But Galufrand had put on a befuddled expression, and I didn't care to explain to him that I'd started earning money with more than just my pen.

"So should I go and ask her?" I asked, to move the subject along. "Or did she say she'd be back down for lunch?"

"If you're going, you should hurry – it's past her bedtime, you know. She's an orf."

Oh. Right. Duh. Orcs are creatures of the night in this world, and dwarves live underground. Of course an orf will be on a nocturnal schedule.

I considered the look on the aquamarine-skinned face when she'd caught me staring, then added onto that the aggravation of being kept from bed at the end of a long day (night).

"Maybe I'd better try her when she wakes up," I said.

"Probably wise!" Leyna smiled, then tossed her head toward the front entrance, giving her bobbed blonde locks a bounce. "Now would you mind putting off your lunch just a few minutes? I could use a hand with getting that gatorcat into the stables ..."

My eyebrows went up. "She expects you to do that? Isn't it kind of ..."

"Psshh!" She flipped an open hand down at the wrist and rolled her eyes. "They look fierce, but rub a gatorcat's belly and they go all weak-kneed and purry."

Rising a little slower than my eyebrows had, I wondered why she needed help if the animal wasn't a threat. But I certainly couldn't turn her down.

"You don't mind, do you Galufrand?" I didn't know if he'd called me over just to tell me about the orf or if he had some other topic in mind.

"Not at all. I'm just going to tuck in these toadstools and potatoes."

Leyna tugged my hand, and we went out to where the orf had tied up her mount. As she undid its reins from the hitching post, I saw that the bridle and halter had a few more straps than a horse's would, effectively forming a muzzle for the thing.

"Come on," the serving girl said with a conspiratorial smile. "It's just a few minutes before the lunch crowd gets thick, and I want to hear more about your romp with Kizaah."

"Well ..." I followed her as she tugged the hulgriff toward the corner of the building. It waddled politely after without undue effort on her part. "... I guess I jumped a bit quickly to telling you about that curl of hers when we were in my room earlier. We didn't leap straight to ... you know, fucking."

"I do know fucking!" She laughed and went round the side of the inn. I couldn't help glancing around to see if anyone nearby might hear.

Keeping my voice lower than hers, I said, "Kizaah did too, that's for sure. But the part before that was – exciting. In a way I don't know if I've been excited before."

She nodded, splitting her attention between me and the orf-mount, but giving me the greater share. "Maybe I know what you mean. Hmm. Go on!"

"I've had women look at me with lust before –"

Her eyebrows gave a jump of verve. "I'm sure you have!"

With a swallow, I tried to ignore the flush of blood her words sent up my neck and down into my crotch.

"– just not anyone nearly as exotic as her." That faint pink face with its scarlet frame and night-black hair came back to me. "And more than that, there was something in thewayshe showed me that lust."

We reached the back edge of the building and headed for the adjoining stables in the rear. Leyna gave me a knowing nod.

"When someone wants you and tries to woo you, you're flattered, right? But if you say yes, then they get to be flattered too. Only, when they're paying – the good ones, anyway – they feel like they're getting something they couldn't charm their way into, something a little bit beyond what they deserve. And it makes them feel fabulously lucky and powerful all at once, but you know you're the one in control of them feeling that way, and that makesyoumore powerful still."

"Wow." I blinked at her as she lifted the latch on the stable doors. "That's ...exactlyit. Only I don't know that I could have put it into words that well."

"It can go the other way, too, I'll warn you," she said, leading the beast through the open door. A couple of horses in nearby stalls gave nervous whuffles at the scent of the gatorcat, but Leyna hushed them and they seemed to calm down. Heading for and empty stall, she went on, "When they're not altogether impressed, and give you that guess-since-I've-paid, might-as-well-get-on-with-it look, it can run you down."

I shook my head. "I can't imagine anyone not being impressed with you, Leyna."

"Oh, Simon, you're so sweet. But I've lain with plenty of men who've sampled all the bordellos in Phaeratos, and there's ladies there who put me to shame. I've been told it in so many words."

The idea made me angry, and I opened my mouth to say so, but Leyna had gotten the gatorcat into its stall and bent to rub its low-to-the-ground tummy.

"There's a happy, silly monster! Who likes a belly-rub? Ithoughtso."

While leaning down, she unfastened the straps of the creature's orf-sized saddle and then stood, heaving up on the saddlehorn and the curved cantle at the back and then swinging the whole affair up onto the stall's right-hand wall. "Oof!"

The hulgriff looked up at her plaintively, and she knelt to give its stomach another scratching. After a moment, the thing rolled over on its back and wallowed as she kept up the attention. "What a silly beast! Is this a good spot? Oh, you like that? Get ready at the gate, Simon."

"Um," I said, wondering if that meant I should be worried. With her free hand, Leyna loosened the straps of the gatorcat's muzzle and tugged it off. The creature's long, blue tongue immediately lolled forth. I stepped to the gate as she'd said.

"All right, you big gatorkitty, time for me to get back to work." Giving the flat, furry stomach a last, rapid scratch, she hopped up and came out through the gate. The creature twisted, still on its back, trying to see where she'd gone, then rolled over and started to whine as soon as it saw me shutting it in. "Don't worry," she told it, "I'll be back in a squeak with some dinner for you."

In one corner of the room, a kind of closet, or, it turned out, larder had been built, a little five-by-five pantry with its own door. Leyna went over to it, still talking. "So ... Simon, I wonder if I can ask ... I've heard rumors forever, and I've always assumed theymustbe exaggerations ..."

"Yes?" I tried to appear casual, as if I wasn't dying for any excuse to share the most intimate details of my experience with Kizaah.

She opened the door, revealing a small space lined with shelves. Stepping in, she rummaged on one of them. "You know, they say welf women ... downthere... are very ... tasty. People make a lot of hay over us girls smelling or tasting like certain things, but the story on welfish ladies is, they're like a sweets shop."

I scratched my head as she came out of the pantry bearing a knife and a black-casing sausage as long as my forearm. "I guess I can confirm that."

At the gate of the stall, she stopped, cut a long slit in the sausage casing, held it out over the now-capering hulgriff, and twisted the ends just right to pop the meaty filling out and into the creature's maw. Then she turned to me with an avid glow in her eyes.

"Really?" She looked like a schoolgirl being let in on a secret. "Like, a sweets shop mixed with girl-crotch? Or ..."

"No, just pure sweets. Like a bakery or a confectionary, or both mixed together. And I don't mean faintly – if it weren't for all the horse and hay smell in here, I wouldn't be surprised if you could get a whiff off of me from where you're standing now."

Those blue eyes flashed, and her cheeks colored. Lifting a hand in front of her mouth, she said, "Ooh, Simon, would you really let me?"

"Let ..." I blinked, then tried to recover. "Um, I didn't mean I'd need to, like, offer you a smell or anything. I just meant I probably still ... well, the way you said I might still smell of Juliette after all the – all we got up to."

Her hand went down. "Oh, of course ... I didn't mean to be silly."

The disappointment in her eyes kicked at me, and I couldn't help trying to fix it. "Would you want to? Seriously?"

"Not if it would embarrass you! But –" She glanced over her shoulder toward the pantry. "– the feed room seals up and is full of keeping powder so the fodder won't spoil. There's no hay and horse smell in there ..."

How does she manage to be so overtly sexual and so shy at the same time?To my left, the gatorcat slavered and scarfed at its meal, finishing the last of it off with a loud gulp that I felt like emulating. Instead, I shrugged as if it was no big deal, and gestured for her to lead the way. "Sure, then. Why not?"

She grinned and grabbed my hand and hurried us both to the corner larder. Inside, she drew the door closed to all but a crack, put the knife and sausage casing down, and knelt to the floor unceremoniously. In the bare thread of light from the almost-shut door, I could just see her upturned face and the curve of her smile.

"Thank you, Simon," she said. "I'll try not to bump you with my nose."

And then she leaned forward and I heard her breath drawn in through her nostrils, saw it expanding the faintly lit swells of her breasts within her bodice.

I'll try not to bump your nose with my fucking hard-on,I thought, blinking away a sudden image of my insistently erect cock ripping through the front of my pants to whack her in the face. Even restrained in slacks and underwear, it felt like it might swell out hard enough to make contact any second.

"Hmm," she said. "I guess I get a little hint, but ..."

Oh shit. She's going to ask ...

"Your breeches – I think they're trapping it, mostly." One of her knees left the ground as though she meant to stand up.

I cleared my throat. "Well, I could take them down."

Leyna froze in place.

"Just the pants, I mean. I'd leave the underwear on."

Her knee went slowly back to the ground, and in a hushed voice, she said, "okay..."

Hoping the dark of the room kept her from seeing how bad my hands shook, I got my belt buckle loose, then unbuttoned and unzipped.Oh, fuck. Here goes.

I pushed down my slacks, feeling my cock throb hard against the front of my boxer briefs. Leyna had been right about whatever alchemical gimmick they used to keep the stable stench out of the feed room. But now, into the olfactory vacuum, I caught a waft of sex smell – my own, and Kizaah's. It had only been a couple of hours since our parting fuck that morning, and my room had no bath or shower of its own. So I still had on all the welf juice Kizaah had coated my dick with the night before and in our quickie before she left.

"ohhh, Simon, gracious me ..." The serving girl leaned in closer and breathed deep again. "Mmm. There's some definite man-groin going on down here, but you're right – it's mostly like ... like a fruit tart, with sweet cream and honey and ... oh, heavens, my cunt must stink like a swamp next to this."

Way too many inappropriate replies flew through my head.

I'm sure your cunt smells fantastic.

Actually, I'm a big fan of swamp odor.

I'll be happy to do a comparison and tell you how you measure up.

But for good or bad, my tongue lay entirely paralyzed in my mouth.

Leyna took another breath and then sighed it back out. "And it tasted just as good? You lucky fellow!"

"Um, yeah. I told you you deserved that six pence commission for sending her my way."

"I'd give it all back if I could get a taste of her too!"

My dick made another attempt to tear its way out of my underwear. Leyna went silent. Beyond the door, a horse chuffed somewhere and clomped around a step or two.

"That may have sounded wrong." Her voice was full of apology, though I couldn't see her expression very well. "I didn't mean ..."

Dude!my erection said to me, crashing against the fabric that held it back.This is totally our chance! Let me out and her mouth's going to be all over us!

"Do you want to?" I asked her. "It's not like ... well, we're just kind of trading professional information here, right?"

She tittered a little. "Oh, yes. Just two chums letting each other in on some handy work secrets." Her eyes gleamed in the dimness of the little pantry. "Simon, would you really?"

"Sure."

Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck,throbbed my cock.

"Well, all right then, if it won't ... as long as we're not ... oh, hells in a teakettle, just push your shorts down, I guess."

I did. Instantly, my shaft flung itself up and out toward her. Thankfully, she'd leaned back a bit or I might have put her eye out. Leyna's breathing had turned very fast and audible.

"My!" she said. "It's always so eager to be let out, is it?"

I couldn't think what else to do but sheepishly say, "Pretty much."

"Here ... um, I'm just going to ..." She raised a hand, lowered it, raised it again, then gingerly trapped my cockhead between her fingertips. Shifting around on her knees and ever-so-softly tilting my shaft to one side with that careful hold on the end, she brought her pretty face in and alongside my length, inhaling richly as she approached contact.

I saw her mouth open, the lips gleaming in that pale illumination from the crack of the door. The wet tip of her tongue appeared, pushed forth, drew back in a moment of hesitation –

And then she thrust it out with a slippery flick that made me work to suppress a whimper.

"Ooh!" Her voice made it clear that whatever hesitation she'd had a moment before was thoroughly dispelled. More surely and assertively, her tongue returned to ride along the curve of my pole, as much of it out and flat against the sticky member as she could manage. "Good glandspew, and this isn't even fresh!"

Her fingers lifted me up by the tip now, and she licked all the way up and along the underside of my shaft, lapping, pressing her lips to the flesh, moving around to the side opposite the one she'd started on, and then finally levering me down and lollypopping the upper surface as well.

"Oh, gosh, Simon. I can't believe how –"

And then she gasped and her fingers jumped free and she leaned back and left my hard-on waving damply in the air between us.

"I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed. "That wasmuchmore than I intended on doing ... it just, I got carried away and – oh, look at the state I've got you in."

She looked and sounded genuinely apologetic as she stared at my utterly rigid cock, which even in the darkness I could see had started leaking precum severely.

Her eyes turned up to me, the brows squeezed together in concern. "Do you need me to ... you know, suck you off?"

Yes! Yes, hell yes, right now! Go down on me! No, I'm not going to think with my dick here ... you're not? Isn't it kind of fucking late to take that stance?

"I – Leyna, I'd really like that. But I'd feel like I'd tricked you into something neither of us meant to happen."

Coward!screamed my dick, pulsing and letting out another dribble of precum.

She kept looking up at me. "You're a strange and very chivalrous man, Simon Kettridge."

"Well ... thank you. I –"

Just like that, she lunged forward and swallowed me to the hilt.

"Jesus Christ, Leyna!"

She sucked her cheeks in tight, tongue a twisting river of pleasure against the underside of my shaft. I could feel the muscles of her esophagus at my tip as she deep-throated me, then pulled back, then gulped me all the way down again. The softness of her mouth all around me, the pressing ring of her lips at my root, the lash of her tongue, the wet slosh of saliva filling the little room with audible oral sex – and the clench of her eyebrows as she focused and worked, the gentle hollows where suction pulled in her cheeks, the almost spectral glow of her pixie-cut hair backlit by the minute strand of illumination from the door – it all rushed together like the layers of a giant star imploding just before a supernova.

Orgasm.

I'm not sure anything had made me come that fast since I was a teenager. Every drop of fluid in my body tried to gush down to my crotch and out into her throat. I think the sweat glands in my scalp spontaneously inverted and started pumping out semen.

"God ... Leyna ...UH!"

As the eruptions slowed, I found myself bent forward, one hand on her shoulder and the other on the back of her head. Her nose still pressed into my pubic hair, her lips calmly, gently suckling the last of my flow up and out of me. I let go of her, worried I might have blanked out beneath the anesthesia of climax and throat-fucked her like a beast without even knowing it. But she stayed in place and caressed my ass and the backs of my legs until the very last twitch of my cock was done.

With a pop, she pulled loose and brightly asked, "Fair trade?"

I coughed. "More than fair."

"Good," she said, standing up and wiping her mouth with the back of one hand. "And don't worry – if you fuck this orf later, I promise I won't corral you and molest you for a taste of her afterwards."

"Okay," I said weakly. Then I pulled up my pants and followed her back to the Nestled Goose.