This success emboldened Linza, and she had another idea to share. She’d already given Tanyth their copy and they’d delightfully approved, so she was off to find Grun. 

As she’d hoped, she found him in one of his usual afternoon haunts, on the shaded side of a patio that ringed the ground floor of one of the cafe buildings. There was a long, narrow planter just on the other side of the deck, overflowing with dune grasses and flowers. The leaves provided some natural cover from the narrow alleyway that lay just beyond, where staff would occasionally jog back or forth.

In the afternoons, when this side of the patio was totally in shade and the cool ocean breeze cut through the narrow space, it was several degrees colder than anywhere else on the estate. So it was usually empty except for hot-blooded Grun, who wore only his leather shorts, with a leather-bound tome parted in front of him. 

She’d hoped to catch him in a reading mood, so she grinned to herself as she strolled up and sat across from him. The table was right next to the planter so that it almost felt like they were sitting amongst the grasses.

His eyes still skimmed the pages, and she’d learned not to interrupt him. Not that he became upset—it was just that a faraway look would linger in his eye. The wind rustled through the cultivated dune grasses and wished she’d brought a cardigan. 

By the time he looked up, she was halfway lost in her own daydream.

“Hey. What’s up?” he said.

She pulled a sheaf of papers from her bag. “Just wanted to catch you in a reading mood.”

He quirked an eyebrow, rightly guessing the sort of reading that she had for him. 

She handed him the bundle of papers, dense with her tidy handwriting. The first draft was always a messy scrawl, and then the second draft she penned carefully with a special quill that could remember the page and write more copies later. 

“Should I read now? Or…”

“It’s up to you.” She hoped he’d read it right away, but she didn’t want to pressure him.

“No time like the present. You sticking around?”

She reached for his book. “Trade me, I want to see what you’re reading.”

And Linza tucked into the first chapter of a book on the history of clay work and pottery. It was more academic than she would have expected from Grun, especially for leisurely afternoon reading, but she’d learned to not be surprised by surprises from the half-orc.

She was just getting to the end of the introduction when she heard him grunt. 

Linza peeked at him over the tome. His erection was already throbbing at the front of his shorts. A smug grin pulled at her lips.

He shifted, rearranging himself so that his shaft could lengthen down the leg of his shorts.

And he was only just getting to the juicy bits.

Linza did not think she could be even more smugly satisfied, but she was wrong. As he continued reading, his shaft continued to throb. As he reached his full length, his tip poked out from the hem of his shorts.

He turned over the last page and looked over at her. 

She kept the tome between him and her grin. “What do you think?”

“Fuck, Linza, this is hot.”

“Would you want to… do something like that?”

His shaft throbbed emphatically. “Yes. Definitely. Obviously.” He gestured down at himself.

“I’m glad you liked it!”

“‘Like’ is an understatement.” He looked around the patio and alley, which remained empty. “Fuck, Linza, I’m not gonna be able to make it out of here like this.”

“Oh, yeah?”

He reached down to rearrange himself again, obviously uncomfortable, and as his fingers touched his shaft, his eyes rolled back. “Fuck…”

“Surely you’re not considering masturbating right here,” she teased.

He looked at her plaintively. “It’s either that or I walk out of here looking like this. If I can even walk…” Indeed, he may not have been able to stand up straight with his shaft so firm and his shorts so tight.

“Oh, we can’t have that. That would be far too lewd,” Linza teased.

“Yeah, so…”

“Well, can’t you just like, go back to reading pottery and cool off?” Linza said.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.” She’d planned to torment him a little with public arousal, but she hadn’t actually intended for that to escalate to public sex. Or even indecent exposure, which was definitely happening as his throbbing tip leaked pre-cum on the inside of his thigh.

Linza continued, “Wouldn’t want you getting caught.”

Grun’s cock throbbed hard, and his eyelids fluttered. “You clearly really want me to get caught, talking like that.”

Linza chuckled, amused at how quickly the half-orc could turn from quaintly studious to insatiably horny. “Does anything kill the mood for you?”

Grun laughed wryly. “No. Honestly, getting caught has only ever made me more aroused… Apparently, that tends to be a thing for orcs. There’s not really an ‘off’ switch, just…”

“Just a release valve?”

“Heh, yeah. Spoken like an alchemist.”

She shrugged, still grinning smugly, and put the book down. “So like… once you’re here—” she gestured at his throbbing erection and pleading expression “—you are here to stay?”

He nodded.

“One-way street? Irreversible chemical reaction? Interesting, veeeery interesting…” She tapped her fingertips to her chin.

He rolled his eyes. “Careful, somebody might get the impression that you’re getting off on this.”

“No, no, not at all. I’m feeling fine. I could just pick up my pottery book and waltz on out.”

Grun went to say something, but as he did, he shifted. The sensation must have been intense, because his expression instantly softened as he moaned. “Since you did this to me, can you at least cover for me?”

She tented her fingertips in front of her, eyes glimmering with mischief. The reason she paused was partly to tease him, and partly to take in every aspect of him. The furrow of his brow, the trembling of his hands, the pulsing throb of his shaft trapped in his shorts. “Alright,” she said, pushing to her feet.

She went a couple of paces back towards the entrance of the patio and leaned back against the planter. From there, she could see both the alley and the entrance.

She formed an image in her mind and gestured across the entrance of the patio. She didn’t need to speak, so the only other sign of the magic was a slight vibration of her crystal necklace. A sign strung on rope between two poles formed across the entrance. It read, ‘closed for cleaning’ on the far side.

If anyone doubted its veracity or looked closely, they might notice that it was an illusion. But few would look twice since such a sign actually existed, and Linza had seen it placed as such many times.

She nodded to Grun.

With trembling urgency, he unfastened his shorts and carefully peeled them down around his shaft. His cock was so large, there was no way he’d be able to free himself without basically taking them off. The shorts ended up around his knees as his hand ended up around his shaft, and he sighed like a man drinking water after a week in the desert.

Linza enjoyed her own thrill of arousal. She liked doing this to him. And he liked when she did it. And he liked that she liked to do it. And she liked that.

Grun exercised none of his usual pace or restraint, giving himself over completely to the desire to cum as quickly as possible.

Linza was rewarded with gasps and stifled moans, trembling and vigorous stroking.

Then she heard footsteps in the alley on the other side of the planted dune grass and held up a hand.

Grun forced himself to stop, gripping the edge of the table with both hands. He trembled as pre-cum dripped between his feet.

It was such a pretty picture of desperation that Linza nearly popped her head through the dune grasses and kissed the passer-by.

And then the footsteps cleared the alley, and she nodded.

Grun started again, his expression melting with bliss.

Then his breath caught and quickened, his posture tensed.

Linza’s own heat glowed in anticipation.

He leaned halfway out of his chair and bent over the planter.

Linza enjoyed a full view of his bare ass and the final few strokes that sent him over the edge. 

His whole body trembled with the surges as he donated a generous serving of creamy white fertilizer to the planted dune grasses.

Linza locked every curve of his posture, every rope of cum, every one of his heaving breaths into memory. And then, especially, his expression of abject relief.

She let the illusion of the sign fade as he rearranged himself back into his shorts. She handed his tome back to him. 

He offered her the sheaf of papers.

She shook her head. “It’s a copy, you can keep it.”

He smiled and tucked the sheaf into the front of his book. “So, about what you said about… actually doing some of that…” His shaft throbbed conspicuously under his shorts again.

Linza snickered. “We’ll talk tonight. If I tell you now, then we really won’t be able to leave.”

“Leave to where?”

“I was thinking we could go up for some tea?”

“Sounds lovely.”