Page 28 of Grumpy Pucking Orc (Orcs on Ice #1)

I did. I told him stories of my teacher father, and my mom who’d been a sort of administrative do-all at a local scrapyard.

We’d had an ancient car held together mostly by duct tape, and a split-level rancher for our home.

Both parents spent most weekends fixing what had broken in either the car or the house, and neither my brother nor I had owned the latest version of any electronic game.

But we always had food, and we always were warm.

Summer vacations were an excursion to tent camp for a week in a national park, or a week at Aunt Jan and Uncle Mark’s house only a few miles from the Jersey shore, and winter breaks were spent skiing at whatever east coast spot my parents got the best deal at.

We weren’t poor, just solidly middle class.

And my parents had spent our youth being carefully frugal, which meant that both my brother and I had been able to go to college with only a minimal amount of student loans.

My loans were bigger thanks to the dental doctorate my parents hadn’t budgeted for, but I still was absolutely grateful for their shrewd financial planning.

I told him how Dad had given me my love of the theater, and my inability to go for a hike without coming home with my pockets full of interesting rocks, how my mom collected old cookbooks and would spring strange side dishes of aspic and mysterious casseroles on us every week or so for dinner.

About how she’d gotten me my first car from the salvage yard and secretly worked on it with Dad for months before presenting it to me for my eighteenth birthday.

I must have rambled on for an hour, but Ozar never interrupted. He continued to play with my hair, his breathing rhythmic and his chest rising and falling under my cheek.

Lifting my head, I met his eyes. “Sorry. It’s probably not a great first-date move to give you a not-so-abridged version of my childhood.”

“Courtship is learning about each other,” he said. “Physically and emotionally. These things either bring us closer, or pull us apart, but it’s important to show all of us to each other. Seeing the beauty is easy, but love is about knowing the scars, too.”

I traced the groove in his chest again. “I love your scars, even though how you got this one still scares me.”

He slid me up along his body and kissed me, softly, slowly, with tenderness.

“Now it is your turn. Show me your scars.” His smile was teasing.

“They aren’t from any battles,” I warned him.

“Are any of them from falling off a cliff as a child?”

I chuckled. “No. Well, there’s this one on my knee from when I came off a skateboard as a teen.”

“I will slay the skateboard beast for daring to harm you.”

He was teasing again, and I absolutely loved it .

“Then there’s this one on my thumb. I was trying to slice a stale bagel, and the knife slipped. Oh, and the one on my forehead from when I was little and decided to slide down the stairs on an outdoor lounge-chair mattress, like it was a toboggan.”

He examined each scar, tutting over every one as if they’d been life-threatening injuries. Most of them were tiny, barely visible after all this time. It’s not like I’d had a minotaur try to impale me or had fallen off a cliff.

“Stay the night with me,” he murmured, pulling me against his chest once more. “We can eat cannoli and the rest of the cake for breakfast.”

I sighed, wanting nothing more than to spend the night in his arms. Tomorrow too. Maybe the whole week. But when you owned your own practice and were the only dentist, you were in the office rain or shine, sexy new boyfriend or not.

“I’ve got some early patients tomorrow. I want to stay with you, really I do, but I need to be up early, showered, and in the office for work, and that won’t happen if I’m here having sex with you all night and eating sugar for breakfast.”

I expected an argument or pouting, but instead he kissed my forehead, then lightly patted my ass. “Next time?”

“Next time,” I promised, thinking that I should bring a change of clothes.

Maybe leave some toiletries in his bathroom and take over a drawer in his dresser with some basic clothing.

Yes, we were moving at the speed of light in this relationship, but I honestly had no worries at all.

Ozar was incredible. No red flags. No friction. No doubts.

I’d never thought that an orc would be my soulmate, but that’s what this felt like.

With incredible regret, I eased out of his arms and out of his bed.

It took me a while to find my clothing—especially since I was distracted by Ozar watching me with a satisfied smile on his face.

I pulled on my bra, a wrinkled shirt, and pants, stuffing my underwear in one pocket.

When I was slipping shoes on, Ozar finally rolled out of his bed.

He stood and stretched, and my eyes were riveted by the perfection of his body.

“I will walk you to your car,” he informed me in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Like that?” I waved a hand to indicate his undressed state. “First, it’s close to freezing out there. Second, nudity in public is a crime, and I don’t want to watch the police cart you off.”

He smiled, then reached down and pulled on his pants. The fact that he had a half-mast going on meant he required some adjustments when zipping up.

“Better.” I figured he probably didn’t feel cold the way we humans did. The orc’s normal body temperature felt about one hundred degrees, and he had grown up in an area with high mountains, so our mild fall weather in Baltimore was probably nothing out of the ordinary for him.

I gathered up my purse, deciding I’d leave the bottle of white wine here along with the desserts.

I hadn’t seen anything but the beer in his fridge, and it would be nice to have a decent Pino Grigio here when I came back.

Ozar walked with me down the stairs, his hand gently on my lower back.

I’d decided to carry my heels, so it was far easier going down than climbing up.

Once we were on the ground floor, I balanced with a hand against Ozar as I put my heels on.

Then he walked with me to where I’d parked my car, his eyes scanning our surroundings and his hand still protectively on my back.

He waited as I climbed in and started the car, remaining vigilant even as I pulled away from the curb and down the street.

It was a little weird. I’d always been self-sufficient, bristling at any hint that I might not be able to take care of myself even in a large city that had far more crime than where I’d grown up.

But Ozar’s attention and watchfulness didn’t feel like a slight on my strength or ability to take care of myself.

It felt no different than a friend, a loved one who looked out for me just as I’d look out for him, a partnership where two people knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses and gratefully allowed the other to help where they could.

I was falling fast. I was falling in love with this orc. And that scared me. Would this be a love that flamed out as quickly as it caught fire? That worry hovered around the edges of my bliss, but I knew that nothing except time would prove my fears right or wrong.