Page 4 of Loved by the Orc (Hidden Hollow #4)

3

HARMONY

T ark took me to his house—which was only two houses over from Madam Healer’s office, just off Main Street—and put me down at last, carefully on his enormous couch.

“How do you feel?” he asked anxiously, sitting down beside me.

“Um…okay, I guess.” I touched my forehead again. The lump was completely gone by now and I doubted I was going to have any kind of reaction. I knew, at least with human medications, that if there’s going to be a bad reaction, it will normally happen right away. So it was probably safe for me to go home now.

But I didn’t want to.

There was something about the big Orc sitting beside me—something I liked and trusted. I didn’t want to say goodbye to him just yet.

Meanwhile, Tark was making himself more comfortable.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to take this fucking thing off,” he rumbled and rose to remove the elaborately carved silver plate that covered his broad chest.

When it came off, I had to bite back a gasp. It was molded, like a lot of armor is, to show defined pecs and abs, but I didn’t know what might be under it. But from what I could see through the thin white T-shirt he was wearing, it looked like his chest was even better defined than the armor that had been covering it. He was pure muscle—and completely mouthwatering in an extra-extra-extra large way.

“Sorry—I was getting kind of sweaty,” he apologized and plucked at the t

T-shirt with a grimace.

“Er, you can take it off—if you want. The shirt, I mean,” I added quickly. “I won’t be offended.”

“Oh, if you don’t mind,” he rumbled and proceeded to peel the thin white shirt up and off.

I tried not to stare—I really did. But it was really hard not to. He looked like a Greek god—if Greek gods were green, that was. I noticed with interest that the flat disks of his nipples were a darker green than his skin and that he didn’t have any chest hair. He did, however, have a narrow line of black hair that led from his navel down into the waistband of his brown leather trousers.

“I’d better get something else to wear,” he said and started for the back of the house, which I hadn’t seen yet. Then he stopped. “Or maybe I’d better not. What if you have a reaction while I’m gone?”

“You can just stay here—I don’t mind if you’re shirtless,” I said, which was possibly the biggest understatement I’d ever been guilty of. I was enjoying the sight of his bare chest and broad shoulders way more than I should have—especially since he was basically a stranger.

It occurred to me belatedly that I ought to be afraid—not just because he was so much bigger and stronger than me, but because I was in the home of a strange man. Or a strange Orc, I guess. But I didn’t feel the sense of threat I might have if I’d been with a human guy—I can’t explain why, I just knew that Tark wouldn’t hurt me. Maybe it was because he’d just spent almost forty-five minutes holding me gently against his chest and making sure I was okay—those weren’t the actions of a serial killer.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asked me .

“Uh, sure—what do you have?” I said.

“Well, I think I have some wine. And some Pixie Punch. Or just water,” he offered.

“Water is fine,” I said. It seemed like the safest choice. I didn’t want to be drinking wine when I was about to go back to work and I had no idea what “Pixie Punch” was.

“I’ll go get it.” He got up again and then hesitated, clearly not wanting to leave me. Obviously he took his duty to watch over me very seriously.

“How about if I come with you?” I offered. “You can show me your kitchen—if you don’t mind.”

“Sure, you can have the tour. Come on, then.”

“Okay.” I started to slide off the couch—it was too high for me to get off normally. But Tark surprised me by reaching down and taking me by the waist to lift me down gently.

“Sorry,” he said as he set me down. “I should have asked first. I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m fine. And I didn’t mind,” I said. And surprisingly, I didn’t. In fact, I kind of liked it. I had never dated a human guy who could pick me up like that or one who could make me feel dainty and petite just by standing beside me. Tark did both of those things easily—it made me like him even more.

“Oh, good,” he said, looking relieved. “Well come on, let me give you the tour.”

He took me through his whole house and I got to see his enormous dining room table and chairs as well as a bathroom with a toilet high enough that I would need a step ladder to get up on it. He also opened his bedroom door and I got a glimpse of where he slept—a bed that put any California King to shame.

“Wow—that’s big enough for eight people to sleep in!” I remarked.

Tark made a rumbling noise that I thought might be a laugh.

“Not if they’re my size! Though I could fit someone your size, I’m sure,” he remarked, giving me an appraising look with half-lidded eyes .

“Oh, well…” I began uncertainly.

“Sorry—did I offend you? I’m never sure with humans—your kind is really new to me,” he said.

“No, no—I just…I’m not going to sleep with you,” I said bluntly, not sure how else to put it. “We need to get that straight right now.”

“No, of course not,” he said, looking surprised. “I was just making a joke, that’s all. We barely fucking know each other and I haven’t even prepared you.”

“Prepared me?” I frowned uncertainly.

“You know—I haven’t kissed you, touched you…” He gave me another long look. “Tasted you.”

“Uh, tasted me?” I wondered uneasily if he meant that in a “grind your bones to make my bread” kind of way, like a giant in a fairytale.

“You know, I haven’t kissed and licked between your legs,” he said, as though it was obvious. “What do humans call it?”

“Oh, um…” I could feel my cheeks getting hot as I suddenly pictured him licking my pussy, which was suddenly feeling extremely hot and achy. “Going down, I guess?” I suggested, shifting and pressing my thighs together tightly.

“Now your face is getting red—that means you’re embarrassed, right?” he asked, frowning. “Did I say something humans consider rude?”

“Not exactly …” I cleared my throat. “It’s just that we humans don’t usually talk about, er, sexual things until we get to know someone really well.”

“Sorry!” He sighed and rubbed a hand over his bristly jaw. “Orcs talk about sex whenever and to whoever—it’s natural, you know? But I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. I won’t say anything else like that.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Er, maybe we should just move on from the bedroom.”

“Good idea.” He swung the bedroom door shut so I couldn’t see the massive bed anymore and continued the tour. There wasn’t much else to see though, since the house was just one level, and we ended up in the kitchen.

Tark opened a massive refrigerator and I saw what looked like several take-out containers, lots of vegetables, a bottle of wine, and a jug with a stopper in it.

“Is that the, uh, Pixie Punch?” I asked, pointing to it.

“Yeah, but it’s pretty potent stuff,” he said, removing another pitcher—a clear glass one that was half full of water. “Don’t know why I offered it to you—it’d knock a tiny little thing like you on your ass.”

“I might surprise you,” I said, putting a hand on my hip. “Can I just try a sip?”

I didn’t know what had gotten into me. I shouldn’t be offering to drink alcohol at a strange Orc’s house! If I was with a human man, it would be like asking to get date-raped.

Tark seemed to consider, but then he shook his head.

“I don’t think so, Babygirl. It wouldn’t be safe—not with you having the other magic potion in your system.”

“ What did you call me?” I frowned up at him. It occurred to me that I halfway remembered him calling me that when I had first run into him, but I had been too upset to protest.

“Oh, sorry,” he apologized. “It’s just a nickname for a little one and you know you’re just so tiny.”

I really did feel like a kid, standing there in his massive kitchen where all the countertops came up past my breasts and the oven looked big enough to roast and entire pig in at once. But I didn’t like to admit it.

“I’m not little,” I protested. “I’m really tall for a woman—I’m almost five foot eleven. And I’m not skinny either.”

“Thank goodness you’re not,” he rumbled. “So many of the human women I see look like they might get blown away in a storm.”

“The point is, I’m not little,” I repeated.

He gave that rumbling laughter again .

“Maybe not to a human male. For me you’re the size of a…well, a babygirl. But I won’t call you that if you don’t want me to.”

“I’m…not exactly sure how I feel about it,” I admitted. “How about that water, since you won’t let me try the Pixie Punch?”

“I’ll let you have some next time you come—if you visit again,” he offered. “I just want to be sure you’re all right with that potion you took.”

I was touched by his concern for me. I wondered if all Orcs were this nice to women. If so, they were getting a bad rap in the Lord of the Rings movies.

He poured me a glass of water which was so big I had to wrap both my hands around it. Luckily he only filled it half full but it was still much more than I could drink. It was cold and refreshing, though. I told him so as I reached to put the glass in his sink.

“Here—let me—the sink is deep and your arms aren’t that long, Babygirl,” he murmured, taking it from me.

This time I didn’t say anything about the nickname—I think I had already decided I kind of liked it.

We walked back to sit on the couch together but when I started to scramble up onto it, Tark lifted me again, without asking.

“Thank you.” I settled and he sat beside me, closer this time. “So tell me about the magical world,” I said to him. “This town, er?—”

“Hidden Hollow,” he supplied.

“Oh, right. Hidden Hollow. Are you sure it doesn’t let non-magical people in?” I asked. “Because I’m pretty positive there’s nothing special or magical about me.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t bet on that,” he rumbled and I noticed that his golden eyes were glowing as he looked me swiftly up and down before his gaze came back to my face. “I think you’re very special.”

I could feel myself blushing again at his frank appraisal and praise. I wasn’t used to men looking at me that way. Honestly, I was more or less used to being invisible.

Whenever I went out with my friends—who were all thin—I was always the wingman. Always the one the guys ignored. It was like they didn’t see me. Or if they did bother to talk to me, it was always asking for advice on how to get one of my skinny friends to date them. I was sick of it, but that’s the existence of a curvy girl—it sucks to date when you’re bigger.

But Tark was looking at me like I was one of my skinny friends—like I was the beautiful one, not just someone to ignore and pass over. It made me blush but I have to admit, I also liked it—I liked it a lot.

“Well, thank you,” I said, putting a hand to my cheek—it was hot. “But I mean, I don’t think there’s anything magical about me.”

“Just because you haven’t discovered your magic yet doesn’t mean you don’t have it,” he pointed out. “We have people showing up here all the time who don’t know what their magic is. But they always find it—I’m sure you will too. If you come back,” he added.

“I think I’d like to come back,” I said, which was true. “But, er, I don’t know how I got here in the first place.”

“You said something about trying to get into a room full of ladies?” he said, frowning. “But I don’t know—that was after you bumped your head.”

“Oh—the ladies room!” I couldn’t help laughing. “That’s just a nice word for the bathroom.”

“Oh—that makes more sense.” He nodded thoughtfully, then frowned. “But you said you were going there to cry—was that right?”

“Um…” I nibbled my lower lip, wondering if I should tell him.

Normally, I wouldn’t have told anyone, not even my friends. I hated being pitied. But somehow, Tark felt like a safe space—I found I wanted to tell him.

“It was my boss,” I admitted at last. “He said…some pretty nasty things to me and threw some things at me and, well…sometimes you just can’t help crying, you know?”

“He what?” The angry tone in his deep voice surprised me. “What did he throw at you? What did he say?”

“It was just some papers,” I said quickly, surprised at how upset he’d gotten on my behalf. “He, uh, claimed that he told me to alphabetize them—only he didn’t! He’s always making up new rules and not telling me about them until I’ve broken them somehow.”

I couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice. Sometimes working for Mr. Price was nearly unbearable!

“He sounds like a fucking asshole ,” Tark growled and suddenly his face was scary again. Or it would have been scary if I’d thought his anger was directed at me—it wasn’t, though. I knew that instinctively and I wasn’t frightened.

“He is an asshole,” I said and sighed. “But he’s an asshole I’m stuck with for the next four years—at least until I finish school.”

“What? Why are you stuck with him?” Tark demanded. “You ought to leave that job!”

“I can’t,” I said and proceeded to explain about the contract I’d signed and the way I couldn’t get out of it because I didn’t have an extra hundred thousand or so to spend.

Through it all, Tark listened intently. What I really appreciated was the fact that he didn’t start offering solutions right away—though he did ask why, even if I had to stay at Bentley Pharmaceuticals, I couldn’t at least get away from Mr. Price.

When I explained that I’d tried and HR wouldn’t let me leave him because Mr. Price didn’t want to let me go, his face went as dark as a thundercloud.

“That asshole is a Sin Sucker!” he growled.

“I’m sorry—a what?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“A Sin Sucker—a being that enjoys the discomfort or pain of others,” he explained. “Most Sin Suckers feed on physical pain, but there are plenty out there that feed on emotional pain too.”

“But that’s here in the Magical Realm,” I pointed out. “I’m sure we don’t have anything like that in the human world—do we?”

“You sure as fuck do,” he said, frowning. “In fact, you had a whole lot of them back in the 1940s. What do you think the fucking Nazis were? ”

“Really?” I looked at him, wide-eyed. “You’re saying there were magical creatures living in among us, uh, humans?”

“Don’t lump yourself in with the humans when you’ve obviously got magical talent,” he told me. “And yes, there were and there still are. Most of them wear glamours to disguise themselves so humans don’t notice them. Like, most of your movie stars are fairies, hiding their wings and their pointed ears with magic. And the billionaires and CEOs are almost all dragons—hoarding more wealth than they could ever possibly use just so no one else can have it. So why shouldn’t your asshole boss be a magical creature too?”

“I really doubt he is,” I said, thinking of Mr. Price’s skinny frame and the way he always wore his reading glasses perched on the very end of his long, bony nose. If there was anyone less magical than him, I didn’t know who it would be. Except maybe me—I was sure the fact that I’d gotten into Hidden Hollow in the first place must be some kind of cosmic mistake.

But talking about my boss made me glance at the time charm that Madam Healer had given me…and realize that I had been in the magical little town for almost three hours.

“Oh, I really need to be going!” I said. “But…I don’t know how to get home.”

“Or how to get back again—if you want to,” Tark pointed out. He reached for my hand. “I mean, if you want to.”

“I do want to,” I said honestly, squeezing his long fingers. His hand was so much bigger than mine I felt like a kid again, holding hands with an adult. But it was nice— really nice. There was a spark between us—I could feel it. And that wasn’t something I could say about any of the human men I’d dated—not that there had been very many.

“I want you to, too, Babygirl,” he rumbled. “Come on—I know who we can talk to about it.”

He rose and lifted me off the couch, just like he had before. Then he frowned down at himself.

“Just let me throw on a shirt, okay? ”

“Sure.” I nodded, though I was sad not to see his bare chest anymore. He really was mouthwatering.

But I wasn’t too disappointed when he came back. He was wearing a black T-shirt that clung lovingly to his chest and abs and a pair of jeans that showed an impressively muscular ass. Damn, did all Orcs look this good or was he addicted to the gym? I didn’t know, but either way, he was hot!

I didn’t have much time to admire him, though because he was already taking my hand in his.

“Come on, Babygirl—let’s see about getting you home…and bringing you back again,” he told me.

And then he led me out the door and into Hidden Hollow.