Page 1 of Fake Dating an Orc Cowboy

Chapter 1

Rosey

“Are you sitting on a mirror?” the greasy-haired guy who would not leave me alone asked. Dressed in tight black pants and a sleeveless t-shirt withWanna Ride my Rod?emblazoned on the front, he was anything but date material. He’d sidled over to me the moment I took a stool at the bar. “Because I can see myself in your pants.”

Yuck. “Go away.” I sipped my wine and contemplated leaving, but I’d just gotten here, and it was lonely in my apartment by myself. Mom and Dad would see—again—that I was dateless on a Saturday night, and Mom would dole out sympathy hugs first thing tomorrow morning.

Thus was the life of the recently rejected.

“Come on, sugar,” the guy whined. “You know you want to give me a chance.”

“Leave me alone.” I didn’t look at him, didn’t like that I had to respond. He was worse than a cluster fly, zipping in to land on my arm. I kept verbally swatting him away, but he was getting close to feeling a physical taste of my anger. I’d taken self-defense classes. I wasn’t afraid to use what I’d learned.

“Now, sugar, don’t be like that.” He snickered. “Your clothes look too tight. Why don’t you take them all off?”

“Go!”

The bartender frowned at me. Not at the asshole who wouldn’t leave me alone. But wasn’t that the way things always went in life?

“Just look at me.” The guy lowered his voice. “Give me a pretty smile.”

“She said she doesn’t wish to speak with you,” someone growled from nearby. “If you don’t back away from her, I’ll show you why you should.”

“Whoa.” The guy lifted his hands, his eyes widened as he looked up, up, up at the enormous orc cowboy who’d left his spot farther down the bar and approached us. “Sure thing. She yours?”

I’d seen a few orcs since they emerged from caverns below the ground. I’d yet to see an orc wearing a cowboy hat, chaps outlining his thick thighs, plus an open leather vest over his blue and green patterned flannel shirt, however.

“She belongs to herself,” the orc snarled, stomping over to nudge himself between me and the jerk. “You have three seconds to leave, or you’ll feel this.” He lifted his meaty fist. “One . . .”

“But she—”

“Two.” The orc’s face darkened with fury.

“No problem, dude.” The guy spun and bolted across the bar, slamming through the front door that banged closed behind him.

“Thank you,” I said, hoping I wasn’t scooting out of the lion’s den only to find myself in the dragon’s lair.

“If it’s alright with you, I’ll sit beside you until we’re sure he doesn’t come back,” the orc said in a gruff, almost hesitant voice.

I shrugged, waiting to see howthisguy would act.

He settled on the oversized bar stool provided for guys like him and stared forward, ignoring me, which was both a good and a bad thing because he was cute. Funny how a woman’s perspective about conversation with a guy in a bar changed depending on how he behaved.

The bartender sidled down to me and laid the fries I’d ordered on the smooth counter. “Here you go.” Turning, he strode over to the tap to pour someone a beer.

“Have a fry if you want,” I offered the orc, dousing them with salt and squirting a large pool of ketchup into the basket beside them.

“Fly?” The orc stared at them. “You eat insects?”

“Fry,as in French fries, though they’re not French.”

He blinked at me.

“They’re made from a vegetable called a potato. They cut them into strips and deep fry them in oil. They’re good.” I shot him a shy smile. “I promise.”

“If you promise,” his words rumbled in his muscular chest, “then I’ll believe you.” He tentatively lifted one and bit into it, sans ketchup, but maybe ketchup wasn’t a thing in the orc kingdom.

Not long ago, orcs emerged from deep below the Earth’s surface. Unknown to us, they’d lived forever in a city built inside an enormous, cavernous valley they called the orc kingdom. An orc explorer had gone on an adventure and found his way to the surface, where he met a few humans. Perhaps that’s where the yeti rumors came from. Orcs were tall, most over seven feet, very muscular, and they had medium green skin. They came in peace, and they wanted to live among us, and what could be better than that?

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