Page 14 of One Night with Her Grumpy Orc

“Would you like dessert?” The pixie rudely interrupts our moment of connection. But Betty turns to them and asks, “Do you have anything green?” her face alight in a mischievous smile.

Chapter 9

Betty

The ride home takesforever. Grev keeps one hand possessively on my thigh, and it’s the most luxurious feeling ever. The occasional squeeze shoots straight to my lower belly, awakening all the butterflies that have been hibernating since the morning after the blizzard.

Parked in my driveway, I pull Grev’s thick neck toward me, eager to get my lips on his. He tastes delicious, a mix of something sweet and mint. Probably the after dinner tea they served us in a demitasse cup that looked like an acorn in Grev’s massive hand.

There’s no resistance from him and it takes no time for him to pull me onto his lap, though we have to pause for him to slide his seat back as far as it goes after my ass honks the horn. He runs his fingers through my hair and chill bumps erupt everywhere, under all my layers. As his hands run down my side and back, his callouses snag on my coat.

“Take it off,” I whisper into his mouth, too busy tangling my own fingers in his hair to bother with my buttons.

With each button undone, he kisses a different spot on my neck. His lips are soft, and his tusks scrape gently at the tender skin. The juxtaposition is perfect. I’m halfway out of my coat when he pulls away, his hands on my shoulders to stop me from chasing his lips. I catch myself pouting. Not sure I’ve done that since I was eight and couldn’t have a second piece of dessert.

“Are you expecting company?” Grev asks, a rasp in his voice. It shakes me out of my reverie of how good it is to be this close to him. To feel his neediness for me, just as I need him.

There, in front of my house, is a patrol car. My stomach drops and a groan escapes from me. I crawl out of his lap and straighten up, re-button my coat. Run my fingers through my hair as if nothing earth-shattering was happening.

“It’s Jake,” I say, mad at having my date crashed. Grev’s grunt sounds like disappointment. I’m sure it is. “Thank you for a lovely night. I enjoyed every minute of it.”

My lips sting slightly, raw, from our kissing session. Damn winter skin. A deep breath in and I untangle myself from his lap and crawl out of his truck, sliding down to the hard, cold ground of my driveway, where Jake glares at us as he leans against the side of his patrol car.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, my voice sharper than I want it to be. How long was he watching us? Could he see us in Grev’s truck? Looking over my shoulder, the windows are steamy, but still see-through. Grev lumbers over and stands beside me, arm around me, keeping me close and warm.

“Hey, Betty. Just wanted to check on you. You didn’t answer your phone.” There’s a weird pause. I wait, lips twitching. The desire to tap my foot like an angry schoolteacher is strong, but I resist. He isn’t wearing a winter coat. Neither does he have a massive warm orc body to huddle against. His breath is visible from the porch lights. “Okay, your mom called, and she was almost hysterical. How could you do this to her? To them? To me? I thought you knew better.”

He takes two steps toward me, as if he’s going to berate me more, but a low rumble emanates from Grev, and Jake stops, hands in his pockets. “I’m not going to hurt her. She’s my friend. We’ve been together since childhood. I just need her to understand that her behavior is unacceptable.”

“And which behavior is that?” I ask, annoyed at him and the quiver in my voice. How dare he show up on my doorstep at night, interrupt my date, and chastise me like I’m a little girl? “And what do you mean, ‘we’ve been together’? We’re friends, yes. But we’ve never beentogether. Do you really think I want someone who goes yapping to my parents every time I do something or make a mistake?”

The silence envelopes us all. It strikes me hard that my words might be misconstrued. “And this—Grev and me—we are not a mistake.” Grev’s hand squeezes my arm, then shifts me to the side, just enough to step slightly in front of me—separating Jake from me.

“Seems to me that you’ve got quite the double standard, considering the fling you and Cercy, the wood nymph, are having.” Grev says it simply, this little bomb dropped into Jake’s lap. I see the flash of surprised horror on Jake’s face. Slowly, I turn around to gape at Grev—quiet, hates to talk or socialize Grev—and realize that there’s a lot more to him than I thought. His eyes glance down at mine, and he gives me a half-shrug, like it isn’t a big deal that he just spilled the juiciest tea on the man who is trying to stake some sort of claim on me.

“How?” Jake asks. It’s a question I’d like to know the answer to as well.

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