Page 1 of My Orc Contract Husband
Chapter One
Sami
“Sami?”
Oh, crap.
At the sound of my name being called behind me, I froze, my hands knuckle-deep in the mud. I held my breath, my brain fizzing, trying to figure out how I should respond to that voice.
That voice.
I was wearing my big sun hat; maybe he wouldn’t recognize me?
The sound of a car door slamming.
Double crap.
He’d stopped. He’d gotten out of his car. Hedefinitelyrecognized me.
My heart beating a mile a minute, I sucked in a deep breath, straightened, and as I turned, shoved my filthy hands behind my back. “Hi, Tarkhan,” I managed to croak out.
Sure enough, the male sauntering toward me with an excited grin on his face was none other than my new favorite client, a seven-and-a-half-foot tall, completely charming, and utterlygorgeousorc. Seriously, Tarkhan looked like something out of a romance novel cover from the nineties—all buff muscles and flowing black hair. This guy should be on television, modeling for perfume ads or something—he was that beautiful.
But he was myclient, and I’d spent the last four months—the time we’d been working together to find him a house on Eastshore Isle—keeping my crush hidden.
So I was having trouble acting cool when he’d shown up at my house and found me bent over my gardening table on my front patio.
“Sami!” If anything, Tarkhan’s smile grew bigger as he moved into the shade of the portico. “I thought that was you. Is this your—oh.” His eyes suddenly went wide, and he shifted forward. “Is it okay that I stopped? Am I not supposed to know where you live? Is this weird?”
Weird? Yes. Okay? Also yes.
I managed a smile. “Hi Tarkhan. It’s fine. We might be neighbors, right?”
That was his hope, after all. And I wasn’t going to object if he moved in down the street from me.
Exhaling in what I had to assume was relief, Tarkhan rocked back on his heels and shoved his hands into thepockets of his dirty jeans. He must’ve come from his job on the construction site, although he was forty minutes early for our meeting.
“Good,” he sighed, glancing around the front porch. “I came out early to get a feel for the neighborhood, and I have to admit, I’m really impressed. This place might be outside my price range, but I’m loving the area—all these old oak trees and beautiful gardens.”
Surreptitiously wiping my hands against each other, I managed a weak smile. “Yeah, that’s my favorite part about it, too.”
Something like interest flared in Tarkhan’s eyes as he switched his attention to the table behind me. “I guess so. I’m sorry for interrupting your…um…plant murder?”
His goofy grin was my undoing, and my tension burst out with an awkward huff of laughter as I pulled my hands from behind my back.
You’re a professional. Yeah, you have the hots—massive hots, the biggest hots—for your client, but who gives a shit? Don’t make this weird.
Besides, Tarkhan was easy to like, and had never made me feel awkward.
No, no, that was all me, thanks very much.
Shaking my head at my own ridiculousness, I turned to the table. “I’m separating my aloe pups.”
“Hm. Don’t you think you ought to see a doctor for that?”
I snorted and smacked his arm with the back of my hand so I wouldn’t leave a mark. “Aloe—see, it’s a succulent?—propagates by growing new babies from the roots. This one is getting choked in its pot, so I have to pull out all the babies occasionally and replant them.”
Tarkhan was leaning over the table now, studying my various pots. “Looks messy.”
