The Orc from the Office (Claws & Cubicles Book 2)

My heart doesn’t flutter and my clit does not pulse awake when I get the email to set up the training appointment. Those parts don’t start doubling down on those sensations in the minutes leading up to it either.

The next time I get to see Khent, he’s sitting on the far end of the room like before.

We didn’t tear each other’s clothes off in the stairwell, when there was significantly less space between us. I try to remind myself that it’s good to be cautious anyway.

Still, my heart does leap a little at how quickly he looks up when I come in. He looks back down at his stack of print-outs. The training questions and quiz.

I remind myself that I don’t feel the need to start riding the seam of my pants to appease the endless, heightened need between my legs when I sit down across the room from him, as per MR’s instructions about staying apart.

He attempts to slide a paper down the fifteen foot table, it makes it about two feet before the glossy stickiness of the table snags the page. He pulls it back to himself and tries it again, same result.

“I’ll just make it work from this end of the table,” he shrugs, giving me a sheepish smile. I do appreciate the effort he’s putting into staying far enough apart from me.

“And here I was hoping you were going to make a paper airplane next,” I quip, a little smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. I immediately chew that smile out of existence, in case he thought I was flirting.

Amusement touches Khent’s features, but he lets the comment roll off.

He reads me some instructions on how to identify malicious email addresses and links, I just kind of sink into the sound of his voice, the warmth and depth of it. My mind starts absently spinning a fantasy about what it must be like to lean my head against his chest and feel the rumble of his voice while he reads something soothing out loud.

He pauses every now and then to ask if I have any questions, and I end up asking him to repeat and explain this in more detail just to hear him keep talking.

The way his hair looks like an interpretation of a tidal wave after he runs a hand through it isn’t actually that cute, I tell myself. It’s just the Blood Fever, I remind myself. It’s not a real attraction.

At some point we move onto the quiz portion of this training session, and I probably should have focused more on the content of what he was saying, instead of the cavernous quality of his voice. Can you really blame me?

“Is it a good idea to mouse over a link to reveal its true destination?”

“Umm… yes?” I sound distracted. I am.

He scratches something onto the paper with a pen. “What should you do if you receive a suspicious email? The options are, A, share it with your coworkers. B, unplug your computer. C, don’t open any links.”

I watch Khent for a moment, as he glances up from the sheet and adjusts his glasses.

I kind of enjoyed that moment we had in the stairwell the other day. Not in a Blood Fever, mate-bondy way. Just in a normal, he’s-not-so-bad kind of way. He’s kind of fun, when he can’t hide behind the impersonal nature of emailing.

“Unplugging the computer sounds reasonable,” I say, crossing my arms.

He frowns at me. “Seriously? The answer is right there. That’s the easiest question on it.”

“There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with unplugging it though,” I say, wondering how long it would take to tease that side out of him again.

“Can I get a virus from unplugging my computer, Khent?”

“You can do damage to your computer that way,” he says flatly, though he lifts an amused eyebrow.

My smile widens. I’ve got him. “Believe me, I know all the ways to damage a computer.”

The words come out of me almost in a purr, I sound so pleased with myself.

Khent goes very still for a moment. I don’t expect to hear him say, “Go on.”

“Let’s see. I used to let my cat sleep right up against my laptop’s vent,” I start, resting my chin in my hand, leaning just the slightest bit closer in the fifteen-foot gap between us. “The fan stopped turning, it was so clogged with fur.”

He winces briefly in sympathy for my personal laptop.

“And then I would sit it down on a big fuzzy blanket that shed a lot. I actually melted one of the components onto the motherboard that way.”

“You’re evil,” he says, shaking his head, but I can see the smile curling around his tusks and how hard he’s trying to hold it back.

“You don’t know the half of it,” I grin.

He leans his chin into his palm, holding my gaze.

The conference room door opens suddenly, shattering whatever fragile wonder had been growing between us in that moment.

A water nymph pokes his head in. “Is this room open?”

“It was reserved,” Khent answers quickly. “We’re using it.”

There’s a bit of a crowd hanging outside the door, they have their lunches with them. I can smell the takeout from here.

The one leaning in the doorway glances up and down the wide, empty ocean of conference table between Khent and me. He looks skeptical.

“There’s a smaller room open down the hall if you guys want to move to it,” he says after a couple beats. “We couldn’t fit everybody in that one for our lunch meeting.”

His words hang in the air a moment.

He clearly expects us to accommodate him. In other circumstances, I wouldn’t have minded doing so. But there’s kind of a medical condition here.

Khent, despite being about as wide as a desk, seems to shrink in on himself a little as the water nymph looks to him. He ducks his head down, shakes a hand through his hair like it could buy some kind of time.

“We did reserve this room,” Khent says hesitantly, like he’s not really sure how to hold his ground on that.

“Yeah, but,” the nymph makes a gesture to the emptiness of the room, scrunching up his scaly face, “Are you really using it?”

My eyes flick back and forth between the two, taking in their body language, a moment of clarity shifting into place.

I wonder if it’s easier for Khent to work on the fourth floor, where the IT department has less people and more storage, the reduced foot traffic and passerby’s, working on issues that have clear cut scripts. I don’t think I’ve ever met a socially anxious Orc before.

“Yes, we are,” I interrupt, raising my voice to take up the space that the nymph thinks is up for grabs, still keeping it on this side of polite. “Consider reserving it first, next time.”

The nymph turns his head to me.

“You’re interrupting my training,” I say, keeping my tone assertive, though the way my blood heats up protectively nearly turns my voice aggressive. “Now, if you would please close the door.”

The nymph pauses a moment, before sighing and obliging.

I turn my stare back to Khent when I’m sure we’re alone. There’s a sort of awe in his expression, dark green flush in his cheeks that sends a warmth up mine.

“I’ll just, um. Mark your training complete,” he stumbles to say, running a nervous hand through his hair again.