Page 6 of Bound to the Orc Hunter

Still, I can guess what he’s saying—“Why the hell did you put a huge lump of obnoxiously colored plastic right in the middle of my perfect movie set?”

“Hey, now. Your props people made that thing… appear, not me.” I flap a hand at the bouncy castle. It popping into existence like that had to be some kind of special effect, right? “And that twenty-foot fall was no joke. I don’t have any stunt training. I could have gotten hurt!”

He turns to face me with some serious bedroom-eyes action, hitting me with a double whammy when he adds a charming smile. “Drevistie.”

My tummy flutters. Bad tummy! Stop fluttering for him!

The movie star stalks toward me. Oh, god. Is this the next part of the prank? Have the gorgeous guy pretend to find the plain-looking woman attractive and capture all of it on film?

Fuck that noise.

“I wish I had something to throw at him,” I whisper.

A pillow pops into my hands.

Oh, god. If that’s a special effect, I don’t see how they’re doing it. But it has to be right? Because if it’s not, then…I’mdoing it.

But why a pillow? A quick laugh bursts from my lips, bordering on hysterical. What an utterlyuselessthing! I guess they don’t want their leading man getting his pretty face hurt.

“Here goes nothing.” I lob it at him, and of course, he bats it out of the way.

Over and over again, pillows pop into existence in my hands, the crystal on my chest burning with warmth.

And over and over again, he knocks them aside, taking slow steps toward me. With those long legs, he could be on me in a flash. So he must be toying with me, drawing things out for the camera.

This becomes even more apparent when he grins and starts catching the pillows in order to drop them on the ground, one right beside the other.

I squint, trying to figure out what he’s doing. Then he adds another pillow, and it suddenly becomes clear.

This asshole is making a bed!

“As if, buddy.” I throw another three pillows in rapid succession.

He adds them to the others, filling in the last holes in the “bed.”

Then he’s on me in two strides, and it suddenly becomes clear that he’s not just tall, he tops me by a good foot, which is really saying something since I’m almost six-feet. I feel smallerthan a man for the first time in years, the kind of smaller that imagines his big body on top of mine…

No. Bad brain.

Up close, his green body paint is so immaculate I keep expecting a makeup artist to run out of the trees waving a sponge and demanding he hold still for yet another touch up.

His hands capture mine. He transfers both of my wrists to one of his huge hands, holding them easily. His other digs in his pocket, pulling out a crystal that looks a lot like the one on my necklace.

I guess I should be glad it’s not a knife or cuffs or something. Not that monster-hands here even needs cuffs with fingers so long and strong.

Nope. Not thinking about how long his fingers are! Not even noticing. Not atall.

He taps the crystal to my collarbone, dragging it across my skin like a caress.

I shiver, my body reacting to his nearness, whether I want to or not. No! Bad body!

“There,” he says, his deep voice making my stomach do flips. “You should be able to understand me now.”

“What? How?”

“Magic, like you used to make the pillows.”

Magic? No. That means all of this is real. He must be pulling my leg, trying to get me to agree that I have magic on camera so they can make even more fun of me.

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