Page 1 of Susie's Orc

Chapter 1

Susie

Who schedules a meeting at 3pm on a Friday?

Seriously, if they think any of us in this room are actually listening to the presentation on the new accounts payable process, they’re living in a daydream.

All around the conference room, my coworkers are zoned out into various stages of boredom and distraction. I can almost see the little thought bubbles over everyone’s heads—imagining their happy hour plans, or dreading sitting in Friday afternoon traffic, or mentally queuing up their Netflix selection for the evening.

Any other day, I’d be in the same boat. And truthfully, I’m probably not any less distracted than anyone else here, but today I’m distracted for a very, very different reason.

I’m sitting next to Jonah from Accounting.

And yes, that’s how I’ve always mentally referred to him. Idoknow his last name. It’s Greenwood, but somewhere along the way he became ‘Jonah from Accounting’ in my—way too frequent—thoughts about him, and it just stuck.

Or maybe Greenwood’s his clan name. I’m not one hundred percent certain how naming conventions work for orcs.

If someone had told me five years ago that I’d be attending an accounts payable meeting, listening to a half-faun talk about claims filing, sitting at a table between an orc and a vampire, I would have asked them what kind of drugs they’d taken.

But here I am, working in the Community Outreach department of the Paranormal Citizens Relations Bureau—theMonsterRelations Bureau, as most people call it.

Despite the worldwide shock that came with the passage of the Paranormal Acts five years ago, followed by the merging of the paranormal and mundane worlds, now it seems like just a fact of life. I started at the Bureau two years ago, and being a human working alongside paranormal coworkers is nothing to bat an eye at.

Well, I might still want to bat an eye at Jonah from Accounting.

Six and a half feet tall, broad as a freaking mack truck, and with skin a lovely shade of cool green, he’s kind of hard to miss. Not that I’ve really gotten to know him beyond a few polite conversations in the breakroom and the handful of times my expense reports have landed on his desk and he’s had to reach out with questions.

I’ve never had enough courage to get to know him better, even though I’ve had a big, dumb crush on him for the last two years.

That’s right. A huge, stupid, pathetic crush I’m absolutely not brave enough to act on.

Until today, that is, but even that hardly counts. When I got to the meeting room he was already here, and there just so happened to be an open seat next to him. I slid into it right before Carol got started with her presentation, so I didn’t even get the chance to strike up a conversation.

Jonah, for his part, looks like he’s completely engaged in the presentation because… well, because of course he would be. Heseems like that kind of guy. Earnest, kind, a little dorky with his slightly too-big khaki pants and his navy blue polo.

He’s exactly my damn type. I like them big, and I like them nerdy, and even though nothing in our interactions up to this point has made me think he’s crushing on me, too, it’s still distracting as hell to be this close to him.

Focus. I need to focus.

Somewhere near the back of the room, someone clears their throat. A clock ticks on the wall, and a few afternoon clouds drift by outside the window. In the row in front of me, a minotaur checks her watch, no doubt just eager to get out of here as the rest of us.

I glance down at the empty notebook page in front of me and try to listen to what Carol’s saying. It’s probably important. I’m hopeless when it comes to filing all my expenses correctly, so I could benefit from whatever she’s saying.

Instead, my eyes wander from the blank page to where Jonah has his hands resting on the table in front of him.

How have I never noticed his hands before?

And now that I have…

I can’t stop staring at his fingers. They’re enormous. His entire hands are, really. The same pretty green as the rest of him, they’re the biggest damn hands I’ve ever seen. They’re huge and calloused and rugged, and an intrusive thought flashes into my dirty, depraved mind.

I can’t help but wonder what those fingers would feel like inside of me.

There’s a sharp throb between my legs, my inner muscles clenching on nothing like they’re already imagining what it would be like to be impaled on two, maybe three, of those thick digits. Good lord, they’re huge. Even one would give me the friction I need to…

What the hell is wrong with me?

Am I having a stroke? Did someone lace the water cooler with hallucinogenics? Are they pumping some kind of aphrodisiac in through the HVAC?

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