Page 21 of Grumpy Pucking Orc
The female dashed out of the room, leaving me to take up a defensive position facing the only exit. When Jordan came in, I felt the tension leave my shoulders. She was giving me a kind smile and looked especially nice with her nut-brown hair pulled back and a long white jacket over her gray shirt and pants.
“Everything okay?” She walked up to me until she was so close that I could see the gold flecks in hergray eyes. “You scared the heck out of Makena, but she needs to get used to nonhuman patients. I’ll talk to her, but for today, I’ll handle your imaging and exam.”
“I might have growled at her,” I admitted sheepishly.
Jordan laughed, putting a hand on my arm. “Humans have done worse than growl at their dental appointments. Here. Sit in the chair, and I’ll go over the intake form with you.”
I did as she asked, finding the chair surprisingly comfortable, even though I still didn’t like the look of the metal arms and trays full of what looked to be torture devices.
“So, I’m guessing you might have some concerns about the questions on our form?” She held up the piece of paper I’d returned to the female out front. Black ink slashed across the neat lines, and light shown through the holes.
I thought she’d be angry at my disrespect, but Jordan looked like she was struggling not to laugh.
“Name. Address. Employer. I’ll have Shanelle call for your insurance information, so don’t worry about that. I’m guessing from these slashes that you either don’t want to share your medical history, or that you don’t have any medical history?”
She glanced at me with her eyebrows raised and that faint smile on her face.
“Sorry.” I grunted. “We have healers at home who take care of wounds and injuries. If broken, our tusks will grow back. Our other teeth don’t grow, so if they are damaged, our healers help the pain, and they stay in our mouth.”
She tapped her pen against her lips, and I watched, fascinated. Her lips had felt so soft and full against mine. I wanted to touch them, taste them again, suck them into my mouth and nibble gently down on them.
“Your tusks regrow?”
Jordan interrupted my thoughts with her question, which was okay because she seemed genuinely interested to know about my second favorite part of my anatomy.
“For our whole lives, our tusks always grow. We need to shape and trim them often, or they can curl around to sometimes hurt our face.”
She stepped forward, reaching out a hand before looking up to me for permission.
I grunted. “You may touch.”
She had my permission to touch all sorts of things. Once more, my mind wandered to fantasy, only to be jerked back to reality when she ran her fingers over the loose tusk she’d examined last night. It wasn’t that our tusks were sensitive; in fact, I could barely feel her touch on the tooth. It was such an intimacy for someone to run gentle hands over my tusk and the edge of my lips, though. We orcs were physically demonstrative, but that mostly meant slaps on the back, hugs, shoulder clasps, and head-butts, not…this.
Fuck. My hand-axe was absolutely rising to the occasion.
She glanced down, then stepped back, her face going pink. “So…uh…how long have you ever grown your tusks?”
I shook my head, a little embarrassed. “When I was a foolish youngling, I refused to trim and shape them. They grew to here.” I held my fingers mid-cheek. “Then they curled out like this. My father said ‘enough,’ and I trimmed them back like they are now. It was not a good look, having my tusks curled on my face. In our clan, only very old orcs, hermits, and those who lose their minds let their tusks grow so long without a trim.”
My father had always been strict about keeping my tusks neat and a reasonable length, but after losing his mate,my mother, in the plague, he stopped caring about his own. When I’d left, his one tusk had curled around in a circle while the other one had grown in a long arc just past the outer corner of his eye. He had wanted to stop living after losing his life mate, but he—as well as many of our other clansmen suffering such a loss—would not allow himself that relief until he was assured our clan would continue.
“I can imagine it would be difficult to eat and drink and…do other things with such long, curled tusks,” Jordan commented.
She’d blushed at the “other things,” and I smiled, knowing where her mind had gone.
“I am capable of eating, drinking, and doing many pleasurable things to satisfy my partner no matter the length of my tusks,” I confidently assured her.
Her inhalation was sharp, and she wouldn’t meet my gaze. After a few seconds, she cleared her throat and finally looked at me once more.
“Well, your injured tusk seems firmly in place this morning with no signs of lasting damage,” she continued. “I want to have images of all your teeth, but especially that tusk to make sure there isn’t something going on under your gumline. And…and if you like, I can clean, shape, and polish them as well as the rest of your teeth.”
My smile grew. “I would very much like that.”
She was clearly flustered, and it made me want to laugh. I was feeling lighter and happier than I had…actually than I had since the last time I’d seen her.
“Um, okay, then. Let me take a look at the rest of your teeth. Oh! Were you able to find the ones that were knocked out?”
My eyes widened as I remembered my gift. Digging the box out of my pocket, I presented it to her with both hands.She stared at it a moment, paling slightly. I felt my stomach twist. Was this wrong? Should I have gone with the grocery store steak instead?
