Page 24 of Grumpy Pucking Orc
“I can’t believe there aren’t any broken pieces of tooth left behind,” Jordan marveled, pointing at one of the images Mike had taken of my mouth. “There’s no need for bone grafting or any work on your jaw. The only thing I’m concerned about is placing the implant. I need to make sure our equipment is sufficient to drill into orc bone, and that we have the correct anesthesia and numbing medicines.”
She went on about abutments and how she wanted to ensure the replacement teeth were of equal strength to my originals. I didn’t understand half of what she was saying, but her voice wove its golden chains around my heart, and I loved that she was so passionate about something—even if it was something as strangely mundane as teeth.
Jordan stepped out again to see another patient, but she came back, and she continued to do everything herself, including polishing my teeth and tusks with a substance that tasted both gritty and minty.
I’d never had my tusks polished before and was breathless from the intimacy of the act as well as Jordan’s body so close to mine. She smelled like flowers and coconut, and I found myself fantasizing about her pushing the tray aside, straddling my body, shedding that white jacket, then slowly unbuttoning her shirt.
But that wasn’t going to happen. I was here as a patient, and any opportunity to get her undressed and bring her pleasure would need to occur elsewhere, at a later time and day.
I’d been relieved to realize that the other males in the front room weren’t suitors, but that meantIwasn’t here as a suitor, either. And an invitation to meet her at such an early hour clearly didn’t mean the same thing to humans as it didto orcs. For a second, I’d been worried that I’d misread her intentions. Then I’d remembered last night in the street, and our kiss. I’d felt a spark between us that had been a second from turning into a bonfire.
All too quickly she was done, putting away the metal sticks and moving the tray so I could stand.
“Leave your number with Ava up front, and I’ll call you when I have everything I need for the implant procedure,” she told me. “It’ll probably be three or four weeks since I’ll have to get them from a different manufacturer than I usually use. I’ll let you know if it’ll be more than a month, though.”
No! I couldn’t let her slip away like this. I couldn’t let this just be about my teeth and nothing else. I couldn’t wait three weeks or more before I saw her again.
“This is for you.” Desperate, I pulled the Starbucks gift card out of my pocket and handed it to her, thankful that I’d grabbed one when buying my coffee. “And…and…I would like to cook dinner for you. Tomorrow night. At my house.”
It was probably way too soon for me to offer her a meal, but I didn’t have time to figure out the glacial pace and weird rituals of human wooing, so I was going with what I would have done had she been an orc female.
Jordan seemed perplexed as she took the gift card, but her gaze shot up to meet mine at the dinner offer. “Tomorrow night?”
“Yes. Or the next night—whenever you are free.” Suddenly, it was very hard to breathe. If she said no… I pushed the panicked thought away. If she said no, I’d just have to go buy her a steak or kill a few squirrels in the park and leave them at her house as a gift. I didn’t know where she lived, but if I followed her this evening, I could easily find out. If I could track a Mennt across the plains, I could easily follow a human female home without being noticed.
“You want to cook me a traditional orc meal? At your house?” she asked.
I nodded, hoping I could find reasonable substitutions for the scant orc meals I knew how to make. “We can order pizza delivery if you don’t like it.”
She laughed, and my heart felt lighter at the sound. “Then it’s a date. Tomorrow night at your house. What can I bring? Wine? Bread from the bakery? A dessert?”
“Just you,” I told her.
She dimpled again. “That’s not fair. You’re cooking a whole meal for me. The least I can do is bring wine. Red or white?”
I stared at her, concerned that I would answer wrong. Was there a difference? I’d never drunk wine before, being a beer kind of orc myself.
“How about one of each?” she suggested. “That way you can keep what you’re cooking a surprise.”
“Okay.” And now I could breathe again. She’d accepted my offer to cook for her, at my home. Tomorrow night. And she’d said it was a “date,” which, according to Bwat, was what humans called their wooing activities.
I wasn’t just another mouth of teeth in her job. I was a date. And I was cooking her dinner.
Chapter 11
Jordan
Ihonestly had no idea what the heck was going on with my new patient.
Was hereallya patient?
Of course he was, since I’d cleaned and polished his teeth and was going to take care of his implants, but I didn’t ever have dinner at my patients’ houses. And I certainly didn’t have any patients that I’d drunkenly kissed outside of McHenry’s Tavern at two in the morning after closing time.
And then there was the velvet engagement ring box that I’d nearly had a heart attack over. Had it been a joke? Because I could barely stifle my laugh when I’d opened the box and saw what was inside. Orc customs were clearly different than human ones, so maybe he’d not known that he was carrying his teeth in a ring box? Or did he actually mean to propose to me? With teeth?
Then there was the Starbucks gift card he’d given to me right before he’d left. Never had a patient given me a gift card—even during the Christmas holidays. But it was clear that he considered me more than his reconstructive dentist.I doubted he invited his medical providers over for dinner. Unless that was an orc thing?
No. There’d been some sort of zing between us there in the parking lot, and that kiss… Plus, the zing had still been there today while I’d been trying my best to be professional.
