My Orc (Secret) Boss (Eastshore Isle #7)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Memnon

I stared up at the staircase.

The stupid fucking staircase.

“Thirteen more steps. You can do this,” I whispered.

I had to do this. For one thing, my apartment—and pain meds—were at the top of that staircase. If I ever wanted to eat or sleep, I needed to climb.

But let’s be honest; once I got to the top, I’d likely talk myself into coming back down again—which was easier, yeah, but caused different muscles to hurt like hell. Going up and down these stairs so many times, working the destroyed muscles in my right thigh, had my t-shirt soaked through with sweat, my hair plastered to the back of my neck, and my long-since-healed gunshot wound aching like someone had buried hot coals under my skin.

Stupid stairs. Stupid physical therapy.

At least here, on the staircase of the building I owned, at one o’clock in the morning, there was no chance of embarrassing myself.

If my leg gave out, or I just had to sit down for a minute—or ten—no one would see. My brother couldn’t nag me, my therapist couldn’t oh-so-innocently bend my leg himself, despite me telling him I didn’t like being touched.

I was alone with my pain.

The way it should be.

Just as I reached for the banister, steeling myself for the difficulty to come, the light over the lower landing switched on. I froze, my eyes flicking first up the stairs, then to the doors.

Simbel was asleep upstairs, although I guessed it would only be a matter of time before he found a new bed with his Mate. Orcs’ senses—including our hearing—were much more attuned than humans expected them to be, and I could hear my twin brother’s gentle snores from here.

Which meant he hadn’t flipped on the overhead light. Besides, even if he did wake and stick his head out of our apartment, the light on our landing was on, giving me enough illumination not to bash myself into the wall down here.

If Simbel wasn’t to blame, and the outer door—the one leading to the alley behind the building—was still locked, then that only left…

The back door to The Garden Shop clicked unlocked, then opened slowly. I pressed my back against the wall, my knuckles white around the banister, and hoped she wouldn’t see me.

No luck.

“Memnon?” her voice was husky, confused. “Is that you?”

My lips tugged into their habitual scowl.

What was she still doing at the shop? I purposefully exercised in the dead of night to be certain she wasn’t going to be here. Because whenever she was around, my stupid senses, and my stupid Kteer , couldn’t focus on anything else.

Maya Locklear was my downstairs tenant. Of course, she didn’t know I owned the building now—after years of paying New York City rents, I wanted something to call my own—and it wasn’t like she lived here. The Garden Shop was her place; a cozy, welcoming store that was part florist, part gardening supply depot. She always smelled vaguely of soil and sunshine and made me want to growl in frustration.

“Memnon?” she asked again, squinting across the landing. “I don’t have my contacts in, so that’d better be you!”

Huh.

Now that I quit being pissed off about the interruption, I took the time to really see her. The her she was now, rather than the way she usually looked.

Maya was dressed in a pair of soft shorts that barely covered her ass, and a racer-back tank in a smooth blue that showed off her strong shoulders and an intriguingly delicate vine tattoo along her collarbone. I wanted to study it, but I kept getting distracted by her thick black hair, which was flowing freely around her shoulders, instead of pulled into its usual braid.

She looked…like a woman who’d just woken from sleep.

And was chewing on her lower lip because she’d heard a noise outside and was worried.

I exhaled.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s me. Sorry if I was making noise. Just…climbing the stairs.”

“Climbing the stairs?” she repeated, then blinked sleepily. “Why?”

Because it’s the only way I can work these fucking muscles without anyone seeing ! But I tamped down the urge to scowl, because then she’d see my weakness, and tried for a nonchalant shrug as I lied. “Just getting back from a late night.” One in the morning? I winced. “ Very late night.”

“Gotcha.” She pressed the back of her hand to her lips to cover a yawn. “’Scuse me. I guess the steps are pretty good exercise for you, huh?”

She knows ? I didn’t want to go there, didn’t want to admit to anything. So I turned the questions back to her. “What are you doing here? I thought your shop closed at six?”

In a flash, Maya’s expression turned from adorably rumpled to wary, and she shifted backward, tugging the door closed a bit so I couldn’t see around her to what was in the back room of her shop.

“Working late!” she blurted, eyes wide. “Big orders. Lots to do!”

One of my brows twitched, although I doubted she could see it. Must be some really big orders, to keep her at the shop this late. “Business is good?”

She was nodding, edging the door closed a bit more. “You know how it is. All alone, everything’s dark, I heard someone back here, got a little paranoid.” The door shut even farther, until only a sliver of her showed between the door and the jamb. “Had to come check.”

I allowed my gaze to slide down the door jamb, eyeing the parts of her I could see. Dark curls, dark eyes, a dusky pink lower lip that was just a bit bigger than the upper, and made me wonder about the color of her nipples. That intriguing tattoo. Beautiful dark legs, looking even longer in those shorts, made me think about her strength and the noises she’d make when I licked her?—

What the actual fuck?

I’d met Maya only a handful of times—usually either coming or going from the back door—and there’d been no indication she would be cool with me fantasizing about her.

Besides, she was my tenant . I owned her shop. That made me her boss, didn’t it?

Not cool. That’s like three levels of creep.

She wasn’t mine to fantasize about.

I flexed the muscles in my forearm, practically yanking myself up that first step without any input from my injured leg, but came down hard enough to make pain spike through my thigh.

I hissed gratefully.

Yeah, that’s what I needed to distract my Kteer : pain.

“Everything’s locked up out here,” I muttered, forcing my attention to the stairs ahead of me. “You’re safe. No one will hurt you while I’m here—I mean, while you’re in this building.”

It was mine, after all.

I heard her murmur “Goodnight ,” heard her door shut, heard her lock slide home. I swallowed, tipping my head back to stare up at the twelve remaining obstacles between me and my bed.

And I had to fight against the way my Kteer —that primitive part of me—howled that the building might be mine…but so was Maya.