Chapter 3 #2
We stare at each other through the security window, neither backing down.
Up close like this, I can see details I missed during our first encounter.
The silver rings threaded through his tusks catch the overhead light.
A thin scar cuts through his left eyebrow.
His eyes aren't pure black like I originally thought—they're a very dark brown, warm like coffee beans, with flecks of amber near the iris.
He's also covered in significantly more flour than I realized.
It's everywhere. In his hair, his eyebrows, dusted across the bridge of his broad nose.
Some distant, traitorous part of my brain notes that he doesn't look threatening right now.
He looks like a very large, very patient man who just got caught in a snowstorm.
"You started this entire situation," I say finally, hearing how childish it sounds even as the words leave my mouth. Apparently we've both regressed to playground-level conflict resolution.
"I apologized," he counters, still maddeningly calm.
"With meat!" I practically screech, my voice climbing an octave higher. "You apologized by leaving dead animal parts like some kind of deranged carnivorous suitor!"
"Good meat," he corrects, as if the quality of the offering somehow makes it acceptable. "Prime cuts. Expensive."
"That's not the point!" I throw my hands up in exasperation, sending a fresh cloud of flour particles into the air between us.
"The point is that normal people apologize with words, Lanek.
Words! Maybe flowers if they're feeling fancy.
Not with slabs of raw protein that attract flies and horrify my customers! "
His mouth twitches. Actually twitches, like he's fighting back a smile, and the sight of it sends a fresh surge of indignation through my system. "You think this is funny?"
"A little," he admits, and the honesty of it catches me completely off-guard. "You're very small and very angry. It's objectively amusing."
"I will end you," I inform him with as much dignity as I can muster while wielding a wooden spoon like a weapon. "I will bake you into a pie. A very large, very vindictive pie."
He considers this for a moment, his dark eyes sweeping over me with what might be amusement. "I'm too big for a pie," he points out reasonably, as if we're having a perfectly normal discussion about logistics rather than me threatening culinary homicide.
"Then a series of pies," I counter without missing a beat, warming to the theme now. "Multiple pies. An entire bakery case of Lanek pies. I'll label them individually. Lanek Shoulder Pie. Lanek Bicep Tartlet. Lanek Smug Face Mini Quiche."
His eyebrows rise slightly, and I swear I see the corner of his mouth twitch again. "That's disturbing, Quinn," he says, though his tone suggests he's more entertained than concerned about being converted into baked goods.
"You're disturbing! Your entire existence is disturbing! You and your bone saw and your meat gifts and your—your massive arms that can apparently reach through windows like some kind of horror movie monster!"
He's definitely smiling now. Not a smirk, not a grin, but an actual, genuine smile that transforms his entire face from intimidating to something dangerously close to handsome. "My arms are normal-sized for an Orc."
"Well I'm not an Orc, so from my perspective they're terrifying!"
"Are you actually terrified?"
The question makes me pause, because the honest answer is no.
Annoyed? Absolutely. Furious? Beyond measure.
But terrified? I'm standing here threatening to bake him into pastry while he's got his arm through my window, and the dominant emotion racing through my system is indignation mixed with something I absolutely refuse to examine too closely.
"That's irrelevant," I say instead, though my voice comes out slightly breathless, which I absolutely hate because it undermines the authority I'm trying to project.
"Is it?" He tilts his head slightly, and powder sugar drifts down from his hair like the world's most ridiculous snowfall. He doesn't seem to notice or care.
"Yes. The relevant point is that you're trespassing. This is my bakery, and that," I gesture sharply at his still-visible arm, "is a clear violation of personal and professional boundaries."
"Through a window you left open," he counters, his tone maddeningly reasonable, as if this is a perfectly logical point to make. As if the state of my window somehow negates the fact that he's currently halfway through it like some kind of impossibly broad-shouldered burglar.
"To vent heat, not to invite neighboring butchers to stick their appendages into my workspace!"
The smile widens into something that definitely counts as a grin now, and I realize approximately three seconds too late how that sentence sounded. Heat floods my face, as his eyes track the change, that grin settling into something knowing.
"Don't," I warn, my voice sharp enough to cut through the absurdity of this entire situation.
"I didn't say anything," he replies, and the picture of innocence in his tone is so utterly unconvincing that it makes my teeth grind together.
"You were thinking it," I snap back, because I can see it in his eyes, in the way that knowing grin is spreading wider, transforming his entire expression into something unbearably smug.
"Thinking what, exactly?" he asks, his voice dropping into a lower register that somehow makes the question sound far more dangerous than it has any right to be.
That does it. That absolutely does it.
Without pausing to consider the consequences or the sheer waste of premium confectioner's sugar, I grab the half-full bag from the counter beside me and hurl it directly at his face with every ounce of strength I possess.
To his credit, he doesn't flinch. Just closes his eyes as a cloud of fine white powder explodes around his head, coating him in a fresh layer of sweet-smelling dust. When he opens them again, his entire face is white except for his eyes and mouth, and he looks like the world's most muscular ghost.
"Better?" he asks mildly.
"So much better," I lie.
He finally withdraws his arm, though his face remains framed in the window opening. "Turn off the fan, Quinn."
"Make me."
"Is that a challenge?"
Something in his tone sends a shiver down my spine that has absolutely nothing to do with temperature. I lift my chin and meet his eyes, refusing to back down even though every survival instinct I possess is suddenly screaming warnings I don't want to hear.
"What if it is?"
For a long moment, he just looks at me. Really looks, like he's cataloging every detail, from my flour-dusted hair to my crossed arms to the defiant tilt of my jaw. Then he straightens to his full height outside the window.
"You should turn off the fan," he says, each word deliberate and measured, like he's giving me one final opportunity to be reasonable.
I tilt my head, examining him through the window with what I hope looks like casual indifference rather than the strange, electric anticipation currently crackling through my veins. "Or what?"
"Or I will turn it off myself."
The statement lands between us with the weight of a promise, not a threat. Something about the certainty in his voice makes my pulse kick up another notch, though I'd rather die than let him see it.
I let out a laugh that comes out sharper than intended, gesturing between us with one flour-dusted hand.
"You're on the other side of a wall, Lanek.
A solid brick wall, in case you've forgotten.
Unless you plan to just walk around through the front like a normal person and ask politely, which we both know isn't going to happen because you don't actually know how to be—"
The back door of my bakery crashes open with enough force to rattle the hinges, the sound of metal striking wood echoing through my kitchen like a gunshot.
The little bell I'd hung there for aesthetic purposes goes flying, hitting the floor with a discordant jangle that seems to punctuate the sudden shift in the air between us.
I spin around to find Lanek filling the entire doorframe, still covered in confectioner's sugar and flour, looking like some kind of deranged snow monster who just decided to rob a bakery.
He steps inside without invitation, and I'm suddenly, acutely aware of exactly how much space he takes up in my carefully organized kitchen.
"Get out," I say, but my voice has lost some of its conviction.
"Fan first."
"This is breaking and entering!"
"The door was unlocked." He takes another step forward. "Fan, Quinn."
I should move. Should run to the fan and shut it off, should de-escalate this situation before it spirals further out of control. Instead, I stand my ground and watch him approach with my heart hammering and my hands clenched into fists at my sides.
"No."
The word comes out steady despite everything, and something flashes through his expression. Approval, maybe. Or interest. Something that makes the air between us feel suddenly charged, heavy with potential energy.
He crosses the remaining distance in two strides, moving past me toward the back door and the still-running industrial fan beyond it. I could stop him. Should stop him. Instead, I follow, because apparently confrontation is my new addiction.
He reaches the industrial fan and flips the power switch with one decisive motion.
The motor winds down with a mechanical groan, and the sudden absence of that relentless mechanical roar is almost shocking in its completeness.
My ears ring in the void it leaves behind, adjusting to the unexpected quiet that rushes in to fill the space.
"There," he says, turning back to face me with an expression of such casual satisfaction that it makes my teeth grind. "Was that so difficult?"
My hands ball into fists at my sides. "You can't just barge into my shop whenever you feel like it and start touching my equipment like you own the place!"