by Cassie Cole
But I was feeling frisky. And the impulse to do more than just hug was too strong to overcome.
I stood on my tip-toes and kissed him.
He reacted stiffly, surprised by the sudden pressing of my lips against his. His body was hard and warm and I leaned into it, putting my hand on his chest and wishing he wasn’t wearing his t-shirt.
When I pulled away, he stared down at me with blue eyes full of surprise. “I…”
I turned and found Anthony on the other side of me. I approached slowly, slid my hands around his waist, and kissed him tenderly. Maybe it was because he had more warning than David, but he was a much better kisser. He wrapped his arms around me and leaned into my lips, mouth moving against mine in perfect synchronicity. His fingers laced into my hair and held my head in place, demanding that I not stop. Although he wasn’t totally jacked like his brothers, he still felt warm and lean underneath his shirt.
Both of us were panting when the kiss ended.
“I don’t know what Lara thought,” I said, “but so far Anthony is the leader.”
A huge grin spread across his face.
I turned to Jake and raised an eyebrow. There was hunger in his dark eyes. Then he snatched the bottle of whiskey off the table and shook his head.
“Sorry, honey. I don’t play games.”
He carried the whiskey to the front door.
“Where are you going?” David asked.
The only answer was the front door slamming shut.
I suppressed the sting of rejection and shrugged. “His loss. Goodnight, boys.”
I felt their eyes on my back as I left the dining room and went upstairs.
I couldn’t help giggling as I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and prepare for bed. Had I really just done that? Kissed two of the men I worked with—worked for? I had never been that forward with anyone. And in front of each other, no less.
Their story about Lara, and how they shared her among the three of them, had given me more courage than normal. It reminded me of the secret I had told Ashley the other night, how I regretted not having that threesome with my ex and his friend.
I went to my bedroom and closed the door. When I turned off the light, something outside the window caught my eye. I had a view of the zoo from here, looking out over the treetops. It should have been dark, but there was a faint glow somewhere on the back side of the zoo. A light flickered and reflected off the trees. It must have been very bright for me to see it from here. It wasn’t a flashlight. Some sort of electrical problem?
David needed to know. I went to the door and threw it open.
The eldest Haines brother was there in the hallway, hand raised like he was about to knock. He blinked with surprise at my sudden appearance.
“I was just coming to find you,” I began.
“I’m a better kisser than that,” he suddenly said.
The change of subject totally caught me off guard. “Are you?” I said dumbly.
He stepped into my room and showed me.
16
Rachel
David grabbed my face with both hands and kissed me. The passion and intensity in his lips shocked me. Like a parched man in the desert finally drinking a cup of cool oasis water. It was the kind of kiss that happened after years of flirting and attraction, when two people finally gave in to their long-building urges. Not the kind of kiss I would have expected from someone I had only known for a few days.
He kicked the door closed behind him and pushed me toward the bed, which I fell backwards onto as if it were a cloud. He planted his ripped, chiseled arms on either side of me and smothered me with another kiss, and my entire body relaxed and melted into the down comforter.
“Okay,” I gasped when he finally stopped. “That’s definitely a better kiss than before.”
“I wasn’t ready for the first one,” he said, face mere inches from mine.
“Sorry for surprising you.”
He smirked. “Now it’s my turn to surprise you.”
David kissed along my neck, then down past my chest. I yelped with surprise as he yanked my pajama bottoms off, then my panties. A flash of embarrassment struck me as I realized I was now nude in front of him.
The shock disappeared as he buried his face in between my legs.
I moaned with surprise, then unexpected pleasure as he went down on me. Licking my pussy like it was something he had been fantasizing about. His strong arms wrapped around my legs and held me down while he feasted on my pussy. The sight of him was incredible—the muscles in his shoulders and arms flexed as he gripped me tightly, tongue swirling inside and around my lady parts.
He paused and looked up. “Why are you stopping?” I gasped.
“Just making sure you took the picture off the wall.”
My giggle turned into a moan as he resumed his work.
He definitely knew what he was doing. It was like he was reading my thoughts, giving me exactly what I wanted. As my ecstasy rose his grip on my legs tightened, boa constrictors of muscle that refused to let go while he pleasured me, and as I came I grabbed hold of his brown hair and held his face against my pussy.
“Okay,” I breathed afterward. “That was definitely a better kiss than downstairs.
He rumbled with laughter and kissed his way back up to my neck. “Told you.”
“Although that’s not the kiss I expected.”
David kissed me on the lips. The taste of myself on his tongue was incredibly sexy. “Well, if you’re not satisfied I’ll leave you alone…”
He started to leave, and I grabbed his shirt and pulled him back down into a longer kiss. “It’s your turn.”
“Don’t need a turn.”
I rolled him over onto his back and mounted him. While kissing him I ground my pussy against his crotch. He was rock-hard already. I pulled his shirt over his head, revealing the chiseled muscle underneath. Even in the darkness I could see every line and contour of his beautiful body, like an oil painting spread out on the bed underneath me. After taking a moment to admire him, I did what he had done to me: kissed his neck, then licked my way down his chest. My tongue ran over the flesh of his pecs, then along the lines of his six-pack. He had almost no fat on him, and the muscle was warm underneath my tongue. Feeling sexy, I used my teeth to unbutton his jeans, then kissed the top of his happy trail while using my fingers to unzip him.
“Rachel…” he moaned.
I slid his pants down, then his boxers, and his cock appeared in all its magnificence. It was long and thick around the middle, and his pubic hair was short and well-manicured.
I ran my fingertips along the underside of it, which made his entire body shiver underneath me. Then I kissed the underside of his head and licked from the tip all the way down to his balls. The sound David made let me know I was doing everything right.
Finally after teasing him sufficiently, I gripped his shaft in one fist and sucked on the end. I stroked him steadily while my mouth moved up and down. David knew what he was doing while going down on me, but so did I. He sighed and arched his back while I gave him a blowjob, rapidly picking up speed to match the way he was thrusting up into my mouth. Soon I was opening my mouth wide and letting him fuck me.
The sound of his pleasure was intensifying my own. I reached a hand down between my legs and rubbed myself steadily, imagining that he was still going down on me.
“Oh my God,” he moaned. “I’m gonna come, Rachel…”
He tried to pull my head back so he could come somewhere else, but that’s not what I wanted. I held my mouth in place so he could keep fucking it. Once he realized what I was doing he gripped a handful of my hair and held me down on his cock. Pushing it as deep as it would go.
The noise he made as he came down my throat was deep and primal. I moaned with him as each rope of his seed filled me. I breathed through my nose and managed not to choke as he shuddered and spasmed inside me, his fingers gripping my hair so urgently that it pulled my skin tight.
I giggled when he finally let me pull away. “I bet that was a better kiss than I gave you earlier.”
“Any kiss down there is better than a kiss on the lips,” David purred. “Was that too much? I wasn’t planning on holding you down on me and…”
I slid up his muscular body and kissed him on the lips with a little bit of tongue. Letting him taste himself. “That’s what I wanted. Less mess this way.”
“I didn’t know if you would like that,” he said.
“It’s not that I like a mouthful of come. But hearing your pleasure, and feeling your skin tremble? That’s the hottest thing in the world.” I ran my fingernails along his sternum. “I don’t think I’m ready for you to leave. If you want to stick around until you’re ready for round two.”
He grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled me to his lips roughly. “Who says I’m not ready now?”
I thought it was an empty boast. All guys needed some time to reload after coming. But David rolled me over onto my back and smothered my body with his while kissing me. His cock slid against my wet slit, rubbing against it as he gyrated his hips.
He sank into me. I moaned as his dick parted my lips and plunged into my depths. He was still hard as a rock and showed no sign of softening, despite coming just moments before. David leaned back on his knees so that he was upright, then spread my legs wide.
“Your pussy feels so good,” he moaned. “Better than your mouth.”
“I like this better too,” I gasped.
He fucked me steadily, legs spread wide. Then he leaned forward, moving my legs backwards with him and tilting my ass upward. The new angle of his cock rubbed against my forward wall, hitting my G-spot. Normally that would have been too intense for me, but after the warm-up…
“Right there,” I begged. “There, right there, don’t stop…”
He fucked me harder, slamming his cock into me. He leaned forward to kiss me, moving my legs up and over his shoulders. Sweat beaded on his temple as he did push-ups on my pussy, pummeling my G-spot with his manhood, and soon I was wrapping my arms around him and clenching my eyes shut and there was nothing in the world except my body, and his, and the intense pleasure we were sharing.
My orgasm went on and on. Normally I needed clitoral stimulation to come, but his cock was hitting my G-spot in new and exciting ways. Wave after wave of ecstasy slammed against my shores, a hurricane of euphoria, and when David came too I saw the same bliss spread across his handsome face, and I kissed him as he filled me again with his seed.
We lay on the bed in a sweaty tangle of limbs and sheets after. His thumb caressed my hair gently while I ran my fingernails along his thigh. His body radiated heat. Even though I was warm too, I didn’t mind. It felt good to be close to him.
“Okay, I’m legitimately impressed,” I said. With our heads resting against each other, I only needed to whisper. “Most guys need at least ten minutes to recharge before going for round two.”
“I’m not most guys,” he replied.
“You didn’t fake it, did you? Because I will be super offended if you faked it.”
He kissed my hair. “No faking. I don’t need to recharge. I think it has to do with my ketogenic diet.”
“And here I thought it was because you were really attracted to me,” I replied.
“Nope. I’m not attracted to you at all. Not even a little bit.”
I playfully smacked his chest. It was like hitting a tree.
“It’s kind of cheating to do more than just kiss,” I said. “I can’t judge you and Anthony fairly now.”
His chest vibrated with silent laughter. “I guess you’ll have to sleep with Anthony to even things up, then.”
“Maybe I will,” I joked.
He didn’t react, so I twisted to gaze up at him. He was watching me with a curious look on his face.
“What?”
“It wouldn’t be the craziest thing in the world,” he said slowly. “It worked just fine with Lara.”
“I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.”
He kissed me on the forehead. “I’m dead serious. If that’s something you would be interested in. And if not? That’s okay too.”
He kissed me on the forehead, then got out of bed and put his pants back on.
“What, no cuddling?” I teased.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m a light sleeper.” He smiled warmly. “I’ll be grumpy in the morning if I don’t get eight uninterrupted hours. See you bright and early.”
He gave me a final kiss, stared deep into my eyes, then left my room.
17
David
For all my talk of needing to get some sleep, I lay in my own bed long after leaving Rachel’s room. I could still feel her body underneath mine, warm and soft. My mind raced as I replayed everything that had just happened.
It all felt so perfect. Like we had a connection that extended beyond the two days of work we had done together. I couldn’t explain it.
When I did fall asleep, I dreamed of driving around the zoo in the Mule with Rachel in the passenger seat, the wind blowing her blonde hair back and a huge smile on her beautiful face.
I was an early riser back in Richmond because I led the first Crossfit class at five in the morning. I forced myself to wake up early and keep the schedule while I was here, so it would be easier to return to when all of this was over. I took a short shower and left my room. Her bedroom door was still closed.
I smiled. I liked being up before everyone else.
But when I went downstairs, I found her seated in a chair in the foyer. Her wavy blonde hair was down and she was idly reading something on her phone.
“Morning,” she said simply. “I thought you’d never get up.”
We walked to the zoo together in the early-morning silence, where the night insects had ceased their noise but the morning birds had yet to wake. Halfway there I reached over and took her hand in mine. I couldn’t remember the last time I had held hands with a girl. It felt more sensual than what we had done last night.
She must have been thinking along the same lines because she said, “I had fun last night.”
“Me too. We should do it again sometime.”
“I’ll check my schedule.”
Both of us chuckled together.
“Were you serious about Anthony?”
The change of subject caught me off guard. I had forgotten about my comment to her. It felt like an off-hand thing at the time, but now it was like an aroma in the air between us.
But I was serious last night. Everything had worked so well with Lara. In all my girlfriends over the years, I had never felt like I truly belonged in a relationship. Except for Lara. It was like the three of us could satisfy her in ways we never could individually. The pressure was off and everything just sort of worked.
Rachel let go of my hand and pulled her hair back into a ponytail while waiting for a response.
“I was serious,” I told her. “Only if that’s something you would be interested in. There’s no pressure or expectations or anything.”
“Okay.”
We got to work in our normal groove. Me prepping the food and Rachel feeding the animals. I liked it this way—despite working at the zoo when I was a teenager, I had never liked feeding the big cats. It made me feel like I was the food more than the meat I pushed through the cages.
On her third run, Rachel waved to me to turn the band saw off. “Jake’s out by the scrap yard. On the far end of the zoo.”
“Huh.”
“You know what he’s doing?” she asked.
“Who knows? Probably got it into his head that the gate to one of the enclosures needs to be replaced. I try to stay out of his way. Only way to keep him from complaining.”
Rachel lingered by the food trays. “Can I ask you something?”
“Depends.”
“Anthony said that Jake got stuck working here.”
“That’s not a question,” I pointed out.
> “What happened? How did he get stuck?”
Old guilt rose up in me like a geyser, making me nauseous. I tried to keep my voice level but it was a battle.
“Dad always wanted this to be a family business. We worked here as teenagers, and he intended for us to stay on permanently. Especially for me, his eldest son. I was supposed to be the crazy prince to the crazy empire. That was never my plan, though. Dad wasn’t the most nurturing father. I wanted to get away. Jake felt the same way. We wanted to do something with our lives rather than stay at the zoo until we grew old.
“I got interested in Crossfit. Put feelers out. Found someone who wanted to open a franchise up in Virginia. We lined up some investors and I prepared to break the news to dad.”
“Then what happened?”
I chuckled. “Then Anthony got accepted to Duke. By then I was already on track to leave the zoo. I didn’t mean for the two of us to bail at the same time. Just shitty luck.”
I examined the chunk of meat on the table because it gave me something to focus on other than the words coming out of my mouth.
“The two of us told dad together, at the same time. He was heartbroken. Begged us to stay. Yelled at us. Even cried a little. But Anthony and I had made our decisions.”
“And Jake…”
I nodded. “He was left behind. Stuck helping dad, and he felt too guilty to leave. Dad got more bitter as the years went on. Wouldn’t answer the phone or reply to emails. We came down for Christmas one year and he barricaded the place. Wouldn’t let us in.
“Jake resented us for it. Like we had planned to bail at the same time. Once my Crossfit gym was up and running I asked him to come work for me, but he said it would destroy dad. He refused to be the last one to leave. He stuck around for a few years, tolerating all the hard work and dad’s shitty attitude day in and day out. Jake finally did split when it became too much. Dad never forgave him.”
I turned back to Rachel to gauge her reaction. She was right next to me, a sad look on her face. She hugged me, and didn’t care that the blood on my butcher’s apron was smearing on her shirt. The hug meant the world to me in that moment.
