by Desiree Holt
She giggles, helping me, as she lays back on the couch, baring herself to me. Perfect. That’s the only word that comes to mind. First, her breasts are just the right size for me. Now she looks like she’s wanton and ready.
I prop both of her legs up on my shoulders and scoot her towards me. She looks at me with heavy-lidded eyes as her breath catches in anticipation.
She doesn’t know what’s coming for her.
I press my thumb at her nub, circling it with practiced precision. Her hips buck against the leather sofa as she mutters, “God!”
I take that moment to slide a finger in her, testing her warmth. She’s wet, ready, sweet.
I circle my thumb a few more times, watching her as she squeezes her breasts together and pinches her own nipples.
Fuck yes, this is hot.
I lean forward and replace my fingers with my tongue, tasting her. She cries out again as she tries to buck against me, but my hands have her hips held fast. She’s not going anywhere, except on the ride I’m taking her on.
As my tongue flicks in and out, her moans get more desperate, higher in pitch, until I’m sure that she’s going to go over the edge. This is exactly where I want her. And I want to be in her when we both come.
“Do you have a condom?” I ask, when I come up from air. I have one in my wallet—a bartender is always prepared, but I left that somewhere between the front door and paradise.
I see her hand pointing to some place behind me. “Front drawer,” she says breathlessly.
I open the drawer and see that there’s a vibrator and a roll of condoms waiting. Impressive. I take note of the toy as I tear open a ribbed one with my teeth. Ribbed for her pleasure.
I roll it on my length, and the way she’s watching me, fuck, I don’t know if I can handle it.
“Are you ready for me?” I ask, positioning myself before her slit.
She gives me a sly smile. “I think so,” she says.
I slide into her all the way to the hilt, and she cries out. She’s tight, but as I feel her stretching around me, I realize that I don’t want to do this on the couch.
I saw a wall that would work perfectly.
“Hang on,” I growl as I grasp her by the ass.
She wraps her hands around my shoulders and I easily pick her up off the couch. Her size is perfect for me to hold onto. Seriously, who is she?
While I’m still in her, I find that wall and press her up against it. She gasps at the contact and I hush her by kissing her mouth. Her nails dig into my back as I swivel my hips and move into her. Her legs wrap around me, and all she can do is hold on for dear life as I pound into her, building up a delicious friction between our bodies. My animal inside me awakens, enjoying this, enjoying the effect we both have on her.
She cries out in ecstasy with each thrust, and as I’m barreling towards my climax, I feel her clench around my cock as she comes.
I hold on for one second longer before the orgasm hits me and I empty myself into her with a ragged cry. She kisses the length of my neck before landing a kiss on my lips.
“I’m so glad someone was as horny as me,” she whispers.
I grin at her turn of phrase. She has no idea who or what I am, but yes, I’m horny. Horny for her.
“Well,” I say, grinning at her, “if you’re up for another go, I think I saw some toys in that drawer that I wouldn’t mind trying.”
She blushes adorably as she looks at me curiously. I get the feeling that I wasn’t supposed to see her vibrator there.
At first, I think she’s come to her senses, that she immediately regrets what we just did—as awesome as it was. Then a full smile spreads across her lips.
“You’re on.”
Chapter Two
Leslie
My head is on fucking fire.
“Ugh.” And my mouth is dry as fuck. “Ouch.”
Sunlight hurts.
I’m hungover as hell apparently. I had just gone to the Drinking Horn last night to find Ernest Shepherd, but there was this hot guy there serving up drinks, giving all his patrons this warm, albeit cocky, smile. I wasn’t going to drink, because we all know what happens when I drink, but after the owner of the bar didn’t show up, it seemed like the perfect time to try and wipe away any memory of Blake.
My boyfriend. My ex as luck would fucking have it. I got the apartment when he moved out, except I wish I hadn’t. Everywhere reeks of him. The wall where we celebrated my promotion to senior recruiter where he had me screaming his name. The corner where his desk used to be that’s now dirty from him resting his foot there while he worked. And the boxes.
Boxes, boxes everywhere, waiting to be picked up by his cheating ass.
I didn’t want to be left alone in this one-bedroom of loneliness and failed relationships.
Drinking last night seemed like the perfect escape. Hey, if I can’t do my job, I might as well do something productive. Like getting rid of the memory of Blake’s smile and the way he looked at me.
Looked. Past tense. Bastard.
I remember the first four drinks I had and then it goes a bit hazy. The bartender, with his muscular, broad shoulders, strong jaw and intense blue eyes—I remember him. Actually, I remember lots of him. From seeing him shirtless, the V of his hips, his giant cock...
Oh, my God, I slept with him last night. And I remember everything. The couch. The wall. The toys…
Oh my God, the toys!
I grimace and steel myself for what’s next, preparing for the embarrassment and the hurt my body is going to inflict on me for drinking so much.
I open my eyes and immediately regret it. I’m in my bed, which means that we fucked at my place. Goody. I need to remind myself not to do that kind of shit when my ex-boyfriend is moving out. He probably thinks I’m a loser—which I am.
But I hate being reminded of it.
I turn over to look at him. He’s snoring lightly, laying on his stomach, far off and dreaming of something. He actually looks a little adorable this way, like he could be my stuffed animal to cuddle with at night.
Cut that out, Leslie. You had a one-night stand with him and now you want to get all afterglowy with him.
No, what really needs to happen is for me to kick him out.
I push against his shoulder. “Hey. Hey, wake up.”
Shit, did I ever catch his name last night?
“Wake up…sir!”
He does.
His blue orbs open, then he blinks at me a few times before cracking a lopsided smile at me. “Good morning, gorgeous.”
Oh God, I need to get him out of here.
Like, now.
I lick my dried lips, but I see his half-lidded observation of it, and I know he got the wrong impression from that.
“So, uhm…”
“Ryan, it’s Ryan.”
“Ryan.” Of course he has a sexy name. The way he says it makes me tremble in between my legs. “Ryan, it was great last night…”
“Yeah, it was,” he murmurs smugly.
“…But I’ve got to get to work. So, can you…?”
Confusion splits his face like lightning striking a tree, and I manage to cover up my wince by sticking to my guns. It is no lie that I have work today—even if I may call in sick because I haven’t been able to track Ernest Shepherd.
“You’re kicking me out,” he grunts. His entire, easy demeanor has changed.
“No, I’m…” I stumble, trying to come up with a good excuse. None come to mind, other than a snarky, bitchy reply, so I sigh and then nod. “Yes, I am. Last night may have been great—” And, really, it was. “—But I’ve seriously got to get to work.”
Elyse, my supervisor, is going to kill me for being late, and then she’s going to bite my head off. Literally.
“Right,” he groans. He rolls on his back and rubs his eyes with both hands. “Right.”
“Good,” I say, glad that he’s not yelling at me or worse. “So…to make this easy, how about I go shower and when I get
out, you…disappear?” Warning bells go off in my head that he could steal something from me without my supervision. Maybe he’ll steal one of Blake’s boxes.
One less problem for me. Except I still have the problem of this man not leaving.
His eyes connect with mine, and I fight the magnetic pull they have on me. Something is calling to me, but it has to be the great sex we had last night. Nothing else.
In my line of work, they warn you not to get too close to your talent. Otherwise, you could end up with a lifelong problem.
At least he’s just the damn bartender. Ryan Whatever-His-Name-Is.
“Okay,” he relents.
Is that disappointment I hear in his voice? I can’t deny my attraction to him—there was a reason why we fucked last night after all—but I have to focus on myself now and get a better handle on my career.
“Okay,” I say. “Well, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” I try to ignore the sarcasm cutting me all the way to the bone.
I get up from the bed, pulling my sheets with me. Hey, I have to have the illusion of modesty, okay? I hear his sigh and the groan of the springs in my bed—which sound a lot more groan-y after last night—as he gets off the bed.
I turn back to him, dreading my next question. “Oh, when’s the next time you’re working at the bar?”
You know, so I can avoid him and get there when Ernest is manning the bar. Except he furrows an eyebrow in confusion. And, now, he thinks I want to see him again.
“Pretty much any time it’s open.”
Well, fuck. I’m going to see him a lot sooner than he expects.
I nod, embarrassed at my predicament. “Alrighty then. See you around.”
He’s gone when I get out of the shower twenty minutes later. No note, nothing taken that I can tell.
Well, here’s to hoping that Lady Luck doesn’t screw me over.
I know she will though. Bitch.
* * *
“You’re late,” Elyse, my boss says, giving me an unimpressed look. “The only way I’ll be happy is if you found my rhino.”
“Uh, well…” My voice trails off as I flip open my laptop and plug myself into the server. I try to look as professional as possible with my boss hovering over my desk. Elyse is an intimidating woman, and I fail miserably as I keep trying to shove the cable in the wrong way. “Uhm, Ernest never showed up at the bar last night.”
Her eyes narrow. “What?”
“He apparently took the night off. I know his file says…”
“His file says that he’s owned The Drinking Horn for forty-seven years. And that he lives above it. And that The Drinking Horn has been struggling to make ends meet.”
Yep, my boss knows my talent’s background better than I do. I guess that’s why she’s been so successful at her job.
“So what did you do last night, then?”
“I…”
Elyse taps her nails on the desk, knowing exactly what I did. I don’t know how, but she does. I even tried making sure I looked as put together as possible, but it must be my bloodshot eyes, or even the fact that I look far more put together than usual.
That’s probably it.
“Don’t expense your binge drinking to the agency,” she growls. “What you decide to do with your money is fine. But you need to get me that rhino shifter or we’re going to lose the Bay Area Zoo as a client. They have that Safari ‘Round the Zoo next weekend and the rhino is a star feature of it. So, you need to get him.”
“Yes.”
She nods curtly. “Tonight.”
“Tonight?”
I think about Ryan, that bartender, and I don’t know if I can face him so soon. Not after kicking him out so unceremoniously from our hot night.
But Elyse’s eyes are steeled as she looks down at me. “Tonight, Leslie. What am I paying you for?”
I want to tell her that she’s not paying me. I work off commission. If I land Ernest Shepherd as The Bay Area Zoo’s next White Rhino attraction, then the zoo will pay me.
But I bite my tongue and nod. “Yes ma’am.”
“Good,” Elyse says, straightening up. “I’m going to go have a smoke. And you’d better not come in tomorrow without a rhino shifter.”
She leaves me at my desk, while beyond it, I see Blake snicker into his computer.
Oh, yeah, did I mention that in a company of twenty-five, my ex-boyfriend sits about fifteen feet away from me?
Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. I really do. But life fucking sucks at the moment.As a senior recruiter for Shifters Unlimited, it is my duty to place shifters in roles at zoos that are otherwise reserved for animals. Ever since conservation efforts have picked up some slack in their mission to save animals in their natural habitat, zoos all over the world have been having trouble finding endangered animals to fill their enclosures.
That’s where Shifters Unlimited comes in. The agency seeks out shifters throughout the world and recruits them to stand-in as the animals at the zoos for as long as necessary. Of course, the zoos pay very well for animal talent—a perk for me, since I get a percentage of that—because no one in their right mind would volunteer to be an attraction at a zoo. Even better, the patrons don’t even know that this is happening, so they’re ooh-ing and ahh-ing over a human at the zoo who is in disguise.
Easy money for these shifters, especially those that are rare animals.
On the other hand, what makes my job hard is finding these shifters. They’re all in hiding and they do not want to be found. In my three years here, I’ve been attacked by a rampaging elephant shifter, spooked off by a monkey shifter, bitten by a spider shifter, and threatened by a wolf shifter. They fight back as much as possible to keep their anonymity.
But then I show them what their paychecks would look like and you’d be surprised at how quickly they apologize for their actions.
So, even though my attempt last night was unsuccessful, I’m used to having to try and try again. Which means that I have to go back to The Drinking Horn again.
And possibly face Ryan. And that’s scarier than having a tiger shifter growling at you.
Chapter Three
Ryan
“You were gone all night. What happened to you?”
From his wheelchair, my grandfather lets loose a cackle as I enter our small, two-bedroom apartment above the bar. He sits with his oxygen tube threaded around his nose, continually feeding his failing lungs air. Guilt pulls at me as I realize that I left him alone all night. The old man made it abundantly clear that he didn’t want to be a burden, that he can still take care of himself.
But he’s family.
I don’t abandon people I love.
So, I’m apparently still angry after that woman from last night kicked me out of her place. I thought about leaving my phone number, but she looked like a deer in the headlights when she saw me lying next to her, and I don’t have the heart to fight for something that isn’t going to work. But then she asked when I work, so…
Man, I so don’t get women.
So I left and took my sweet time going home, because I didn’t want to face the bar or the old man’s questions.
It seems like I can’t avoid it.
I comb my hand through my greasy hair and sigh. “I met a friend last night.”
“Ryan,” the old man chides, “I’ve been a bartender since before your daddy was born. I know what happens when you have a dame stay over. At least you’re enjoying your life.”
I grit my teeth at the mention of my father. He was killed in cold blood when I was fifteen, mugged at knife point. Nothing to do with anything, the asshole just wanted his car. Such a waste, such a tragedy, and the wounds are still feel as fresh as ever. I was angry for a long time after that, and the briefest mention can send me into another tail spin.
I try reeling myself back.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, deftly changing the subject.
As if on cue, the old man coughs, and his cheekiness
is replaced with a fragility that seems like he could break at the slightest touch. I stifle the urge to come to his side and help him—he’ll just fight back and I don’t want him to overexert himself.
“Fine,” he says finally. “But enough about me. So you met a dame at the bar? Maybe those finagling hipsters found it, and it will bounce back.”
“Right,” I say. “Right.”
I doubt it. The Drinking Horn isn’t touristy. It’s not a favorite local hotspot and it’s been sliding into the red for the past twenty years. When Grandpa Ernest told me that he had been diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer and couldn’t handle the bar by himself, I dropped everything in LA and came here. Now, I’m running the bar and I’m running out of money and I’m running out of options.
Cancer treatments are expensive, and the old man’s medical bills keep piling up. I haven’t had the heart to tell him that I’ve been looking into selling the bar. It’s going to break his heart, but something has to give.
I’d rather it be the bar and not the old man’s health.
“So, tell me about her,” he says, wheeling himself over to the fridge. He opens it and frowns at its contents. I know there’s nothing in there, at least nothing that he wants to eat. Protein shakes and veggies are not at the top of an octogenarian’s list of favorite foods. “You found a mate yet?”
I roll my eyes. I’ve been asked this question ever since I was five years old and it never gets any better.
“You make it sounds like we’re wolf shifters,” I tell him. “Rhinos are independent, remember? We don’t mate for life.”
“Hell yes, I do,” the old man says, frowning. “Your grandmother ran off the second she had your pa—” Again, with my father. “—but I can’t help but wish that my grandson finds happiness, right?”
I think back to the lady from last night. She really was hot. A bit of a trainwreck, what with the boxes all piled up in her swank Victorian, but a trainwreck nonetheless.
Certainly not a mate. She fucked me and then kicked me out. Much like rhinos, anyway.
Maybe I did find a good option for a mate.
