by Desiree Holt
Oh my God.
He pushes me so far against the counter that my feet leave the floor, and I wrap my legs around him. I’m wearing a skirt so I can feel his hard length in his boxers pressing against my already-wet underwear. The barrier is both maddening and intoxicating, and I let out another gasp at the contact.
I want him. I don’t care how, but I want him and his beautiful cock now.
“Do you have a condom?” I manage.
“There’s a package underneath the counter,” Ryan says, his eyes flicking me to a direction to my right. “Right there.”
“You keep condoms underneath the bar counter?”
He grins at me. “Well, I am a ridiculously good-looking bartender.”
My shock lasts for only a few seconds more, because he kisses my collarbone and my skin, making my thoughts scatter. Oh my God, I need to find those condoms, and I need to find them now.
My hand snakes behind me, frantically trying to get a hold of the drawer, trying to grab one so that I can get him inside me. So that I can end this ache in my soul.
Finally, I give up. “You get them,” I growl, managing to slip between him and the bar.
“What are you—?” he asks raggedly as I kneel and take off his boxers. I give his cock one hard stroke and rub the precum around the tip as I hear his breath catch in his throat.
“Find the condoms,” I say. “I’ll take care of you down here. But you’d better fucking hurry.”
Without further ado, I take him in my mouth, swirling my tongue around his tip. He groans, and I hear him search around the bar, trying to find the package. I’m merciless in going down on him, sucking and stroking at the same time.
It takes him a long time to find one, and I know he’s going to come if he doesn’t find one soon. I have faith that he will.
“Got one,” he rasps.
He pulls me up, away from his glorious cock and spins me around, so I’m bent over face first on the bar. I hear the tear of the package and a few seconds later, he pushes into me, deliciously slow. I let out a moan at how I stretch around his girth. I feel so full, so complete.
And so fucking content.
He grasps me by the shoulder, and starts building a rhythm between our bodies, his pelvis slamming against my ass. I’m so wet from his ministrations over the bar that there’s little friction and it’s a slippery ride. Completely different from before, when the condom was studded and the sex was a bit rougher.
This is just a wonderful, easy glide, that’s building to our finales.
“Fuck,” he grunts, driving into me. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful. I can’t— I can’t—”
His admission sends me over the edge. I cry out his name, grasping at the counter, trying to find something to hold onto. He comes a second later, crying out himself, shuddering into me. We’re both heaving heavily from the exertion of mind-blowing sex. He holds his sweaty body over mine, consuming me.
“That was…” I start, unable to find the words.
He pushes himself up to look at me. A slow smile comes to his lips. “Fun? Cathartic? Great exercise? Got your mind off that asshole?”
“All of the above.”
He chuckles, as he pulls himself out of me. “I could do that again.”
“Me too,” I say honestly.
“And no strings attached. Promise.”
As he helps me find my feet again, I can’t help but wish.
I’m in no position to get into another, serious relationship right now, as the break-up with Blake is too raw. But I wish that wasn’t the case.
I wish that Ryan was more than my client. Or my rhino.
I wish that he was mine.
And that terrifies me.
Chapter Seven
Ryan
“You’re awfully quiet,” Grandpa says from his wheelchair in our little kitchen. It’s a month later and the early morning sunlight comes through the window, bathing him in soft yellowish-white.
I turn from my cup of coffee—my third this morning, I can’t seem to wake up before I’m due at the zoo—and give him a weak smile.
“Just tired.”
He nods. “You’re going to kill yourself with all of this, Ryan.”
“I know.”
I am. I really am. I am sleeping something like four hours a night. The month has gone by in a tired blur. My days are filled with my time at the zoo, then my nights are spent at the bar. I refuse to let this whole rhino-at-the-zoo gig get in the way of taking care of the bar. It’s almost like, if the bar fails, I’m failing both Grandpa and myself.
Of course, once I started being the white rhino at the zoo, the bar suddenly picked up with customers. I’m not sure exactly what happened there, but my street has become entrenched in hipster culture, so it’s now packed on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Still not the hottest spot in town—not by far—but it’s doing far better than it had been doing. And with the huge sum of money that I’m getting from the Bay Area Zoo, I hired a part time worker to handle the start of every night. Jon’s pretty awesome and can line up as many drinks as the orders are given. Even though my time at the zoo isn’t really work, it’s good to have his backup because I’m still tired working so many hours.
And the enigmatic, strange cherry-on-top is Leslie. So it hasn’t been all work and no play. We play. A lot. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t seem to get enough of her. Even though I’m due every day at the zoo at 8am (10am on weekends) and the bar closes at 2am every night, I still have time to a) bend her over the bar counter, b) take her back to her place, where we fuck on every surface available, c) sleep together in my bed, or, as it happened one night, all three of them.
We’re both broken souls. We don’t talk about our pasts. Or our past relationships. After all, I promised her no-strings.
But at one point throughout the chaos that has become my life, I realized that I have feelings for her. Not just, “Hey, let’s screw,” kind of feelings. No, something deeper that I don’t quite know how to deal with.
But I don’t bring it up to her. We’re way beyond what’s appropriate for a recruiter and her talent, so I don’t want to jeopardize this.
But beyond this? I don’t know how I can do it. At all.
Because right now, I’m playing a rhino, bartender, and a man in a no-strings-attached relationship. And I don’t know if I can keep all of them up.
Grandpa’s hand covers mine and gives it a quick squeeze. “You need to take a break,” he says softly.
Inside, I crumble. I widen my eyes and take another sip of coffee, determined to wash down all of the conflicting feelings.
One day at a time.
“I will,” I promise. “After this.” Tomorrow is that damned Safari ‘Round the Zoo after all. They might not even want me around after that.
Grandpa snorts through his nose and turns away. “You don’t have to handle the bar every day. Jon and I can handle it.”
“No, absolutely not.”
“Ryan.” The tone in his voice causes me to snap my head up to meet his eyes. “Why are you working so hard? I saw what the zoo is paying you. You could give up the bar for the rest of your life and still live a good life.”
I hesitate, wondering if I should tell him the truth. In the end, I decide that I should. Because I’ve been keeping it all to myself.
“I want to make sure that your medical bills are paid, Grandpa. Sure, I have this money now, but I don’t want to take all of that for myself. If I have to fall back on something, I’d rather it be this bar than going to work for someone else.”
My grandfather’s face falls as he considers my words, then he nods. “Yes. I figured that.”
“You’re the most important person to me, Grandpa.”
Grandpa smiles sadly at me. “Don’t tell your cousins this, but same to you, kid.” He sighs, heaving a shallow breath through his broken lungs. “How’s it going with Miss Andrews?”
I reel, wondering how much he has caught regarding my non-relat
ionship with her. I’ve never discussed it with the old man, because who talks about those kinds of things with their grandparents? Then again, who am I kidding? Grandpa isn’t stupid. Even though Leslie sneaks out before Grandpa wakes up, he probably notices me stumbling back the apartment at 4am in the morning when I spent the night at her place. We’ve tried keeping it secret, but I’ve never been good at keeping secrets.
I settle for, “It’s, uh, complicated.”
Grandpa nods sagely. Fuck, he really does know. “And what do you think about it?”
“About what?”
“This, ‘uh, complicated’ thing with her?” He smiles predatorily.
I still, and Grandpa immediately picks up on that. “You should talk to her about that.”
“About what?”
“The way you feel about her.”
I scoff and down the rest of my coffee as I check my watch. I’m running late now. “Maybe another time, I’ll talk to her,” I say distractedly as I start to move out of the kitchen.
“Ryan.” The one word stops me in my tracks and forces me to turn around to look at my grandfather. “Talk to her.”
I smile and give a shrug. “But what good would that do?”
Because I’ve seen the panic in her eyes before when she thinks she has gotten too close to me. And the last thing I want to do is hurt her.
* * *
Another boring day at the zoo. Oh my God, I don’t know how much more I can take of this. I don’t know if it’s my conversation with Grandpa this morning or if it’s my lack of sleep, but everything is making me irritable. Pawlina, one of the female black rhinos, took a shit near the area where I usually like to stand, and a few of the other females keep flirting with me and trying to get my attention. I know I’ve been spending a lot of time as a rhino, but I don’t ever want to think of rhinos that way.
Especially because Leslie dominates my every waking moment.
Even now, in the enclosure, I can look up and see her on the observation deck ever watching me. She’s always all business here, and rarely does she ever hint at our extracurricular activities outside of work—which is probably a good thing—but today, I want to feel like less of a means-to-an-end with her.
I don’t think I can take this anymore.
More tapping on the glass and the muffled shouts of kids behind the glass make me huff and turn away. What’s the use of even trying? They’re paying me to be a rhino, not an entertainer.
I stalk back to a blissfully shit-free spot and lay down and lay my head in my feet. I look once more up at the observation area and see Leslie frowning.
She knows that I’m not happy.
Hope that she cares flutters once in my chest and then dies. It’s just because I’m talent to her.
It’s not because she cares any more about me.
I don’t know if my animalistic thoughts are heightening my emotions or what, but it’s depressing. I close my eyes and try to catch a few Zs.
* * *
“Tomorrow is Safari ‘Round the Zoo,” Leslie announces as I emerge from the shower, sloughing off the day’s work as a rhino. It feels good to be human again, and the scent of her through my human nose makes me wild.
But I’m not in the mood for that.
“Uh-huh,” I say, trying to show my disinterest. I towel-dry my hair, which has gotten longer since I started working for her. It’s really hard to find a barber who works between the hours of 4am and 8am.
“And you’re doing great, Ryan, you really are,” Leslie starts.
I grimace and turn away. I know where this is going.
“But you have to step it up for tomorrow,” she continues, much to my chagrin. “Be more active, ham it up for the crowd a little more.”
“Ham it up?” I growl. “I thought I was supposed to be a rhino in the zoo, not some sort of circus show.”
Her green eyes flash in anger. “You are supposed to be a rhino in the zoo, but no one goes to the zoo to see a damn rhino sleeping. They want to see you up and about and interacting with the crowds a bit more. Tomorrow, if someone posts a video of you doing something, I don’t know, special or cool on Youtube and it goes viral, it could be huge for us.”
What the fuck is she talking about? Here she is, telling me to be a performer and suddenly she’s talking about Youtube and viral videos?
“’Us’?” I grumble. “Don’t you mean it could be huge for the zoo?”
There’s a startled pause from her. “Yes, ‘us’. There’s a bonus clause in your contract about that.”
“Of course. How could I forget the goddamn contract?”
I strip off my towel and start putting on my clothes. She’s seen me naked plenty of times before, both off-site and here, so it’s not odd that I’m doing that now.
My jeans and t-shirt make me feel like I’m putting on a costume. I was a rhino and now I’m supposed to be a man. Everything feels so alien and foreign right now.
“What’s gotten into you?” Leslie asks, her tone making me twist my head to look at her. She holds her head up and looks back at me with that fire in her eyes.
That fire that I love.
Holy shit, stop thinking that way.
“Nothing,” I say raggedly, sitting down to put on my shoes.
“No, not nothing,” She crosses her arms and looks at me. “What’s going on with you?”
“I’m just tired,” I say, using my same excuse from this morning.
“It’s more than that,” she says.
“What do you care?”
I know that I’m being childish, that I need to grow up and act like a fucking adult, but I’m so tired of doing that. And really, that’s all that is making me tired: acting like a fucking adult and acting like I don’t care for her.
She watches me, aghast. “I care because you are in a contract with my agency and the zoo, and it is my job to make sure that the client and you are both happy.”
“Is that why you’re sleeping with me?”
My bluntness shocks her and she quickly looks around to make sure that no one else heard me. I know for a fact that there aren’t any people here; I can smell them with the lingering effects of my rhino shift.
“No, that’s…different…” she says, a pained expression on her face.
“How is it different?” I demand. Somewhere along here, I’m going to overstep that line and really hurt her. But the rhino inside me is smarting; the woman he wants as his mate won’t have him.
When did everything change for me?
“Ryan,” she says, leaning into me, “you know when we started this arrangement that we weren’t supposed to go any further. That we—”
“—aren’t supposed to fall in love?” I say, surprising both of us.
She shakes her head. “You promised me that wouldn’t happen. This was supposed to be fun, just fucking, just getting rid of the stress because so much is going on.”
I guffaw. “Yeah, well, feelings change.” I sigh and comb both of my hands through my wet hair, making the strands stand straight up.
“You weren’t supposed to fall in love, Ryan,” she says.
“And if I did?”
Her breath catches, but I keep charging on, like a rhino who has spotted a threat.
“We obviously work well together,” I continue. “We obviously like each other. And we obviously like the way we fuck—”
“Shh!” she hisses, putting a hand over my mouth. The gentleness of her touch softens me somewhat, and I sigh.
“At some point,” I say, “I started falling for you. I’m sorry, but I hope that maybe there’s something in you that thinks we can have a relationship. That something changed. That you can forget the assholes who hurt you in the past. Because I won’t ever hurt you, Leslie.”
She frowns and bites her bottom lip. “I…can’t…Ryan. You don’t want me right now. I’m such an emotional wreck—”
“I can help you with that.”
“—and I don’t want to jump into ano
ther relationship. Can’t we just keep it as it is? We’re having fun. Let’s just keep it that way.”
“I don’t think I can.”
The silence between us stretches for far too long, and I inwardly wince at this. I know I’ve ruined everything between us, and having her any way she allowed me would be better than nothing at all.
But I realize that we’re far beyond that. And based on the look on her face, she’s throwing up her emotional walls again. No, no, no, no.
“When we decided this no-strings-attached thing, we decided that we weren’t going to go farther than that,” she says in a low voice. “And…since you obviously can’t, then…”
Her voice trails off and I meet her eyes, pleading with her to not say the next words out of her mouth. Instead, she licks her lips with indecision.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says, her professional façade slipping into place. “I’ve got to go into the office. Tomorrow is the big event, and I don’t want to mess anything up.”
“So you’re not going to the bar?” I ask, alarmed.
“No,” she says. “Look, we’ll discuss this more tomorrow. Maybe. But…” She doesn’t say any more. Instead, she sighs and shakes her head. She backs up, and exits the room.
Leaving me alone. Probably for forever.
Goddammit, I ruined a good thing. All because I wanted to take it further. All because I wanted to be more than just her rhino.
Chapter Eight
Leslie
Goddammit.
I’m so angry.
Why do men have to go and ruin a good thing? Ryan and I, we were compatible. Just simple, mindless, awesome, mind-blowing sex. It was working. I could get what I needed without worrying about the repercussions of a relationship. I know that I can’t be in a relationship, not for a long time. I really, truly thought that Blake and I would be together forever, and that ended horribly.
I still remember walking into our house, seeing him mid-coitus with his new love. A dolphin shifter, of all people. The thought still turns my stomach
