Page 33 of Rock Hard
He had heard enough. Valerie had been getting on his nerves lately, boldly stepping beyond her bounds. This was one step too far.
He dropped his hold on her wrists. “Get out.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Get out. You’re fired.”
“Rex, surely you don’t mean that.” Valerie put her hands at the hem of her skimpy top and began to lift. “You’re just stressed. I’ll take care of you. Nobody can take care of you like I can.”
It was an obvious diversion. He wondered vaguely why she thought it would work now, when none of her other attempts had.
She bared herself to him, cupping her large breasts in blatant invitation as she stroked her prominent nipples into hardened peaks.
Rather than a surge of lust, all he felt was disgust. Nothing about Valerie was real, including the double-Ds she aimed in his direction.
His mind flashed back to Alice and the way she had looked after shifting. Natural. Raw. Wild.Perfect.
“Wrong again. If you call this”—he waved his hand around—“taking care of me, then you’re delusional. And you know what else? You can’t hold a candle to Alice. Now get the fuck out.”
Momentary shock gave way to anger. “You can’t just—”
“I can, and I did.” He nodded to Chuck, who had remained silent and quiet by the elevator. “Chuck, help Valerie find her way out. And if you see any of her friends hanging around, show them out, too.”
“My pleasure.”
Valerie hissed as Chuck stepped in her direction, but a pissed-off tigress was no match for a rhino shifter.
As Chuck shepherded her into the elevator, Rex added, “As soon as you take out the trash, come back up so we can discuss the appalling lack of security around here.”
Rex poured himself a drink while he waited for Chuck’s return. He tossed it back, then another, pacing across the room several times before coming to a stop before a set of glass doors leading out onto the balcony. He stepped out, filling his lungs with air tainted by the smells of the overcrowded city below and unwashed humans.
His skin itched, his lion aching for a chance to be freed. How long had it been since he had felt the moon on his back? Felt dirt and grass yielding beneath his massive paws?
Too long, his lion growled from within. Not since before Alice left.
Sometimes he would come off a performance to find a stretch Hummer waiting to take him and the guys out into a nearby park or game lands so they could reconnect with their animals. At the time, he had assumed Alice was just one of those humans who instinctively knew when he was nearing his limits. Now he knew there was an even simpler explanation. She knew because she understood exactly what it was like to hide beneath her human skin and pretend to be one of them.
Alice had never accompanied them on those long rides out into the wilderness, though. If she had stripped and shifted, he would have lost his fucking mind and spent the next couple hours mounting her instead of padding through the forest. His human side could resist the temptation, but his beast was far more carnal and wouldn’t have thought twice about claiming her.
Which was probably exactly why she had kept her true nature from him, he realized.
He scowled. Was the thought of them together so abhorrent?
“Rex.”
Rex turned around to find that Chuck had returned and was waiting just inside the door. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something was different about him. Maybe Chuck was still pissed about him letting Alice go. The hard-nosed rhino shifter had always had a soft spot for her and Carly. That might also explain why Chuck had been keeping his distance lately.
“Thanks for the save down there. Where the fuck you been, Chuck?”
“Working,” the guard grunted.
For the first time, Rex noticed he wasn’t wearing his usual staff shirt, but one with the hotel’s logo on it instead. He narrowed his eyes.
“What’s this? Did you quit on me, too?”
Another grunt. “No. I was fired a couple weeks ago, along with the rest of my guys.”
“What?Who fired you?”
