Page 13 of The Rhino's Rose

If only she meant that invitation another way.

“I’m about a meter in front of you.”

I take one more careful step, then stop. Withoutvisual confirmation, I know I’m close, that she’s looking up at me. I feel her attention on me. I don’t know if the huge hard-on I’m sporting is evident from her position, but if I had to wager, I’d put money on yes. And there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

“Here,” I say, extending the arm with the blanket. The soft material slides over my forearm as she draws it down.

“Okay, I uh, I think I’m covered.”

She thinks? Not exactly the guarantee I need with my cock threatening to punch a hole through my pants. But that’s my problem, not hers. She’s innocent in all this. And Iwillsend her home with that innocence intact.

“Cornelius? You can open your eyes.”

I blink them open, my full focus falling immediately to Rose. Thank gods she successfully covered the majority of her body. Even like this, in a moment when I absolutely should not be having personal, intimate thoughts about her, just looking at her is like gasoline on the constant fire she incites within me.

“Could you get a towel for under my head?” Her question snaps me out of my self-centered longing.

“Of course.” Turning away to retrieve a clean, folded towel from the cabinet doesn’t give me enough time to fully pull myself together, but a few seconds are better than none. The pinch of reprieve goes up in smoke when I crouch beside her.

Though she lifts her head without asking, making space for me to slide the towel underneath, she doesn’t raise a finger to help. Probably out of fear that I’llsee her nakedness if the blanket shifts. Her lack of assistance means my hands brush against her hair, damp from her wallow in the tub, and the warm skin at the back of her neck. Sparks run from my fingertips directly to my cock, and I don’t react quickly enough to stifle a deep rumble.

Her gaze locks with mine, her perfect copper eyebrows rising over wide-open blue eyes.

“I apologize.”

“For what?” she asks.

For the sound of my endless hunger for you, my mate, the only woman I crave and the one I can’t have.Not exactly the answer I can give, now or ever. “Stomach noise. Ate a bit too much at dinnertime and I guess it’s still digesting.”

“Oh.” There it is again, the disappointment. “You don’t have to apologize for that. Or for anything.”

If she knew I just stroked off to the sound of her masturbating in the tub, she wouldn’t be so generous.

Maybe she’d be excited,says the part of me that knows she’s attracted to me.Tell her how you feel. Make her yours. It’s what fate wants. It’s what Rose wants.

The front doorbell jerks me backward and to a stand. “Dr. Schaefer must’ve made it earlier than expected,” I say on my way out of the room, not waiting for Rose to respond. Saved by the bell, literally. All I can do now is hope that Rose’s injury is minor, so I can send her home before I do something I can’t cover up.

Four

ROSE

When Dr. Schaefer opens the bathroom door, Cornelius is right there, waiting, his big arms crossed over his broad chest. Instantly, his eyes meet mine, then his gaze drops to where the doctor is supporting me by the arm, and then lower, to where I’m keeping my right leg off the ground.

“What’s the prognosis?” he asks in that smooth, deep voice that gives me butterflies and a sense of ease at the same time.

“I didn’t detect any breaks or fractures in my physical or sensory examination, though I’d like to see Rose in my office tomorrow morning to do a technical scan, just to be certain. Unless the results prove otherwise, and I don’t expect that to be the case, I’d call it a sprain. Because of the swelling and Rose’s pain level, I’m leavingenough some extra-strength anti-inflammatories, and I’ll send a script through to the pharmacy when I get home. I’ll arrange for some crutches, too.”

“Thank you,” Cornelius says, nodding. “I’ll pick it up and make sure Rose gets to your office at whatever time you need her there. Is there anything else we need to know or do?”

We?

Before I can sputter out any sort of response, Dr. Schaefer smiles at each of us, then hands me over to Cornelius. The way he slides one arm around my waist and holds me close makes it feel like we really are a “we.” But I know he’s only acting this way out of guilt, obligation, or likely, a combination of both.

Dr. Schaefer continues regarding us as if seeing us together is a regular occurrence. Of course, she knows it’s not. She’s been my doctor since I came to Fate’s Falls eleven years ago as a frightened, shell-shocked thirteen-year-old. According to my friends who’ve lived in town their whole lives, Dr. Schaefer has been here longer—as in a lot longer—yet doesn’t appear to have aged a day. Being a shape-shifter, maybe she has control of everything about her physical form.

“RICE—rest, ice, compression, elevation,” she says, pulling a set of keys from a pocket on the outside of her medical bag, then moving toward the front door. “Absolutely no weight on that foot until the swelling is completely gone.”

“Got it,” Cornelius says. “Thanks for coming out so late in the evening.”

---