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This is... not good.
As I watched Sophie move away into the crowds of evening shoppers, I heaved a sigh, cracking my knuckles. Having a new co-worker I wasn’t used to in my space was bad enough. Having one I was quickly realizing that I was startlingly attracted to was even worse.
Having her in the tiny space had been almost painful. It would have been so easy to cage her in against the shelves, pinning her softness with my body...
Get a grip. A human girl like that has no interest in an ex-member of the Chimera Guard like you.
I’d been with other women before, even human ones, but they’d all been able to immediately look past my fearsome looks. Even more than that, I got the impression that my appearance, and my reputation, actually got some of them off. I’d had more than one woman specifically seek me out for physical companionship on this station, but they’d always been quick, meaningless flings with travellers stopping over at the station for short periods of time. Never had a dalliance with a woman ever developed into anything more, nor had I wanted it to.
I tried to imagine having such a short, physical encounter with Sophie, and felt my hide pull away from my fangs in disgust. No, I had no interest in something meaningless like that with her. Sophie was the kind of girl you wooed into oblivion before being lucky enough to taste her sweetness. And considering that we were coworkers, and that I wasn’t even looking for any kind of relationship to begin with, that obviously wasn’t going to happen.
No, this was just a passing attraction. Something physical to work through and push way down. I ignored the fact that it wasn’t just the sweet features of her face and the lush curves of her body that attracted me, but also a bright sort of spirit that I could already sense beneath it all. Because if I acknowledged that side of things, I’d have to acknowledge that my attraction to her was potentially more than just physical. And for a little human I had only just met... Well... that just made no sense.
I strode away from the shop, grinding my fangs. I’d go work out, get something to eat, then sleep whatever this was off so that I could focus and be a goddamned professional tomorrow.
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ONLY, IT WAS EVEN WORSE the next day.
I arrived at the shop at 9 am station-time to get everything prepared for opening. I only required about two hours of sleep a night, and was hard-wired for hard work. I’d been trying, with no success, to get Shelly to extend the shop’s hours just so that I’d have something to do with my spare time, but her soft human sensibilities wouldn’t support me working any longer than my current 11-hour shifts. And even those 11 hours, I’d had to fight for.
I got to work placing the fresh-baked pastries, muffins, scones, and cookies on the shelves, restocking, and getting the hot water ready. And the whole fucking time, my eyes kept wandering to the old-Earth analog clock above the door. There was an obnoxious thrum in my chest that I couldn’t quite shut up.
Ten minutes before opening, she appeared, this time striding purposely towards the shop instead of peeking furtively at it, at me, from behind the tree across from the window in the aisle. A holographic ad popped up in front of her, and I couldn’t stop myself from snorting when she flinched away from it, her dark brows shooting up. But then, as if hardening herself with her own brand of human strength, she plunged through the ad. She looked mightily pleased with herself as she did so. And I tried to ignore how charming that was.
“You’re early,” I said, opening the top portion of the glass door and leaning out over the counter as she approached. For a moment, it felt like I was leaning out of a big, dark house, trying to coax a bright and fluttering bird into my palm.
“Of course!” she said cheerily, almost chirping, doing nothing to dispel the bird image in my head. But now, as my eyes dragged over her, I had to admit there was definitely nothing bird-like about her appearance. Her cheeks were flushed from her walk over, her eyes alight. Her hair looked smoother and shinier than it had last night and was pulled into a bun at the back, accentuating her slim, pale neck. She was wearing dark leggings similar to yesterday’s, tight against her shapely legs, but had forgone her holo-top for a simple, plain white shirt. I nodded approvingly at the outfit, so similar to my own, trying to keep my eyes off the way that her shirt pulled against her breasts and nipped in at her waist.
“Well, let’s get started,” I said.
The first customer would be here any minute. Since Sophie was here now, we might as well get some training in before that happened.
I opened the bottom portion of the door for her, and she slipped past me, smelling maddeningly sweet. I passed her the tablet she’d be using.
“You’re going to be dealing with the customers at the window. The entire menu is on this tablet. When they order, you select what they want on here, and their order will show up for me here.” I pointed a claw at the screen built into the espresso machine.
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” she said, pursing her lips, her little human nose crinkling as she looked down at the tablet in concentration. Then she looked up, her eyes, large by human standards, meeting mine.
“Will I need to learn to make the drinks, too?”
“That will take too long,” I said with a shake of my head. “It takes a while to learn to steam the different kinds of milk properly and get the recipes just right. You won’t be here for long enough to make that kind of training worthwhile.”
Her brows furrowed.
“But what about when you’re not working? Will Shelly come those days and make the drinks?”
“I work every day,” I said, slipping a black apron over my head. As I did so, the strap that was meant to go around my neck got caught on one of my horns.
“For the Empire’s sake,” I swore. A tiny trill of a laugh below me made me still, the sound slipping under my skin.
“Bend down and I’ll help you,” Sophie said, still laughing.
“Hmph.” My first reaction was to tell her no, that I’d do it myself. Really, a hardened intergalactic warrior getting tripped up by the strap of an apron was almost shameful. But Sophie was looking at me expectantly, her white fingers outstretched, and I found myself bowing down to them, to her. Tension shuddered through me as her shockingly soft fingertips traipsed along the length of my left horn. My horns were hard and black, not hide-covered like the rest of me, but they still had nerve endings. And those nerve endings were alight with her touch, now.
Is it just me, or is this taking longer than it should?
No, she was definitely taking her time. It definitely wasn’t necessary for her to run her fingers up my horn the way she was doing in order to pull the strap off.
“Are you almost finished?” I grumbled, my claws tightening into fists at my sides. The sensation of her fingers there was... too much.
“Yes,” she breathed below me. “Sorry.”
A moment later, I felt the strap move against the back of my neck, settling into place on my shoulders, and it was guided into place, yet again, by those traipsing fingers. Even her knuckles were soft, silk over bone, as they brushed down my thick neck.
I straightened quickly, tying the other straps behind my back.
“Here,” I said, grabbing another apron from the shelf and handing it to her. “Even if you’re not making the drinks, it can still get messy.”
“Thanks,” she said with a smile, slipping her own strap over her head much more gracefully than I had. Which, considering she was a human – a notoriously clumsy species – and I was a Chimera, was...
Alright. It was embarrassing.
That embarrassment was hardening into irritation in my guts, making my tail twitch. At least, until Sophie turned around, stepping backwards towards me.
“Tie me up?” she asked, and I froze. I stared at the two black straps hanging loose by her sides. The way she’d worded it had conjured a very different and totally unprofessional image in my mind. Choking that image down, reminding myself I was a disciplined Chimera, I stepped forward, closing the last of the space between us. I swept the straps up into my claws, pulling them back and beginning to tie a bow.
Every time a finger or knuckle pressed against her flesh through her shirt, Sophie’s breathing changed, the muscles of her back tightening. I tensed, heat pooling low in my groin. This was absurd, absolutely insane, that such a small thing – tying a coworker’s apron – was having such an effect on me. And, apparently, on her. Was it fear driving the pulse in her neck to speed up? But if it was fear, why would she have gotten close to me in the first place?
Perplexing.
Unlike Sophie getting the strap off of my horn, I worked as quickly as I could, tying a bow then reeling back from the little human. Good timing, too, as our first customers were lining up at the window.
I turned sharply away from Sophie, readying my station at the espresso machine. From the side, I heard her greet the first patron merrily, her voice chiming.
“Welcome to Hallowed be thy Bean, what can we get for you today?”
Luckily, it turned out Sophie was a natural at both learning on her feet (a trait we both shared) and giving great customer service (a trait we definitely didn’t). I glanced at her between tamping espresso beans and steaming milk, watching as her smile urged similar smiles out of even our most taciturn customers. The tablet ordering system was pretty straightforward, and apart from a few hiccups, she did astonishingly well.
OK, maybe having two people on the job really does make things easier.
It was a busy day, which made the shift fly by. By the time we were closing up, Sophie’s hair was no longer so tidily tied back. The dark tendrils escaping her hairstyle practically screamed at me to tuck them back in.
Which I didn’t, of course. I may have been one of the deadliest bastards out there, but I still had some semblance of good manners. Sometimes. When the other person wasn’t pissing me off.
And it turned out that definitely wasn’t Sophie. When Shelly’d told me I would be getting a new coworker, I’d expected to be annoyed by them and slowed down in my work. But apart from a few little learning curve hiccups, Sophie hadn’t caused me any problems. At all. She’d kept the customers happy and allowed me to do my work, fitting in here as if she’d worked here for years. It was jarring. But also somewhat nice.
“That was awesome,” Sophie said, smiling widely, her cheeks positively glowing as I closed the top part of the door and put the “Closed” sign up.
“Not too tired?” I asked, looking at her closely. It had been a pretty busy one, and she’d been working hard. I’d noticed.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m beat. And I don’t get how you do this every day.” she said, falling into one of the little chairs at the back of the shop. She undid her hair, letting it fall in glossy waves around her shoulders. “But don’t forget I come from New Toronto. I’ve been working hard my whole life. My last job was in the assembly department of a shuttle engine factory. I’m used to hard work.”
I grunted in approval. That made sense. No matter how frenzied the pace had gotten, even though it was her first day, she’d never been fazed.
“And my last job wasn’t nearly as fun as this. Everyone was so nice today!” she said, leaning back in her chair and grinning. I let out a sharp bark of a laugh at that, which made her smile fall.
“What?” she asked.
“It’s not that they’re nice people. We had some of our rudest regular customers today. But they couldn’t help but be charmed by the cute, smiley human.”
“The... the what?” Sophie asked, her soft mouth falling open. Fuck. Had I just called her cute out loud?
Yep. I did.
Oh well. No way to backtrack away from that one. I shrugged, pulling my apron off in a mercifully smooth movement this time.
“It’s true. No one’s going to be an asshole to someone like you.” Even outside of my Chimera reputation, I was known to be one of the grumpiest sods on this whole station. And yet, I hadn’t been able to direct even a fraction of that nastiness at Sophie. She was just... too pure.
“You’d be surprised,” she muttered, and the seriousness in her tone had me looking at her intensely.
“What?” I said, a protective urge raising up inside me, shocking me with its sudden darkness. Who bothered her? Someone on the station? Or maybe back home...
“Oh, it’s nothing too bad,” she said with a sigh. “My ex-boyfriend wasn’t all that nice to me, in the end. He was fine when we were together. But it turned out he was running around behind my back the whole time.”
As I stared at Sophie, taking in her rosy skin, her bright eyes, her shining hair so silky that I practically wanted to eat it, her beautifully generous chest and hips, I almost couldn’t believe what she’d just said. And it wasn’t just that she was beautiful. I could already tell that she had character. That she was a hard worker, and kind, too. When a little Etruvian boy had ordered a hot chocolate without actually having enough money, she’d immediately pulled out her own personal tablet, offering to pay the difference without a second thought. I’d waved her off and given the little guy the drink for free, resolving to pay for it myself later, but it had said a hell of a lot about her.
Some Terratribe idiot had given that all up? Somebody had let her go?
“Fucking pathetic.”
I didn’t mean to say the words out loud, but they came out anyway. I couldn’t keep the vehemence out of my tone either, and Sophie looked stricken.
“Yeah, I’m aware how pathetic it is to be cheated on, thanks. I was laid off, too, if you want to add that to the list.”
Her slim brows were drawn inward, her expression turning harder than I would have thought possible.
In an instant, before I could fucking stop myself, I’d grabbed her tiny hands in mine and pulled her to her feet. I bent so that my face was level with hers.
“Not you. Him,” I growled.
“Oh,” she said softly, her cheeks flooding with crimson. A beat passed. Then another. I still hadn’t let go of her hands.
And she hadn’t pulled away.
But the moment had to end. Because we were coworkers and we’d only just met. And there was no reason to feel what I was feeling, now. Feeling like I didn’t want to relinquish the heat of her hands in mine.
In the end, it was me who dropped Sophie’s hands. I’d been too presumptive in taking them in the first place. Too greedy with their warm shape against my hide. Too absorbed in the flush of her skin, the dilation of her pupils, indicating something, I was sure. I just didn’t know what.
“Come on,” I said gruffly, turning away. “I’ll show you how to close.”