by Bella Andre
Zach frowned at the puppy in his arms. She didn’t think he was aware of it, but even though he still claimed to be angry with the dog, he held her gently against his chest, her little head leaning into his heartbeat. “Seems to me yelling is a pretty clear cue.”
She had to smile at what an adorably cute pair they were, even as she shook her head at the fact that she was acting just as pathetically as all the women they’d come across during their walk.
“Honestly, all the yelling does is make her more anxious. Which makes her act out more, especially when she doesn’t know the proper behaviors to replace the naughty ones with.”
“And here I used to think I liked my girls naughty.”
She groaned. “You’re incorrigible.”
She should be a whole lot more upset about it, but the truth was, she kind of liked his sense of humor.
“Incorrigible enough to tell you how hot it is when you use big words?”
She should have known better. If she gave him an inch, he’d take a mile. Suppressing a grin, she said, “Try irritating, instead.” She took Cuddles from him, then handed him the bag of dog treats. “Go over to that tree and let’s work on the come command a few times first.”
She held her breath, waiting for him to make some off-color play on the command they were working on, but he simply stuck to the program and headed over to the tree. Not, of course, that she was disappointed he hadn’t grabbed the opportunity for a double entendre, or that she was starting to enjoy the constant spark of being with such a magnetic man.
But, oh, as she watched his lean, muscled body move in the sunlight, she couldn’t hold in a sigh of pure female appreciation. Zach Sullivan might have been irritating and incorrigible on the inside, but on the outside he really was a work of art.
After a few minutes of Cuddles running into Zach’s arms at his command, the puppy’s tongue was hanging out.
“Bring her over here and you can give her some water.”
She put a small bowl on the grass and handed Zach a water bottle to fill it with. Cuddles immediately plopped her muzzle into the bowl. Before Heather told him what she wanted him to do, Zach started petting the puppy and telling her how smart she was. Her tail wagged all the while and Heather knew there was no point in trying to fight her smile as she watched them together.
Okay, so Zach had made a terrible first impression on her, but he just might turn out to be her best student yet.
When Cuddles had her fill of water, Heather turned to Atlas, who had been waiting patiently by her heels. She pulled a multi-colored rope out of her bag and tossed it a few feet away.
“Go ahead and play, Atlas.” Cuddles bounded through the bowl of water in her hurry to go play, too.
“That mutt of yours worships you.”
“He’s purebred Great Dane, not a mutt,” she informed Zach, and then said, “I think he’s pretty great, too.”
It was so tempting to relax with Zach, and to pretend they were sharing a morning in the park together with their dogs. Too tempting.
Clearly, she needed to work harder to remember what they were together: dog trainer and puppy owner. Nothing more.
“Now we’ll work on positive reinforcement. What I’d like you to do is call out Cuddles’s name a few times while they’re playing. You don’t need to tell her to come, but every time she looks at you, give her a treat or pet her or tell her how great she is.”
Zach nodded, then turned his focus to the puppy. “Cuddles.”
The puppy looked up at him, still holding the tattered rope in her mouth, to see what her temporary owner wanted. He was immediately there with a treat and a hug. What a lucky pup she was to be the recipient of so much of Zach’s focused attention.
He stepped back. “How’d I do?”
“You’re a glutton for praise, aren’t you?”
He moved to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes, his fingertips making the barest contact with her skin. “That good, huh?”
Oh God, she thought, as thrill bumps rose across the surface of her body at his gentle touch, good didn’t even begin to cover it.
“Do it again,” she said, her words coming out far too breathy for anything outside of a bedroom.
His eyes darkened as he slid his fingers against her hair again, this time brushing the pad of his thumb across her cheekbone. “With pleasure.”
She got so lost in sweet sensation, in the sinful promise of pleasure in his eyes, that it took her far longer than it should have to step back from his heat.
“Not that. Say the puppy’s name again.”
For a moment, she thought he was going to ignore her clarification and pull her against him instead. Her eyes dropped to his mouth of their own volition. What, she couldn’t stop wondering, would it be like to feel them press against hers? Not one of those soft kisses he’d given her against her cheek in the kitchen, but a raw, demanding kiss that left her no room to hide exactly how he made her feel?
Abruptly, he turned and called for the puppy. Again, Cuddles responded immediately and he showered her with praise and affection.
Heather could feel her cheeks flaming at the embarrassing way she kept losing herself over him, especially after the way she’d mentally derided so many other women for doing the exact same thing. Tightening her resolve to keep her wits about her, she turned her entire focus back to the training session.
When Cuddles had responded to Zach saying her name a good dozen times, she said, “I think that’s good enough for her to start to associate pleasure with you.”
“Pleasure?”
Oh no, what had she just said?
She forced herself to continue as if it were what she would have said to any other client. “The more she associates treats and affection with you, the less likely it is that she’ll get her jollies from shredding your couch apart. Especially once she learns that you don’t approve of that behavior.”
“I thought you said yelling was out.”
“You won’t need to yell at her anymore. Because if you catch her pulling feathers out of a pillow and don’t smile and pet her and tell her how wonderful she is, she’ll be disappointed.”
“I wonder if the same thing would work with my staff?”
She had to laugh at the idea of him dealing with the big men she’d seen working in his garages the way he just had with the puppy.
A young couple walked past, their hands linked, their mouths fused to each other’s faces. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t stopped just then to paw at each other and murmur adoring words against each other’s lips.
Zach caught Heather’s grimace. “You don’t approve of the loving couple?”
“I could have lived without seeing them clean each other’s tonsils, but other than that, I’m happy for them for as long as it lasts.”
“As long as it lasts?” He looked confused. “I thought all women believed in forever?”
Just the stupid ones. “Nope, not all of us.”
He was helping her pack up her bag as he said, “Why not?”
Their conversation had crossed the line again, from professional to personal. Clearly, Zach wasn’t big on boundaries. So instead of answering him, she just shrugged and said, “What about you?” even though she could fairly easily guess the answer.
“I’m not a forever kind of guy,” he said, as if that explained everything. And then, “Some guy you were dating broke your heart, didn’t he?”
Any warmth she might have been letting herself feel toward him immediately cooled. “My heart is perfectly intact, thank you.”
He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it. Your parents split up and you’ve never gotten over it.”
She had to unclench her teeth to say, “Wrong again. My parents are still together. Not,” she added pointedly, “that it’s any of your business.”
And not that their intact marriage had given her one single good thing to believe about love—or any hope whatsoever in a beautiful forever. In fact, it was the jus
t the opposite whenever she thought about her parents’ relationship, about the way her father had cheated on her mother probably from the first day they’d met, and the fact that her mother stayed with him, like a dog begging for scraps regardless of the way he treated her.
Heather picked up her bag and called for Atlas so that they could leave. She never should have come over to Zach’s house this morning in the first place, or had breakfast with him, let alone a second one-on-one training session. She couldn’t wait to get back to her office. Back to her normal life. Back to the way things had been before thoughts of Zach Sullivan—and what his kisses might feel like—had started to crowd out all her good sense.
But instead of getting the message that she was done talking about why she didn’t believe in love, as Cuddles came sprinting up behind Atlas, Zach said, “There’s got to be a reason.”
Professional had gone out the window so long ago she didn’t even try to get back there this time. Instead, she said exactly what was on her mind. “Let me make sure I have this straight. A guy can not be looking for love because it’ll complicate his easy life. But a woman has to have all sorts of trauma to make her like that?”
Even the nauseating couple stopped licking each other’s faces to take in their heated discussion. Well, heated on her side anyway, because Zach looked completely unrepentant. Worse, he seemed amused with her reaction.
“That sounds about right.”
She threw the bag of doggy treats straight at his heart.
* * *
Beautiful women fell at his feet, they didn’t chuck things at him. And they definitely never said they didn’t believe in forever.
Was Heather perfect, or what?
Hot damn, he couldn’t wait to get her into bed, and keep her there. Especially now that he knew she wasn’t secretly looking for the big commitment.
The fun they were going to have once she finally came around...
The dogs threw themselves on the doggy treats that had spilled out of the bag when it bounced off his chest.
“Was that part of your lesson on positive reinforcement?” he teased her.
He tried not to laugh when she growled at him as she bent to pick up the bag and shoo the dogs away from the food. He was bending down to help her when he looked up to see a teenager on an out-of-control skateboard barreling down the hill straight toward them.
The kid was yelling for them to get out of the way and Zach quickly scooped Cuddles up in one hand and slid his arm around Heather’s waist with the other. “Atlas, come!” he ordered as he rolled quickly to the side.
The edge of the skateboard clipped Zach’s calf hard enough to make him grunt in pain, but all that mattered was that he had Heather safe and sound beneath him, the puppy cradled in the crook of one arm, and Atlas beside his beautiful owner.
They were out of the path of danger now, and he should have let Heather go. But how could he when she was so soft, so warm...and was looking up at him with those big eyes that had turned his heart over in his chest from the first moment he’d seen them.
He’d wanted her from that first moment, but strangely, he wasn’t thinking about sex now. Not entirely, anyway.
“Did you really have to do that?” she asked in a voice that trembled slightly.
He brushed her hair away from her forehead, letting his hand linger in the soft strands that had come loose from her braid.
“Yes.”
He wanted to press his lips to her forehead, wanted to reassure himself that no harm had—or would—come to her.
He leaned closer and brushed his mouth to her skin before saying, “It would have really pissed me off if you’d been obliterated by a pimply fourteen-year-old and his skateboard.”
“I was all set to stay irritated with you,” she whispered, sounding aroused and breathless and anything but irritated. “Say something cocky, please.”
Strange, but for the first time that he could remember, he didn’t want to.
This was the perfect chance to take that kiss he knew she wanted to give him, more than just brushing lips against her cheek.
He’d just saved her and she was grateful—he could feel her heart beating against his as her breath came too quickly. Lord knew she’d been driving him crazy with her curves, her pretty smiles, her expressive eyes all morning long.
Damn it.
He couldn’t do it...all because he liked her.
Too much.
Zach rolled onto his back on the grass and stared up at the blue sky, biting back a string of curses at his stupidity in willingly giving up his chance to finally seduce Heather.
Once the puppy was set free again, Cuddles immediately scampered onto his chest and started licking first him, then Heather, long enough that the puppy got them both laughing as they tried to roll out of the way. And when Heather’s fingers accidentally slid against his, it was the most natural thing in the world to fit his against hers so that he could lift her hand to his lips and press a kiss to her palm.
His phone rang at the same moment hers did and he felt her fingers stiffen in his. And even though it turned out that lying there, fully clothed beside each other, was better than any time he’d ever spent naked with another woman, he made himself let go of her hand as she moved to get back on her feet.
Neither of them said a word as they checked their messages and then walked back to his house, and as she and Atlas got in her car and drove away, Cuddles whined in his arms as if her heart had just been split in two.
Chapter Eight
Heather didn’t believe in backing down from a challenge. It was how she’d been able to build Top Dog from a one-on-one training business into a full-service training center and doggy day care. She wasn’t afraid of standing up for herself or facing down difficult situations.
But she hadn’t gotten to where she was by being stupid, either.
And that was what spending any more time with Zach Sullivan would be. Stupid. To the nth degree.
It wasn’t even the two almost-kisses that worried her. Kissing, even sex, was something she knew how to compartmentalize. Just because she wasn’t looking for a happily-ever-after didn’t mean she was a nun.
But that moment when she and Zach been laughing together and his hand had found hers...she scrunched her eyes shut to try to shake away those feelings of warmth. Of contentment.
Of sweet connection.
Only, no matter how hard she’d tried since that morning to block Zach out—to pretend he hadn’t made her feel something deep and true, to try to ignore how he lit up every time about his family, and that he’d take a bullet for them—every time she thought about him she’d ended up right back in the same spot. Not just stuck in desire, but longing for something she’d didn’t even think she knew how to believe in.
The clock was ticking closer to 5 p.m. and Zach would be appearing with Cuddles any minute now. But she’d be busy meeting with her advisory board members to discuss the pros and cons of a possible expansion into wholesale dog treats. Luckily, everyone had been available when she’d called them a few hours earlier.
Heather was leading the last of her board members to the conference room when she felt the air in the building shift. She didn’t need to turn around to know that Zach was there. And not just because she could have sensed his presence in the middle of a hurricane. Not even because Atlas was vibrating with the need to greet his tiny little friend.
But because the combination of the beautiful man and Cuddles always elicited an overwhelming chorus of cooing and giggling.
She tried to get the conference room door closed, but before she could, Jerry Caldwell, a leading organic dog food manufacturer, spotted Zach and called out his name.
The man she was working so hard to avoid pinned her with an intense look that had her breath coming too fast before he walked over to shake Jerry’s hand.
“I’ve got an Austin Healey coming in with your name on it, Jerry.” Zach’s gaze shifted to Heather as he added, “She’s a real beauty,
with gorgeous lines and curves. You won’t have a chance of resisting her.”
She felt herself flush and knew the only chance she had of covering her reaction to him was to focus on the puppy in his arms, instead. Atlas and the puppy were already sniffing and licking each other with pure happiness. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one who’d been waiting for 5 p.m. to roll around.
Only one of them had been dreading it, though.
But, oh, what a liar she was. Because the truth was that she had been anticipating seeing Zach again even more than Atlas had dreamed of seeing the puppy.
“How did Cuddles do today at your garage?” she asked Zach.
Jerry laughed out loud at the name. “You’ve got a puppy?” He shook his head. “And you named her Cuddles? I’ve got to admit, Sullivan, I didn’t see this coming. Not in a million years.”
She waited for Zach to make an excuse about his niece and how it wasn’t his dog or his name, but instead his gaze shifted to her for a split second before he replied, “I didn’t see it coming, either.”
Fortunately, Jerry didn’t seem to hear any strange undertones in the conversation as he said, “Dogs will do that to you. But it’s worth it. Best friend you’ll ever have.” He shook Zach’s hand again. “I’ll drop by the shop early next week to check out the Austin Healey.”
After Jerry had walked over to the coffee dispenser, she informed Zach, “David is going to be working with you and Cuddles tonight out back.” She knew she didn’t have to make excuses to him since he already knew she’d planned to pass him off to another trainer, but still she said, “I’ve got a meeting with my advisory board tonight.”
“Sounds important.”
“It is.” The heat of his body drew her toward him and she forced herself to take a step back. “Have a good training session.”
Atlas’s ears were down as he followed her inside the conference room and watched the puppy he adored head into the back with Zach.
God help her...she felt the same way.
* * *
An hour later, Heather sat at her computer to type up her notes. But for the first time in a very long time, she couldn’t concentrate on the work she needed to get done. Atlas pawed the door and she walked outside with him to let him take care of business. He sniffed every inch of the lawn and she knew he was searching for a sign that Cuddles was still there. But both the puppy and his owner had left.