One Careful Owner: Love Me, Love My Dog

by Jane Harvey-Berrick

  He ripped off his clothes, urgent now, hands sheathing himself swiftly. In the moonlight, his body was a sculpture, the shadows caressing his edges, the light silvering his skin.

  I grabbed his hips, tugging him closer, digging my nails into the firm globes of his ass.

  Half stumbling, he lay full length against me, then began kissing my neck. My body arched, willing him closer and my thighs pressed against rigid flesh.

  I wrapped my hands around him, closer, closer, and suddenly his control snapped. An ‘Oh shit!’ moment before plunging into a storming sea, he devoured me. And I was shocked by my own utter abandon.

  He pushed against my opening, firm and insistent, bordering on desperate. It had been so long and he was so much a man, my body surged even as it protested, and then he was inside and everything became a driving need as his thrusts grew bolder. The seductive sounds of him inside me, skin slapping against skin. His woodsy musk mingling with the scent of sex. This beautiful man hammered his way into my life, one wild thrust after another.

  It seemed to go on and on, thrust after thrust, a fierce frown notched between his eyebrows, his fingers gripping my hip tightly, his other hand fastened on the mattress as the bed rocked beneath me. A hurricane roaring under my skin.

  Thinking absolutely nothing, feeling absolutely everything.

  I hadn’t expected this—Alex was usually so gentle. He’d been tender and considerate when we’d kissed. But now, his body was taking over. I could see it in the darkness of his eyes, the intensity of his expression, the taut pleasure in his face, the low grunts as his hips pounded into me relentlessly.

  His voice was silenced, but his body roared.

  Wild, wild passion.

  He didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t speak, and that made the intensity of sex with him so enthralling.

  He closed his eyes, a helpless groan rolling from his throat, the cords of his neck tightly drawn. A deeper thrust, he stiffened, rigid above. And me? I was shocked out of my skin—the way he’d taken me, the ferocity and passion. And I was lost in the storm, a shipwreck survivor.

  His sweat dripped onto my chest and his arms shook, but he placed a trembling kiss on my lips before he flopped onto his back.

  I lay on the bed, breathless, as if someone had poured me there, my brain scrambled like cooked eggs.

  My silent lover lay next to me, and without a single word, the rock steady continent of my life had become a shifting, boiling tectonic plate. The land under my feet rippled like a desert’s mirage.

  I was almost afraid to move in case I fell into the deep rifts our love making had created. It couldn’t just be lust, could it? Unconnected to emotion?

  And I was too conscious of a rising silence, so I forced myself to speak.

  “That was . . . amazing,” I said feebly, the words inadequate for what I felt, what I’d experienced.

  He rose onto one elbow, staring down at me, his eyes soft and sated.

  “Because it’s you.”

  I glowed with joy, but said nothing.

  Acting like it didn’t mean anything didn’t alter the fact that it did.

  Dawn

  “I WAS WONDERING . . .”

  Alex rolled onto his side, watching me with that small, familiar smile on his face. He raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to continue.

  “It’s not important,” I sighed.

  And at that moment questions weren’t important. We’d made love several times and my body was tired, or rather, deeply relaxed, but I felt so wholly alive. Electricity hummed along my nerves and sinews, and a fizz of constant arousal hovered under my skin.

  The contradiction was dizzying.

  Alex stroked my stomach, tracing his fingers downward, following the thin, silvery lines of stretchmarks. He’d already kissed every one of them, and made me cry when he said they were beautiful because they honored me as a mother.

  I shivered with pleasure as the tips of his fingers drew patterns around my hip, then he looked up at me.

  “Ask,” he said.

  What? Oh yes, I had a question. I wish I hadn’t mentioned it now.

  “Ask,” he said again. “Anything.”

  I hesitated, not wanting to spoil the moment, but then again, he’d said I could ask him anything . . .

  “Okay. Well, I was wondering . . . why did you cut your hair? And shave your beard? It seemed like . . . well, like you were hiding. So I wondered . . . what changed your mind?”

  I finished lamely as his hand stilled.

  Then he pulled his hand away and rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.

  “I’m sorry, I . . .”

  “No,” he said. “No, don’t be . . . it’s hard t-t-t to talk about.”

  “Then don’t.”

  His head turned toward me and he smiled sadly. Then he closed his eyes.

  “I didn’t remember to shave,” he explained simply.

  I waited, expecting more.

  The silence stretched uncomfortably, and I wished again I hadn’t brought it up. But then he started speaking.

  “When Carl died, I was devastated. He was my only brother, my own family really. And . . . several other things happened at the same time, at work and . . . but Carl’s death was the worst. I guess I went a little crazy. I stopped going to work, stopped living, I think. I didn’t shave or cut my hair for 18, no, 19 months. And then, when I started to . . . wake up . . . I liked that the way I looked made people think twice about talking to me. My . . . my stutter was bad, so keeping people away seemed easier than trying to communicate with anyone. I think maybe you’re right. I was hiding. Anyway, I just let it grow.”

  “You’re not stuttering anymore.”

  He smiled softly.

  “Not with you.”

  I chewed my lip uncertainly.

  “I don’t really understand. Why does it come and go like that? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

  He frowned.

  “I’m not sure I can answer that in any way that makes sense. Stress, I guess. But not always. It started when I was a kid. I was about Katie’s age when my mom left us, so I don’t need a shrink to make that connection obvious.”

  “That must have been hard.”

  He shrugged.

  “If you want the clinical definition, it’s called psychogenic stuttering. The shrink told me that onset usually begins suddenly following an event that caused extreme psychological stress,” and he gave me a dry look. “Characterized by repetition of the initial or stressed syllables.”

  “Will it go away? It has now, hasn’t it?”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t know. Nor does anyone else. It might go, or it might be for life. I’m assuming it’s here to stay, but I can’t be sure.”

  “I can’t imagine how difficult that is.”

  “People get impatient, finishing your sentences. It’s humiliating, having someone talk for you, assuming they know what you want to say. With you and Katie, I feel . . . safe is too strong a word, but I know you won’t judge me for it.”

  I leaned on my elbow and touched his stubbled cheek, brushing my fingers over his short hair, barely more than bristles covering his skull. His lips turned upward, and he hummed with pleasure, making me laugh quietly.

  “You like that?”

  “Yes,” he sighed with contentment, opening one eye as he grinned up at me. “You could do that all day and I wouldn’t want you to stop.”

  “I’m glad you cut it,” I said. “In my mind, you weren’t ‘Mr. Winters’, but ‘the Mountain Man’.”

  He laughed. “What, like Grizzly Adams?”

  “Yes, but with Stan instead of a bear.”

  “I think Stan would like that.”

  “You did seem rather unapproachable, forbidding.”

  His smile dropped.

  “I know. That’s why I cut it. That girl in the forest . . .” his forehead wrinkled as his face contorted at the painful memory. “I scared her. Terrified
her! I didn’t mean to. I hadn’t thought about the way I looked for so long. I liked that people stayed away from me, but I didn’t think . . . I kept hearing her screams. Her parents . . . they looked at me like I was some sort of monster. It really shook me up. Badly.”

  His face smoothed out, but he seemed so sad.

  “If it hadn’t been for the kittens I would have . . . after I dropped them off with you, I was just so tired of it all. Being on the outside, living a half-life. I knew I had to start making an effort to . . . to reintegrate . . . or I’d end up being this crazy hermit who scared kids forever.”

  He turned to look at me.

  “And by then . . . I’d met you.”

  “Me?”

  I blinked, surprised. I hadn’t thought that he’d even given me a second glance.

  Alex smiled.

  “You were kind. Kind to Stan, kind to me. I didn’t imagine this exactly,” he said, waving his finger between us. “But I didn’t want you to be afraid of me either. You were special.”

  He needed to be kissed for that.

  We made love, we slept, we made love again, the whole night through. By morning, I was the worse for wear. And better. So much better. Sleep deprived and sore, but smiling stupidly.

  Of course, it had to end. I had to get to work and Katie was going to spend the day at Holly’s house. I’d been a very bad mom, keeping her out. And when I tried to plan what to say to her . . . explain why I’d stayed the night with Alex, the words caught in my throat. I’d have to tell her something. But what?

  Alex tugged me into the shower with him, and we enjoyed each other’s bodies again in the steaming water. We didn’t speak, but he was touching me the whole time, his lips curving upwards. And besides, he was a man at ease with silence.

  “I have to go,” I said sadly as I dressed in yesterday’s clothes. “Katie is going to her friend’s house, and I have work. We both need to get home and change, eat breakfast . . .”

  “I have food.”

  “Ah, yes! Bacon and eggs for Stan, right?”

  He grinned sheepishly.

  “But unless you have Mini Wheats with Maple Brown Sugar, you’ll see Katie combust.”

  He raised his eyebrows, skeptical.

  “You’ve only seen her sweet side, but my daughter has a temper, believe me!”

  He seemed bemused by the idea, but Katie was so like Stella, she could go off like a rocket. I sometimes wondered how she ended up being my daughter.

  He scratched his chin, his fingers rasping against the coarse hair.

  “The diner?”

  “You want to take us to breakfast at the diner?”

  He nodded.

  I wanted to say yes. I wanted to delay the moment when I had to say goodbye to this perfect point in my life, but was I ready to announce to Girard that Alex and I were . . . wait . . . were we dating?

  My cheeks colored, and Alex threw me a puzzled look.

  That was a conversation for another time.

  “How about we wake Katie, and you and Stan come to breakfast at our house?”

  He accepted by dropping a passionate kiss onto my lips, his hands tightening on my hips. And we went from zero to sixty in less than a second, the flames of passion that I thought had been exhausted, fanned into a blazing fire.

  And then Stan farted—a long, satisfying, bass rumble.

  I laughed and the mood was truly broken, and a putrid smell like rotten eggs wafted through the room. I pushed away, as Alex threw Stan a dirty look.

  “Not exactly mood music,” I chuckled.

  “That mutt is going to find himself in a goddamn kennel,” he muttered.

  Stan grunted, surprised that he’d woken himself up. Then he closed his eyes again, huffing quietly.

  Still laughing to myself, I went to wake Katie.

  She was usually grumpy in the morning, but as soon as she saw Stan, she was all sunshine and smiles. And when she saw Alex, she ran over and hugged him tightly around his waist, snuggling into his plaid shirt.

  His eyes widened, and he glanced at me above her head as he cautiously lowered his arms to hug her back.

  “Alex and Stan are coming to breakfast with us at home,” I said casually, wondering how Katie would react to that.

  “I’m hungry,” she said simply.

  Then she climbed the stairs to Alex’s bathroom as if she’d been doing it her whole life.

  She hadn’t asked for any explanations, hadn’t wondered where I’d slept—instead, she seemed perfectly at home with all of this. For now. I knew that I’d have to give her some answers later . . . I just didn’t know what they’d be.

  Minutes later, after Katie had decided that Stan wanted her to ride with him, Alex loaded them both into his truck and followed me as I drove through the town.

  I had to stop at Walgreens to pick up a gallon of milk, then we had a fun, if chaotic breakfast, before I had to drop Katie at Holly’s house and head to work.

  While Katie was getting changed, Alex grabbed my hand, but refused to meet my eyes. We sat there in silence for some minutes, his thumb drawing hesitant circles across my wrist.

  “So,” he said slowly, drawing out the syllable, “c-can I call this a date? Because I’d like to take you on a real one—dinner, a movie, whatever you’d like.”

  I’d hoped to hear those words. Feared them, too, but hope glowed brightest.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’d like that.”

  He grinned at me and placed a soft kiss on the inside of my wrist, making my pulse leap.

  Then Katie raced down the stairs, kissing Stan on top of his furry head, and earning a lick that made her giggle.

  “Can Alex take me to Holly’s?” she asked.

  I blinked with surprise, not expecting that question.

  “Not today,” I replied, my voice flat.

  “What about tomorrow? You’re working tomorrow, too, and school doesn’t start till Monday.”

  “We’ll see.”

  She pouted, her expression growing thunderous.

  “That means no. Why can’t Alex take me?”

  “Katie! We’re not having this conversation now. Here’s your bag. Now, say goodbye to Stan and Alex and go get in the car.”

  She snatched her bag and stomped outside, slamming the door behind her.

  Alex raised his eyebrows.

  “Sorry about that. Welcome to Parenting 101.”

  “She’s a great kid.”

  “Mostly, yes. Give or take three years of sleepless nights, teething, tantrums and . . . yep, motherhood is wonderful.”

  “You’re l-lucky,” he said, looking down.

  “Yes,” I said quietly. “I am.”

  It was later that day, when tiredness was catching up with me that the other shoe dropped.

  Dan stopped by to see me at work.

  “Can we talk?” he asked, looking serious.

  “Is it Katie?” I gasped, my hand flying to my chest.

  “No, no, nothing like that,” he reassured me quickly. “We just need to talk. In private.”

  Ashley rolled her eyes and went back to reading a magazine as I ushered Dan into one of the empty consultation rooms.

  “What’s this about?”

  He grimaced and slowly lowered himself into a chair as he set his hat on the desk between us.

  “I saw you this morning,” he said at last. “At Walgreens.”

  My mind raced. Where is he going with this?

  “Okay?”

  “I saw Katie in Alex Winters’ truck,” he said accusingly. “Real early.”

  I was taken aback. First, by his hostility, and second, I wasn’t ready to discuss our relationship. It was too new, too untested. But Dan was an old friend, one of the few who’d stuck by me after . . .

  “So?” I asked testily.

  He leaned forward on his elbows.

  “So, you didn’t look like you were meeting for breakfast.”

  “That’s really none of your business, Dan.”
r />   He ignored my clipped tone and plowed on.

  “You stayed the night with him, didn’t you?”

  My cheeks flushed and I bridled at his disapproving tone.

  “Are you asking me or telling me?”

  “Dawn . . .”

  “And just for the record, is this visit as a police officer or as my friend?”

  “I’m both, Dawn. Always.”

  I sat back in my chair, crossing my arms defensively.

  Dan settled his service revolver more comfortably against his hip and frowned at me.

  “Then you were with him. God damn it, Dawn! You hardly know this guy!”

  “How dare you!”

  He winced and backpedaled immediately.

  “I mean, he’s only been in town a couple of months. That’s not like you. And with Katie to think of . . .”

  “Well, as my friend, I would have thought you’d be pleased that after all this time I’ve met someone that I . . . like.”

  He pushed his hands through his hair, anger and frustration marking his face.

  “Not him.”

  “Why not him?”

  “Jeez, Dawn! We’ve been friends half our lives. After what Matthew did . . . can’t you just take it from me that Winters is bad news?”

  I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. What wasn’t he saying?

  “What do you mean? You’re going to have to give me more than that, Dan.”

  He growled with irritation.

  “My word not good enough for you?”

  “You know it is. But I’m not a child, so whatever it is, just tell me what you know.”

  He sighed, regret and resentment coloring his voice.

  “I can’t tell you everything . . . but after he brought in that dead dog, I did some checking.” He paused. “I didn’t know that you were . . . how long has it been going on?”

  A night, a month, my whole life? I had no way to answer him. Alex had become important to me. I’d fallen for him.

  My voice was quiet when I replied.

  “It’s recent.”

  “Good. Then you won’t get hurt,” he said briskly.

  Too late. Much too late. This conversation is hurting me.

  “What did you find out?”