Off the Leash

by M. L. Buchman

  “It’s beautiful work,” Linda was fingering Dilya’s scarf once the dogs had settled down to clean themselves after the excitement—Clive couldn’t agree more. Whatever creator had carved Linda out of DNA and the ether of the unknown had forged a stunning masterpiece.

  Dilya was watching him strangely.

  “You came for chocolate, didn’t you, you scamp?”

  “Caught,” Dilya admitted freely. But her look said a great deal more that he couldn’t interpret. He pulled a few pieces out of the small cabinet and set them on a plate on the marble counter. The chocolate bars had indeed gone away far more quickly now that he’d made them smaller, but Dilya had never shown much interest in them.

  He was about to reach for a small to-go box, but Dilya sat down on a stool beside Linda. He wanted her to himself. He wanted to kiss her again and find out if the impossible was actually real. Clive was a worldly man who definitely knew better than to be swept off his feet. But “Linda with Thor” had done just that. In a few short days, his world had completely shifted.

  Shifted?

  It was like the first time he had tasted couverture chocolate. His world had suddenly made sense in an instant. Years of thinking that the world was comprised of just baking chocolate and eating chocolate. On his own, he’d improved until he could create flavors and textures that won amateur awards.

  Then he’d tasted couverture. The exceptional quality and increased cocoa butter content provided astonishing results in sheen, snap, mellow flavor, and a creamy mouth feel. In that instant, recipes and techniques had reconfigured in his mind until he understood just what was possible. Chocolate had shifted from a world he understood to one that he couldn’t wait to spend the rest of his life exploring.

  Linda Hamlin was exactly like that. Until now he knew women and how to please them. They were fun, like an infinite variety of chocolate chip cookies. But he now understood just how much a woman could be—the perfect, ever-unfolding truffle.

  He looked at her to see how she’d been transformed by his realization—but she hadn’t.

  Sergeant Linda Hamlin sat beside Dilya over peppermint truffles, talking about dog training techniques. They left the candies half finished when they clambered to their feet and stood side by side in front of their dogs. That certainly put him in his place.

  “The finger snap does two things,” Linda was explaining. “One, it lets the dog know that whatever you do or say next is for them.”

  “Same as calling their name first. Simple word association for dogs,” Dilya nodded hard enough to make her hair swirl about her head.

  “Right. The second thing it does is actually far more important—it gets them looking at you so that they can see the next command.”

  “Like in a Delta Force operation, when they wave a hand at the edge of someone’s vision prior to giving a silent hand signal. Got it!”

  And Clive knew that meant that she did have it. He’d been on the receiving end of her brilliance enough times to know that the teen missed nothing. Though how she’d ever been witness to a Delta Force team doing anything…

  Linda took it right in stride. “Exactly. The next trick is that nothing can be ambiguous. You come up with a standardized set of commands and always use precisely those words: come, come here, come along you—they’re always alerting on the word come so don’t use any other.”

  “Or not. Zackie isn’t so hot on come. Or stay. Or…” Dilya groaned at the dog’s failures.

  “Or not,” Linda agreed. “And why don’t they come when called, especially when you know that they know better? Because when we shift tone, they may think that it’s a different word. And each time you use it differently, it dilutes the primary. A single, consistent come will outperform all of the others combined. When you do use tone, keep that same balance to the word and simply increase the emotional trigger of intensity for emphasis.”

  “Do I have to use German? I don’t think the President speaks it. Though that could be fun, actually.”

  “Easy, girl,” Clive warned. “He is the President and it is his wife’s dog.”

  Dilya smiled in that way that he could never interpret. He knew that most women had a smile like that—one that men were welcome to think was agreement, no matter what they were actually thinking. That’s when he remembered that the First Lady did speak German and might enjoy teasing her husband about his inability to command her dog. As usual, Dilya was three steps ahead of everyone around her. Except maybe Linda.

  Clive sat on one of their abandoned stools and tasted one of the peppermint truffles. A good balance of sweet and bright mint. The mix of textures was good, the smooth crispness of the outer chocolate and the coarser but softer mint fudge center.

  The contrast.

  That’s what was so stunning about Linda, that contrast between who she presented to most of the world and the brief glimpses she let him see.

  He fished out his notepad as they worked with the dogs.

  Zackie was having trouble focusing, but Thor’s steadying influence and well-honed actions were already helping.

  Contrast. Contrast and… What was it he’d thought of earlier? Interconnections.

  Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines on one side. China on the other. Tension, threatening to pull everything apart. Connection, pulling it back together. More than connection—interconnection. Where their differences made a new whole.

  Linda and Thor—human and dog making an exceptional explosives detection team.

  The West Pacific Rim nations unifying in some fashion that was new and different.

  The Vietnamese Marou and Philippine Malagos chocolates together. Not blended. No. Use the white Marou and the seventy-two percent dark Malagos. Twist them around a Japanese Pocky-style biscuit to create a chocolate candy cane look, along with a unification of the three working together in a different way. Now that was getting interesting. He had no idea how to actually do it, but that was part of the fun.

  He pulled out a larger pad from under the counter and began sketching out the likely techniques. He couldn’t simply scale up the Pocky stick—the texture would be wrong. The delicacy of the biscuit was part of the Japanese finesse. And how to twist the two chocolates together without melting them together?

  Clive was several pages in when he noticed the quiet.

  The Chocolate Shop was dead silent. No, not quite, Thor’s soft doggie snore sounded in the background.

  Linda sat once more on her stool, her chin resting on her palm as she watched him. Dilya was nowhere to be seen.

  “You’re an interesting man, Clive Andrews.”

  “I’m hoping I’m more than that,” he looked at a clock to see how much time had passed, but since he didn’t know when they’d eaten or when he’d started drawing, there was no way to track how much time he’d lost. Chocolate did that to him.

  “Come on,” she said to him as she stood up. Nudging Thor awake so that she could retrieve her jacket that he’d been using as a doggie bed, Linda shrugged it on.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’re taking me home.”

  Clive could only nod.

  Chapter Seven

  Linda never made decisions like this, but as Clive unlocked his front door, she swore that she wasn’t going to second-guess herself. Which, of course, meant that she couldn’t stop doing it.

  “Would it be inappropriate for me to ask why we’re here?” Clive was standing in the center of his apartment’s living room.

  Thor began sniffing his way around the apartment as she also checked it out.

  It was a very guy space. A leather lounger, built on the same scale as Clive—big—faced a large television. Football or cooking shows? She’d bet on the latter.

  Beside his chair was a large collection of books in untidy stacks. She looked closer: dessert cookbooks. The walls were mostly decorated with—she moved closer—pictures of chefs shaking hands with Clive and of knit goods. A quick scan around and she spotted a tall, glass-fronte
d mahogany cabinet so full of yarn that it looked like a rainbow gone mad. A massive sweater of gray wool, covered in intricately overlapping cables, had been tossed on a couch.

  “You really do knit.”

  “You’re avoiding the question.”

  She turned for the kitchen. Inspecting that, even if she wouldn’t be able to judge most of what would be in there, would be far more comfortable than answering why she was here. There was a splendid, lived-in quality to the apartment. Her own small studio could still pass military inspection.

  “Linda,” he snagged her elbow as she tried to pass by.

  His simplest touch brought her to a halt. It was just them now. No chef peered at them from behind a mixer. No teen was likely to drop in, seeking chocolate and dog training tips. It was just them and she didn’t know what to do about it. Her plans for some sex with an interesting man whom she liked felt foolish now that she was here.

  It had been a while. Secret Service training had kept her hopping enough that she could brush off the various passes made by the other trainees. Those had also faded away as she’d worked through the course in half the normal time—many of them hadn’t liked that. And before that in the 75th Rangers she’d…

  Clive kissed her.

  Her whirling thoughts slammed into focus. Clive. She’d been working with Dilya and giving her the basics techniques for training Zackie when Dilya had done a teen thing that Linda remembered all too well from her own past. The girl had suddenly realized that she was learning something from an adult and that didn’t fit with a teen’s independent self-image. Between one eyeblink and the next, Linda had been alone with Clive, who was so immersed in his drawings and notes that someone could have indeed bombed the White House and he probably wouldn’t have noticed.

  Clive. His kiss deepened and she let her body mold against his as he wrapped his arms about her. Exactly as she’d guessed, it felt like being hugged by a big, warm, kindly bear. His powerful hands were gentle as they held her close.

  She’d become enthralled with watching him work in his kitchen—his chocolate shop—even if it was just designing. The focus, the obvious joy he took in the process. His quick smile and bright eyes had gone quiet as he worked and she could see the man revealed. He gave a first (and second and third) impression of being light-hearted and quick-thinking, living for the banter of the moment.

  But not when he was working on a chocolate recipe. To that he brought a focus she easily recognized: it was the difference of a grunt in for a tour or two and the long-term professional soldier.

  And at the moment, he was bringing that same incredible intensity of concentration to melting her bones as if they were actually made of chocolate.

  It was working.

  Not only was he reshaping her body to his, but if he were suddenly to let go, her liquid knees would be sure to melt out from under her.

  He didn’t let her go, but he did ease back and break their kiss by the simple expedient of standing up straight. He had at least eight inches on her height…she’d never kissed such a tall man. Rather than uncomfortably submissive, she felt as if she was being cared for. The former she’d have to think about but the latter she had no experience with and it was confusing as hell.

  “Now,” he whispered as he looked down at her with those deep, warm eyes of his. “Why are you here?”

  “This,” she managed on an uneasy breath that didn’t sound anything like her.

  “Not good enough, Linda.”

  Not good enough? If his kiss and embrace had felt any better she’d—

  Again Clive left her with no good words.

  “What are you really asking, Clive?”

  “We’re not going to simply tumble into bed and screw each other’s brains out.”

  “We’re not?” That sounded very good at the moment.

  “Linda,” he practically groaned in agony.

  Unable to think while looking at his eyes, she tipped her head down and placed her nose and forehead against his chest.

  With his strong hands he dug into her back muscles and continued the job of melting her against him.

  If they weren’t here to screw… But they were. She knew enough about reading men to know that’s exactly why they were here. It was why she’d said he should take her home and he hadn’t argued. At least not until now when the bedroom door stood less than ten feet away. Hell of a time to stop a seduction.

  Unless that’s what this was. Was it?

  Instead of a hot, sweaty release, what if… What if… What if she actually wanted to be here? To be here with Clive rather than just some guy most likely to sate her body for a night?

  And it was true.

  Dilya had whispered something offhand before she left the Chocolate Shop. They’d been looking down at the two dogs, and Zackie was actually sitting at alert and waiting quietly for the next command. “Such a good doggie. We can see so much more of who you are when you’re being quiet, can’t we?” The dog had wagged her tail in happy response, revealing that she really was a sweetheart and not just a hyperactive ball of beautiful fur.

  Then Dilya had been gone, leaving Linda to watch the quietly working Clive.

  And she’d seen so much more of who he was. He was a man alive with ideas. His chocolate shop had photos of them taped to every surface: a mottled orange-and-red sky, a breaking ocean wave, a red-winged blackbird’s wing. He didn’t merely make chocolates. Clive sought inspiration in nature. He might look like the guy most likely to play the front four on a football team, but instead she could only marvel at the delicate confections he’d created and the way he drew. Beneath that ever-so-distracting exterior, there was an intelligent, thoughtful, and skilled man.

  At that moment, his probing fingers found a locked-up muscle beneath her right shoulder blade. He massaged it until it released with a suddenness that took her breath away. And when she breathed back in, with her face still planted against his chest, he filled her senses just as surely as he’d filled her thoughts.

  She now knew why she was here.

  “Take me to bed, Clive.” She’d thought it would be the action that mattered. But it wasn’t. It was the man.

  It was enough.

  It was too much.

  Clive ached for Linda like he’d ached for no woman before.

  He’d wanted her clear words that she really did want to be here. That she did want to give her body to him.

  And she certainly didn’t need to tell him twice.

  He scooped her up in his arms, and she simply buried her face against his neck. Turning sideways, he barely managed to scoot them through the bedroom door.

  Then, by the light spilling in through the doorway, he saw that the bed was unmade. His bathrobe was on the floor. The…

  He hadn’t known he’d be bringing home a beautiful woman or he’d have—

  Linda looked up to see why he’d stopped.

  “You really are a civilian. As long as those rumples are all yours, you’ll get no complaints from me.”

  “They’re all mine,” his voice felt hoarse, stuck deep in his chest. “Have been for a while.” Longer than usual, by far. As if he’d somehow known he was waiting for Linda Hamlin to step into his life.

  She offered a thoughtful hum that might have been pleasure and might have been a cat’s purr of contentment.

  He was past thinking about such things. Setting her on her feet, he wasn’t really sure how to begin. But Linda had taken care of that without him noticing. As he’d carried her, she’d unbuttoned his shirt.

  Once again she placed her face against his chest; he now felt the tickle of her warm breath on his skin. The brush of her impossibly soft hair, even her happy sigh as she slid her arms inside his shirt until they were wrapped around him.

  He wanted her to speak, though he wasn’t sure why. Usually, when he bedded a woman, it was all about feeling: his hands on her skin, her reactions as he laved her body with touch and kiss as fine as decorating a chocolate. They would occasio
nally talk or guide and that was fine.

  But with Linda, he wanted to hear her thoughts. He’d already learned that she was a woman of few words. He would have to coax her verbal responses just as he might another woman’s physical ones.

  “Tell me about—” his words choked off as she slipped his pants and underwear off his hips and dragged his bare body against her with fingers dug hard into his behind. She was so distracting that again he hadn’t noticed her actions undressing him.

  Undressing him. But she was still fully clothed. She hadn’t even taken off her US Secret Service jacket, though she had unzipped it when they’d entered the apartment building.

  US Secret Service. His past was filled with secretaries, aides, a lobbyist or two, and even a US Congresswoman. All professional women of the office variety. And, in hindsight, a disproportionate number of them had indeed been tall blondes exactly as Linda had teased him.

  This short brunette of the military variety was something completely new.

  Linda took a step back and shucked off her jacket. He almost missed the fact that if he didn’t stop her, she’d strip down the rest of the way just as quickly.

  He wanted her naked, but not merely stripped down.

  Grabbing one of her hands before it could grab the hem of her blouse, he went to twirl her into an impromptu dance step.

  Except his pants had slid from around his thighs to around his ankles and instead of stepping forward into the lead, he plunged to the carpet, nearly crushing Thor, who had come in to see what was going on. With a yip of surprise, Thor scooted back out the bedroom door.

  A similar sound came from Linda because he hadn’t let go of her hand as he went down. She landed hard against him, firmly planting a shoulder in his gut and knocking most of the wind out of him.

  While he was busy gasping for air like a beached fish, Linda propped an elbow on his ribs and looked down at him.

  “Is this how you usually run your seductions?”

  “Sure,” he managed on a gasp. “Dark choco-late,” took two breaths. “Smooth moves. Wrestle to carpet.” He tried to reach for her, but his arms were still in his shirtsleeves and the bulk of the shirt was pinned beneath him. Worst seduction, ever.