by Parker, Ali
George held Nico like he could hardly believe that he was real, cradling him in his arms carefully as though he might break at any moment. It was beautiful to witness, but I didn’t want to interfere.
Besides, Marjorie needed as much help as she could get, and I didn’t want to leave her in the lurch. I ran back and forth bringing out dogs and introducing people to their would-be pets, and I watched as family after family, person after person, fell in love with the animals that they were going to take home.
We were running through the paperwork so quickly it was hard to keep up, but I didn’t mind. Better to say goodbye to so many of them than none at all.
Marjorie seemed to be having a slightly harder time with it. I supposed it was different for her. She had been taking care of these animals since they were brought in, raising them and caring for them and coaxing them slowly out of their shells to make sure that they could have the best lives they possibly could. To bid farewell to them after all this time must have been a weight on her shoulders; I didn’t doubt that.
“Are you all right?” I asked her gently as I noticed her getting a little tearful toward the end of the day. We had managed to rehome thirty-six dogs and nearly forty cats, and I knew it had to be a lot for her to take in, to say goodbye to all these little creatures after so long.
She glanced away from me and managed to nod. “I’m fine,” she replied. But then a tear leaked down her cheek, and her face crumpled.
“It’s just... a lot,” she confessed.
I pulled her into a hug. I had worked with her long enough to know that she was a soft woman, really, though she played at hard and bold a lot of the time. Saying goodbye to all these animals at once, even though she knew that she was sending them to good homes, was like a parent sending their kid to college. Necessary but devastating.
I patted her shoulder and felt a little tearful myself, but it was a happy kind of tearful. Happy that they were going to good homes. Happy that this was just the first of many events that would bring people to their new pets like this. And happiest above all that it had been a chance for George to meet Nico for the first time. This event had brought people together, in all senses of the word.
And I couldn’t think of a bigger success than that.
Chapter 67
Harry
I reached under the table and patted Tink where he was asleep at my feet. He might not have known it, but he was the reason that all of this weekend had been such a huge success.
Without him, I would never have come across the shelter, and without that, I wouldn’t have been able to put together the awesome event that we had thrown the day before. It had been hectic as hell, but totally worth it, and I was proud to say that we had helped find homes for more than seventy animals over the course of the day.
By the time it was over, Winnie was dead asleep in the back of the car with Tink, and George had to be dragged away from Nico, who he just couldn’t get enough of. But the day had been a wild success, and I knew that it wouldn’t be the only one that we had with the shelter.
But for now, I was back at work, and I had to focus on catching up on everything that I had missed the last few weeks. Fuck, it had been so busy, I had hardly had time to remember that I so much as had a job.
I was lucky that I ran the company because if I didn’t, I’m sure I would have come in to a termination letter on my desk, waiting to inform me I had been taking too much time off lately.
I would have to find some way to thank my employees for putting up with me for this long. It couldn’t have been easy, keeping the business running while I was out of the office and trying to cope with the deluge of stuff that had been dumped on my desk, and I wanted to let them know that I knew that.
And yes, though the last few weeks had been some of the toughest I’d ever been through in my life, I had come out the other side of it feeling a whole lot more positive about what lay ahead. And surely, that was what mattered at the end of the day?
When Allison had turned up at the shelter with Nico, I could have cried. Seriously. I wasn’t the most emotional guy in the world, but the sight of my son, there at the shelter, just laughing and greeting the dogs and cats like any other kid, made me so happy.
Allison had taken me aside to let me know that he was already starting to do better, responding well to the new meds that they had him on, much to my relief. And she was starting to feel a little more solid, too.
It could have just been the fact that some of the stress had started to lift, she pointed out, but she was feeling a lot more grounded than she had been before I had come into their lives. I hoped that meant the cancer was beginning to recede. I was sure that a woman like Allison would be totally able to kick its ass, and I looked forward to getting to know her when she was in full-force flight once again.
It had been a gift, too, for Nico and Winnie and George to meet each other for the first time. Winnie was a little nervous at first, but when she saw how enamored George was with this little guy, she seemed to loosen up a little.
She even held him once, under the watchful eye of Allison and me, and she seemed so interested by him. She couldn’t take her eyes off him, like he was some sort of fascinatingly rare scientific specimen that she was trying to figure out.
I knew that she was going to have a lot of questions about how this tiny little guy was going to figure into our lives, but by the time we got home yesterday, all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and make sure that Tink was there with her before she fell asleep. I would be happy to talk it all out with her as soon as she was ready, but for now, it seemed like the best thing for us was to get back to reality once more.
I heard a knock on the door of the office and glanced up. Yara let herself in, and Tink sprang to his feet to say hello to her. She crouched down to greet him and hit me with a pointed look.
“You know, I think it’s totally unfair that you’re allowed to bring your dog into the office every day, and I can’t be hanging with mine,” she protested pointedly.
I grinned at her. “Well, I have to draw the line somewhere. Otherwise, we’re going to be overrun with them.”
She cocked her head at me. “You’re saying that like it’s a bad thing, but I don’t see how it could be,” she replied playfully.
Tink and Yara came over to the table, and she plonked herself down in the chair opposite me.
“So, how’s being back at work?” she asked.
I sighed and shrugged. “I don’t know yet. I have a lot to catch up on.”
“You’d have more if it wasn’t for how hard everyone worked while you were away,” she replied, ever the advocate for the people who worked for us.
I nodded. I knew that, but that didn’t make it any easier to handle. “Do you think I should do something for them? Something to show them how much I appreciate the effort they put in?”
“Like, a bonus or something like that?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of a party,” I replied. “Dogs allowed, of course.”
“Well, when you put it like that…” She laughed. “Where were you thinking?”
I scanned my brain for a moment and then landed on the perfect place.
“Let me get in touch with George,” I replied. “I bet he’d love to have an excuse to do up his mansion.”
“You really think he’d be willing to hand all that over for a company party?” she asked.
I nodded. “You’d be surprised at how mellow he can be,” I replied. “Besides, think of all the women he’ll get to flirt with. It’ll be a dream come true for him.”
“I guess so,” she agreed, shaking her head fondly at the thought. “You give him a call, and I’ll see what else I can pull in, all right? But I’m sure everyone would appreciate the chance to have some fun. Especially if our dogs are allowed to be there too.”
I texted George as soon as she was gone, and he replied with an almost instant affirmation that promised me use of the house whenever I wanted it. I knew that
Yara would put together something impressive, something better than I would be able to manage by myself, and knowing that she was off and working gave me the kick in the ass I needed to get moving on my own stuff.
By the time I was finished for the day, I actually felt pretty accomplished, and I headed down to pick up Winnie from school and drive her and Tink back home. She still greeted her little furry friend like he was the most precious thing in the world to her, and I wondered how many other people were getting to enjoy their first days with their new pets, thanks to us.
“How was your day?” I asked Winnie.
She looked up from where she had been playing with Tink and smiled. “It was great,” she replied, and she seemed to mean it.
I drove her home, back to our little house, and she played out in the yard with Tink as I replied to a few emails and warmed up the dinner of tacos that the housekeeper had left in the freezer for us.
I kept an eye out for an email from the realtor about the house that Raina and I had checked out together a few days before. I was so eager to find out if we had gotten it or not, but I knew that this wasn’t the kind of thing you could just rush into being. We had to take it slowly, annoyingly, even though I had never been much good at doing that. I knew that there was someone else who had put an offer down on the table, but I just had to assure myself that mine had been the bigger and better one that they were going to take at the end of the day.
I wanted to live there. I wanted to live there with Raina. I had seen the look on her face as we had been making our way around that place, and I knew just the same thing was running through her head. This was our home.
I didn’t know how I was so sure of it, but I was. I could see the two of us making a life there together, with space for Winnie, Nico, Allison, Reed, Yara, everyone. Ours would be the home that everyone came in and out of, the base of operations for everyone in my life who mattered.
Just as we sat down for dinner, my phone rang. I ruffled Winnie’s hair and went to take it. Since I was back at work, I would have to deal with a few out-of-hours calls here and there.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Mr. Porter?” It was the realtor. My heart skipped a beat; several of them, in fact.
“Yes?”
“I’m calling to let you know that your bid on the Harrison Street property has been accepted.”
From there, most of my brain was just filled with a wild ringing in my ears. I could hardly keep myself together as I listened to everything he was telling me. They were going to push through the paperwork as soon as possible so that I would be able to put my name on those papers sooner rather than later.
By the time I hung up the phone, my head was spinning. I couldn’t believe it. It had really all come together for me, at last, at last. I went back through to the kitchen to finish eating dinner with Winnie, and she must have noticed the great big smile on my face because she gave me a hard look.
“Is something going on?”
“It is,” I admitted. “But I need to talk to some people about it first, okay? Then we can talk about it together.”
“Is it good news?”
“The best,” I replied, and she beamed.
I finished eating dinner with her, listened to her talk about her day, and then sent her off to play with Tink as I called up Yara to let her know that we would soon be moving. As my assistant, she would be able to get everything sorted to make sure the move ran smoothly.
She was delighted for me, but I was so buzzed with the thrill of it that I could hardly listen to her. There was only one person I really wanted to talk to in that moment, and I knew she was going to be as excited as me when she heard the news that I had to give to her.
I got her voicemail and decided to play it cool and mysterious—to give her something to look forward to.
“Raina, come to my place tomorrow morning,” I told her. “There’s something we have to talk about. And trust me. I’m going to make it worth missing your morning coffee for.”
With a grin, I hung up the phone. I could hardly wait to see her.
And I knew that when she heard the news, she was going to be glad she had skipped her coffee that morning.
Chapter 68
Raina
I had no idea why he was so eager for me to cancel on Reed that morning, but as soon as I had heard the tone in his voice, I’d known that it wasn’t up for debate. Harry had a damn good reason to want to see me, and I certainly wasn’t going to argue with it.
As soon as he opened the door to his place, I knew what was running through his head. I grinned as he pulled me into his arms and kissed me deeply, like he was making the very most of the fact that I was here.
“Thanks for coming,” he murmured, and he pushed the door shut behind me.
“You going to make it worth my while?” I replied playfully.
He scooped me off the ground and into his arms. I burst out laughing and hung on to him as he carried me up the stairs and toward the bedroom.
He tossed me down on the bed, and it didn’t take long before our clothes went flying. I was wearing the scrubs that I would have to take into the office soon enough, so hardly my sexiest look, but he didn’t seem to care much.
He stripped me off like he could hardly wait to get at the gifts I was hiding underneath, and he kissed down my throat and across my breasts as he undid my bra, his breath hot and hungry on my skin. It was crazy to me how good he could make me feel with almost no effort.
It was just knowing what was coming next that tipped me to that point, knowing that he would take me, and make me come, and do everything he could to pleasure me any way he saw fit. I adored that about him, that my pleasure was always first and foremost in his mind.
I might not have been with any men other than him, but I got the feeling that it didn’t matter very much. I doubted any of them would have even come close to being as good as he was at all of this.
He slipped his hand into my panties and cupped his fingers around the warmth and wetness of my pussy, covering them lightly so that they weren’t quite touching. I moved my hips toward him, grinding hopelessly, telling him without words that I was ready, more than ready, that I needed this more than I had ever needed anything before in my life.
He always made it feel urgent when we were together like this, as though nothing about it could wait. Even though we had taken a while to get to this point, to the point of sliding so happily into bed together, I was more than grateful that we had taken our time and waited. It had meant that, when the time came, both of us were ready.
Leaning down, he grinned and kissed me again, his tongue parting my lips like he was ravenous for what lay beneath, and he pushed his fingers inside me again. My whole body started to shake as soon as I felt him move within me. I didn’t know how he did it, but when he touched me, everything else in the world stopped. It didn’t matter if it was a kiss or a caress or something else. Everything slowed down to make way for him.
“You’re so wet,” he murmured, and I could have sworn he sounded a little cocky about that fact, as though he was proud of himself for it, too. Like he knew he was the one who had gotten me there, and he was giving himself a little pat on the back for his efforts.
I had to stifle a giggle. I felt so giddy when I was with him like this that sometimes it was hard to remember we were actually doing something serious.
“Fuck me,” I pleaded with him. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to spare before I had to go to work, and I knew that if I didn’t get to feel him inside me then, I was going to suffer the rest of the day for the want of it.
He kicked off his pants, and I ran my hand down his back, feeling the strong line of his spine from his neck to his pelvis. I loved the strength of him when he was on top of me. It felt like the world could have come rolling in to try and knock him off his center, and nothing would have been able to. His sureness, his certainty, that was what had attracted me to him in the first place. And now, it was aimed at me, and I knew t
hat he was sure about what he wanted when it came to us, and it helped everything make just a little more sense.
He sheathed himself quickly and held himself at my entrance, the way he always did, as though he was taking a brief moment just to get lost in the tantalizing promise of what was to come. I moaned and wriggled beneath him, coaxing him onward, and finally, at last, he gave me what I craved so dearly.
I groaned as he moved inside me for the first time. There was something so impossibly decadent about fucking this early in the morning, when both of us had to go to work soon enough. Stealing this time for each other, for ourselves, selfish in the pursuit of a pleasure that was only for us.
He wrapped his arms around me and pushed into me deep, filling me all the way up to the hilt, taking me like there was nothing in the world he would rather have been doing in that moment. I sank my nails into his back and let my body sink into the sheets below me, the softness absorbing me, at odds with his hardness.
He didn’t hold back. He didn’t seem to see a need to, and I was grateful for it. After everything that had been happening lately, I felt like I needed this connection with him to remind myself where this all came from.
Not that he was so good in bed that I would have gone through anything for him—though, that was a part of it—but it was a raw thing that existed between just us. Nobody could take it away from us, no matter how much they might have wanted to. This was ours and only ours, and we had made it together, and that meant nothing could change it.
I could already feel myself getting close. It was the feel of his breath on my neck that did it for me, his essential life force mingling with mine in the air around us. I wondered if he could feel it too, that intensity, growing and building and swelling like the air couldn’t contain it.