Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 45284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 226(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 226(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
“Yes,” he says after a pause. “I would.”
I sense, hope, dream there’s so much else he wants to say.
CHAPTER
FIVE
Kayden
“What’s his story?” I ask, sitting in the tidy, small living room with Buckie in my lap.
Luna lays a tray on the coffee table, leaning forward, making it difficult not to gaze compulsively at her curvy breasts from this angle. “My dad runs a veteran’s center, helping veterans to find jobs, counseling, stuff like that. One of them got a job and couldn’t take Buckie with them. I bonded with the little guy straightaway, but I didn’t realize he was going to be so full of… life.”
I tickle him behind the ear. “Yeah, he’s a smart one.”
“Smart one?”
“Most hyperactive dogs are either smart or traumatized. I doubt he would’ve taken to me so easily if he was traumatized. I think he needs training.”
“Are you advertising your services, huh?”
She sits, crossing her legs, highlighting the shape of her thighs in her jeans. It’s taking everything I have to keep myself civilized since there’s a dog in my lap, and I’m not about to let myself get savage under these circumstances.
But looking into my woman’s face isn’t any easier. There’s something disarming about her gaze.
“I’d do it for free,” I say.
She gasps, and I can’t blame her. It’s a crazy thing to offer out of nowhere, but I can tell this dog needs my help, and my woman’s house isn’t big. She must live here with her dad… her dad who does what he can to help veterans, her dad who would probably be pissed beyond belief if he knew how badly I wanted his daughter.
“Do you do that often? Work for free?”
“Not often,” I reply, “but sometimes. I’ve been lucky in my career to work with many high-profile, well-paying clients. It’s given me the time to take on charity cases fairly often.”
“That’s what I am? A charity case?”
Her voice gets sassy, her head tilted. She has no clue how difficult it is not to set Buckie down and dive across the room, loop my arms around her hips, and pull her to her feet, right up against me where she belongs.
“I wasn’t saying that,” I snarl.
“I was only kidding.” She leans back, and I realize I’ve come on too strong again, too aggressive, like my lust is going to turn me brutal. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” I say, glancing behind her as a truck drives past, a flash in the glass section, the flash of a grenade, and the explosion. Now everybody’s screaming and…
I focus on Buckie instead, slowing my breathing as I gently tickle him behind both ears. He lies on his back, paws raised, staring up at me.
“He really likes you,” Luna says after a pause.
“He can probably smell all the other dogs on me,” I reply.
“What’s that… you being modest?”
I shrug. An awkward silence passes. I’m normally content to sit in silence, not feeling the need to flood every moment with conversation, but there is definitely something awkward about this. Maybe it’s the fact I know there’s so much I want to say, so much I want to happen, but I don’t even know where to start.
When I used to dream about finding my woman, she wasn’t twenty years younger than me. I never stopped to wonder how I’d go from talking to kissing to sex to marriage to life.
“I should probably get back soon,” she murmurs.
“I meant what I said. I’ll train him if you want.”
“Are you sure?” she asks.
I nod.
“You’ll have to let me pay you something. Honestly, I don’t think I’d be able to afford your prices… well, any prices for one-on-one sessions. I’m not saying you’re unfairly priced or anything.”
Is this what I’ve done, made my woman so nervous she feels the need to add this?
“You’ll find a way to pay me back,” I say, trying not to think about what I’d like that to be.
“You’d do it, just like that? Are you sure?”
If it means seeing my woman again, I’d do much more than train a dog. But there’s the conundrum… if I told her she was my woman, she’d probably freak the hell out.
“Once I decide I’m going to do something, I do it, and I’ve already decided. What time can you do tomorrow?”
“Five p.m.?”
“That works.”
“When are you going to start my tattoo?” I ask.
She sits up, a gorgeous laugh escaping her, which isn’t saying much because all her laughs are gorgeous. “Do you seriously want me to do it? What if I mess it up?”
“Are you planning on messing it up?”
“No, obviously—”
“Are you up to the challenge?” I say, staring firmly at her.
I imagine asking her the same question about the life we’re going to share, my woman becoming a mother, my wife, my partner in everything. The woman who will hold me if I jolt awake and need somebody to hold, something I never thought I’d have.