Animal Attraction

Two days later Dell was sitting in his office staring at the files on his desk. He needed to work, but he hadn’t written a word in ten minutes. For the millionth time, his gaze landed on Jade out in the front room.

He’d thought that her request and his promise to treat her the same at work was just the usual womanspeak for we are now sleeping together so I own you.

But she’d meant it. She hadn’t tried to discuss their night or, to his chagrin, repeat it.

She was closing up for the night; straightening the chairs along the wall, talking to Gertie who was padding along after her, then laughing at something the silly parrot repeated as she wiped down the front reception counter with her special antiseptic wipes.

He loved to watch her.

It wasn’t just the clothes, he decided, taking in her black pencil skirt and kick-ass heels, the ones that had little bows at her ankles. It was the way Gertie loved her. The way she’d taken on Beans. The way both of them, dog and kitten, followed her around like she was the Pied Piper.

It was… well, fucking adorable, for one thing. And for another, he found it hot. Her loving his animals was hot.

She moved back to the computer and sat, staring at the screen, fingers whirling on the keyboard. Her hair was carefully contained and controlled in some complicated twist up on her head, and her white blouse… Christ, had it been unbuttoned that far when she’d first come in this morning? Because damned if she didn’t look like every man’s secretary fantasy. In fact, just like that, it started to play in his mind.

Slowly she rose to her feet. Licked her lips as she reached up and undid her hair, shaking her head, causing the soft, silky waves to tumble to her shoulders.

Oh yeah.

Nice.

Her fingers began working the buttons on her snug white blouse, revealing a black lace bra beneath which barely covered her nipples and-

“Jesus, where the hell are you, Disneyland?”

Dell blinked at Adam, who’d come and perched a hip on the desk. He stared at Dell with a straight face, but he knew his brother better than anyone on earth.

Adam was laughing his ass off on the inside, the fucker. “Not Disneyland.”

More like Penthouse Forum…

Adam gave a purposeful, knowing look in the direction where Dell’s gaze had been fixated.

Jade. Not giving him a naughty secretary striptease…

Dell kicked his office door shut.

Adam’s mouth twitched and he leaned forward, opening the door again.

Jade glanced over, saw them, and gave a quizzical look.

Adam waved at her.

Jade paused, narrowed her eyes, then went back to her work.

Adam turned to Dell. “This is new, you doing all the mooning. Usually it’s the women showing up or calling incessantly. But now it’s you. You’re the one mooning now.” He shook his head. “Poor dumb bastard.”

Dell shoved Adam off his desk. “Don’t you have something to do to earn your keep?”

Adam smiled. He knew damn well that his business, the classes, the training, the breeding… all brought good money into their pockets. “You’re pissy. You know what that means? That I’m right.”

“Really? You want to go there? Maybe I should get Holly on the line for you. Then we’ll talk pissy.”

“Hey, at least I’m not changing my MO midgame,” Adam pointed out.

“Huh?”

“You let Jade come to your house,” Adam explained.

“Yeah. To train her. You’d have done the same thing.”

“No, I’d have brought her to the gym in town. But you. You took her home.”

“So?”

So they both knew that Jade was the first woman Dell had ever had out there.

“Next thing,” Adam said, “you’ll start thinking about giving her the key code.”

The guilt must have shown on Dell’s face because Adam tipped his head back and laughed. He was still laughing when Dell, not liking where this was going, turned back to his work. “Why are you here, anyway?”

“Training.”

“I mean why are you here, in my office, bugging the shit out of me?”

“Other than it’s fun to fuck with you?” Adam shrugged. “Thought we’d get something to eat.” He took another peek at Jade. “You figure you know what you’re doing? Because both Brady and I have our doubts.”

He had no clue. “You and Brady should fuck off.”

Adam took one look at his face and shook his head, still amused. “Good to see this on the other foot for a change.”

“Shut up.”

“I’d be worried about Jade, but you know what? Even with whatever’s clearly bothering her, she’s still going to eat you up and spit you out.”

Dell could get on board with the eating him up part. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Hey, if you don’t know, I can’t help you.” He tapped Dell on the head with his knuckles. “Yeah, still hard as wood. You always did have to learn the hard way.” He headed to the door. “My money’s on you, though.”

Fourteen

Late the next afternoon, Jade signed in the last patient of the day-Lulu the lamb was by turns sweet, curious, and holy hell on wheels.

Keith had brought Mrs. Robertson and Lulu to an exam room. Jade was at her desk doing the whole wind down for the day when she heard Mrs. Robertson and Dell laughing.

Two minutes later, Mrs. Robertson and Lulu checked out with Jade and left.

Jade turned to her last chore, Dell’s laptop. The other day on the helicopter back from a S &R training, he’d made a bunch of notes for her to add to patient files. She’d been asking him to e-mail them to her, but he hadn’t, so she’d confiscated the laptop to do it herself.

That’s when she found the patient files she’d never seen before, a whole set of them that had never been entered on the books. Frowning, she scrolled through them. Wellpuppy and -kitten checks, simple surgeries like neuters and spays, dentistry, vaccinations… Confused, Jade searched, but though she found names, dates, and detailed services provided, there was no billing information.

Because he hadn’t billed, she realized. Not for any of it.

She went deeper and found that these services occurred approximately once a month and went back years. Thoroughly baffled, Jade went into the back and found Dell in front of the x-ray machine, laughing with Mike, who was cleaning up the equipment.

“What’s wrong with Lulu?” Jade asked.

“She ate Mrs. Robertson’s birth control pills,” Mike said.

“That’s not dangerous for her?”

“Not the pills,” Dell told her. “But the case is… problematic.”

Jade stared at Dell. “She ate the case, too?”

Dell smiled. “Yeah but no worries. The x-ray shows she broke up the case pretty good, though. It’s going to all come out okay in the end.”

Both men cracked up at this. When they’d composed themselves, Mike said good-bye for the night.

Dell surprised Jade by snagging her hips and drawing her in close, gripping her with a protective, possessive familiarity that should have pissed her off.

Instead, her heart stuttered to a stop. She looked down at his hands on her, at his fingers, the ones she’d had