Lilah’s eyes were on Brady’s bare chest. “Um.”
Brady raised a brow and waited for her gaze to meet his.
When it did, she had two spots of color high on her cheeks. “Sorry, my phone was off last night, but I came over as soon as I got your message. Wanted to see if you were still alive.”
Which he most definitely was. Alive. Very… alive. Some parts more than others.
Her gaze jerked back up to his eyes. “I thought you’d be… up.”
They both knew just how
“What did you do to get him to go to sleep?”
“I told him to shut up.”
She looked at him like he was an idiot. “Twinkles is a rescue. He needs love and affection.”
“Sorry, fresh out of both.” He sighed at her look of disappointment. He’d gone years and years, and to his recollection, he’d never once sighed. And yet he’d sighed more in the week he’d known her than he had in his entire life. “I gave him my blanket,” he said. “I put a loud clock in that blanket to simulate the sound of a mother’s heartbeat. But I’m starting to think he never had a mother, that he came from the devil himself.”
“Did you try cuddling with him?”
“Huh?”
“Cuddle,” she repeated. “You know, hold him close, snuggle, nestle… Like what you’d do if someone was with you in there… ”
“The only someone allowed in my bed is a woman.”
“Pretend he’s a woman, then!”
Fascinated by her, he plumped his pillow some more and gave her a go-on gesture with his hand. “No, I don’t know. Tell me what I’d do. In great detail.”
She blew out a breath. “You’re sick.”
“Depends on your definition of sick.”
“Just hug your dog!”
“Not my dog. The dog you foisted on me. Which begs the question: why?”
“Twinkles. His name is Twinkles,” she grated, hands on hips now. “Not ‘the dog’ or ‘it’ or whatever else you’ve been calling the poor thing.”
Probably best she didn’t want to know what he’d called it earlier this morning around three thirty A.M.
And again at four thirty.
And five thirty.
“Haven’t you ever had a dog?” she asked in exasperation.
“No. And I don’t want this one. Fun’s over, Lilah. You’re taking him back.”
She was just studying him speculatively. “Really? You’ve never had a dog?”
“Never.”
She looked surprised for a beat, and then her expression softened. “So you don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“What having a pet can add to your life.”
“Pain and suffering?”
She slanted him a pitying look and crossed her arms, which plumped up her breasts. “Unconditional love.”
“Lilah, I travel all the time. I don’t have time for unconditional love that comes with the responsibility of pet care.”
“Or… you don’t like attachments.”
“Attachments are messy,” he agreed.
That made two of them…
“And messy can make you feel too much,” she said. “Right?”
“Actually, at the moment I’m feeling plenty,” he said softly.
Again her gaze flickered downward, past his chest to his lap, where the sheet was pooled. Two high spots of color appeared on her cheeks. I should… ”
“Go?”
“Yes.” She lifted her chin. “Good-bye, Mr. No-Strings.”
“Nice.”
“Just calling it like I see it.”
“Are you casting stones, Ms. Safety?”
Her brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”
“You let all your animals into your heart the same way you do the people.”
“I don’t-”
“And,” he went on. “You do it for keeps. As far as I can tell, your friends have been your friends forever.”
“So? That’s a good thing.”
“You also have two exes, both apparently still in your life.”
“It’s a small town. And actually, I have three exes, if you must know.”
“Fine. Three. My point is that it’s a comfort for you, having familiar people around you, and I get that. But I see it as a barrier to trying new things or stretching yourself. You live your life safe, Lilah.”
He could tell he was back to pissing her off again. It was a specialty of his.
“Safe,” she repeated in disbelief.
“Yeah. When was the last time you left this podunk town and saw the world?”
Something crossed her face at that, but she recovered quickly and narrowed her eyes. “I came to help, not be analyzed. Now do you want my help or not?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then.” She scooped the dog off the bed. “This would be a lot better if we moved this to the kitchen. Or outside.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll have to get dressed.”
Her gaze once again slid to the sheet. “Don’t tell me you’re naked under there.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you.”
She bit her lower lip as she hugged the dog close. The smart little shit licked her cheek and gave her the big, ol’ puppy-dog eyes. “Aw,” she murmured, and nuzzled him. “You’re so sweet.”
The dog craned his neck and sent Brady a knowing grin, the little shit. Brady must have made some sound of annoyance because Lilah turned back to him. “Look, it’s a simple thing to make him feel safe and secure. It’s a simple hug or a kind word. A quick cuddle. I mean, honestly, how hard is that?”
She thrust the dog at him. “Practice while I’m here so I can see your technique.”
“I’d rather practice with you.”
She just looked at him, a tactic she’d learned from him, Goddammit. He snatched the dog then and, dangling him from his hands, brought them nose to nose.
“Not like that!” His sexy-as-hell teacher put a knee on his bed and leaned over him to press the dog to his chest. “Like that.”
Her hair fell forward, dragging like fine silk over his shoulder and arm. Her breath was warm against his jaw as she held his hands on the dog. “Hug him.”
He’d never been one to easily follow a command, even after all those years in the military, but he held the damn dog instead of doing what he wanted, which was to roll Lilah beneath him to show her cuddling. “Maybe we can call it something other than cuddling,” he said.
“What, that threatens your manhood?”
Brady was wearing just a cotton sheet and a boner for the record books, so he was pretty fucking sure he was secure “in his manhood,” but he decided to keep that to himself. More disconcerting, the dog had settled quietly on his chest, looking at him adoringly as his big puppy-dog eyes slowly… fluttered… shut.
The little shit was going to sleep. “You have got to be kidding me.”
