Eleven
I can tell that you think you know what you’re doing,” Dell told Lilah a few days later. “But you don’t.”
They were in her office at the kennels, where she’d just come in from the drugstore, having bought herself a present.
Condoms.
Dell, who’d looked into the brown bag thinking she had something to eat, had gotten an unhappy surprise.
“I know what I’m doing,” she said, and hoped that was true.
“It’s just a crush,” Dell said.
“Yeah. So? You crush on anything with two legs.”
He winced. “Not anything.”
“Brady’s a good guy,” she said. “Or you wouldn’t have invited him here.”
“He’s a great guy.” Dell snagged her last candy bar from her not-so-secret stash in her bottom drawer. “But-”
“No. Nothing good ever comes after a but, Dell. I hate all buts.” Except for Brady’s. He had one really great butt.
“But,” Dell repeated patiently, ignoring her annoyed snort, “he has one foot out the door.”
“I know. It’s the very definition of a crush, Dell. It’s got an expiration date. At least we both know it.” Coming around her desk, she hugged him tight and ushered him to the door. “I’m going to be okay, and so is Brady.”
When he was gone, Lilah opened a different drawer with her real junk-food stash and dove into some cookies, and then a bag of chocolate kisses, promising herself that tonight she’d eat broccoli. Maybe.
She hadn’t been kidding-she was crushing on Brady. In fact, if she closed her eyes, she could still feel him deep inside of her. She could see the fiercely intense pleasure on his face when he’d climaxed.
She got aroused just thinking about it.
She’d worn him out, which had been a source of pride. He’d fallen asleep in her arms and she’d listened to the beat of his heart meshing with hers. She’d watched him sleep, his long, thick lashes resting on his cheekbones, loving how for once he was completely relaxed, completely unaware of his surroundings.
He was beautiful, and in that moment, he’d been hers. And perhaps because she liked that thought a little too much, she’d slipped out of his arms and out of his bed.
They’d seen each other over the past few days; him working on the Bell, her going back and forth between the center and the kennels, but they’d been too busy to talk.
She eyed her overcrowded desk and sighed. She and Cruz switched off months being in charge of the paperwork that they both hated: the receivables, the payables, the calendar, the promotion and publicity work that had to be done to keep new business flowing. Switching off kept them sane, but more important, it kept them from killing each other. But she wished it were Cruz’s turn now.
Or that her life was light and carefree enough that she could say screw it to the work and go seek her pleasure. Her phone rang, interrupting the thought.
“I’m starving,” Jade said. “And I need to get out of here before I kill any penis-carrying humans. Lunch?”
“Yes, if it has broccoli in it.”
“You eat something bad again? You need some self-control, Lilah. What did you get into?”
Lilah sighed. “Everything.”
“Be there in ten.”
Brady surfaced after two hours inside the engine compartment of the Bell 47 and realized Twinkles wasn’t in his usual sunspot. He walked around the Bell, the building, searching the entire area, but couldn’t find him. Gut tight, he entered Belle Haven and found Dell behind the receptionist’s desk looking hassled.
“Can’t figure out her stupid system,” Dell complained. “The woman runs this place tighter than a frigging ship, but no one else knows a damn thing-”
“The dog,” Brady said. “You see him?”
Dell lifted his head, eyes dazed. “Man, I’ve seen fifty today alone. Maybe a hundred million and fifty.”
Brady shook his head. “My dog. Twinkles,” he corrected, saying the name out loud for the first time with a grimace. “He was outside with me while I was working and now he’s gone. Have you seen him?”
Dell had gone brows up when Brady said “my dog,” but without another word, he came out from behind Jade’s desk. “Let’s look outside.”
“I did.”
But Dell went outside anyway and started walking the areas that Brady already had, calling for the dog.
Brady did the same, moving around the building. He was at the horse pens, half afraid to look inside in case he found a squished dog, when he heard Dell yelling for him. He ran toward Dell’s voice and ended up once again in front of the Bell 47.
“In here,” Dell called out from inside the chopper.
Twinkles was on the pilot seat.
Which he’d chewed to shreds.
When he saw Brady, he thumped his tail happily and gave one loud “arf!”
“Are you kidding me?” Brady asked him, not wanting to analyze the relief making his legs weak. “You can’t jump up onto the couch or get up on the bed without using the chest as a ladder, but you can get onto that chair and chew the hell out of it?”
Twinkles hopped down and sat on his left boot, gazing up at him adoringly.
“Cute,” Dell said.
“Not cute. He just ate five hundred bucks’ worth of leather.”
“Shouldn’t have let him be alone in here,” Dell pointed out.
“Let him? I don’t ‘let’ him do anything. He’s utterly untrainable.”
Dell grinned. “You know what Adam would say, right? He’d say it’s you, that you’re untrainable. And why are you always so on edge about the little guy, anyway? He’s a dog. A damn good one, too.” He ruffled Twinkles’s head fondly. “You just have to be the boss of him, that’s all. Be firm.” He put a finger in Twinkles’s face. “No more chewing.”
Twinkles slid to the floor and exposed his belly to be scratched.
Brady shook his head.
“Oh, like you wouldn’t do the same if you could.” Dell crouched down and obligingly scratched Twinkles’s belly.
“And why hasn’t Lilah found him a home yet?” Brady wanted to know, staring grimly at the destroyed seat.
“Probably because she’s having fun messing with you.” Dell let out a laugh at the look on Brady’s face. “Guess you don’t find this as funny as I do.”
“Not so much, no. Though why I care when it’s your dime, I have no idea.”
Still chuckling, Dell pulled out his cell phone, speed-dialed a number, and put the phone on speaker. A woman answered with a professionally irritated tone: “What do you need now?”
“Jade,” Dell said.
“Nope, it’s the Easter Bunny. And your keys are on your desk.”
Dell shook his head. “Now darlin’, I don’t always call you just because I’ve lost my keys.”
“I’m sorry, you’re right. You wallet’s on your desk, too. As for your little black book, you’re on your own with that one, Dr. Flirt. I’m at lunch.”
Dell sighed. “What did we say about you and the whole power-play thing?”
“That it’s good for your ego to have at least one woman in your life that you can’t flash a smile at and have them drop their panties?”
