Hot, sweaty, panting images.
“Front desk didn’t tell me you were on your way up, or I’d have met you at the door with this.” He picked up a large brown bag from Pup Paradise, a place on the Magnificent Mile where he’d purchased anything and everything to help with Adonis’s issue.
“The front desk was supposed to tell you when I arrived?”
Shit. Now he sounded like a stalker.
“I didn’t want to miss you.”
“Oh.” Her full lips pursed to a tempting degree.
“There are treats, toys, and something called a Kong. You’re supposed to fill it with peanut butter.”
She took the other handle of the bag and dug through the contents with him. Soft skin brushed the back of his hand and made him wonder if she was that soft everywhere. “Peanut butter?”
“You’re supposed to help him look forward to being alone,” Tag said, clearing his throat and his mind of his lecherous thoughts. “He probably thinks Oliver left him for good.”
“Adonis has had sitters before.” She pulled out a squirrel toy and squeaked it. Then traded it for a book on dog behavior and gave him a dubious look. “Really?”
“He doesn’t know you. Maybe you two should bond.”
“He sleeps in bed with me.” She dropped the book into the bag. “We’ve bonded.”
“Sounds cozy.” Forcefully, he pulled his gaze from her mouth. A mouth he’d bet tasted like candy.
“Shut up.” She snatched the bag, but there was a teasing glint in her eye. She turned for the door and he kept his eyes on her ass, realizing belatedly she’d turned around. He rerouted his gaze to her frowning face. “Thanks, I guess.”
“You’re welcome, I suppose.”
She glared at him.
He grinned.
She opened and shut the door and he jogged to the peephole and watched as she waited for the elevator. She pulled out an oversized stuffed ball and sent another unsure gaze at the door.
“God, she smelled good,” he said to himself. The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside. “And she likes you.”
Kind of liked him.
Or else she wouldn’t have come up here to put him in his place. Plus that electric zap that hummed in the air hadn’t only radiated from him.
He had a feeling she was fighting attraction he knew she’d felt. If she was fighting, he was willing to pull on his gloves and climb in the ring with her.
Suddenly, he was really glad he was having an issue with his downstairs neighbor.
Game on.
Chapter 4
How’s Shaun doing?” Rachel’s mom asked.
Rachel stopped stirring the canned soup she was heating on the stove while Adonis stared a hole into the side of her head. “I fed you. Go eat,” she told him. He looked forlornly at the dish of kibble, then back at the stove.
“Dear, who are you talking to? I hope not Shaun,” Keri Foster said with real concern.
Rachel froze mid-stir, phone to her ear, and realized she was going to have to take Oliver’s advice and tell her parents what was going on. They didn’t know that (a) Rachel no longer was dating Shaun, (b) Rachel was no longer working in the marketing department at Global Coast, and (c) that Rachel was temporarily living with a dog roughly the size of a mule.
“Uh…” She stalled, trying to think of what to say. “I’m dog sitting, actually.”
“You are? How fun! Is it Shaun’s sister with the schnauzer puppy? What was her name? The puppy, not the sister.”
“Yes. Her name is uh…” What was that dog’s damn name? “Adonis.” No sense in snaring herself in another lie. The Dane’s head tipped in interest and he licked his chops. He chuffed, and Rachel shushed him. Her mother couldn’t see him, but if she heard him, she’d know Rachel was not sharing a house with a small dog.
“Adonis. Not very feminine.” Clattering came from the background as her mother dug out what sounded like a metal pot. It was rare Rachel had a day off to make calls at dinnertime, but she’d made an effort to keep up the ruse that she worked nine to five. “Did Shaun get the promotion he was angling for?”
Her mom had been asking for a few months. Rachel had put her off by saying things were “on hold for another month.” Then another.
“Weren’t the two of you going to look for a new apartment soon? Your lease is up next month, isn’t it?” Another clang and bang sounded as her mom went for more cooking implements. “I ask”—a chopping sound followed by Keri crunching a bite of whatever she’d chopped—“because I heard in Chicago, the best view is—”
“Mom, stop.” She couldn’t do this. Not any longer. It’d been crushing her to keep the lies spinning like plates on poles. Rachel was an adult, and it was past time to take her medicine.
“What is it, dear?”
The line fell silent and the words clogged Rachel’s throat. Well. Take part of her medicine. She wasn’t quite ready to tell her mom the whole truth.
“Shaun and I…split up.”
A gasp.
“It’s fine. It was amicable,” Rachel was quick to add to keep her mother from worrying unnecessarily. The truth was it wasn’t fine, nor was it amicable, but Rachel had the benefit of eight weeks to absorb it and her mother had only had about eight seconds.
“What happened?” Her mother’s tone was alarmed. “I thought you two were so happy.”
We were until he betrayed me like the punk ass he turned out to be.
“Sometimes…things don’t work out,” she hedged, pulling the soup off the burner to cool.
“Is there someone else?”
For Rachel there wasn’t. She hadn’t been ready to jump into the dating pool after things went south with Shaun. Not after said pool tested positive for pond scum.
“Two years is such an investment. I can’t imagine,” her mother was muttering.
It was an investment. A big one for Rachel. She’d loved him and had assumed they’d get married. Until Shaun’s familiar nighttime ritual “love you, Rach,” stopped and “G’night” replaced it.
She wondered when he’d stopped loving her. Had someone else grabbed his attention, or was it because of the guilt that he’d accepted the boss’s praise/promotion combo? A preemptive strike before Rachel found out he’d betrayed her?
After moving in with Bree and seeing firsthand what she and Dean had, Rachel started wondering if Shaun had ever loved her at all.
“…thought the two of you might even get married.”
She tuned in her mom mid-litany about how sad it was to lose a future son-in-law.
“I’m sorry,” her mom cut herself off to say. “I did not mean to say that. Honey, I’m so sorry. Where are you living? Is working with him every day weird?”
“I’m dog sitting for a…friend who’s letting me stay in hi—uh, her place.” Yeah, saying she was living in another man’s house would not sound innocent, even though it was. “I’ll be here for the month and find my own place after.”
Surely she’d make enough money on this gig to put down the first month’s rent and deposit elsewhere. From there, she would have to secure a job that paid more than cash tips in exchange for working until three in the morning.