Author: Bella Andre

Seriously, what was wrong with her? She took a much needed step back. And why was it so difficult to pull her mind back from the gutter’s edge around this man?

She’d never had a problem keeping her guard up around men before. For all his good looks, Zach Sullivan shouldn’t be any different. Especially when he was as charming as they came.

Charming had never been a point in any man’s favor where Heather was concerned. Not when her father had given the trait such a bad rap.

“How’s the puppy doing?”

She moved to the side so that he could see Cuddles licking Atlas’s muzzle with the kind of great enthusiasm that only a puppy could exhibit.

“She seems to have him under her spell.”

“She sure does.”

She realized Zach was staring at her, or more specifically, her hair. She’d had it back in a braid earlier, but had tugged it free as the afternoon wore on.

“You have beautiful hair.” His mouth moved up into a ridiculously sexy smile. “Makes a guy want to run his hand through it to see if it’s as silky as it looks.”

Since she foolishly found herself wanting the same thing, she reached into her pocket for a hair band, then pulled it back into a ponytail. She’d put on a new shirt upon her return to the office, but she still had on her muddy shorts.

Pointedly ignoring the compliment about her hair, while telling herself she didn’t care if she still looked like a grubby mess, she said. “Are you ready to get started with training?”

Her voice was brisk and professional, but Zach only seemed to relax more against her door jamb.

“You didn’t tell me you owned this place. Very impressive.”

“Heather, I’m back from the bank dropoff and they wanted to know if—” Tina’s mouth fell open, then snapped shut. “Hi.”

“Hello,” Zach said to her attractive blonde employee. “I’m Zach Sullivan.”

Her assistant’s eyes widened and all she said again was a breathy, “Hi.”

Tina was brilliant with not only dogs, but also their owners. She was an organizational whiz. And she had a very serious boyfriend.

Still, one look at Zach was clearly all it took for her brain cells to wash down the drain. It was small comfort to Heather that she wasn’t the only one that had happened to today.

Good thing she was over it.

Completely, one hundred percent over his square jaw, and his broad shoulders, the way his mouth—

Yikes. Really, her brain needed to stop doing that.

“Tina,” she said in a scrupulously professional manner, “Zach is the new client I mentioned would be by later for some one-on-one training with Cuddles.”

“She’s such a cute puppy,” Tina gushed. “And I just love her name. Most guys wouldn’t be confident enough to name their dog Cuddles.” She beamed at Zach.

Ugh. Heather didn’t think she could stomach either coffee or chocolate anymore. The sooner she got Zach out of her office and out into training, the sooner he’d leave.

And then everything would go back to normal.

Like her heart rate, for one.

“Atlas, heel.” Her dog carefully extracted himself from beneath the tiny puppy and moved to her side.

Five p.m. was precisely when the bulk of her day care clients came in to pick up their dogs and, unfortunately, just the walk across the large room out to the fenced-off grass behind the building was enough for Zach to attract a shocking amount of female attention. Women she’d known for years, whether single or happily married—even the grandmothers—couldn’t keep their eyes off him. The last thing a guy like Zach Sullivan needed was a puppy to make him a magnet for even more female attention.

When they finally managed to get outside, he put the dog down on the grass. Cuddles immediately started running in circles, chasing her tail. She could tell from the way Atlas was vibrating beside her that he wanted to play, too, but he was too well trained to break protocol on a whim.

“How long did your brother have Cuddles before he asked you to watch her?”

“A couple of days.”

She was glad to hear the slate was fairly clean, at least. “The first few days with a puppy are really important. They can be so cute that even when you want to keep to the rules, you end up breaking them. But that would be a big mistake with her.”

“She weighs three pounds,” he said as Cuddles began to roll on the grass. “How much trouble can she really get into given a little freedom?”

Heather knew far too well the price of freedom. Not just for dogs who felt lost and afraid in a boundaryless world, but for women who fell for charming men like Zach Sullivan. Men who wanted what they wanted, when they wanted it, without any regard for anyone else—and got it.

“Freedom is overrated,” she told him in a hard voice. When he raised an eyebrow at her tone, she moderated it before saying, “Don’t forget, she’s recently been taken away from her mother and littermates and she has no clue whatsoever how to navigate our world. Just like this morning at your garage, anything could happen to her. It’s your job to watch over her, and to teach her how to stay safe.”

“This isn’t just a business for you,” he noted. “You really care about dogs, don’t you?”

Surprised that he had any insight whatsoever into her, she put her hand on Atlas’s back and said, “Someone has to.”

Zach looked down at her big dog. “What happened to him?”

Atlas’s ears perked up when he realized they were talking about him.

Once more, she was stunned by how closely Zach was paying attention to her subtle cues, rather than being too busy admiring his reflection in her window to notice the world around him.

“I found Atlas at a puppy mill.”

“A puppy mill?”

“It’s where unscrupulous breeders crank out as many pedigreed dogs as they can sell for big bucks. His left ear flopped to the side just enough that no one wanted to buy him. Once they realized that, they stopped feeding him or letting him out of his crate.”

Zach got down on the grass. “Rough start, huh?” Atlas not only let the big man rub his ears, but he practically started purring. “Lucky you, getting to go home with Heather.”

She rolled her eyes, positively thrilled that Zach had capped off his too-sweet reaction to Atlas’s story with a blatantly sexual quip. She could tell that he genuinely liked her dog, and she would have been more afraid of it getting to her if he hadn’t been so busy trolling out the overused—and underwhelming—pickup lines.

“Okay, let’s get started. I’ll show both you and Cuddles the end goal with Atlas, and then we’ll begin the process of teaching her how to obey your commands. Sound good?”

He stood back up and nodded. “Sure. I’m great at giving commands.”

Intent on ignoring the sensual undertones he seemed to slide beneath practically every word out of his mouth, she said, “There are five basic commands we’ll want Cuddles to understand. Come, sit, stay, down, and heel. But for the first day, the most important is come.”

Thankfully he didn’t jump on any double entendres with that command as she picked up a dog toy and threw it across the lawn. “Atlas, fetch.”

Her dog loped off with the puppy hot on its heels, almost as if they didn’t want to be separated for even a second. When he was halfway to the toy, she called out, “Atlas, come!”

He skidded on his huge paws and did a quick about-face, all but hurling himself toward her, the toy instantly forgotten. Still, he was careful not to step on the puppy.

“Good boy.”

As she gave him the signal to sit and then held out a treat, Cuddles finally reached the toy, falling onto it and causing a faint squeak. Atlas’s ears went up, but he didn’t move from where he was sitting in front of her.

“Your turn,” she said to Zach, knowing just how badly this was going to go with such a rambunctious puppy and a temporary owner whom she very much doubted was taking any of this seriously. She handed him a tiny doggie treat. “If she comes, give her this.”

He raised his eyebrows at her use of the word if. Without her telling him what to do, he knelt on the grass, held his arms out wide and said in a firm voice, “Cuddles, come!”

The rambunctious puppy looked up from the oversized plastic toy she’d been trying to gnaw on. As if she’d been merely trying to find a way to kill time before Zach needed her to come be with him, she flew across the grass.

“Good girl,” he said as he stroked her fur and fed her the small dog treat. He looked up at Heather. “How was that?”

Grudgingly, she admitted, “Good.”

Really good.

And the worst part of it all was that she knew exactly why the puppy had come running. Zach wasn’t just a magnet for women.

It seemed he was able to exert a near gravitational pull over all living things.

She refused to let herself be charmed, though. Especially when every second around Zach forced her to grab on tighter to her self-control to keep from smiling at one of his lines...or being overly impressed at how good he was with both his puppy and Atlas.

“Walk with me to the other side of the grass and we’ll do it again.”

For the next fifteen minutes, Zach Sullivan demonstrated a surprising affinity for commanding the attention of the puppy. She knew she should be happy about the fact that he was a natural, rather than letting it grate on her. And yet, instead of praising Zach, she gathered up the puppy and kissed its soft nose.

“Great work, Cuddles. Did you have fun in class today?”

The dog licked her, then wriggled until she let her back down to continue tormenting a happily bothered Atlas.

“We’re done already?” Zach sounded disappointed.

“Puppies tire easily.” When he pointedly looked down at Cuddles, who was now trying to dig a hole to China in the grass, she clarified, “What I mean is that they don’t have very long attention spans. Fifteen minutes is long enough for them to learn a little more each day without either of you getting frustrated. In any case, today was a great start. And hopefully, if she does manage to run off again, now you’ll be able to get her to come back on your own.”

“We’re both really glad you were there to find her in the bushes this morning.” He looked down at Heather’s legs and she almost shivered as she remembered the feel of his big, warm hands on her skin. “How are your knees?”

“They’re fine,” she said briskly, wanting to turn his attention back to his dog...not the fact that she was way too aware of how good he smelled, or that even as she worked to keep her gaze from straying to his big, strong hands, she was getting lost in his far-too-mesmerizing eyes. “Tonight is going to be really important. You should set up a small room or section of a room to be hers for the two weeks. Put paper on the floor and her food, water bowls, and bed in one corner. Put her toys throughout the area. And whatever you do, unless she’s sleeping, I don’t recommend leaving her alone outside of the gated area for more than fifteen minutes.”

He frowned. “What if I have plans?”

She could quite easily guess the kind of “plans” he had. “You’ll have to break them, unless you can bring her along and pay close attention to her the entire time.” She smiled at his disconcerted expression. “Would you like to schedule another fifteen-minute training session for tomorrow?”

“When are you free?”

She shook her head. “I only met with you today as a favor to Agnes. Now that I can see you’ll do fine with the proper instruction, you can work with any of my trainers.”

“I don’t want anyone else, Heather.” He made sure she was looking back at him as he said, “I only want you.”

He might as well have pulled her against him and kissed her for the effect his words had on her, and Heather quickly realized that within the few minutes she’d spent with Zach Sullivan, she was already too close to the edge of wanting something she could never make the mistake of letting herself have.