Author: Bella Andre

But as he walked away, he couldn’t stop himself from turning to look back at her.

She was standing in front of the cupboards, her hand on her cheek where he’d kissed her...looking just as shell-shocked as he felt.

Chapter Seven

Heather wasn’t used to people surprising her. It had taken her a while to learn how to read people, how to separate the honest from the deceitful, the real from the fake, but ever since the age of seventeen, she’d made sure not to let anyone slip through her filter.

She’d thought she had Zach Sullivan pinned from that first moment. But the way he’d looked at the black and white photo and talked about his family, with such deep love and affection...it made her wonder if she’d been wrong in her first impressions of him.

On the surface, a man like Zach didn’t seem to need anyone else. Not when he looked so perfect, so untouchable, and certainly not when it was obvious that he’d spent his whole life with strangers falling all over themselves to please him just for the barest scrap of his attention.

Standing that close to him in the kitchen, with the heat of his palm across her lips, had her on the verge of begging him to kiss her. No doubt she would probably have done just that and more had it not been for Cuddles’s very well-timed barking.

But in the end, it was the kiss he’d given her on her cheek that had taken her aback the most.

She actually found herself wishing he would stick to his original game, and be the charmer with only one thing on his mind. Because more than anything, she needed to shut her emotions down before things went any further inside her.

She couldn’t feel anything for the charming man with the adorable puppy...not when she already knew how it would all end up after she’d watched the live show between her mother and father play out in her childhood home for seventeen years.

There was a good park that allowed dogs only a couple of blocks from Zach’s house, close enough to walk to. Of course, that was plenty of time for at least two dozen complete strangers to waylay them with exclamations over the amazingly cute puppy—or more specifically, the owner and his puppy.

If she heard the words so cute and adorable one more time she was going to make Cuddles and Zach wear masks the next time they went out in public together.

Not, of course, that she was planning on any future public outings. These were extenuating circumstances, after all, not the beginning of any kind of foursome around town.

Poor Atlas, she thought as he nudged Cuddles with his nose and the puppy let out a happy bark. He was going to be heartbroken when she found another trainer for his new friend.

Then again, if she could be tough enough and trust herself around Zach, then she could make some additional concessions to her daily schedule to continue working with them directly. Surely she had enough self-control to keep their relationship on a professional level for the next two weeks, didn’t she?

When they’d found an empty patch of grass, she put down her bag of training gear and said, “We’re going to work on positive reinforcement today.”

Zach raised his eyebrows. “You want me to reward the little punk after what she pulled this morning?”

She gave Atlas a subtle signal and he stopped panting after the squirrel climbing up the tree to train his full attention on her instead. “Good boy.” She smiled at him. “Down.”

She reached into the pouch she’d strapped onto her belt loop and squatted down to hand him a treat. She scratched between his ears and looked up at Zach. “Why do you think Atlas wants to please me?”

His eyes sizzled. “Who wouldn’t want to please you?”

She swallowed hard, not sure how their conversations—even about totally unsexy things like dog training—always managed to veer so quickly.

No, that wasn’t precisely the truth. She knew exactly how it happened.

Because Zach Sullivan was walking, living, breathing sex. And she was a sensual woman who couldn’t help but respond. At least on a physical level.

Continuing as if he hadn’t just set the blood to racing through her veins, she said, “It’s comforting for him to know that I’m in charge, and that I’ll always give him clear cues as to when I’m happy or upset with him.”

Zach frowned at the puppy in his arms. She didn’t think he was aware of it, but even though he still claimed to be angry with the dog, he held her gently against his chest, her little head leaning into his heartbeat. “Seems to me yelling is a pretty clear cue.”

She had to smile at what an adorably cute pair they were, even as she shook her head at the fact that she was acting just as pathetically as all the women they’d come across during their walk.

“Honestly, all the yelling does is make her more anxious. Which makes her act out more, especially when she doesn’t know the proper behaviors to replace the naughty ones with.”

“And here I used to think I liked my girls naughty.”

She groaned. “You’re incorrigible.”

She should be a whole lot more upset about it, but the truth was, she kind of liked his sense of humor.

“Incorrigible enough to tell you how hot it is when you use big words?”

She should have known better. If she gave him an inch, he’d take a mile. Suppressing a grin, she said, “Try irritating, instead.” She took Cuddles from him, then handed him the bag of dog treats. “Go over to that tree and let’s work on the come command a few times first.”

She held her breath, waiting for him to make some off-color play on the command they were working on, but he simply stuck to the program and headed over to the tree. Not, of course, that she was disappointed he hadn’t grabbed the opportunity for a double entendre, or that she was starting to enjoy the constant spark of being with such a magnetic man.

But, oh, as she watched his lean, muscled body move in the sunlight, she couldn’t hold in a sigh of pure female appreciation. Zach Sullivan might have been irritating and incorrigible on the inside, but on the outside he really was a work of art.

After a few minutes of Cuddles running into Zach’s arms at his command, the puppy’s tongue was hanging out.

“Bring her over here and you can give her some water.”

She put a small bowl on the grass and handed Zach a water bottle to fill it with. Cuddles immediately plopped her muzzle into the bowl. Before Heather told him what she wanted him to do, Zach started petting the puppy and telling her how smart she was. Her tail wagged all the while and Heather knew there was no point in trying to fight her smile as she watched them together.

Okay, so Zach had made a terrible first impression on her, but he just might turn out to be her best student yet.

When Cuddles had her fill of water, Heather turned to Atlas, who had been waiting patiently by her heels. She pulled a multi-colored rope out of her bag and tossed it a few feet away.

“Go ahead and play, Atlas.” Cuddles bounded through the bowl of water in her hurry to go play, too.

“That mutt of yours worships you.”

“He’s purebred Great Dane, not a mutt,” she informed Zach, and then said, “I think he’s pretty great, too.”

It was so tempting to relax with Zach, and to pretend they were sharing a morning in the park together with their dogs. Too tempting.

Clearly, she needed to work harder to remember what they were together: dog trainer and puppy owner. Nothing more.

“Now we’ll work on positive reinforcement. What I’d like you to do is call out Cuddles’s name a few times while they’re playing. You don’t need to tell her to come, but every time she looks at you, give her a treat or pet her or tell her how great she is.”

Zach nodded, then turned his focus to the puppy. “Cuddles.”

The puppy looked up at him, still holding the tattered rope in her mouth, to see what her temporary owner wanted. He was immediately there with a treat and a hug. What a lucky pup she was to be the recipient of so much of Zach’s focused attention.

He stepped back. “How’d I do?”

“You’re a glutton for praise, aren’t you?”

He moved to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes, his fingertips making the barest contact with her skin. “That good, huh?”

Oh God, she thought, as thrill bumps rose across the surface of her body at his gentle touch, good didn’t even begin to cover it.

“Do it again,” she said, her words coming out far too breathy for anything outside of a bedroom.

His eyes darkened as he slid his fingers against her hair again, this time brushing the pad of his thumb across her cheekbone. “With pleasure.”

She got so lost in sweet sensation, in the sinful promise of pleasure in his eyes, that it took her far longer than it should have to step back from his heat.

“Not that. Say the puppy’s name again.”

For a moment, she thought he was going to ignore her clarification and pull her against him instead. Her eyes dropped to his mouth of their own volition. What, she couldn’t stop wondering, would it be like to feel them press against hers? Not one of those soft kisses he’d given her against her cheek in the kitchen, but a raw, demanding kiss that left her no room to hide exactly how he made her feel?

Abruptly, he turned and called for the puppy. Again, Cuddles responded immediately and he showered her with praise and affection.

Heather could feel her cheeks flaming at the embarrassing way she kept losing herself over him, especially after the way she’d mentally derided so many other women for doing the exact same thing. Tightening her resolve to keep her wits about her, she turned her entire focus back to the training session.

When Cuddles had responded to Zach saying her name a good dozen times, she said, “I think that’s good enough for her to start to associate pleasure with you.”

“Pleasure?”

Oh no, what had she just said?

She forced herself to continue as if it were what she would have said to any other client. “The more she associates treats and affection with you, the less likely it is that she’ll get her jollies from shredding your couch apart. Especially once she learns that you don’t approve of that behavior.”

“I thought you said yelling was out.”

“You won’t need to yell at her anymore. Because if you catch her pulling feathers out of a pillow and don’t smile and pet her and tell her how wonderful she is, she’ll be disappointed.”

“I wonder if the same thing would work with my staff?”

She had to laugh at the idea of him dealing with the big men she’d seen working in his garages the way he just had with the puppy.

A young couple walked past, their hands linked, their mouths fused to each other’s faces. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t stopped just then to paw at each other and murmur adoring words against each other’s lips.

Zach caught Heather’s grimace. “You don’t approve of the loving couple?”

“I could have lived without seeing them clean each other’s tonsils, but other than that, I’m happy for them for as long as it lasts.”

“As long as it lasts?” He looked confused. “I thought all women believed in forever?”

Just the stupid ones. “Nope, not all of us.”

He was helping her pack up her bag as he said, “Why not?”

Their conversation had crossed the line again, from professional to personal. Clearly, Zach wasn’t big on boundaries. So instead of answering him, she just shrugged and said, “What about you?” even though she could fairly easily guess the answer.

“I’m not a forever kind of guy,” he said, as if that explained everything. And then, “Some guy you were dating broke your heart, didn’t he?”

Any warmth she might have been letting herself feel toward him immediately cooled. “My heart is perfectly intact, thank you.”

He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it. Your parents split up and you’ve never gotten over it.”