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Without a care in the world.
Then he’d stayed the night.
He woke me up in the very pre-dawn hours to slide inside me from a spooning position, both of us facing the window, watching the sun break across the sky as he moved inside me. Slow. Sweet. Dare I even think it—loving.
And nothing, nothing and no one had ever felt so right.
It seemed like nothing could mess with what we had started to build.
Until, of course, something did.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Remy
If I were being honest, I wasn’t exactly busting my ass on her case. At least not since the day when I’d gone to visit Arty then went back to tease the hell out of Lark.
I had actually only barely glanced over the files he’d sent me.
What can I say? I’d been… otherwise occupied.
The day after all that edging, we finally had two of my favorite rescues out to the house, each of them packing up all the dogs save for Lyle and Lark’s other three forever dogs.
I was pretty sure if I hadn’t started falling already, I did as I watched her drop down on her knees in front of each dog, grabbing their faces, and telling them how much she loved them, and how happy she was for them to find their forever homes, then kissed them each on the foreheads, and cried her eyes out as they were led away.
You could just see the size of that woman’s heart in those moments, and in the ones that followed while she let me hold her while constantly half pulling away and telling me she knew it was ‘ridiculous’ that she was ‘so emotional’ about it, then starting to bawl all over again.
Even after she had cried herself out, I noticed her gaze would keep sliding to the rooms where each of them had been located and frowning.
But, as you could imagine, with them all safely off to find new, loving homes, she had a lot more time to spend with her original three and Lyle.
In those first few days after the others left, she clung to her dogs, almost smothering them with love until the hurt started to go away.
It helped that the puppies had almost immediately found homes. And that the others had been tested and were safe for adoption.
In watching her love on her animals, there was no denying I was starting to have a lot of guilt about my own.
Granted, I went back to the clubhouse for several hours each day to see them, to walk, play with, clean up after, bathe, feed, and hang out with them, but I knew it wasn’t the same.
Which was why I’d told her that it was time for me to spend one night back at the clubhouse with my guys.
She’d immediately understood. Because of course she did. No one related more to the struggles I felt about leaving my pets than she did.
I didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself and say it out loud, but I was hoping that, eventually, we could see if our guys could get along, so I could bring them along with me when I wanted to stay over at the safe house.
As a whole, I had a lot of faith in my dogs. They’d never been overly territorial, had always been kind and patient with new arrivals at the house, even if they were just temporary fosters.
It was mostly Alma and Lyle that I was concerned about. Lyle in particular since we still hadn’t gotten him evaluated yet. We did learn, though a happenstance that started with a door left open by mistake, that Lyle and Alma did seem to get along no problem. But none of us felt comfortable risking Lyle with the little dogs until we had an expert in.
Eventually, though, it would be great if my dogs and her dogs could get along.
Then maybe the cats.
And the bird.
And the tortoise.
I didn’t want to get too far ahead of myself, though. And I damn sure didn’t want to put the horse before the cart when it came to Lark. So I didn’t tell her all these things I had been thinking pretty much nonstop since things got physical between the two of us.
