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ONE
TILLIE
The sound of yelping came before the banging on my door that jolted me out of my sleep.
I blinked around for a few seconds, trying to orient myself.
The first thing I noted was that I felt like absolute shit.
My head pounded when I opened my eyes, the glare of the sun piercing deep into my brain. I groaned and slapped my hand over my eyes, trying to wait for the pain and nausea to subside. The visitor wasn’t keen on letting me wait, though. The pounding came again, more insistent this time and somehow even louder.
“I’m coming! Jesus.” I dragged myself to my feet, stumbling and then standing still until I was stable. My entire body felt like lead, and my eyes felt heavy too, but I guess that was to be expected. I was running on probably five hours of sleep for the entire week, and my body was starting to notice.
I stepped down the stairs gingerly but hurried over to the door when another whine emerged from behind it. It sounded really familiar this time, too familiar.
“Roscoe?”
I threw open the door and gaped in horror at my dog dangling from the hands of a shirtless giant.
“Roscoe!” I moved quickly to snatch him out of the giant’s hands, but the man yanked him away. I looked up to meet his eyes, noting the lack of emotion in the harsh gray orbs. They were so cold that they sent shivers down my spine.
The man was very intimidating, his expression severe. I couldn’t tell if he was frowning by the slashes of thick brows. But the lumberjack beard, beefy body, and the deep scar on his cheek told me that he wasn’t someone to mess with.
But I didn’t care.
Because right now, I was in full mom mode, and I was going to attack anyone who hurt my baby.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I snapped. “You’re hurting my dog.”
His eyebrows went up as if in surprise and then came right down again to mark his displeasure.
“Your dog dug up my yard,” he said, and his voice was so low that it could have been a growl. It sounded gravelly, too, like he didn’t talk often. It wasn’t a bad sort of voice, though. Maybe it was my daddy issues talking, but hearing his reproach in that deep tone did something to my insides, something I would rather not acknowledge.
“I’m sorry about that,” I said, reaching out once again to take the pitiful-looking Roscoe from his grasp. “He’s cooped up a lot and sometimes gets mischievous. I’ll take responsibility for any damage he caused. Now, if you please.” I held out my hand, waiting for him to hand over Roscoe.
The man stared at me for a few seconds with a dark, fathomless gaze, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he turned around and started walking away.
“Wait—where are you going? Give me back my dog!”
He ignored me and kept moving toward the leftward pavement. I had no choice but to jog after him, but my little legs were no match for his long strides. Each step made my headache worse, and I felt like I was going to fall over any minute, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t let him get away with my dog.
Roscoe’s eyes met mine in desperation, and he let out another sad whine.
“You’re hurting him!” I tried once more to take Roscoe, but he held the dog above my head, not even flinching when Roscoe inadvertently kicked him in the face.
“Your dog’s dramatic,” the man said in his low-toned voice again, brushing past me. I jogged after him again and watched the muscles shift against his back as he walked. The image distracted me for a few seconds. God, he was really stacked, with lean muscles packed all over his body. The image was slowly imprinting itself onto my brain, but I shook it off to focus on the problem at hand.
“My dog’s not dramatic,” I said defensively, even though if anyone else had made the comment, I would have probably laughed and agreed. Roscoe did exaggerate at times, but this time he looked like he was genuinely in distress. The man was carrying Roscoe by his harness, and the material might be digging in. At the very least, it had to be uncomfortable. Roscoe turned his head to look at me pathetically.
“Okay, that’s it. I already apologized, and I said I would pay for the damage, sopleasegive him back.” Without waiting for a response, I launched myself at the man, jumping to snatch my baby back, but his reflexes were too fast for me. Lightning quick, he swung Roscoe aside and when I tried to twist around to get him, one of my toes got trapped in the crack between the pavement and tripped me up.
“Eek!” I yelped at the pain as I toppled over, anticipating even more pain when I inevitably hit the ground.
But suddenly, there was a strong hand around my waist, yanking me to a hard body.
My mind blanked.
The first thought I had was ‘hot.’
