AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“This isn’t your office.”
“No, it’s not.”
“But why are we here?”
“Surprise.”
Stunned, I actually stumbled back a step. “What?”
“Pick any dog you want…but I have a few rules. He or she must be housebroken, they must be good with children, and they must also be good with cats. My housekeeper’s cat had kittens a couple weeks ago and I promised I’d take one off her hands.”
I think I might have had a heart attack right there beneath the dim, starry desert sky. “You’re getting a dog…and a kitten?”
“I am.”
I clutched my hands to my chest like some ditzy heroine out of a bodice ripper, my heart pounding as a huge smile stretched my face. “Really?”
“Really. I’ve been considering it for a while now. My neighbors had a cat and he was pretty cool. Kept to himself, and made you feel like he was doing you a favor if he let you pet him.” The distant look on Leo’s face in the harsh streetlights seemed especially poignant. “Some psycho fuck killed him, stabbed him and left him for dead in the alley behind our place.”
I closed the distance between us, tears burning my nose as I grabbed his hand. “That’s horrible, I’m so sorry it happened. Did they ever find out who did it?”
“Yes.”
“Were they arrested?”
“No. I took care of it personally.”
I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant, but caught myself at the last second. Some intuition told me I wouldn’t like his answer…and I stood at a precipice. Did I really want to know the dark truth about him yet? Did I really want to know just how far his sadistic streak went? Or did I just want to let it go, to dismiss my paranoia and enjoy rescuing a dog from a life of loneliness and heartache?
So I turned a mental blind eye to my half-formed, disturbing thoughts and smiled. “Okay.”
“Ready to go pick out a dog?”
“Absolutely.”
We were the only people in the shelter, and I had a feeling Leo had made a rather large contribution to keep them open past normal hours. The staff was all smiles, giving us a tour of their facilities and explaining what they did. By the time we reached the kennels, I was afraid the middle-aged redhead taking us on the tour would offer to give Leo a blowjob next. The top two buttons of her shirt were undone, revealing a rather generous amount of tanned cleavage. She was nice enough, I’d seen her before since she ran the clothing drives for the shelter, but I was feeling distinctly hostile to her as she kept throwing Leo fuck-me vibes.
For his part, Leo ignored her, focusing all his attention on me and playing the part of the perfect gentleman, opening doors and escorting me from room to room with his hand on the small of my back.
I became very conscious of that hand, my skin warming beneath the weight of his broad palm, his fingers curving just slightly over the top of my butt. It was a proprietary gesture, and I couldn’t help but walk a little taller next to him, proud to be his. I liked old fashioned manners; I liked how Leo treated me like a lady in public and a depraved whore in the bedroom. Yes, some feminists might stain their knickers at the knowledge that I enjoyed the virgin/whore dynamic, but fuck them. I liked what I liked and I didn’t need their condemnation, or blessing, for how I lived my life.
“Well, here we are,” Mindy purred as she gestured to the clean and spacious kennels. “We’ve got a full house. If you tell me what you’re looking for, I can help narrow it down for you.”
Leo repeated his requests, then nodded his head in my direction. “Hannah will have the ultimate say in which dog we pick for our home.”
He winked at me as he said the “our home” part, and I know I flushed pink because the tips of my ears felt like they were burning in the hot sun. The look Mindy gave me was part disbelief, part jealousy, and part embarrassment. The childish urge to stick my tongue out at her filled me, but I managed to not act like a bratty teenager and instead focused on the small spaces holding the dogs on either side.
“I’d like a dog between the ages of six months and two years. One that’s had a good family, and has had training. No small dogs, please, but also no giants. I don’t care about breed as long as they’re healthy.”
“Of course,” Mindy said in a voice that was less breathy and seductive than it had been for Leo, but her small smile was genuine. “I have a couple dogs down here that might suit you.”
Mark joined us as we began our search—he knew a lot about dogs—and they were very patient with me as I took my time meeting all the animals. In the end, I kept returning to the cage of a sad-eyed, two-year-old, gold-and-tan-colored pit bull. She’d been with a military family who were now stationed in a country that didn’t allow her breed, so they had to give her up. That had been five months ago, and no one had shown any interest in her because of the bullshit reputation of the pit bull breed being killers. Plus, she wasn’t perky like most of the other dogs. She didn’t jump and prance, barking for our attention or anything like that. She merely watched me with pale blue eyes that were filled with loneliness as her tail gave a hesitant wag, as if she was afraid to hope.
