Free The Pet Shop by K. D. Grace Page B

wondered how anything could possibly feel this good.

Chapter Eight
    ‘T HIS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT acceptable!’ O’Kelly paced the floor of her office, then turned and half shouted at the speaker phone. ‘What was he thinking?’
    ‘Calm down, O’ Kelly.’ The Boss’s voice sounded so matter-of-fact that she would have slapped him if he’d been there in person. ‘It was a mugger. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. You can’t blame Tino for that. In fact, I’d say it was a damn good thing he was there. I shudder to think what might have befallen Stella if he hadn’t been. Why are you so upset about this?’
    ‘The handler said when he came for him, Tino wouldn’t leave, and Stella had to keep reassuring him that she was all right. Even then she practically had to force him out the door. It took ages to get Tino away from her. The handler was not happy.’
    ‘Dogs are protective of their masters, O’Kelly. Possessive of their pack, as it were. Tino’s behaviour was not un-pet-like at all really. As for the handler, well, Pets can misbehave. He was told that when he took the position. But just to smooth things over, give him a nice little something in his next envelope.’
    ‘And what if that thug had had a gun? What if he had been stronger than Tino?’ She swallowed hard and felt an icy knot tighten in her gut as she contemplated what might have been.
    ‘But the thug didn’t have a gun, and we knew Tino was that sort of a bloke when we hired him. He’s cavalier, reckless, he’s headstrong, and has a very powerful sense of fair play. I think those were the words you used, weren’t they?’
    ‘And you hired him anyway.’ O’Kelly recalled the argument they’d had over Tino. An argument that, not surprisingly, she had lost. The very first sight of the Pet had caused her heart to beat a little faster and the muscles below her belly to clench. It wasn’t that Tino was good-looking, oh he was good-looking enough, but she worked with good-looking Pets all the time. It was the ease of the man, his totally unassuming comfort at being in his own skin. Somehow, just shaking his hand had made her want to have that skin he was so comfortable in up against hers with nothing in between.
    She had always maintained a certain distance with Pets, and even when she did take a Pet for her own pleasure, it was only for pleasure. Never anything else. But Tino was different. Tino invaded not just her fantasies, but her dreams. She was in charge, though. She knew what was going on. She knew how to handle it. She had kept away from him. She had never taken him for a Pet. She suspected what might happen, even if she took him for only a couple of hours. But poor Stella was broadsided. How could the Boss have not seen this coming?
    Then there was the unconventional way Tino had approached the Pet Shop. He just went right into the website and announced that he wanted to be a Pet. The Boss had promised to take care of it. He had reassured her it was probably just some rich nutter wanting to reverse the Pet experience and be the one in the collar for a while. And then, all of a sudden, the Boss was Tino’s biggest advocate.
    ‘O’Kelly? I know you’ve grown attached to Tino, but he’s safe now. And so is Stella.’
    His words jerked her back from her ruminations, and made her feel like she’d been caught in the act. There were times when his intuition, the way he read her, was almost frightening. ‘Of course I’m attached to him. He’s our most popular Pet. We’d lose a fortune if anything happened to him.’ She fought back an irritating tremor with the last words.
    ‘If you’re only concerned about our investment then you can relax. Tino’s fine. You said so yourself. Not a scratch on him.’
    O’Kelly huffed an exasperated sigh and plopped down into her chair. ‘Did you not hear me? The handler could barely get Tino away from Stella. If Tino had not obeyed Stella, then what? And here’s the real rub, Stella has