Free Leashed (Going to the Dogs) by Zoe Dawson Page B

before they fell to the floor together.
    “Why did you sneak up on me like that?” she demanded, pushing up on her arms and planting her hands flat against his chest so that she could look him in the face. Her face was flushed and her eyes were stormy. He’d never seen her like this before and wondered if she’d had a bad day at work.
    The act of moving her torso away from him only pushed her hips into his. He gritted his teeth at the pressure on his groin. The woman was driving him completely insane, and he was about ready to beg her. “I thought you were the thief,” he said, trying to keep his voice conciliatory.
    “If that’s the case, you should have called the police,” she snapped. Her hips jerked around in her anger, and he couldn’t stop his immediate biological reaction.
    “I wanted to make sure,” he said. “Why are you home early? You said four.”
    “Are you my keeper?” Her brow arched and she took on that dog trainer voice. He wasn’t a canine, but he was smart enough to realize she meant business.
    “Why are you so surly?”
    Mild accusation glimmered in her gaze. “For your information, I was looking for my Judith Leiber clutch.   It’s vintage, and I think it might have been stolen by the thief.”
    “Is that why you’re in the closet?”
    “Yes, and I’m home early because it’s your fault.”
    “My fault? Why?” He was immediately concerned about what he could have done to upset her. He preferred his smiling, funny, Callie to this angry, aggravated woman.
    “I want you,” she said breathlessly, leaning forward, grabbing the front of his shirt and tugging. His body, sensitized already by her gyrating hips, sprang to life, desire sizzling along every nerve ending.
    His erection grew and she felt it. He saw the reaction on her face, in her eyes before she closed them. He shook with the promise of all that pent-up passion just waiting to be unleashed. “I couldn’t think clearly today, because all I could freaking think about was you.” Her hands kneaded his chest. “Waking up in your arms was an unbelievably tempting way to start my day. But I’ve sworn off men like you,” she said, her voice strained. “I promised myself I wouldn’t do it.”
    “And, now you want to break that promise,” he murmured huskily.
    “God, yes.” When she opened her eyes they were dark and keen with desire.
    His patience snapped so completely he groaned with the need he’d trapped inside, the barrier he’d erected not only coming down, but he feared he was irrevocably changed. And her eyes widened in surprise when he flipped her onto her back amongst the debris from the closet.
    He shook his head. “I think it’s a given that most men don’t really understand women, though I have made the effort. But you…”
    She looked up at him, and the defenselessness in her eyes demolished the flimsy wall he had shored up. The barrier he’d had left over from his childhood, the one his aunt Tilly had tried to gently coax down, fell with a thud as she touched his face, tracing her fingertips over his lips, his cheeks, his forehead.  
    “There’s no need to figure me out, Owen, like some kind of equation. There’s no math required. Just go with your gut.”
    “That’s the problem,” he said. “With you, everything is all jumbled up.   Even the math parts.”
    Her face softened and her fingers paused in their exploration. “What are you worried about? I know what I’m getting myself into.”
    It wasn’t the question that gave him pause. It was the immediate answer that came to mind. Did he know what he was getting himself into, or was it already too late? His head told him he didn’t know her. His heart called him a liar.
    “You are just so sweet. I just—”
    “Don’t want to get involved with your plain Jane neighbor? The owner of the dog who got your dog pregnant?”
    “There is nothing plain Jane about you. Nothing . You cloud my judgment.”
    “It’s a bit too late”—she