Ruff Around the Edges

by Roxanne St Claire

  A paw?

  He popped open his eyes to see one massive brown tongue bathing Beck’s cheek as Ruff’s front paw batted Aidan’s arm to move him out of the way.

  Beck started laughing, wiping her face.

  “What the hell, dude?” Aidan said, sitting up to move him off. But Ruff barked once, loud, and gave Beck a huge face-lick again.

  “Aidan!” She shot up, her eyes bright from joy as well as arousal. “He likes me! He’s protecting me!”

  He barked in full agreement, smacking Aidan one more time with his paw.

  “Move over, Rover,” Aidan said, giving the dog a nudge in the chest. “This is my girl. Find your own.”

  “No.” Beck slid her hands around Ruff’s neck. “This is the nicest he’s ever been to me.”

  Ruff took the love, rolling his head from side to side, then lifting it so she could have the ultimate intimacy of scratching his neck.

  “Oh, Ruff, you do love me.” She pressed her face to his and made a completely different kind of whimper of joy, as sweet but not as sexy as the ones Aidan had been listening to. “I love you, too, big boy. I do. I love you.”

  Aidan sat up completely, unable to do anything but smile at the exchange.

  “Oh, Aidan, I’ve waited so long for this.” She turned to look at him, nothing but ecstasy in her expression. “I’m sorry he’s interrupting, but…”

  “Oh no. Have your moment,” he said on a laugh. “I’m happy I could push him over the edge.”

  She laughed at that, loving on the dog with the same infectious, enthusiastic, wholehearted affection he wanted to be getting right then, but he couldn’t resent the beast. The woman was irresistible.

  “Finally!” She hugged him with one arm and used the other to bring Aidan in and include him in the moment. “Thank you, Aidan. Thank you for making him love me.”

  “Not sure that was exactly what I was going for, but…”

  Another laugh bubbled up. “But you did anyway. And…” She leaned into him. “We’ll pick that up later. Right now, I want to enjoy the moment that my dog finally decided he loved me.”

  Her dog. Her dog loved her. Except…

  “So, Aidan, what did you want to tell me?” she asked again, but her attention was on Ruff, delicate forehead to monstrous brow, bonding so hard he could practically feel the connections forming.

  “I wanted tell you that…” His voice faded into a strangled silence.

  “What?” She finally looked at him. “What was it?”

  He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t steal this joy from her. “Just how much I wanted to kiss you.”

  A slow smile broke over her face like sunrise on a North Carolina morning. “That’s it?”

  “I know I promised…” To honor Charlie’s last wishes. “What exactly did I promise that day down at the creek?”

  She touched his cheek. “You promised to respect the fact that my heart is not open for business, if I recall correctly.”

  “I did?” He inched back. “So I didn’t promise to not kiss you?”

  “Not in so many words, no.”

  He dropped his gaze over her face, taking his time to count a few freckles and study the bow of her lips. “Then I wouldn’t be breaking a promise if I kiss you again? And again. And maybe a few times after that? Would that bring your heart into the equation or only…the body it resides in?”

  She studied him for a moment. “It’s dangerous ground, Aidan Kilcannon, but…”

  “But what?”

  “I really like the way you kiss.”

  “So keep your heart out of it and kiss me some more.”

  “Let me think about it,” she said, giving Ruff a rub on the head. “For now, we better get back and hunker down for the dinner rush.”

  As they packed up, another Cessna flew over, and on the way home, while Beck leaned against her window and took a nap, he thought about that plane and his passion and place in the world.

  He was still restless and lost, but he didn’t feel nearly as alone as he had before Beck showed up.

  Chapter Sixteen

  For the next week or so, Beck’s world kind of dissolved into pizza and kisses. Most of the time, simultaneously. Since they’d taken the day trip to Chestnut Creek, something had changed in this relationship, and it wasn’t that she and Aidan held hands, hugged, and found ways to press up against each other and swap spit every chance they had.

  Beck could feel herself slipping close to a very dangerous edge. Much more of this, and she’d end up in Aidan’s bed, or him in hers. And that would be the end of everything, because once they were intimate, she’d be a goner.

  So she let the fire get stoked, kept his advances to the heavy make-out kind, and managed to say goodbye at the end of every night.

  But it was getting harder and harder each time.

  And tonight would be no different as they worked side by side, late into a Friday, long after yet another busy night. But it was as much fun as she could ever remember, certainly in this kitchen.

  Aidan hooked up a speaker to his phone, so they had music. Ruff was wandering about and getting way too many scraps. And the last of Uncle Mike’s secret beer stash was being polished off by two very cozy pizza chefs.

  Beck even brought her camera down, ostensibly to take pictures of each pie they made, but really to capture Aidan in all his golden glory as he bit his lip in concentration, rocked his mighty shoulders in time with the music, and rolled out perfect little test pies, each an experiment of every obscure recipe she could scare up on the Internet.

  “Hold that,” she said, focusing on his face and not the roll of dough he lifted to shape.

  He looked right into the camera, a gleam in his wild blue eyes and a half smile teasing lips she absolutely loved to kiss. And she did. When every pizza came out, he tasted it, and then Beck tasted him, and they pronounced it…close but not good enough.

  Because all this kissing and touching and laughing and wanting was good, but not good enough. That low-grade ribbon of desire tightened in her belly, making her palms damp and her heart pound. She couldn’t remember an attraction so primal or a need so real.

  “Oh, that one with the ground mustard seed is ready,” he said, tossing the dough on the counter. “It’ll make a nice picture.”

  She glanced in the viewing frame of her camera and admired the last shot. “This is a nice picture.”

  As he passed, he leaned over her shoulder and looked at it. “A man making dough? Who’d want to look at that?”

  She smiled up at him. “Me.”

  He kissed her nose, then headed to the oven. “You’re crazy.”

  About you. “You’re photogenic.” She leaned back, lifting the camera to fire off a series of shots while he slid the new peel under the little pie and produced it with a flourish.

  “Hey, Beck, c’mere and smell this.”

  She popped off the counter and headed over, Ruff right on her heels, where he’d been pretty much nonstop since their day-trip. At least when Aidan was around. Alone, in her apartment, he was still not the loving pet she dreamed of. Maybe he was just protective, since he seemed to come close whenever Aidan did. Which was most of the time.

  A whiff of sauce that was much tangier than the last batch hit her nose and got her attention.

  “Oh, that’s good.” She sniffed again, coming closer, smiling up at Aidan and not at all surprised at the craving that seized her stomach. She didn’t want pizza. She wanted him. She took one more inhale and accepted the truth: She wanted both.

  The aroma of melted cheese and tangy basil wafted toward her, making her mouth water as Aidan lifted the first slice to his mouth. She watched as he bit into it, as he closed his eyes and made that sexy moan of pure delight.

  She couldn’t help putting her hand on his chest to add the sense of touch to this overload of pleasurable feelings. Under her fingers, his heart hammered harder than she’d expect for a man who was doing nothing more strenuous than making pizza.
/>   When he opened his eyes, chewed, and swallowed, he stared right at her.

  “You’re ready, aren’t you?” he whispered.

  For anything. Her gaze moved from the pizza to his mouth, and back. “I’m ready for my taste.” Standing up on her tiptoes, she kissed his lips, waiting for him to tip his head, open his mouth, and share the taste as he’d done every time.

  But he stayed still, his eyes open.

  She dropped back down. “You’re going to make me eat the pizza, aren’t you?”

  “I’d never make you do anything.” He set the slice back on the peel and put his hands on her shoulders. “But I’d love to get you over this, Beck. I’d love to help you escape the prison of your past.”

  Her eyes filled unexpectedly, the tenderness almost overwhelming her. “Why would you want to do that?”

  He looked surprised. “Because I care about you? Because you’re Charlie’s sister? Because…” He lowered his head and whispered in her ear, “I want you to kiss me for more than a taste of pizza.”

  “I did,” she said. “I do.”

  “More than kiss. Like…all night.”

  She knew exactly what he was asking her, and chills danced over her whole body, and she nearly melted into him. “You think I won’t because of my past? That you are like one big piece of pizza I can eat and forget all my old issues?”

  “You could try,” he teased. But his smile disappeared as he leaned back to look at her. “I’m pretty sure you’re not going to get there with me until you unload some of the things that make you scared of losing people.”

  She drew a line with her finger under his lip. “Maybe you should be a shrink, Aidan Kilcannon.”

  “Maybe I should be.” He turned her, easing her back to the counter to lift her up into her favorite perch. “Let me examine you,” he said in a thick fake accent. “Tell ze doctor when ze last time you have good pizza experience.”

  She giggled at the voice.

  “No laughing, or I vill make you lie on ze couch.”

  Which might be very nice. But she played along, sighing, closing her eyes, and taking a trip down memory lane.

  “I used to eat pizza,” she said. “Before my parents died. But, as I told you, being forced to move here and live my life around pizza magnifies the memory of their loss.”

  “But you must have one good pizza memory.” The accent was gone now as he set his large hands on her thighs, holding her in place, eye-to-eye for this examination.

  “Probably.”

  “Can you remember it? Take another whiff and try. They say the sense of smell is the strongest trigger for memories.”

  She followed the order, vaguely aware that she put her hands on top of his and gripped as she let herself go back. Far back. “I was six or seven, I think. Charlie was ten or eleven. It was a winter night, a weeknight, I remember, and school had already been canceled for the next day due to a snowstorm. Dad came home early from work—”

  “He was a lab technician, right? At a pharmaceutical company?”

  She nodded. “Yes, a chemist, actually. And my mother was a substitute teacher at my school, but mostly she was home with us.” A smile tugged at her lips, as it so often did when she thought about John and Karen Spencer. “We were the most average family in the world.”

  “Nothing about you is average, Beck. Or Charlie.”

  She tipped her head to acknowledge the compliment. “That night, Dad brought home pizza because it was all he could find, and Mom had been snowed in and couldn’t get groceries for dinner. I don’t know why, but it was a big deal not cooking on a school night. It was exciting. Different, you know? Oh, and he’d picked up Toy Story at the video store.” The smile grew. “I’ll never forget that. It was my first introduction to Woody and Buzz.”

  He chuckled at that, listening intently. But the way he looked at her gave her the confidence to continue what was probably a boring story, and one she’d never told another person, not even Jackie.

  “We sat in the den and ate around the coffee table—another thing that was different and fun—and all I remember was the pizza was so good. It didn’t burn my tongue, and it was gooey and great. After I finished, I stayed on the floor, with my head against my mother’s legs, and she…” Her throat tightened unexpectedly, as she remembered the sensation of Mama’s hands in her hair, the sound of the movie, the noisy laughter from Dad and Charlie.

  All of them, gone. And she was only twenty-eight years old. A wave of grief rose up, unexpected and strong.

  “She what?” he asked softly, reaching to stroke her cheek.

  “She braided my hair,” she managed to say. “And I remember having that awareness, even as a little kid, that this was the way it was supposed to be. This was security, stability, home. I don’t know what to call it, but it’s…emotional umami,” she added with a sad smile. “The essence of something you want, but don’t even know you want.”

  “That’s probably more the reason you hate pizza than this place,” he mused. “That moment is ingrained in you, and you’re associating that smell with happiness, not pain. And you know you can’t feel that happiness, not that particular one, with those people, ever again.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, letting that all sink in. “You might be right.” It certainly made sense.

  “Then what you need to do is replace that moment with another really good one, one that feels like…” He grinned. “Emotional umami. You should trademark that, by the way.”

  She searched his face and felt her whole body sink. Felt her defenses crack and her heart roll around in her chest until it practically fell into his hands. “Aidan.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re doing it.”

  “Cheap armchair psychology?”

  “Breaking that promise you made.”

  He inched back. “I know, I know. Closed for business, Beck. I know.” He rubbed his thumb along her cheekbone, making the hairs on her neck stand up and sending little bolts of chaos and desire though her chest and into her stomach. And lower. “It’s like Sarah’s No Dogs Allowed sign.” He slid his hand down and tapped her chest. “No Aidan allowed in here.”

  “It’s a dumb sign,” she said on a laugh.

  “It’s killing business.”

  “I should throw that sign away.”

  “And let me in.”

  She held his gaze. “And then what?”

  He stared at her, silent, his mind whirring by the look in his eyes, but he offered no ideas.

  “I mean, I’m going back to Chicago,” she whispered. “With Ruff.”

  His eyes shuttered, making her wonder which of those two statements bothered him more.

  “And you’re…”

  “I’m falling for you,” he admitted on a whisper. “And all that does is make me feel even more lost.”

  “Oh.”

  He stepped away suddenly, throwing a glance at the pizza on the counter. “This might have been forgotten in the past few minutes, but that pizza? I think we nailed it. We should take that one to Mike next time we go over for a taste test.”

  She put her hands on his shoulders and drew him back, refusing to let him change the subject. “Why does it make you feel lost?”

  “Because I don’t even know who I am, or what I want to do for a living. The last thing I need to do is try to drag you into my mess.”

  “What if I want to be dragged?”

  “To bed?”

  “That’s where you want to drag me.”

  He considered that before answering. “I’m not going to lie. It’s keeping me awake at night, and the showers are getting long and cold.”

  “So no-strings, no-suffocation, no-seriousness kind of pleasure? That’s what’s on the table? Can you promise that’s all it would be?”

  He flinched ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly, but she saw it. “No.”

  “Then I can’t—”

  “There would also be some surprisingly good mustard-seed-in-the-sa
uce pizza on the table.”

  She wasn’t sure what he was offering, but she was sure of one thing—falling for Aidan scared the daylights out of her. So she clung to that and shook her head. “I’m going to pass on both,” she said softly.

  “Gotcha.” He gave a quick smile and turned back to the pizza.

  * * *

  “So I did the right thing?”

  “Define right.” Jackie added a dry laugh. “I mean, if that picture you sent counts for anything, I might say…you’re freaking crazy, Rebecca Spencer. That man is smokin’.”

  Beck curled deeper into the sofa, tucking the phone against her neck as she lifted a cup of warm coffee to her lips. Sunday morning phone calls with Jackie had become an unspoken part of their schedule, and today was no different.

  Only, it seemed they had much more interesting things to talk about than how many clients Baby Face lost the previous week.

  “Yes, he’s gorgeous, but do you want me to fall head over heels in love and never come back to Chicago?”

  Jackie didn’t answer for a moment, and Beck suspected it wasn’t because she was drinking her coffee.

  “You do want me to come back?” Beck urged.

  “I want you to be happy.”

  “By having a fling with Charlie’s best friend?” she asked with a snort. “How is that going to make me happy?”

  “He gets you, Beck. That whole analysis of your pizza problems? That’s not casual.”

  “Well, the sex would be casual.” She sipped her coffee and closed her eyes. “Not to mention amazing.”

  Jackie laughed. “You’ve made bigger mistakes.”

  So true. She’d never been in love, but she’d tried a time or two. Invariably, the relationship had left her far lonelier than when she started. “I’m meant to be single,” she said. “But not completely. I have Ruff now.”

  At the mention of his name, the dog, sprawled on the other side of the sofa, lifted his head and stared at her with something she wished looked more like love. This was…tolerance.

  “You won him over? Talk about burying the lead.”

  Beck laughed. “He doesn’t like when Aidan and I kiss. He’s my great protector.”