by Maria Luis
Sassy gave a high-pitched, keening cry, his dark eyes flashing up at her as he pawed at the floor.
“Are you going to come with me?” She tried to hide the nervous note in her voice. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought “Sassy” was a name for a Chihuahua or a Maltese. Great Danes deserved names like “Albert” or “Dragon.” Anna swallowed. “I think he may be as big as I am.”
“Bigger, probably, if he stands on his hind legs.”
Jerk. She narrowed her gaze on his face. “You’re not helping.”
Luke busied himself with fitting a blue collar over Sassy’s neck and then clipped a leash to the silver hook on the collar. “Have you ever walked a dog?”
“What do you classify as a dog?” She took the leash from his hands, wrapping it twice around her palm for a good grip. “Four legs? Wagging tail? Blissful grin?”
“Something that weighs more than a cat.”
Anna faked a casual shrug. “You know, I tend to prefer my dogs the size of cats. Not that Sassy isn’t cute or anything . . .”
Sassy promptly sounded off, farting so loudly that Anna’s mouth dropped open and Luke erupted into full belly laughter. “I think he’s got to go.”
“I can’t believe you were going to leave my son to do this.”
“Your kid wants the money,” Luke said pointedly, closing her hand around a white plastic shopping bag. “Who’m I to ruin his hopes and dreams?”
She threw him a droll look. “A responsible adult, Luke O’Connor. That would make you a responsible adult.”
He leaned down, his face closing in on hers. Anna’s heart threatened to jump clear out of her chest it pounded so ferociously. This close, she could make out the golden flecks in his green eyes, as well as the soft yellow tint that encircled his pupils. His eyes were . . . unique, seductive.
Focused on her lips.
Did he plan to kiss her? And why was she so excited about the prospect?
“Luke?” she murmured, biting back a sharp yelp when Sassy made a move and accidentally stepped on her foot. “Oh!”
In a quick flash, Luke’s gaze turned worried. His hand shot out to her arm. “Jesus, did he maim you?”
Anna shook out her foot, tugging on the lead when Sassy attempted to stroll down the porch steps without her. “I’m okay,” she said, “but if my toes fall off you know what happened.”
“If your toes fall off, I think we’ve got bigger problems at hand than Sassy’s bowel movements.” His hand slid from her elbow to her bicep. “You sure you got this? I can call Brady or I can—” He shoved a hand through his already disheveled hair. “Well, hell. This is what I get for impulsively going to the shelter.”
Curiosity got the better of her when she asked, “What were you doing at the shelter anyway?”
A red flush started at the base of his throat, just as Sassy shoved his snout into Anna’s armpit and nudged upward, a clear sign that he was ready to go and he was ready to go now.
She held up her finger, pointing it at the half-naked man in front of her. “Hold that thought,” she instructed firmly, “your dog is about to piddle.”
“Who says piddle?” he called out to her as she let Sassy pull her down the steps and out onto the narrow sidewalk . . . just as a black furry creature sprinted across the street. Sassy went nuts, and Luke shouted, “Watch out for the cats!”
As Anna wrangled Sassy into submission and promised him treats, toys, and basketfuls of bacon, she realized one pertinent thing: Luke O’Connor owed her, and he owed her bad.
At the sound of Blondie’s feet hitting the wooden porch, Luke veered away from the window and went to the door. He told himself he’d only been glancing out to the street, but even his conscience knew that was a lie.
He’d been on the lookout for Anna Bryce, hoping for the love of all things football and God that he didn’t see her body dragging along the street as Sassy’s paws hit the pavement like an absolute maniac.
Luke hadn’t intended to adopt a dog yesterday.
Then he’d locked eyes with a giant named “Sassy,” a Great Dane with a gray-speckled body like Scooby-Doo and dark doe eyes that had begged for a chance at a life outside of the shelter’s kennels.
For a guy who didn’t want commitments, Luke had made a huge one when he’d handed over his credit card, filled out the necessary paperwork, and bought Sassy anything a dog could ever want. A fluffy bed that could fit two very large-sized humans, gourmet treats, and a shit ton of squeaky toys.
Some might say that Luke had gone out of his way because he wanted to make a difference in the world. The truth was more muddled than that. As he’d argued with the driver to let Sassy into the cab with all of his new belongings, Luke realized one thing: standing among the teacup Yorkies and the lovable golden retrievers, Sassy had looked helluva lonely.
Yeah, Luke knew what it was like to be lonely. And, no, he didn’t care what that said about him that he adopted a dog solely based on the absurd thought the big guy looked sad. For all he knew, Sassy had been constipated.
Didn’t matter. The dog belonged to him now, and he was already counting down the days until his hip was no longer an issue and the two of them could take on the world. Until then, he desperately needed Anna’s son, even if that meant giving the kid a raise before he even started the gig.
Sassy’s snout was the first thing to enter the house, pointing straight toward Luke’s crotch in typical dog greeting. “Hey there, big guy,” he said, scratching the Dane behind his ears, “you kill any cats?”
“Oh, he tried,” said Anna breathlessly, as she followed the Dane. Her usual sleek blonde hair was in disarray around her heart-shaped face, her complexion a ruddy red from exertion and the crisp November breeze. She looked like a Viking woman, ready to take on anything that stood in her way.
Including the French Quarter’s stray cat population.
Luke unclipped the lead from Sassy’s collar, lightly patting the dog on the rump as he headed for his new, elevated water bowl in the kitchen. “That’s all his documentation said,” Luke said, hanging up the leash on a hook by the front door, “Does not engage well with cats. Couldn’t tell if it was a warning or a challenge.”
“A warning.”
He offered her a grin. “Yeah, figured that one out when he tried to kill the poor cat that likes to show up in my courtyard.”
She returned the smile and then craned her neck to stare past him. He tried to see the space through her eyes: exposed brick walls, a large flat-screen TV, two love seats, and a bed off in the corner. Like most French Quarter homes, his 600-square foot rental unit was small, and was a matching set to the twin unit on the other side of his internal wall.
Not that Sassy seemed to care much. From the moment that he’d arrived yesterday, the Dane had disregarded his newly purchased dog bed and proceeded to make himself at home on every available piece of furniture that Luke owned.
“This is a great place,” she said softly, trailing one hand along the back of his leather sofa. “Property in the Quarter is slim picking.”
He rolled his shoulders, leaning his weight on his good leg and the cane. “To be honest, I wasn’t too keen on getting a place downtown. I hate all the noise, including the tourists screaming outside my door at three a.m.”
She flashed him a big smile. “Not a big party guy, Mr. O’Connor?”
He didn’t like the way his surname rolled off her tongue like an invitation. It was too easy to imagine them putting his bed to use before moving to the love seats. Give them a day, and they’d cover every inch of his small-as-hell apartment.
She wants what you can’t give her.
He balled his hand into a fist around his cane, then abruptly turned toward the kitchen. Over his shoulder, he said, “Want something to drink?”
“I really should be going . . .” Though her tone was uncertain, he heard the unmistakable sound of her shoes hitting the hardwood floor behind him. “Jules has a football game. That’s why he coul
dn’t come down today.”
Propping the cane against the small kitchen table, Luke did his best not to hobble to the cabinets. Robb Hampton may have issued a warning about excessive walking, but that didn’t mean Luke couldn’t walk the two feet from the table to the cabinets on his own.
“Brady mentioned that your son’s always wanted a dog.” He pulled out two glasses and limped to the fridge for the gallon of water. “Figured this arrangement worked out for both of us. He gets the dog he wants, and the cash, and I have somebody to walk Sassy while I finish therapy.”
He turned to hand her the glass of water, which she accepted with a quiet thank you. Louder, she said, “Don’t you think it would have helped if you’d come directly to me?”
“You would have said no.”
Her brow furrowed as she lifted the glass to her lips for a small sip. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
Luke fixed his gaze on her beguiling face, searching for the words to properly explain how her very presence had been driving him nuts since she’d toppled him over. “Blondie, since the moment we met, you’ve been looking for ways to challenge me.”
“I haven’t!” Even as she said the words, a blush worked its way onto her face. “I think you’re confusing the definitions for ‘challenging’ and ‘propositioning.’”
He ignored the flare of heat her words sent down to his groin, a quick, unexpected reminder that while he might be determined to evade relationships, he was still attracted to her. Seeing her all mussed-up in her baggy sweats and threadbare T-shirt only made him want to muss her up even more.
“In case you’ve forgotten,” he said huskily, reaching for his cane with his free hand, “I was a soldier, not a college student. Definitions of big words aren’t my forte.”
“I’m not a college student either.” When he arched his brows, she clarified, “I never finished university. I found out I was pregnant before the first semester had even wrapped up. I dropped out my sophomore year.”
He wanted to ask more questions—had Julian’s father stuck around after the kid’s birth? Had she had any contact with the guy over the years? Was she still in love with him?
In the end, he stifled them all and simply asked, “And your love of fancy words comes from . . . where?”
“Books,” she said, looking very much at ease with the admission. “I read a lot, especially as Julian’s grown older. He plays his video games upstairs and I read. Or watch really bad reality TV. Sort of depends on what’s on that night.”
Luke drained the rest of his water, balancing the empty glass on top of his cane. “The dating challenge makes sense now—you’re ready to get back in the game.”
She tore her gaze from his face to look awkwardly down at her feet. “I never really was in the game, to be honest,” she muttered, looking not at all like the powerful woman who ran La Parisienne.
But she’d piqued Luke’s curiosity, and now that he had her talking, he simply didn’t want her to stop. “How long are we talking?” he asked, gesturing for her to take a seat at the kitchen table. When she sat, he did the same, stifling a massive groan of relief as the weight lifted off his hip. “One year,” he went on, “two years?”
“Are you asking me how many years it’s been since I’ve been in a relationship?”
“Sure. I doubt anywhere over—”
“Or are you asking me how many years it’s been since I’ve had sex?”
Luke held himself very still. He had two options. He could either pretend he’d never heard that statement, or delve deep into a conversation likely to make him harder than a block of wood.
He went for Option B, because Luke was a man and no man that he knew could resist a beautiful woman’s invitation to talk about her sex life. Even if that sex life did not involve said man, and even if said man had no intention of seducing the beautiful woman.
Jesus Christ, his life had become one bad soap opera.
“The second one,” he grunted, like the caveman he was, “definitely the second one.”
She rolled her eyes, giving a rather unladylike snort. “You’re such a guy.”
Luke dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Guilty. But let’s be honest here—if you didn’t want me to know the answer, you wouldn’t have offered the question.”
Her cheeks bloomed with color and she averted her gaze. “You tell me first,” she said, “It’s less embarrassing for a guy to admit stuff like that than it is for a woman.”
“Bullshit.” The fact that he hadn’t had sex until he’d turned nineteen? Not exactly information he readily disclosed. While he’d certainly made up for lost time over the years, routine deployments tended to put a damper on one’s sex life.
“All right, fine,” she grumbled, “just give me an answer and I’ll give mine right after.”
Luke tapped his fingers on the top of his cane, mentally working his way through the outcomes of each option. Either he admitted to being less of a man-whore, or he lied and pretended that he had a harem just waiting to ride him at any opportunity.
A year ago, the latter might have been true. Nowadays, Luke had a shot hip and a ginormous, male dog named Sassy.
“A year,” he finally said, “to the day.”
Her lips quirked up. “You circle the date on a calendar or something?”
“No.” He may as well have, though. A calendar would have been more preferable to the truth. “I re-upped a year ago tomorrow for the army. Met a real sweet girl at a bar. Was my last night before I got on a plane, and she treated me real well.”
So well that he’d carried a visual of them together for at least three months while he’d been off in the desert.
Anna murmured, “Oh,” and then bit her lip. “Do you talk to her still?”
“Nah, Blondie,” he said with a shake of his head, “that’s not the way it works. She saw my dog tags. I told her it was my last night in town. Put two and two together and, trust me, four is the only answer.”
“If you’re good at math, that is.” She winked, making him chuckle, and then dropped her gaze to the glass sandwiched between her knees. Her shoulders inched up with a deep breath. “Five years.”
His gut dropped south of his feet. “Since your last relationship?”
A quick shake of her blonde head. “Since the last time I had sex. In case you’re wondering, it was horrible.”
He had been wondering, but only because Luke couldn’t stop thinking about Anna with someone else. Damn, but it felt wrong. So did the unfamiliar sensation gripping his lungs like a vice. He passed a hand over his jaw, then clutched the back of his neck. “Not all sex is good. Loads of it is bad.”
“This was bad.”
Christ, but he was going to ask her why. Don’t do it, man. Don’t fucking do it. He looked at Sassy, his new best friend, for guidance. The Dane was passed out on Luke’s bed, sprawled across the queen-sized mattress with his large paws dangling off the side.
In other words, useless.
He was going to do it.
He thumped the bottom of his cane against the floor. “I think we may need something stiffer than water for this conversation.”
She grumbled something beneath her breath.
“What was that?” he asked.
“I said, he needed something stiffer too.”
Luke's jaw locked tight as he tried not to gape. “Who are we talking about here?”
“The guy I had sex with,” she told him, holding his gaze as though daring him to laugh. “He needed something stiffer.”
Ah. So he’d heard right.
Yeah, they needed booze. He slowly stood, hand on the table. “Beer? Wine?”
“You have both?” She sounded surprised.
He shrugged. “You never know who’ll come to your house, ready to spill all of their deepest sex secrets.”
She mimed throwing something at his head, and he reacted accordingly, feigning a quick bob-and-weave—only to curse vi
olently as his hip erupted into flames.
Anna was out of her chair in a heartbeat, her soft hands landing on his side as though she could physically keep him from falling to the floor.
“Are you okay?” She ran her hand down toward his hip and the feeling of her palm against his bare skin sent gooseflesh erupting down his back.
Torn between the need to have her hands on his naked skin and the fear that she’d ended up asking for more than he could ever give her, he shifted away from her touch. “I’m good,” he grunted.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He gracelessly hobbled his way to the fridge and yanked the door open, hard. He could feel her blue eyes boring into his back, and the weight of it made him feel edgy, out of sorts. “You want wine?”
“A beer will be fine, thank you.”
Luke twisted just far enough so that he could meet her gaze. “You can have wine. You perked up the second I offered it.”
She visibly wavered. “I probably should get going. It’ll be halftime by now and Julian’s going to be wondering where I am.”
Luke went for the wine, pulled out two glasses from the cabinet, and poured them each a few fingers’ worth of the pinot grigio. It was Amy’s favorite, and as a good brother, he always kept a bottle in the fridge for the random times she stopped by his apartment. He made his way back over to Anna, holding out the pinot until she wrapped a hand around the glass and took a sip.
He waited until she’d swallowed to pop the question. “Now, this bad sex? How bad we talkin’ here? On a scale of I’d-Like-a-Do-Over to Holy-Mother-of-God-I’m-Scarred, where would you rate the experience?”
She lowered the glass to her collarbone, much the same way she’d done at Tuck’s. Tonight, in her loose sweats and thin T-shirt, she looked young. Too young to be drinking and definitely too young to be talking sex. Then again, she outranked him by a year—her curves alone and the wicked gleam in her blue eyes signaled that she was all woman.
Damn it.
Luke downed his wine.
“He ranked at Lie-Back-And-Think-of-England,” she said, tapping a perfectly manicured nail against the glass. “Do you promise not to laugh?”
