by Amira Rain
Glowering, Matt muttered goddammit under his breath before tossing a rawhide bone each to Shadow and Charlie. He then got two glasses from a cupboard and a large bottle of iced tea from the fridge, and set these items on a granite-topped island in the middle of the spacious kitchen, glancing up at me. “Would you like a glass of iced tea or water? Or maybe something a little stronger?”
I was quickly getting in the mood for something “a little stronger.” However, it wasn’t even yet five, and I didn’t want to seem like a lush by drinking in the afternoon.
So, making my way over to the island, I told Matt that a glass of iced tea would be just fine. “Thank you.”
Muttering a terse “welcome,” Matt filled the two glasses and handed me one. “You can have a seat if you’d like.”
Silently, I hopped up on one of four cushioned bar stools around the island, and Matt did the same, taking a seat across from me. Out a wide window above the sink, and above Matt’s head, I could see that the snow flurries that had been falling all day were now picking up, becoming more like “full-tilt snow” than simply “flurries.” The sky was unusually dark for this time of afternoon, too. I hadn’t heard the weather report that day, but I had a feeling that a storm was rolling in.
With the dogs nearby, both quietly but furiously gnawing on their bones, Matt and I sipped our iced tea in not-quite-comfortable silence. During sips, I covertly stole a few glances at Matt, wondering how a man who behaved so gruffly to his dogs, and to one of them in particular, had come to be in a position of power over a large group of people. I supposed that I would have thought that even a military regiment of dragon shifters would have wanted a leader with a little warmth and compassion.
Irritating me, this thought about Matt’s gruffness wasn’t the only thought I had while sipping my iced tea, stealing glances at him. I also kept thinking about how impossibly good-looking he was. He was the kind of good-looking that vaguely startled me every time I glanced at him, even if I’d only glanced at him ten seconds earlier.
I soon noticed that I wasn’t the only one doing a little glancing. Maybe the fourth or fifth time I lifted my gaze for just a nanosecond, I saw that Matt was doing the same, looking at me from beneath his thick, dark lashes while lifting his glass to his mouth. The moment our eyes connected, I’d already begun to lower my gaze.
After a minute or two of silence between us, Matt was the first one to break it, glancing over at the dogs, who were still happily sprawled out on the hardwood floor, chewing their bones. “Shadow is mostly obedient, but Charlie is incorrigible. I think he might be…well, I think he might be mentally challenged. He was the runt of his litter, and he might have been deprived of oxygen at birth. He certainly acts like it sometimes.”
I’d bristled when Matt had said that he thought Charlie was “mentally challenged.” I’d developed a distinct ache in my chest, too. Even though Charlie was a dog, and even though I’d only known him for mere minutes, I couldn’t have been more hurt and offended if someone had said that a child of mine was mentally challenged, and with that child in the same room, no less.
Trying to get a handle on my anger, I spoke to Matt in a voice that I hoped conveyed assertiveness. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say that about Charlie again. At the very least, not while he’s in the same room.”
Somewhat hunched over the island, Matt looked up at me, frowning. “What?”
“Please don’t say that he’s ‘mentally challenged.’ Even if he were to be diagnosed as such by a licensed veterinarian, which I sincerely doubt he would be, it’s still horribly wrong of you to say it practically right in front of his face how you did.”
“Well, what would you have me call him? Brain damaged?”
Squeezing my eyes shut reflexively, as if I’d been slapped, I winced. “That would be a thousand times worse. A thousand times more hurtful.”
“Well, look….” Frowning even harder, Matt straightened up from his hunch over the island, looking me dead in the eyes for just about the first time since he’d entered the house. “The way I see it, Charlie is my dog, and I’ll describe him as mentally challenged if I want to.”
“With him in the very same room?”
Matt scoffed. “You are aware that dogs can’t understand human language, aren’t you? They can only understand simple commands, and pick up on tone of voice.”
“That’s such outdated thinking that it’s ridiculous.”
“And how do you know that? Are you a licensed veterinarian?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not knowledgeable about golden retrievers. I took care of one for a week while my friends were out of town some years back, and I researched everything about golden retrievers before I did. I learned that they’re one of the smartest dog breeds in the world, and some animal scientists think the average golden can understand hundreds of words, even simple sentences. Definitely something to think about the next time you get the urge to call Charlie mentally challenged practically right to his face, Matt.”
Matt frowned at me, hard. “Look. I didn’t call him mentally challenged, and I never have. Let alone ‘right to his face.’ I simply described him as mentally challenged.”
“Well, maybe you should stop.”
“Well, maybe I shouldn’t. Charlie is my dog, and if I want to describe him as mentally challenged, I’m going to.”
Just then, Charlie whined, looking up from his bone at Matt and me. And I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I could detect a hint of pain present in his chocolate brown eyes.
With my heartbeat accelerating and my chest aching, I looked from Charlie to Matt. “What kind of a monster are you?”
He frowned the hardest he had yet. “I beg your pardon?”
I unclenched my jaw just long enough to speak. “I think you heard me. What kind of a monster are you?”
Now Matt clenched his jaw, which he did hard enough for me to see the muscles in it working. “I think you should probably remember, Kylie, that no matter what you think about my treatment of my dogs, I am the commander here in Greenwood…and you should treat me with the same respect that everyone else does.”
I had to bite back a laugh. “‘Respect?’ You actually want to talk about respect? How about you give Charlie some first. How about you agree to stop calling him mentally challenged. Do you have any idea how he might be feeling inside right now?”
Narrowing his dark gray eyes at me, Matt scoffed. “Sorry, but I’m not normally preoccupied with thinking about how my dogs might be ‘feeling inside.’”
“Well, you should be.”
“Well, I’m not. And I’m not going to stop describing Charlie as mentally challenged any time I feel like it.”
With my heartbeat accelerating to a gallop, I balled my fists in my lap. Charlie whined again.
I shifted my gaze from him to Matt, sure I was glaring. “You are hurting his feelings so bad right now.”
“I’m not--”
“Didn’t you just hear him whine for the second time?”
“He whined because there are raised voices nearby, which upsets dogs sometimes. Nothing more.”
“All I know is that you’re upsetting me right now, by continuing to call him mentally challenged while he’s in the same damn room. Even if being mentally challenged was an official diagnosis that Charlie had received, even if it was, no child….” Realizing that I’d just referred to Charlie as a child, I paused and tried again. “No dog should ever be within earshot when that diagnosis is repeated. Just on the chance that the dog can understand words. It’s rude. It’s even a bit cruel.”
Matt snorted. “Your opinion has been noted…but I’m not giving in to you. I’m going to continue to call Charlie mentally challenged whenever I feel like it.”
With my fists still balled, I began to feel a bit breathless, even though I was still sitting, and my heartbeat began hammering in my ears. I knew I was approaching a level of anger I’d only experienced a couple of times in my life befo
re, which should have made me use extreme discretion when speaking next. It should have, but it didn’t.
Looking Matt right in the eyes across the island, I spoke in a voice that held more than a hint of an angry tremor. “You call Charlie mentally challenged one more single damned time, and I’m going to literally physically attack you. I swear to God I will.”
With his expression markedly softening for the first time since he’d entered the house, Matt stood up from his bar stool. His eyes even appeared to hold a trace of a twinkle, as if he were slightly amused.
“All right…that’s fine. Go ahead. ‘Literally physically attack’ me. Take a swing, or do whatever else you have in mind. Just nothing below the belt. I promise I won’t attack you back.”
CHAPTER SIX
Before I could even think about what I was doing, I jumped off my bar stool, flew around the island, and drew a fist back, ready to punch Matt right in the chest. But that was when I caught myself. I’d never punched anyone in my life. I’d never physically assaulted anyone in any way. And, despite my current anger level, I had just enough common sense left to realize that I probably shouldn’t start now.
However, just when I began dropping my fist, Matt chuckled. He chuckled.
“Don’t stop now, Kylie. I want you to punch me. I’m asking you to. So, come on. If you’re so keen on defending Charlie, take your best shot. And if you can make me take even a single step backward, I promise I’ll never describe him as mentally challenged while he’s in the room ever again.”
It was this last bit that did it. This last bit, coupled with Matt’s insistence that I punch him, as well as his twinkling gray eyes. He was actually amused. He actually found the thought of me punching him to be funny.
Without another thought, I drew back my right fist, then drove it forward into Matt’s chest with all my might, not holding back at all. And immediately, I discovered that his chest was very hard. So hard, in fact, that the blow I’d delivered actually hurt my own wrist. Despite this, though, Matt apparently hadn’t been hurt at all. Not if the hearty chuckle he made in response to my punch was any indication. Also, his black-booted feet hadn’t moved at all, at least not in any perceptible way. He certainly hadn’t taken any kind of a step back.
Wanting to bring his hearty chuckling to an abrupt end, I punched him again, again putting every ounce of my strength into the blow, and again only hurting my own wrist. Also, again, Matt didn’t even move an inch. He didn’t wince. He only chuckled harder.
“I thought you were going to ‘literally physically attack’ me. You didn’t say anything about tickling.”
It was “on” now. I began punching Matt’s chest with my left and right fists both, alternating hands, delivering blows one right after the other. But still, he didn’t even flinch or wince, much less move, and his eyes never stopped twinkling.
After a brief pause for a lungful of air, I redoubled my efforts, punching Matt in the stomach now, and finding that his abs were just as rock-hard as his pectoral muscles. Despite the fact that my efforts were really beginning to hurt my wrists, I didn’t stop, wishing to God that I was a foot taller, so that I could stand eye-to-eye with Matt.
I just had to believe that the height difference between us was the main reason my blows weren’t having any effect because I definitely wasn’t a weak person. In fact, I considered myself to be strong, with some muscle definition in my legs and upper arms just from coaching gymnastics and teaching Pilates for most of my adult life. In fact, in the month-and-a-half since the gym had closed, I’d only added more definition and had become even a bit more toned due to having endless amounts of time to work out by myself in my own living room.
Punching as hard as I was to make up for my deficiency in the height department, I soon became winded and had to stop for a little longer than the time it took to draw in a single lungful of air. Now, I felt like I needed several. Or a few dozen.
Looking up at Matt, panting, I struggled to get a few words out. “You’re a….” I didn’t really know what he was. “You’re a horrible son of a bitch.”
With his damned eyes still twinkling, he looked contemplative for a moment. “Well…maybe. And I’ve definitely been called worse.”
“Well, now you’re about to get worse….” I paused to take a couple deep breaths. “Because now that I’ve gotten warmed up, punching you isn’t hurting my wrists as bad as it was at first. So now, I’m really about to start punching you. Better brace yourself.”
I was the one who should have been doing the bracing because although the next blow I delivered to Matt’s chest didn’t even wipe the devastatingly sexy half-grin off his face, it sent a current of fresh pain racing up my forearm from my wrist.
Unable to mask the pain, I winced, shaking my hand in an attempt to relieve the pain in my wrist and arm. However, I didn’t want Matt to know that I’d stopped because of pain. I wanted him to think I’d stopped simply due to being momentarily overcome by anger.
“You terrible bastard, Matt. You complete lunatic. I know my punches are hurting you. You’re just too damned stubborn to show it.”
I drew back my left fist, which wasn’t currently hurting, intending to deliver a blow to the center of Matt’s chest; but before I could do that, he caught my wrist and held it fast to stop me, not grinning anymore but frowning.
“All right, now stop. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“‘Hurt’ myself? You don’t want me to hurt myself? How dare you!”
With my anger flaring once again, I attempted to punch Matt with my right fist, but again, like with my left wrist, he caught my right wrist and held it fast.
“I’m serious, Kylie. Stop. And I say this not because I’m afraid of you hurting me in any way, but because I’m truly afraid of you breaking your wrists. Please stop.”
I now had no choice but to stop because he was holding my wrists with such a firm grip that I knew I couldn’t break out of it. My anger, however, wasn’t quite spent. And my feet and legs were still free. And Matt had all but begged me to take my best shot at him. And maybe I hadn’t been thinking hard enough when I’d thought that simple punches to his torso would be my “best.”
I wasn’t delusional enough to think that kicking Matt where it would really hurt would be a good idea. I definitely didn’t want to cause him lasting pain or permanent injury. I did, however, want to make him wince, just slightly, and just once. And I was now thinking that a swift, light kick to one of his shins with a rubber-toed tennis shoe might be just the way to do that.
Trying to fake Matt out and make him think that all the fight had left me, I stilled all struggling movements and just sighed, hanging my head. A long moment went by before I suddenly drew back a foot and then let it rip, aiming for Matt’s left shin. Before I could connect with my target, though, I found myself being abruptly spun a half-turn. My wrists were released for a fraction of a second, but then re-caught again.
And now my arms were crossed over my chest. I wasn’t even entirely sure how it had happened or how Matt had done it. All I knew was that within half a second, he’d put me in some sort of a restraint hold with my back against his hard chest and abs. My own arms felt like a straightjacket across my chest. Like he’d done before, Matt held my wrists with a grip so firm that I knew struggling out of it would be futile. Unable to help myself, though, struggle I did, noticing the dogs across the kitchen, both looking up from their bones, just staring at Matt and me.
“Let me go!”
Matt issued a single-word response. “No.”
“I wasn’t going to kick you in the family jewels; I was aiming for your shin.”
“Right.”
“I was!”
He didn’t respond, and I renewed my efforts to break free, struggling to pull my wrists free from his grasp.
“Just let me go, and I won’t try to kick you in the shin again. I promise.”
“Well, that’s not the only reason I’m doing what I’m doing, Kylie. Try
ing to protect my own self isn’t even the primary reason. I truly don’t want you to hurt yourself by trying to continue to fight me. I had no idea how long your anger would last.”
The fact that he’d underestimated my anger made my anger flare anew for some reason, and I struggled against his hold on my wrists with all my might.
“Let me go!”
“No.”
“You promised to not attack me back, and yet, here you are, using physical force against me.”
“I’m not ‘attacking’ or assaulting you in any way, though. I’m simply restraining you to keep you from hurting yourself by continuing to punch me.”
“Well….” Breathless, I paused, not knowing exactly what to say. “Well, good for you.”
We both fell silent. Still holding me against his chest, Matt barely even moved except for breathing. My own chest heaved up and down as I tried to catch my breath. Across the kitchen, Shadow went back to his bone, as if seeing a woman repeatedly punch his owner, and then seeing his owner forcibly restrain that woman, was an everyday occurrence, which I hoped for the dog’s sake wasn’t.
Charlie seemed a little more engrossed in the situation, watching Matt and me with his mouth now hanging open, making drool strings fall from his gums. With the fur above his eyes angling upward at the inner corners, he actually looked so concerned about me that it caused a little ache in my chest.
Wanting to assure his that I was okay, I gave him a little smile. “I’m okay, Charlie, you sweetie. Your owner is just holding me against my will. But I’m okay.”
“If you promise not to fight and possibly hurt yourself anymore, I’ll let you go.”
“You’re such a smart boy to notice that something strange is going on, though, Charlie. You’re such a smart boy. No matter what your owner thinks.”
Closing his mouth, Charlie began slowly wagging his tail.
Behind me, Matt spoke. “Did you hear me, Kylie? I said I’ll let you go if you promise not to fight and possibly hurt yourself anymore.”
