Tails of Love

by Lori Foster

  “Better spent in bed.”

  Wide eyes locked onto his face.

  She was mute, prompting Gary to retrench a little. “I always sleep pretty sound when it rains. It’s hypnotic.”

  Erin blinked and turned away. “I’m so sorry that I woke you.”

  “I’m not.” He saw this as a great opportunity and planned to make as much headway as he could.

  “I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “I’m glad you called me.”

  She cleared her throat after that disclosure. “I tried my brother first—”

  “And didn’t reach him.” Gary couldn’t help his knowing grin. “Dave is out for the night, and maybe even the whole weekend.”

  The mention of her brother eased some of her tension. “He’s too good-looking for his own good. He really needs to settle down.”

  “So do I.” He and Dave had been friends forever and now, in their early thirties, they were both ready for home and hearth. Dave had held out because he was picky.

  Gary had held out because he wanted Erin and no one else. She was worth waiting for.

  She might not know it about her brother, but Dave was pretty serious about a new woman in his life and spent most of his nights with her. Because things were intense, Gary suspected Erin would soon be meeting the new woman. If she’d called Dave’s cell instead of his home phone, she’d have reached him—in bed and no doubt busy.

  Instead, he got handed a golden opportunity.

  Thanks to Erin’s faulty car and the unpredictable summer weather, she was temporarily stuck with him. If things worked out right, he could see to it that she was trapped with him all night. He’d finally have the chance to tell her, and maybe show her, how he felt about her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Gary looked out the windshield as the plan formed in his mind. Ready to get things going, he pulled out of the parking lot. “Where do you think the dog came from?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe someone left him at the park, maybe he wandered in on his own.” She smoothed shivering fingers over his crown, and tucked the towels in closer around him. “But I couldn’t leave him.”

  “I would hope not.”

  She shot him a look. “You’d have taken him in, too?”

  That annoyed Gary. From the moment he made it clear that he considered their relationship to be about more than friendship, she’d been seeing him in a different way. “Do you even have to ask?”

  Her shoulder rolled. “I don’t know. It’s just that you have a busy career now. It’s not like you have time for . . . a dog.”

  As a fighter whose popularity was fast growing in the SBC—Supreme Battle Challenge—mixed martial arts, he could only nod agreement. “And that means what? That I don’t care about animals anymore? That I somehow became a heartless bastard who’d leave a puppy out all alone in this shit weather?”

  Her anger sparked, too. Erin had a quiet temper, the kind that she conveyed with a really mean look. “You have an even busier social life.”

  “If you mean all the promotional crap, it comes in waves and doesn’t have anything to do with who I am.” Did his growing notoriety really put her off? Was that part of the problem? Damn it, he’d always counted on Erin knowing him. Not his fighting persona, or the guy in the magazine ads, but him, the man. “I’m the same person you’ve known since you were six.”

  “Yeah, right. When I was six, you despised me.”

  “I never despised you, Erin,” he clarified. “But back then, to a couple of teenage boys, you have to admit you were a real pain in the ass.” He could remember Erin in pigtails, dogging their heels wherever he and her brother went. Back then, she’d hated to be excluded for any reason. “Do you remember when you were eleven, and you hid in the bushes to catch me kissing Annie?”

  Teasing right back, she said, “It was an education I’ll never forget. I thought you were both so gross, but I couldn’t stop watching.”

  “Until your mother busted you.”

  “Ha! She busted you and Dave, too. We all got lectured, and after that, Mom left the front porch light on all night so that you guys couldn’t make out there anymore.”

  Gary laughed. “It was pretty embarrassing all the way around. You were such a pest.”

  She smiled, and that alone nearly did him in.

  His hands flexed on the steering wheel. “You know, it wasn’t until you were about seventeen that I stopped thinking of you as Dave’s little sister, and instead realized how hot you are.”

  Her smile faded. “I am not.”

  “You most definitely are.” In deference to the weather, he drove slowly, taking twice as long to return to his place as he’d taken to reach her at the park.

  “I don’t know how you can say that, with the women who are always throwing themselves at you.”

  For the moment, Gary ignored her remark. “Back then, I had a hell of a time making myself remember that you were Dave’s sister, and seven years younger than me.”

  She took a moment to pick a burr out of the puppy’s ear, then said quietly, “That hasn’t changed, you know.”

  “Plenty of other things have. We’re now both grown adults with settled jobs.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding! You call being a fighter a settled job?”

  Now he felt defensive. But Erin was the only woman he knew who had such a negative reaction to his choice of career. “It pays well, I’m good at it, and I love it.”

  After studying him a moment, she looked away. “I like it too, but . . .”

  “You do?” He glanced at her in the shadowy interior of the car. She had her head down, petting the dog and doing her best to resist the chemistry between them.

  “You’re incredible when you fight.” She glanced at him. “I’ve watched all your fights. You know that.”

  “I thought you hated it.”

  She shook her head. “But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “It’s just that everything is so different now.”

  “I’m not different.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Look at what you’re driving. And you’ve got that big, brand-new house. And face it, Gary, you’re practically a sex symbol.”

  He took all that very seriously. “The car is just fancy transportation—”

  “Now muddy transportation that smells like wet dog.”

  “Will you forget about that? It doesn’t matter.” How dare she think he was some fastidious jerk who fell apart over a little dog hair and mud? “As to my house, it’s not that big, but it is comfortable and it has room for my gear.”

  “It has room for a shopping mall.”

  Gary locked his teeth and moved on to the most important part of her complaint. “And just so you know, I’m not interested in groupies. Anyone with a brain knows that hangers-on are pho nies and not to be trusted. They’re not the crowd you want around you. They sure as hell aren’t people you want to tie yourself to.”

  Erin considered that for a long, quiet moment. “So you’ve never wallowed in the adulation, huh?”

  “Hell, Erin, I’m thirty-two and I know what I really want, what I’ve wanted for a while now.” If she’d just stop fighting him, they could both move ahead. “It has nothing to do with fancy cars, big houses, or one-night stands with women hoping to mark their bedposts.”

  The dog whined, saving them both from the awful silence that followed. Erin resettled the little ball of fur, and changed the subject. “I hope he doesn’t have a lot of nasty ticks or fleas.”

  Seeing that as a perfect segue, Gary pulled the car into an all-night convenience store lot. “Stay put. I’ll grab some dog shampoo and stuff and be right back.”

  She tried to protest, but he jumped out and dashed through the rain to the store’s front door. Luckily they had a decent pet section. When he finished he had a dog dish, puppy food, flea and tick shampoo, a collar, and a leash.

  He didn’t mind the expense; if things worked out right, he’d name the little
dog Cupid and call things even.

  Erin stared at the haul Gary stored in the floor near her feet. Things were getting crowded, fast. “Good grief, did you buy out the store?”

  He was even wetter now after facing the deluge to shop. “Just the necessities.” He lifted the hem of his shirt to dry his face—which gave her a great peek at his impressive abs—and then settled into his seat. “It’s likely he does have fleas, and you don’t want those things to take up residence in your house.”

  “I suppose not.” The thought of bugs crawling around didn’t thrill her.

  “To be safe, we’ll bathe him on my back porch.” Before she could complain, he explained, “It’s covered.”

  She frowned at him. “How much do I owe you?”

  “It’s my treat.”

  “Oh, no.” No matter how financially set he might be these days, she carried her own weight. From what she could tell, too many people were already trying to live out of his pocket, and she wasn’t going to be one of them.

  Besides, she’d already inconvenienced him enough. “I’ll pay you back. I insist.”

  “Fine.” He drove the car out of the lot. “We’ll discuss it later.”

  Meaning he hoped she’d forget—but she wouldn’t. “I want to see the receipt.”

  “Afraid I’ll overcharge you?”

  “No!” Gary was the most honest guy she knew. But he worked hard for his money.

  He grinned to let her know he was teasing. “After his bath, we’ll get him fed.”

  A lot of things had changed, but not that killer grin. It still had the power to make her goofy. But not so goofy that she wanted to be alone with him in his spectacular new home.

  She’d seen it from the outside when she’d driven by without him knowing it, and that was enough to make her agog at the luxury of it. Her brother said the interior was incredible—and she just knew the high-end, designer furnishings would make her feel like a Podunk. But even if Gary wasn’t so well-to-do these days, she didn’t want to be alone with him long enough to bathe the dog.

  Already her will had weakened. Give her half an hour of privacy with him, and she’d be the aggressor, asking him for things she knew she was better off not having.

  Like his body.

  The problem was that he’d been so caring about the dog, and so uncaring about the mess it caused, she didn’t know how to refuse him. His shirt had to be ruined, but she prayed he was right about his leather seats. Heaven only knew what it’d cost to repair them.

  But nice or not, just being with him in the quiet seclusion of his car had her thinking things she shouldn’t. Erin cleared her throat. “I sort of figured I’d clean him up tomorrow at my place.”

  “And leave him dirty and tangled all night?” He shook his head, sending a wet lock of brown hair to fall over his brow.

  Her heart gave an unsteady beat.

  “No, it’ll be better to take care of it now.” Then, as if he thought better of things, he suddenly shot her a look. For that single instant of time, his brown eyes were direct and soul sucking. “You don’t have other plans, do you, Erin? I mean, a date or something?”

  The ridiculousness of that helped pull her from her daze. Her last date had been months ago and was a resounding flop that hadn’t encouraged her to try again.

  “Okay,” he said slowly. “No plans.” He looked pleased by that, but also put out by her reaction. “It was a legitimate question for an attractive twenty-five-year-old woman. You do know that you could date nonstop if you wanted to, right?”

  In a fictional world maybe. But Gary was the very last person with whom she wanted to discuss her nonexistent romantic involvements. “I spend most of my weekends working.”

  He nodded. “You aren’t high maintenance, so tell me why you take all that overtime?”

  The truth would suffice. “I enjoy the work.”

  “More than dating?”

  She couldn’t think of anything but the truth. “There’s no one I’m anxious to date.”

  Smiling, he said, “Want to tell me why?”

  Letting out an exasperated breath, Erin stared at him. “You want me to say I have a thing for you, is that it?”

  “Not just any old thing, no. The real thing. And you do, so why not admit it?”

  The real thing? Yeah, it was plenty real. But regardless of his protests, he was now a celebrity of sorts, and win or lose, though he mostly won, he gained more popularity with every fight. Events took him to hotspots all over the country, and sometimes out of the country.

  He wined and dined with celebrities.

  He appeared in magazines and newspapers.

  Gorgeous, sophisticated women vied for his attention.

  Could he really be happy with a hometown girl he’d known since he was a kid?

  Erin thought about it so long that Gary was pulling into his driveway without her even realizing they’d reached his home. Outdoor lighting made the grounds look magical. Even soaked and storm-whipped, the landscaping was beautiful. The long driveway led up to a four-car garage.

  “You have a gorgeous house.”

  “It’s comfortable—but a little too big for a single man.” He put the car in park, looked at her for a long, heart-stopping moment, then he leaned over and kissed her.

  No hands. No body parts touching.

  But his mouth was warm on hers, and confident, and he tugged at her lips in a way that raised her temperature several degrees.

  Wow.

  For years, he’d played at being a pseudo big brother to her, but there was nothing fraternal about the way his mouth moved on hers.

  Erin started to lean into him—and the puppy yapped, jumping up between them. Erin came to her senses just in time to realize that the little rascal had piddled on her leg.

  “Oh, crap.” She grabbed for her door handle to get the pup out of Gary’s car. For a second there, her seat belt hindered her escape, but Gary released it for her, and he got out, too.

  Luckily, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. Not that it mattered since she was soaked to the skin anyway.

  Crouched on the muddy grass by the dog, she saw when Gary’s big feet stopped near her. He said nothing, but Erin felt his watchful gaze.

  Her blood still pumped too fast from that kiss, but she wasn’t a complete coward, so she looked up at him—and got snared in his dark gaze.

  Get a grip, Erin. She pasted on a false smile. “Now my jeans are wet with more than rain.”

  “Huh.” His smile was genuine and full of promise. “Guess you’ll need a bath, too, then, won’t you?”

  At that suggestive comment, her heart shot into her throat. She tried to think of something to say, but Gary scooped up the dog, took Erin’s arm, and started them all toward a side door to his large ranch-style home.

  He led her directly into the cavernous garage, where she saw a truck parked, and then into the attached laundry room.

  An overhead light brightened everything and granted her a good look at the pup.

  And Gary.

  He set down the dog and let it go about sniffing everything. With both hands, he raked back his hair while kicking off his shoes. His clothes clung to him.

  And then he grabbed the hem of his shirt and dragged it off over his head. One-handed, he tossed it over her head and into a laundry basket behind her.

  Erin stared.

  Gary had always had an athletic body, but since starting the extreme sport of MMA competition, he’d gotten far too buff for her peace of mind.

  Loose-limbed and casual, he stood there and let her look. Unlike some of the fighters, he’d kept his chest hair and she liked it. A lot.

  His hips were super lean, muscular. The waistband of his wet jeans curled out away from his body. The material over the fly was . . .

  She looked up at his face—and found him watching her far too intently.

  Oops. Trying to be cavalier, Erin said, “You look great. In shape, I mean.”

  “Thanks.”

&
nbsp; Trying not to stare at him again, she kicked off her own shoes and stripped off her light jacket. “Do you have something we can use to bathe him in?”

  When Gary didn’t answer, she looked at him again, and found him standing very still, his jaw tight, his cheekbones slashed with color.

  He stared at her chest.

  She knew she wasn’t overly endowed, and her physique in no way compared to his, so she crossed her arms under her breasts and asked, “What are you looking at?”

  At her tone, his left brow shot up—and he continued staring. “This is in no way a complaint, believe me, but it seems a white T-shirt and bra go . . . completely transparent in that much rain.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Startled, Erin looked down—and squawked. The material appeared glued to her flesh, showing the outline of each breast. Even her ribs and her nipples were so visible, she might as well have been naked.

  Horrified, embarrassed, and unsure what to do, she spun around, presenting Gary with her back.

  He stepped up closer to her, and his voice softened. “Don’t faint, okay.”

  Did he sound amused? If he did, she’d brain him.

  Still in that light tone, he added, “I’ll grab a dry shirt for you and be right back.”

  She stood staring blindly at a blank wall, her back to the door, when Gary flipped a navy blue shirt over her shoulder.

  His finger went down her cheek, then fell away. “Take your time. I’ll be on the back porch with the pooch when you’re ready.”

  She’d never be ready.

  It wasn’t easy, but she managed to say, “Thanks,” reasonably enough.

  A few minutes later, dressed in his warm, dry shirt and with her courage shored up, she headed for the back porch. Along the way, she took the “gawking tour” of his house.

  It really was fabulous, but it was still . . . Gary. Still cozy and comfortable, and not in the least ostentatious. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, maybe a designer’s cold touch. Instead it looked like every other bachelor pad she’d ever seen, but bigger and with more furniture.

  It looked like a house meant for a family, not one man. And that made her think.