Too Bad So Sad

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “There is no B. I just felt like saying A.” He shrugged unrepentantly. “Get that dog out of here. Now.”

  Then Rockman slammed the door on my face and I felt myself deflate.

  I looked down at the cutest face in the world and decided to go ahead and get him checked out by the vet in town.

  I mean, it wouldn’t hurt to have him checked out and made sure he was okay, would it?

  ***

  “This baby is a Leonberger,” the vet tech said. “Maybe mixed with something, but based on the bone structure, I wouldn’t say that it was mixed with anything but another big, big dog. This little boy could be upwards of two hundred pounds or more by the time he’s done growing. He’s a keeper, for sure.”

  He was a keeper.

  I mentally sifted through who I could get to keep the dog for me and discarded everyone my brain came up with.

  For some reason, I just had to have this dog.

  And anywhere but somewhere close by would be too far away from me.

  Then a thought came into my mind and I knew this would be the perfect solution…I just had to convince the owner of the yard of it.

  ***

  Tyler

  I watched her walk into my station and knew instantly that she was going to be trouble.

  The ball of brown and black fur in her arms confirmed that moments later when she marched into my office, totally disregarding the secretary—her friend, Katy—who tried to stop her and slammed the door.

  I just sat there watching her watch me.

  “Can I help you?” I asked, trying to calm my dick down.

  She gestured to the dog and said, “I got you a present. He’s sweet. You’ll like him.”

  Negative.

  “I don’t want a dog, Reagan,” I said. “They’re too much upkeep.”

  Reagan’s eyes narrowed. “I’m over there every day anyway taking care of the garden. I’ll feed him, pay for his vet visits and buy his dog food. You won’t have to do a single thing but allow him to use your backyard—which I noticed that you don’t even use.”

  I wanted to say yes. I really did.

  But I really, really didn’t want a dog.

  Dogs were a pain in the ass. They shit everywhere, they chewed things up and they required constant time and attention—neither of which I had any extra to give.

  Plus, I did like to use my backyard when I came home from work. But with a dog living back there, I’d feel obligated to pay attention to it instead of just sitting out there, relaxing and clearing my mind of the shit day that I had.

  “No.”

  Then I opened the door and gestured for her to leave.

  She did, but she glared at me over her shoulder as she left and I had a feeling that this wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

  ***

  The moment I walked into my backyard, I knew that the puppy was there.

  I just didn’t know where.

  I’d seen the alert from the video feed earlier, informing me of a breach to my sanctuary—yet again—by the pain in the ass trespasser, or PITA-T as I was starting to call her.

  Since I’d been in the middle of an arrest at the time, I hadn’t been able to take the time to look at the feed.

  But as I passed a water bowl the size of a swimming pool, I knew that I’d find the puppy somewhere back here.

  I made a short sweep around the yard, finding nothing.

  Finally deciding that he’d come out when he didn’t feel threatened any longer, I walked to my swing and took a seat.

  My eyes continued to scan the darkness, but I still didn’t see any movement.

  I knew he was there, though. And that’s when I heard the soft snore from the hammock that I had hung up a month or two after moving in but hadn’t used once I realized how fuckin’ hard it was to get in and out of it.

  I glanced over to it and felt my lips twitching when I saw the puppy—sprawled out on his back—snoring blissfully away while the hammock rocked back and forth softly with the breeze.

  Son of a bitch.

  I smiled.

  I would not let her know that I found the dog amusing. I would not.

  Chapter 9

  Memories of you make me look forward to the dementia I’ll have in my old age.

  -Reagan to her ex-boyfriend

  Reagan

  I walked up to Tyler’s house, fully aware that he was home seeing as his police cruiser was in the driveway, along with the motorcycle and the truck that he used when he wasn’t using the cruiser and walked cautiously to the backyard.

  I had a small bag of dog food in my backpack that I knew wouldn’t last past a few days and was two steps away from the gate, when I heard a low growl.

  A low, puppy growl.

  Then a masculine chuckle. “You’re a cute little fucker.”

  I felt my heart beating in my throat as I rounded the corner of Tyler’s house and found him, hose in hand, staring at the extremely pissed off dog.

  Why was the dog pissed off?

  Because Tyler was giving him a bath.

  Or, at least that was what I thought he was attempting to do. The verdict was still out on whether he’d actually accomplished that feat or not seeing as the dog was only half wet. Not to mention that the small, low barrel that was likely the source of the soapy water that was all over the yard was turned on its side.

  My lips twitched when I saw the state of both dog and man.

  Not only was the dog half wet, but so was Tyler.

  Tyler was in jeans, a t-shirt and nothing else.

  Honestly, it was quite startling to see him so dressed down. He was so well put together normally, that it was doing things to my heart—let alone other places on my body—to see him so casual and disorderly.

  His entire left side was dotted with water—likely from the puppy shaking himself to rid the excess water from his coat—and his jeans from the knees down were entirely drenched as if he’d gotten into the barrel right along with the puppy.

  “Are you just going to stand there all day, or are you going to come overe here and help me?”

  I looked away from Tyler’s pant legs to his face, which was now glaring at me.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “If I get too wet, I’ll have to go home and change since I don’t have any clothes with me.”

  Tyler’s eyes went electric. “I won’t get you wet. Let’s go.”

  He wouldn’t get me wet, my ass.

  The only problem was, technically, he didn’t get me wet…on the outside.

  The dog, however? Yeah, the dog wasn’t into having a bath. He hated the water. He hated the soap and he hated the whole idea of a bath.

  By the time we were through, not only was Tyler thoroughly wet, but I was sopping.

  Apparently, the foot height difference between us meant I was the one who held the dog while Tyler attempted to rinse the soap off a puppy who didn’t want anything to do with this process.

  And let’s just say that Tyler wound up spraying me more often than the dog thanks to his successful maneuvering out of any streams of water coming in his direction.

  Another twenty minutes later and the puppy was free of burrs, fleas and anything else that was buried in his long, bushy coat.

  “He’s bigger,” Tyler said. “How the hell did he get bigger?”

  I looked at the puppy, who wasn’t really all that much of a puppy if I was being honest.

  He was more like a teenager.

  A surly one with an attitude that did, indeed, make him seem bigger.

  “It has to be all the hair,” I admitted. “He’s poofier.”

  “What the fuck kind of dog is this, anyway?” Tyler questioned, dropping the hose to the ground.

  “The vet said a Leonberger mix. They’re kind of like Saint Bernards, but they’re completely brown except for their faces, which are black—just like his,” I pointed out.

  He grunted. “And j
ust how big do these dogs get?”

  I wanted to lie.

  I did lie.

  He just didn’t know whether to believe me or not.

  “Oh, about fifty-five to sixty pounds,” I fibbed.

  Tyler snorted. “Why is it that I don’t believe you?”

  Because I’m lying!

  “I don’t know.” I pulled my sopping t-shirt away from my chest, only just now aware that my nipples were prominent and I should’ve worn a bra.

  Though admittedly, I hadn’t actually planned on getting wet today, so I hadn’t known that I would be needing a bra.

  I mean, when you had boobs the size of mosquito bites—my brother’s words, not mine—bras were optional. Don’t want to wear a bra for three weeks? Sure, why the fuck not? No one will notice anyway.

  That is, as long as they weren’t sexually attracted to me—and I hadn’t been soaking wet.

  Unfortunately, Tyler was, in fact, sexually attracted to me and I was thoroughly wet, both inside and out, thanks to those hot eyes raking over my chest like he wanted to devour me.

  “Tyler?” I asked, trying not to let his wet t-shirt get to me, like mine was doing to him.

  He swallowed and his dark eyes met mine.

  “Yeah?” he replied gruffly, still not taking his eyes off of my chest.

  “Are you okay?” I questioned.

  “I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Can’t do wha—”

  Before I could get him to clarify his statement, I found myself ass over tea kettle as he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. “I can’t do this looking but not touching thing anymore. I was never any good at it. Obviously, I’m still not any good at it.”

  I would’ve laughed had I not been feeling the exact same way.

  I’d been fighting my feelings for him for weeks now.

  On one hand, I really did like him. But then he opened his mouth and reminded me why the thing we had between us would never work.

  But, in the end, fighting something like the attraction we had for each other was damn near impossible.

  I was in complete agreement with him. I couldn’t do the looking but no touching thing anymore either. I wanted him. Badly.

  “You said only once,” I said, trying to sound like I was put out that he was changing his mind.

  I wasn’t.

  But he didn’t need to know that.

  I wanted him just as much now as I’d wanted him the morning after our first sexual escapade.

  In fact, spending the last few days staring at him, but not touching, was driving me wild.

  There was only so much restraint a girl could have before the pot boiled over.

  Apparently, the same went for men.

  He didn’t answer me, though.

  Instead, he walked through his back door, made sure to shut it behind him and instead of moving to the bedroom or the couch, went directly to his kitchen table.

  My ass found the smooth granite of the tabletop and then his mouth was on mine.

  I gasped, both from the coldness under my ass and the way his mouth felt like fire against mine.

  Before I could catch my breath, he scooted my ass until it was on the edge of the table, pushed me back roughly until I was on my back and then unbuttoning, then yanking my shorts off in the next moment.

  I was insanely happy that the shorts were loose. Otherwise, they’d have been ripped in his haste to get them off of me.

  The wet denim went flying across the kitchen, landing on the dish rack next to the sink and knocking a pot and a cup of forks over into the empty basin.

  The sound didn’t deter him in from the task at hand in the slightest.

  Then again, I couldn’t have cared less about it, either.

  Why did the loudest sound in history not faze me? Because Tyler was kneeling between my knees and sealing his mouth over my clit before I could blink or even react to any noise.

  I gasped and arched up, my heels moving onto his shoulder blades for purchase.

  “Oh, sweet baby Jesus,” I moaned, digging my heels in.

  He didn’t chuckle or laugh. Hell, he didn’t even stop.

  He kept licking me, swirling that talented tongue through my wetness and practically drinking me up.

  Then I felt one of his blunt fingers surge inside of me and my entire ass came off the table as fireworks exploded inside of me.

  My orgasm came on so fast and hard that I didn’t even have time to brace myself.

  If I had, I wouldn’t have rolled off the table in my haste to get closer to his mouth.

  Nor would I have landed directly on top of him in a heap.

  Though, likely me landing on top of him had a lot more to do with his reflexes rather than my inability to fall gracefully.

  I hit him with a bone-jarring thud, but he didn’t seem fazed in the least.

  One second, I was trying to figure out how I ended up on the floor and the next he was rolling us over and surging inside of me until I was filled so completely that I wasn’t sure where he began and I ended.

  My pussy burned at his rather abrupt invasion, but before I could take stock of the pain I felt, he moved out of me and filled me back up just as quickly.

  I skidded across the kitchen tile with his thrusts, vaguely aware that I’d likely have scrapes on my back due to the intensity of his movements.

  But before the next thrust came, he curled his arm up and around my back, his hand going to my shoulder to hold me in place while he pushed into me again.

  This time, I went nowhere.

  This time, he filled me deeper.

  This time, I realized that Tyler’s dick was the best thing to ever happen to me.

  I keened as I tried to find the strength to fight the orgasm that I could already feel rising up inside of me.

  But it was no use.

  With Tyler’s skilled moves, his mouth that was sucking lightly at the base of my neck and the way I could feel his pubic hair rasping against my clit? I was a goner before I even began.

  My orgasm exploded through me and I mentally left my body as intense sparks of pleasure lit my every nerve ending.

  He groaned right along with me and it was only when I felt him jerking against me and his release filling me up, that I realized he hadn’t been able to fight the pull either.

  After the last twitch of his left his body and my pussy settled down, he broke the silence.

  “This is the last time,” he murmured into the stillness. “We’re not doing this again.”

  I would’ve laughed if I had the strength to lift my head, let alone inflate my lungs and expel air.

  It was hard enough to draw the labored breaths that were all I was capable of at that moment.

  Laughing or commenting wasn’t going to happen.

  Not yet, anyway.

  I really needed to up my workout game.

  Jesus, it’d be embarrassing had Tyler’s chest not been rising and falling just like mine.

  “And the dog needs a name,” Tyler said between strained breaths.

  I moaned something incoherent.

  “Was that a ‘yes’ he needs a name, or a ‘yes, I already named him’ moan? Because my brain’s not firing on all cylinders at the moment,” Tyler explained.

  I snorted and then rolled, very aware of the wetness that was between my legs again.

  It made my legs shift just to feel the slickness there.

  “I don’t have a name for him yet,” I admitted. “But, if you’re expecting me to come up with it, it might be a while. I have a terrible time naming things. It took me a month and a half to name all my caterpillars and by the time they all had names, the names didn’t suit them anymore because they were butterflies.”

  Tyler snorted and lifted himself up from the floor and away from me.

  I watched him go, licking my lips at the sight of his tight ass that I was hopelessly enamored with.

&nbs
p; He had tattoos on his back, too.

  There wasn’t an inch of skin on his back, either, that was free of ink.

  Tendrils, swirls and jagged lines extended past his waistline, into what would be his pants had he been wearing any.

  “Why is your ass just as tan as the rest of you?” I questioned. “Do you tan naked in your backyard or something?”

  He grinned.

  “Actually,” he said. “I do yoga in my backyard naked. Hence the security system. But…that’s my natural skin tone. It gets a little darker during the summer, and lightens up in the winter without sun exposure.”

  “You do yoga naked,” I repeated, dumbfounded.

  He grinned. “Yeah.”

  Then he disappeared into the hallway and I vowed right then and there that I would be coming to see this naked yoga, even if I had to trespass to do it.

  Chapter 10

  I’ve got 99 problems and being hungry late at night is about 55 of them.

  -Tyler to Reagan

  Tyler

  I watched her from across the crowded room.

  It was the day after I’d fucked her for the second time and I was beginning to think that I couldn’t do this much longer.

  I thought I could stay away.

  I thought that, if I just got her out of my system, that I could move on. That the obsession that I had with her would dissipate.

  I was wrong. I couldn’t move on and the obsession didn’t wane like I wanted it to.

  How did I come to this conclusion?

  Because at that moment, I was busy watching some man approach her from across the crowded bar and I wanted nothing more than to rush over there, pull her into my chest and yell for all to hear that she was mine.

  It was when the man’s face turned into a sneer that I got out of my seat on the other side of the bar, in my own little corner booth as far away from the jukebox and the crowd as I could get and made my way to Reagan’s side.

  I arrived on one side of her just as the man arrived at the other.

  He met my eyes over the top of Reagan’s head and it wasn’t a friendly look.

  He looked angry that I was touching her and that Reagan returned the gesture by leaning into me.

  He couldn’t see her silent accusation and snarl.

  Ok, so I might have kicked her out earlier and told her not to come back. I also might have threatened to pull her garden out by the roots and take her dog to the pound if she came back while I was there.