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“Ignore her, sweetheart,” Finn reassured his new charge. “She’s just jealous.”
Annie came to join me. “Good grief, what have you done?” she asked Finn.
“Oh Christ I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have -” he began, but Annie shook her head.
“No no, don’t apologise! I just mean, you must be some kind of miracle worker; he’s been with us for a month now – some bastard had dumped him in a builder’s skip – and I’ve never been able to entice the poor little scrap out of his kennel. I’ve even had to feed him in there and you’ve sat there for five minutes and turned him into a lap dog.”
A sleek black Labrador eyed me with laid-back curiosity from the next pen and I turned my gaze back to the pile of patchy fur and mismatched limbs that was now nestled into Finn and gave a resigned sigh. “Oh God. We’re about to adopt the Ugliest Dog in the Universe, aren’t we?”
“Sceolan. He’s called Sceolan. And he’s not ugly in the slightest; he’s a handsome, noble hound, aren’t you, little love?” Finn kissed the creature on its nose, and with that I guessed the adoption had already occured.
*****
Once Annie had filled out the paperwork for the newly-Christened Sceolan, she took Finn to one side. “Look, this is probably really cheeky of me, and feel free to say ‘no’, but I don’t suppose you fancy a job, do you? It would only be for a couple of days a week and I couldn’t pay you that much, but our kennel maid’s just left to start university. I was going to put a notice up in town tomorrow, but seeing you with our new arrival here, I reckoned it had to be worth an ask.”
Finn glanced over at me. “Lili? What do you think?”
I raised my hands and stepped back, determined to give him the choice. “Hey, this has got nothing to do with me. It’s your job offer.” I watched as hesitation and doubt returned to cloud his face and my brief attempt at neutrality evaporated. “But if you’re asking me, I think you’d be a blithering idiot to turn the chance down.”
He paused to consider for a moment then turned to Annie. “Could he come to work with me?” he asked, nodding at the little rat-dog that was now sound asleep in his arms.
Annie grinned. “Of course. It’s always good to keep in touch with our graduates. See you Monday morning, about eight?”
“Hell yeah, sure,” Finn said, wide-eyed and more than a little shell-shocked at his sudden good fortune. “And thank you. Um, see you Monday then.”
*****
Finn hugged Sceolan to his chest for the entire drive home. He fell asleep about fifteen minutes from Santa Marita and I knew the swimming would have tiredhim, his body reacting to the unaccustomed exercise. But I also knew that it would be a world away from his usual levels exhaustion that came from illness or stress, or the years without being able to sleep through the night.
We pulled up outside the apartment and I debated whether I should wake him when he looked so peaceful. Even the creature that was allegedly a dog was still dozing in his arms. With Finn’s face free of the lines of tension and fatigue that his recent ordeal had etched, he looked years younger, and even more adorable than usual; I decided I was content to sit for a while and take in the view.
“Letch,” Finn said his eyes still shut.
“Er, I prefer ‘connoisseur, thank you very much’,” I said. “It sounds far classier, and carries less risk of legal action. Perhaps you should get an early night. Take the opportunity to get a decent sleep?”
“Hm.” Finn opened one eye to look at me. “I was thinkin’ more of getting wee Sceolan here bedded in, then spending the rest of the evening with my head between your legs. Y’know, as a thank you for a pretty amazing day and all that. But hey, if you think I need my beauty sleep…” He closed his eye again and made as if to settle back into the passenger seat.
“Finn?”
“Yes, Lilith?”
“Why the hell are we still sitting in this car?”
Finn flashed me that glorious, unfettered smile, the one guaranteed to make my stomach flip every time he’d ever used it on me, then stuck the very tip of his tongue out between his teeth. “Dunno. You tell me. But to be truthful I’d much rather be getting in a bit of diving practice.”
*****
To my relief, Sceolan appeared to be a dog who knew when he was onto a good thing. Within half an hour he’d had a sniff around the courtyard to pee on anything that smelled sufficiently interesting, demolished two entire tins of dog food, then curled up in his newly-purchased dog bed in Finn’s bedroom and fallen asleep again. I felt myself growing better-disposed to the creature by the second, as Finn led me upstairs to prove that he was a man of his word.
Chapter Ten
Lilith
“Okay. Rules. There’s only one. I need you to keep your hands on the headboard, right? No touching. Let’s see how long you can last.” Finn knelt between my legs and pulled his t-shirt – the last item of his clothing to be removed – over his head.
“Well there’s a challenge,” I said, and actually did as I was told for once.
“Good girl,” Finn teased, clearly feeling brave, then proceeded to use his adroit tongue to explore every inch of me from my forehead to my toes, before spending an eternity alternating between a divine combination of sucking and licking my clit until I was squirming and gasping with desire.
