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Shit.
If I'd been jealous of the gym, how would I feel about a dog that could take her attention away from me? Something that could cuddle up with her and steal the warmth that was mine. "Let's get her inside," I sighed, leaning down to pick up the dog but then stopping. The quiet warning growl didn't come as a surprise, given the state of the animal, but I didn't appreciate it in the slightest.
Sadie laughed, clearly not as bothered by the potential danger the dog might present to her as I was. "Yeah, he makes me want to growl too. Come on, Rebel. Let's go," Sadie called, patting her thigh with a hand as she walked around the corner and to the front door. The dog got to her feet slowly, following Sadie without hesitation. Like she'd follow her to the ends of the Earth and never question where she led.
I knew the feeling.
Dropping my head back to stare at the sky, I wondered once more just what I'd gotten myself into with Sadie Hicks.
I didn't have the slightest clue, aside from the fact that it would never be anything but interesting.
Then, like the damn dog, I followed Sadie inside the gym. Leaning against the wall, I watched her gather up towels and make a little bed behind the front desk. The dog settled in comfortably while Sadie moved around like a whirlwind, flying around the gym like a machine with single-minded focus. She grabbed water from one of the coolers and a bowl from the staff room, pouring it for the dog to drink.
"I left some grilled chicken in the fridge the day before yesterday because I was too anxious to eat. The container has a blue lid. Can you grab it?" Immediately I wanted to know what had made her anxious, but the pointed look on her face while she picked up her phone made me refrain from asking. There'd be other times to discuss the little hints of her problem with anxiety, the particular ways she did things in exact repetitions.
I did as she asked, finding the chicken and bringing it out. I opened the container, shredding the chicken breast by hand before placing it back in the container and putting it in front of the dog. “Wash your hands,” Sadie ordered, not missing a beat. Turning my attention to her, I found her on the phone, her voice quiet as she paced back and forth in front of the desk. As the dog dug in behind me and ate the chicken hastily, I leaned against the desk and cleaned my hands with a wet wipe off the counter while I studied her.
Five steps in each direction, and then she'd turn and go back the other way.
She did it five times, and then she'd pause. Her fingers tapped against her thigh five times, and she'd start all over again.
It struck me that it was the reason everything Sadie did seemed to have a particular rhythm. It was always to the count of five. I'd watched her brush her teeth methodically that morning, each side of her teeth getting five brushes before she moved to the next and then did it all over again. Most people would just brush the outside of their bottom teeth until they were finished with that spot, but Sadie had to do it five times.
That wasn't enough, so she went back and did it again.
She ended the call, shoving her phone into the pocket of her jacket and zipping it up. "Ivory's going to call Smaug's vet. She does dogs and other typical animals too, apparently, and she'll call me once the vet can make a house call to the Estate," Sadie explained.
Pinching the bridge of my nose between my thumbs, I sighed. "Why does Smaug have a vet?"
"Um he's alive? All animals need veterinary care, Lorenzo," she said teasingly but then flinched. Her tawny cheeks tinted with the blush of a rose, and she turned away to hide it. Seeing her come so undone, be so affected by me, I wanted to spend the rest of my life knowing I was the only man who got those genuine reactions from her. Before I'd made her say my name during sex, she'd thought nothing of trying to use my name as a weapon. Of taking the name no one else was allowed to say and tormenting me with it. Now she'd automatically remember how it felt to have me moving inside her. She'd associate my name with the feel of my cock striking against the deepest part of her and my skin smothering hers.
She'd remember her Lorenzo taking everything she had to give and making it his.
Sadie dropped to the floor next to the dog, as the dog finished eating. Shifting to rest her head on Sadie’s thigh, the dog—Rebel—stared up at her like she hung the moon in the starry night sky and led her home.
Sadie's fingers scratched behind Rebel's ears, studying the motion with a soft, unusually vulnerable smile on her face. "I always wanted a dog," she admitted quietly. My heart clenched watching the two of them together, of the instantaneous love and bond that formed between them.
I couldn't take that dog away from her, even if I was jealous of all the attention she gave it. Not with the way Sadie looked at her.
"So why didn't you get one?" I asked, sliding down the wall to sit opposite them and study Sadie's face. My boots brushed against hers, and, in a surprising turn, Sadie shifted to the side so she could rest her ankles on my shins. She didn't look at me as she did it, too absorbed in looking at the dog's admittedly sweet face.
"The apartment is too small. I'm never home enough. Among other things. I wasn't sure I'd be the right person for a dog, and I'd never be able to give one up once I took her home," she whispered. I didn't know much about Sadie's habits, aside from figuring out she counted to five with everything she did and that she liked ninety-degree angles.
But I suspected the cause went deeper than that, and wondered if the mess a dog tended to make would be problematic for her. "But now you have one."
Sadie turned a bright smile to me, her eyes bright even though moisture gathered in the bottom corners of them. "Yeah. Now I have Rebel," she said, massaging the dog'
s belly when she rolled to her back.
Rebel.
As if Sadie could name the dog anything else.
Time passed through the day, with Sadie's anxiety growing with every hour that went by without word from Ivory. Rebel slept the day away behind the desk, content in her makeshift bed and with the warmth that was probably so unfamiliar to her in the harsh February in Chicago. How she'd survived in the cold with her fur being as short as it was, I didn't know.
Even with Sadie busy with clients and paperwork and tours for new members, she was still preoccupied. She glanced at Rebel nervously any time she could, and I felt so bad for her being so seemingly conflicted that I took it upon myself to spend a few minutes at a time with the dog throughout the day. I grew on her, the growling never happening again, and eventually the little shit wormed her way under my skin, too.
I liked dogs.
