Chapter 6
CHAPTER
SIX
Sia
I jogged with Polly nearly a week after arriving at the Petrovs’, working on keeping her at my side. She was doing very well with that and had stopped tugging almost entirely. It got to the point where she might not even need a lead soon on the property.
I was happy that she was socialized enough where every person on the property didn’t take her interest. Many dogs with little interaction tended to have squirrel energy: they barked at basically everything and chased just as much.
Polly was pretty good about not doing either, which was good. She was a huge dog, and I had almost lost her lead a couple times when we first started.
These were things we were working on, as well as her house training. She had an accident overnight, which wasn’t good since she was a year old.
It just meant she hadn’t been trained and, though I didn’t know who came before me, I did know that her excitement for me and the few issues she did have could be directly linked to her owner.
Her dad.
Lettie may have gotten this dog for her father, but he’d also accepted Polly, and that came with some responsibility. Polly was a dog and couldn’t take care of herself. Shit like that annoyed me, and I planned to tell Mr. Petrov about that today. I believed that I’d done a good job telling him what I needed from him the week prior and hadn’t backed down.
Even though he was scary as fuck.
I was bracing myself for another interaction, but I hadn’t expected it to be when I came across the pool with Polly. He was in there swimming laps.
And he was naked.
His tatted back streamlined through clear water, each powerful stroke roving the thick muscles in his chiseled arms and legs. The man had tattoos everywhere.
Even on his ass.
I saw that well. It was firm, toned. I tried to glance away, but Mr. Petrov stroked up to the side of the pool quickly.
“Good morning, Miss Reynolds,” he quipped, catching me. He lifted out of the pool, and the gasp hit my throat.
I turned around right away. Because like, what the fuck? I glanced over my shoulder to find him grabbing a towel from a stack near some lounge chairs.
“Miss Reynolds?”
He repeated my name and something of an annoyance now laced his deep tone. It made me look up and, though I was completely aware he was naked, I didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking at anything but his face. He had dark stubble on his cut jawline, those eyes of his steely gray. He was a beautiful man from his dark eyelashes to his full lips.
Too bad he was a dick.
My face hot, I didn’t let my eyes move away from his. Even when he approached.
“Have you never seen a cock before, Miss Reynolds?” he asked, casually toweling himself off. He dried his forearms. “Miss Reynolds, I’m speaking to you.”
He was speaking to me like I was an idiot or a child. My nails bit into Polly’s lead. “I’ve seen a cock. It’s just rude you’re showing yours.”
Not to mention inappropriate. I mean, I worked for him.
He was making me uncomfortable standing there so confident in front of me, cocky. He still hadn’t covered himself and, by the time he had, my face was still on fire.
“Is that how you really feel?” he questioned, cinching the towel tight at his waist. He had tats on his defined hip bones as well. “That I’m being rude to you. That I am rude?”
This felt like a test, and, though I wasn’t sure I could take it, I had a hard time keeping quiet when it came to guys being assholes. They thought they could just do whatever they wanted when it came to girls and women in general. I stood tall. “Yes, that’s how I feel.”
He got closer, smelling like heat and aftershave. He had a different smell than most guys I’d been around. Mostly because he was older.
“Good girl,” he said, and for some reason, my skin buzzed, my face. His smile hiked right. “You should always say how you feel.”
I should?
I wished he’d step back and put…distance between us. I didn’t like him being this close, and that had nothing to do with the fact that he was only wearing a towel.
Though it should.
Thankfully, Polly saved me. She pushed between us, and Mr. Petrov gave me a wide berth. He backed up immediately, and his sight averted to the glistening pool.
His expression cooled. “But this is my house and I do whatever the fuck I want in it,” he said, and my eyes widened. He smiled. “So as long as we have that understanding?”
Christ.
“Anyway, if you don’t want to see my cock I suggest refraining from being around the pool area between the hours of whenever I want to fucking swim.” He took a glass bottle of water out of the cooler beneath the stacked towels, his eyes dancing. My heart slammed against my chest, and my tongue definitely itched for a retort. I hated cocky men.
I forced myself to nod. “Are you ready to train then?”
“Train?”
“For Polly.” I brought her close. “I need to show you what to do in regards to interacting with her. I mentioned we’d need to train.”
This looked like the last thing he wanted to do. He had a newspaper by the pool, and he drank his water while studying it. “Unfortunately, mornings don’t work for me.”
I had a feeling no time worked for him. I kept my growl low. “This afternoon then.”
“Not good either.” He tucked the newspaper under his arm, and I sighed.
“Well, when then? She should be on your schedule.”
His grimace was full on both me and the dog. Like he held disdain for us both, which made zero sense since I was supposed to be here for him. It was my job to work around him and help him.
An attendant came through, one of many he had walking around this place. This one in particular gave him a bathrobe like a king, and I fought my eyes from lifting.
“Be downstairs in a half hour,” he said, shrugging the robe on. He tied it. “I’ll have someone get the car ready.”
He toed on some thong sandals before starting to walk off, but I followed him. “The car?”
He maneuvered around. “You wanted to train, right?” Annoyance laced his deep tone, the same in his eyes. He frowned. “I have to work. You want to train. We do it on the fly.”
He snapped his fingers at the attendant, gaining his attention and telling the man to get his car ready. He left me standing there after that, dismissing me, and I did growl.
It wasn’t like I could do much else.