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W e run through recalls, tunnels, and cones, and today the dogs do everything we ask of them. Leo stops intermittently to check his training book and mutter to himself.
“What does The Plan say?” I joke. “Wouldn’t want to stray from The Plan .”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” He pretends to hide the book from me, so naturally I try to grab it.
Soon Tilly and Cholula join us, adding happy barks to the game. It’s not fair—all he has to do is hold the book over his head, and I can’t reach it. I also think he’s enjoying me trying to climb him a little too much, but that’s when I have an idea. I stop jumping and still, one of my hands lingering on his chest. My breath is like a cloud between us.
“You really won’t tell me?” I ask, batting my lashes. I fiddle coquettishly with one of the buttons on his coat.
It works. Leo’s jaw slackens, and his arms drop to his side. Before he has time to react, I snatch the book from his hand and run toward the barn with a triumphant hoot. “I win again!”
Leo tilts his head back and snorts before strolling after me at a leisurely pace. “Come on. Let’s focus.”
“Or what?” I stop. “You’ll make me run behind the car the whole way home?”
He smirks. “That would be cruel.”
“Hmm… tell Diane and Dawn on me?”
He steps into my space, prowling closer. “I’m not a child.”
“You’ll… throw me up against the wall and ravage me?” My words come out of left field, a scenario I may or may not have conjured in my dreams last night.
His eyes widen almost imperceptibly as he takes one final step my way. We’re only a foot apart. “That depends,” he says, his gaze not leaving mine.
My breath catches, and I make two attempts before I manage a sound. “On?”
“On what you want.” A devilish smile. “I think you know I’d be game. For any of the above.” He extends his hand, palm up. “May I have my book back, please?”
I hold it out, and he takes it, his fingers brushing mine. The last one , I want to say. I pick the last one!
He uses the book to point to the barn doors. “But while you’re thinking that over, we need to get a bit crafty. Make some jumps. There should be things we can use in there. Want to take a look?”
No, I don’t want to take a look. I want him to touch me, for his hands to push under my shirt, his fingers making my nipples even harder than they already are. I want to grind into him, and have him strip me down, and—
“You’ve seen this contest before,” Leo says. “What kinds of obstacles do they have?”
I also want him to never have opened his stupid store here, and I definitely don’t want him to win the show.
Damn it.
I clench my legs together and steel myself. I can do this. “Other than the tunnel and the cones, nothing too complicated. There’s a low jump and a seesaw. A small one.”
“Easy to make.”
“And the dogs usually start out sitting on a raised block.”
“Like a table.”
“Yeah. But most of the dogs are pets, not show dogs or agility pros, so as long as they don’t completely botch the course, it’s fine.”
“That’s good for us.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m setting my standards a bit higher than ‘won’t botch the course.’”
“Obviously.”
He cocks his head sideways and studies me. “You’ve changed,” he says. “You’re different than when we started out. Hungrier. Good for you.”
I blush at his words, even as I acknowledge that he’s right. And he doesn’t even know the extent of my starvation.
“But so we’re clear,” he continues, “just because I want to kiss you, doesn’t mean I’ll go easy on you in the show.”
My stride falters. He says it so easily. Maybe it’s payback for how I duped him into dropping his guard with the book earlier. Well, I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how his words affect me. “Cholula, here,” I call. The tiny dog turns on a dime and comes hauling back to us. “Good girl,” I praise, crouching low, before I turn to Leo again. “Oh yeah, golden boy? I think we both know Cholula and I will smoke you.”
He looks down at me, and I know desire when I see it. His voice is heady when he counters. “I guess we’ll see.”
Leo invites me to come train with him for a second day in a row, but I’m forced to turn him down. Not because I don’t want to, but I’m behind on accounting and I’ve promised Micki a half day at the mall to get Christmas shopping out of the way. She’s been deep in her books since Halloween cramming for finals, and I know she needs a break.
As nice as it is to have a girls’ day out, there’s a constant thrumming inside me that increases in intensity every time I think of Leo. Something is building between us and I’m past the point of trying to stop it.
After we get back, I keep an eye on his apartment from my kitchen table while I’m wrapping a book and a sweater for Harvey and a pair of earrings Micki picked out for herself, insisting that come Christmas she’ll have forgotten all about them. The dogs are resting at my feet but look up every time I move as if they’re worried I’m going to leave again. They probably miss Harvey as much as he misses them.
Finally, just after seven, the light inside Leo’s place turns on, and I spot him moving into the kitchen. I wrestle with several pieces of tape that are stuck to my fingers to get them off, and then I reach for my laptop.
Living History Illinois Flockify DM, Sunday 07:12 PM
SingerQueen: What do ghosts want for Christmas?
AlCaponesGhost25: Is that a riddle? Boo-ts? Boo-ze? A boo-merang?
SingerQueen: No, I meant you.
AlCaponesGhost25: Or if it’s a pervy ghost, boo-bs and boo-ty…
SingerQueen: Lol stop. It was purely a wish list question.
AlCaponesGhost25: Because you thought of me today?
He caught me there.
SingerQueen: Yes.
AlCaponesGhost25: Interesting. What exactly were you thinking?
What wasn’t I thinking? After his teasing yesterday, my mind’s been stuck on a loop playing a scenario where nabbing his notebook ended very differently. His lips on mine, naked skin, his hands in… places. My cheeks flush hot.
SingerQueen: I can’t tell you that.
AlCaponesGhost25: Sure you can.
My eyes flick up above the screen, and there he is, watching me through his window. Even across the distance, his gaze burns hot, igniting my blood.
SingerQueen: I think you are a pervy ghost.
AlCaponesGhost25: Never said I wasn’t. Tell me something real.
SingerQueen: Real?
AlCaponesGhost25: Pretend we’re still anonymous. What are you thinking now?
I let out all the air from my lungs. Close my eyes.
SingerQueen: I’m thinking of a man who once took off his shirt in the middle of a cornfield at night.
AlCaponesGhost25: I didn’t realize I’d made an impression.
SingerQueen: Come on. False modesty doesn’t become you. You know you’re hot.
Through the window I see his lips stretch into a smile. Then he looks at me again.
AlCaponesGhost25: All you have to do is say the word. If it was up to me, you’d be a lot closer than you are right now.
SingerQueen: Wouldn’t that ruin our budding friendship?
AlCaponesGhost25: Is that truly all you’d call it?
SingerQueen: Really truly? No.