Chapter One #2
I felt a jolt of lust shoot through my cock at the deep sound, and it took me a few seconds to gather my thoughts. “Life is full of contradictions.”
He stood up from his crouch, and the full height of him registered all over again. My head tilted back to maintain eye contact, and those blue eyes looked down at me.
“I’ll take her, princess,” Crowbar said.
“Amazing. Wonderful. Let me just—” I reached into the pen to pick up the puppy, who had decided that this exact moment was the perfect time to demonstrate her speed. She bolted to the far corner, snatched the remnants of a chew toy, and rolled over to wrestle it.
The guy gave a single, low whistle. She dropped the toy then tilted her head before running to him, only stumbling twice.
Crowbar scooped her up with one hand, cradling her against the crook of his arm like he’d done it a thousand times. She fit there perfectly, all oversized paws and floppy ears, and immediately started gnawing on one of his rings. He let her.
“She needs supplies.” I focused on the way his thumb was rubbing small circles behind the puppy’s ear. “The stuff you buy dogs.”
“Right.” He smirked. “Stuff.”
“Maybe puppy pads. Trust the process.” I had no idea what the process was. “Follow me. Again.”
Back through the frosted partition and into the main store, where the fluorescent lights buzzed their constant, soul-draining song.
A woman with a cart full of birdseed gave Crowbar a wide-eyed look as we passed, her gaze catching on the leather cut and the tattoos before darting away.
He didn’t notice, or didn’t care. I had no idea why she’d done that.
The puppy supply aisle was mercifully well-labeled. Deb had organized it by animal size, with little paw-print stickers denoting small, medium, and large. Bless that woman and her color-coded system.
“Large breed formula.” I pulled a bag of kibble off the shelf, and my arms immediately regretted the decision. Twenty pounds of premium puppy food sagged in my grip, legs bent and trembling slightly. “This one’s good. I think. The bag has a German shepherd on it, so that feels like a sign.”
“Sold on the marketing, huh?” Crowbar grinned, his blue eyes sparkling with amusement.
“Packaging is everything. Never trust a product with ugly fonts.” I tried to heave the bag into an empty cart abandoned in the aisle but missed, sending the cart crashing into the shelf.
“Damn it,” I muttered.
Crowbar gripped the edge, and lifted the bag one-handed, setting it inside the cart without a word. “Bowls,” I blurted out. “You want stainless steel or ceramic?”
“Which is better?”
“Stainless. Easier to clean, harder to break. Ceramic is prettier but she’ll crack it inside a week.”
Where was this knowledge coming from? Somewhere deep in the recesses of a brain that had apparently absorbed more from Deb’s tour than I’d realized.
Or maybe I was making it up. Confidence, Spencer. Ninety percent performance.
He reached past me for the stainless set on the top shelf, the one I’d been eyeing but couldn’t reach without climbing the display like a monkey. His arm brushed mine on the way up. Motor oil and sandalwood again. Nice. The leather of his cut creaked softly with the movement. I liked the sound.
“Thanks,” I said to the shelf, because looking at him from this distance was a health hazard. Crowbar had a presence that trapped you in its hold. Or maybe it was just me.
“Hmm hmm.” The toothpick bobbed.
Down the aisle we went, an odd little parade. Me pushing the cart with one squeaky wheel. Him carrying the puppy, who had graduated from chewing his ring to chewing his beard.
“Crate.” I stopped in front of the display. “You want wire or plastic?”
“Wire. She needs to see out.”
“Smart. Anxious dogs do better when they can see their surroundings.” I had no idea if that was true for animals. It was true for me. Not that I slept in a crate or anything. “This one’s forty-two inches. Will that be big enough?”
He looked at the crate, then at the puppy, then back at the crate. “She’s gonna be bigger than that.”
“They make a forty-eight.” I pointed to the top shelf. Because everything he needed was on the top shelf, and everything I needed was a stepladder.
Without a word, he shifted the puppy to one arm and pulled the crate box down with the other. It landed in the cart with a clang that made two customers in the next aisle peer around the endcap. He didn’t acknowledge them. Just settled the puppy back under his arm and looked at me expectantly.
I glanced around, trying to think of what else she might need.
“Collar and leash.” My voice came out slightly breathless, which I blamed on the physical labor and not on the way his forearm flexed when he repositioned the dog.
“They’re adjustable, so it’ll grow with her. You’ll need to size up in a few months. German shepherds grow fast. Like, concerningly fast. You’ll blink and she’ll be the size of a small horse.”
“Good.”
“Good? Most people are alarmed by that information.”
“I’m not most people, princess.” He shifted the puppy higher on his arm, and she burrowed deeper into the crook of his elbow without waking. Something about the protective way he held her without being possessive made me smile.
“Um, what color?” I cleared my throat.
“Don’t care.”
“Everyone cares about color. It’s a personality statement.” I held up two options. “Red says confident and bold. Black says mysterious and probably listens to metal.”
Those storm-cloud eyes moved from the collars to my face. “Which one would you pick?” Crowbar asked, like he genuinely wanted my opinion.
“For the dog?”
“For the dog.”
“Black?” I set the red one back on the hook. “Matches her coat better. And it’s a good color if she decides to play in a band.”
He smirked, looking at me for a beat too long before nodding. “Black it is.”
Into the cart it went, along with a matching leash, a pack of puppy pads, and three chew toys I’d grabbed based on nothing but gut instinct and the fact that I found them amusing. A rubber mailman. A squeaky steak. A rope bone that was already unraveling at one end.
“Oh, and treats!” I doubled back, pulling a bag of training treats off an endcap display. “Positive reinforcement. You reward the behavior you want, ignore the behavior you don’t. Works on dogs, people, and pretty much everything except the IRS.”
We moved down the aisle, the squeaky wheel announcing our location to the entire store. General Patton squawked unintelligibly as we passed, and Crowbar glanced at the bird with an expression I couldn’t decode.
“He’s rude,” I explained. “Don’t take it personally. He called me an asshole twice this morning and I hadn’t even done anything yet.”
“Yet.”
“Implying I would’ve eventually done something to deserve it?”
Those blue eyes cut sideways to me. “Implying it was early.”
A laugh escaped me. “Okay. I’ll give you that one. I’m not a morning person. The bird sensed weakness.”
The puppy had fallen asleep, her oversized paws twitching against his arm. A faint snore buzzed from her muzzle. Huh. I’d been right. Dogs do snore. Go me.
“Call her Snorer,” I said, pointing at the sleeping puppy. “Or Chainsaw.”
“Her name’s Gunner,” he said.
“Gunner.” I looked at the sleeping ball of fluff currently drooling on his leather cut. “You’re naming a ten-week-old puppy who weighs maybe eight pounds Gunner.”
“She’ll grow into it.”
“She’s snoring on your bicep like a tiny drunk person. She’s not growing into Gunner. She’s growing into Biscuit, maybe. Or Noodles.”
The toothpick shifted. “Gunner.”
“Your funeral when she doesn’t come when you call because even she knows that name doesn’t match the vibe.”
He looked down at the puppy then back at me, and something in his expression dared me to keep going. I kept going. It was a character flaw.