Savage King

Chapter 1

LEAH

“Benjamin Maximus Jellybean James, stop pulling me right now, or I’m going to tell your mom! I’m not kidding!”

I know it’s a ridiculous thing to say to a dog, but I've seen him quelled when my best friend used his full name. But today, there was no stopping the enormous Great Dane, whose head comes up to my chest. I hang onto the leash and dig my heels in, but he’s too strong, and I end up skipping after him, trying not to fall flat on my face.

Benji finally stops dragging me when he reaches his destination—a bush where he found half a slice of pizza months ago. This dog's eternal hope that the magic pizza bush is going to present him with another piece is on another level.

“Geez, what is up with you today? Are you upset because your mom left with her suitcase? That's probably it.”

The big, black Great Dane might look scary, but he's an enormous baby who falls apart when his mom takes out her suitcase and leaves.

“I promise she'll be home really soon. She wouldn't leave you, buddy. I promise.”

It occurs to me how ironic it is that I tell my daughter the same thing when she's clinging to me and doesn't want to let me go. It's gotten better as she's gotten older, but like this dog, she doesn't always believe me.

I manage to drag Benji away from the magic pizza bush, and we cross the street to the coffee cart that had been my goal all along. I suppose I shouldn't be mad at Benji—he had his goal, and I had mine.

“Good morning.” I offer a smile to the young woman operating the espresso machine.

“Morning. What can I get you?” She smiles back, brushing away a stray wisp of hair that's escaped the blue handkerchief she's tied over her head.

“Iced Americano with the whipped coffee thing on the top. With the amaretto flavor?” I twist my finger around like that will somehow show the barista what I’m talking about.

She doesn't bat an eye at my awkward exchange. “Got it,” she says, tapping the order into the tablet. “Anything else?”

“That's it. Well—” I glance at Benji, who’s so large, he’s sniffing the counter and menu like he's trying to decide what to order. “I'll take one of those dog cupcakes, if you have one.”

“One doggy cupcake for the giant gentleman coming right up,” the barista replies, finishes tapping in the order, and turns the screen around so I can pay.

“Thanks,” I tell her, feeding Benji’s leash through a belt loop so I can get my wallet out.

“Where's your daughter today?” the barista asks as she turns to the shiny espresso machine and pours a measure of beans into the top. She flips the switch, and the grinder starts up noisily.

“At the zoo with a friend from school. She didn’t want me tagging along.”

“Ah.” The sound is knowing. “Getting to that age, is she?”

“Yeah.” My sigh sounds melancholy to my ears, and I give up wrestling with the zipper on my pouch and just pull the damn belt bag over my head. “I just thought it would take a lot longer. Maybe sixteen years instead of seven?”

The barista gives me a sympathetic smile as she pushes the portafilter back into the espresso machine and turns it on.

Sweet, sweet caffeine, a beautiful stream of burnt caramel colored coffee, streams into the small cup, the slightly acidic, slightly sweet aroma of a perfectly pulled double shot reaching my nose.

Benji’s enormous nose rises into the air, too, and starts to twitch.

“I—”

My words are ripped from my throat as I'm wrenched to the side, and everything is suddenly happening in slow motion: the barista snapping around at the sound, her eyes growing wide, her mouth rounding into an “o.” The sight of Benjamin’s gigantic form in motion toward another dog, just coming out of the expensive boutique hotel, one storefront over.

The sound of me yelling in my ears, along with the distinctive rip of my jeans, as Benji’s leash, with the help of physics, takes a huge chunk of my jeans and my dignity in one fell swoop.

“Fuck!”

The force of Benji’s movement and my jeans being ripped spins me around and deposits me gracelessly on the ground, pain exploding instantly in my knees.

The tears of embarrassment don't start until I realize I'm on my hands and knees, most of my leg and my underwear in view of everyone on the sidewalk, and I've let my best friend's dog get away from me.

“Shit!” I hiss under my breath, easing onto my backside to see the bloody scratches on my knees, regretting the ripped jeans I’d chosen that morning. “Ow, damn it.”

“Oh my God, are you okay?”

The barista is leaning over the counter of her coffee cart, staring down at me with eyes as wide as dinner plates. The expressions on the faces of those around me echo much the same.

“I believe this belongs to you?”

The words are drawled in a deep voice of smoke and silk, and a slight accent laced with a hint of amusement.

I look up into the bright bronze eyes, short-cropped ears, and panting smile of a bear of a Cane Corso.

And then I tilt my head back farther to find myself staring into eyes of blue steel that take my breath away.

For a heartbeat and then another, I forget all about my humiliation and the fact that I'm sitting on a Brooklyn sidewalk in broad daylight in my ruined pants for all to see.

All I can think about, all I can see, all I can concentrate on, are the blue of those eyes, sparking with humor but not cruelty.

The eyes crinkle further, the fine lines at their corners deepening with the amusement. “Dogs really are man’s best friend.”

It’s an odd statement said with an even odder gleam in his eyes and a quirk to his full lips, circled by a neat salt-and-pepper beard, but it sends a rush of heat from my toes straight up to the top of my head.

“Yes?” he asks before I can respond in any way, and I realize he's holding out Benji’s leash to me.

“Oh, I, uh, yes. I, uh—”

The world comes rushing back in, and I remember exactly what I'm doing. Or rather, exactly what I'm showing to everyone.

“Do you by any chance have an extra apron this woman can borrow?”

The man addresses the barista instead of me this time. She snaps out of her surprise and disappears from view before popping back with a black ball of cloth clutched in her hands. The man takes it with a nod of thanks.

“Do you think you can fashion something temporary out of this?” He asks, holding out the wadded-up fabric instead of Benjamin’s leash.

“I think so.”

I'm breathless from surprise and embarrassment, and the attention of the man in front of me.

When he extends his free hand to help me up, I take it and step closer to him than I usually would, and he doesn't back away.

He also averts his eyes as I shake out the apron and fold it in half before wrapping it around my waist and securing it with the ties like some off-kilter miniskirt.

It barely fits, but I'm grateful I don't have to walk down the sidewalk with my underwear flashing with every step.

“Thanks so much for the idea.” I look at the ground as I say it, because I'm so humiliated I can't look at those brilliant blue eyes again.

“It’s my fault,” he says, and his voice sends a shiver right through me. “I know the Great Dane and my Athos are friendly rivals. I should have been more careful when I saw you both out on the street.”

The words are sincere, but I still hear amusement in his voice. I still see it in his eyes, too, when I can't stand it anymore and look up—and up—into his face.

The man is tall and built like a mountain. His suit—ultra-expensive, probably bespoke—does nothing to hide his physique. I don't fail to notice the way he holds both enormous, powerful dogs in one hand.

“It's fine,” I say quickly, taking a step back away from him and then another for good measure, because I'm afraid of all the ways my body can betray me when I'm this close to him.

When I smell his cologne, it clouds my head so much, I can barely think.

I can almost forget about my utter humiliation.

“Thank you for your help,” I stutter, taking Benji’s leash from the man before I take another step back and turn desperately to the barista. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I promise I'll give you the apron back as soon as I get home and change. I'll leave the dog at home.”

“Don't worry about it.” The barista flaps her hand at me, then shoves the iced coffee I ordered at me. “Here. It's on the house. You deserve it.”

I thank her, grab Benji’s leash, and just walk away, not even sure which direction I'm going. I just want to get out of there and away from these people I hope I never see again.

I hear footsteps behind me. They're not hurried, but they don't fall back either. Halfway down the block, I turn to confront whoever is behind me, and nearly run into the man again.

“Why are you following me?”

“For one, I always take Athos in this direction to walk. But two, I would like to apologize by offering to buy you some new pants to replace the ones that ripped.”

He says it like it's the most natural thing in the world, like it isn't entirely odd for some random stranger to offer to replace the jeans my best friend's dog ripped.

Like it's the most natural thing in the world to stand chin to chest with this man who makes my heart stop and butterflies flutter in my stomach.

I should say no, but what comes out of my mouth instead is, “Yeah, okay. Sure.”

Which is how I end up staring at myself in the mirror in the dressing room of an expensive boutique a few blocks down from the incident.

I turn around to see that my improvised skirt nearly shows my underwear and has the “Bean There, Done That,” logo emblazoned across my ass, like some trashy advertisement for services.

I rip off the apron, discarding what’s left of my jeans, and quickly pull on the first pair of jeans—I can't pull them up over my hips.

The second pair is too large and gaps at the back.

But the third fits like a miracle, tight where it needs to be, smooth where it needs to be.

I have a good pair of jeans at home, but I had no idea they made jeans like this.

I gasp at the price when I see it, but I'm already reasoning away buying a second pair at some point in the near future.

The man is facing away from me when I come out of the dressing room. I'm surprised he's still here. I expected him to do something, like leave money to pay for it, before he slipped away, having done his duty and made up for what he imagined he had caused.

I take the moment to really study him, to see him beyond his physique, as difficult as that is. But it's not the only impressive thing about him, neither is the suit.

Something about him draws the eye of every woman in the place, a commanding presence that tells even someone blind to subtext like me that this is the guy. For what, I don't know, but it draws me to him as much as it makes me want to run.

His hair is thick and tousled, peppered with black and silver like a wolf's pelt, same with his beard, just somewhere between neat and rugged.

I can't tell how old he is, just that he’s older than me, probably by a decade or two, probably prematurely gray, but it works for him.

Jesus, does it work for him. So does the hint of lines at the corners of his eyes, the hollows under his cheeks and above his strong jawline, and the way the lines gather on either side of his mouth as he smiles, like he is now.

At me.

I’m almost too busy drooling over him to notice he’s turned to me, and I shut my mouth with a snap.

His smile is slow, subtle, and appreciative. Another flush of heat runs from my toes to my head, and I brush at my cheeks to try to wipe away the blush I feel gathering there.

“Dogs certainly are man’s best friend.”

“Okay, well,” I say hurriedly, shutting down what I hear in his voice and the spark I see in his eyes, even though a part of me doesn’t want to. “I'm going to take these. But you really don't have to pay for them. I'm fine paying for them by myself. Really. It wasn't your fault at all.”

“I told you I would pay for them, and I will.”

There's a hint of steel in his voice that I don't dare contradict. Instead, I hang back as he pays for the jeans with a black credit card. And then I follow him out, ignoring the stares from the sales associate and the other shoppers, who are no doubt wondering about our relationship.

I unhook Benji's leash from the stand there for just that reason, and take a deep breath to thank the man one more time before bolting out of there, when a hand falls on my shoulder: warm, insistent, large.

“Let me take you out for coffee,” he says, and it's impossible to say no, because I don't want to.

In an hour, this man has managed to turn me into a pile of barely sentient goo.

I know what my best friend would say if she were here: She would warn me against this ultra-smooth and seemingly ultra-rich guy.

But for some reason, I just cannot bring myself to care.

Somehow, all my common sense has gone out the window, and my libido has entirely taken its place.