“What is going on here?” I asked, genuinely bewildered.
“What is going on is that you’re clearly trying to get to me through my puppy.” The corner of his mouth turned up, and his tone was charming, sexy. He didn’t sound angry with me. He sounded like he wanted to coax me out of my clothes.
He also sounded amused, but I was anything but. “I didn’t even know you had a puppy! Besides, what are you doing in this building?”
I know. A little slow on the uptake, but he’d caught me and my vagina completely off guard. A girl’s bits need a little warning when a hot man is entering the area.
“I live here. Or did you forget spending the night in my apartment? You know, the night you stole my wallet and championship ring.”
That irritated me. One, that he was bringing it up again. Two, that he was now calling it a championship ring, which did in fact seem more important than a class ring. In either case, I wanted to track down that missing ring and shove it up his ass. “I thought this was your friend’s apartment,” I said. “You live in Miami, or did you forget?”
He grinned. “Fair enough. But that still doesn’t explain why you’re here to walk my dog.”
The dog, who was adorable in every sense of the word, licked his arm. He lifted her to his face and gave the top of her head a kiss, which melted my heart.
Hold up.
“Wait a minute. You named your dog Mia?” I asked, heart no longer melting. “That’s seriously creepy, James. JJ. Whoever you are.”
“You’re the one stalking me. Who is creepy here?”
“I’m not stalking you! I just told you I didn’t know you had a puppy or that you actually lived here. Besides, how would I manipulate the app to be the walker?” I was so outraged it took me until the end of my speech to realize he had been baiting me. He had a smirk on his face.
“The puppy is a devious little redhead with a hoarding problem. The name seemed appropriate.”
Oh, no, he didn’t. “I am not devious.” I wasn’t going to deny the hoarding. Preparation is everything in life. “You need to change her name.”
James laughed. “You can’t tell me what to name my dog.” He lifted her to his face again and spoke directly to the puppy. “What do you think, sweetie? Do you want to go on a walk? The two Mias having some girl time?”
The puppy licked his face. He kissed her head again and shifted her against his chest. “She’s down for it.”
I was amused, in spite of myself. “When did you get a puppy?”
“A week ago. We’ve been bonding before I have to start training harder for the season. But now she needs to get comfortable with other people, being on a leash, and staying at home by herself. That’s why I joined the app.”
A thought occurred to me. “Who is Essie, the elderly woman who allegedly owns this dog?”
“Essie is my grandmother. Did you see the picture I used?”
“I did.” Essie was a cute woman with a stylish pixie haircut.
“Pretty adorable, isn’t she? I have to use an alias on the app so I don’t have stalkers.” He eyed me. “You’d be surprised how many women want to either steal from me or marry me. I’ve walked into my room and found naked women in my bed before.”
That made me irrationally irritated. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be a dig at me directly or not. I was not some player chaser, trying to score with a football star. I also knew he was telling the truth that women were into him. I’d seen the parade of women prepared to faint at the first sight of him at Starbucks.
“It must be very hard to be you,” I said, dryly.
James grinned. “See, now you understand why I didn’t say I was a pro player. By the way, I want to point out you knew my real name. I didn’t lie about that.”
He hadn’t. It still didn’t make it right that he’d misled me. I ignored all of that. “Your dog is very cute.” She looked so tiny in his enormous grip. “How old is she?”
“Ten weeks.”
I was itching to get my hands on all that puppy adorableness, but I wanted to make sure everything was cool between me and James. I really didn’t have the time or energy for animosity. I didn’t even want to be taking walk jobs, but I was a day late on my rent and still nearly fifty bucks short of what I needed. I was going to have to ask Chrissy if she could cover it for me, which I absolutely hated to do. She was as strapped as me.
“Are you okay with me walking her? I don’t want you to be worried that I’ll steal her,” I said. I wasn’t really joking. We weren’t talking about a wallet here. This was a living creature, who was vulnerable and trusting. If he had any reservations, I’d cancel the job and the app would send someone else. I’d worry about the money later.
Maybe that hadn’t actually occurred to him. He clutched the puppy closer to his chest and turned slightly away from me like I was going to snatch her and run. “Don’t take this personally but I’m not letting anyone take her solo. Not you, or anyone else. She’s just a baby. I mean, maybe my parents, but not for a few more weeks yet.”
There was no way to see a grown man protectively holding his puppy and referring to her as a baby and remain unaffected. He was downright adorable and I was actually jealous of Mia, my puppy counterpart. I wanted James to cuddle me and call me “baby.”
“Why am I here, then, if I’m not supposed to walk her?” And why was I glad he hadn’t sent me packing?
“We’re going to walk her together. She needs to slowly be introduced to new people and to get familiar with being on the leash. I can’t take her to work with me, obviously, but I want her to be able to travel with me, hang out with other people, and not be neurotic.”
“We’re walking the dog together?” I wouldn’t want to do that with any other client. I preferred to be the anonymous dog walker. But with James, it sounded appealing, and that was a problem.
“Yes. Are you cool with that?”
More cool with it than I had any right to be. “She probably only needs ten minutes. After that, her puppy attention span will be shot.”
“That sounds perfect.” He handed me the puppy. “Here you go. Show me how it’s done.”
I ran my fingers through the dog’s soft fur and snuggled her against my chest, bending down to kiss her little head. “Hey, I don’t think I ever properly said thank you for helping me when I fainted.” It had been nice to have him taking charge, helping me. “I was seriously out of it. I appreciate your quick reaction and the use of your bed.”
“You’re welcome. And you can have the use of my bed anytime you want.”
Wouldn’t that be a perfect world? I tried not to think about how it had felt to be wrapped in his arms in the warmth of his bed, his hard, muscular body pressed against me.
I held my hand out, ignoring his comment. “Leash, please. You should probably start with not carrying her around all the time. She won’t want to walk if you carry her.”
“But she’s so little,” he said. “With very short legs.” He handed me the leash.
“Have you ever had a dog before?”
“When I was a kid. We lived in a small town and my dad was a plumber. He took our Lab to work with him every day. But big dogs need a yard, land to roam.”