If You Were Mine (The Sullivans #5)(19)

The kid was yelling for them to get out of the way and Zach quickly scooped Cuddles up in one hand and slid his arm around Heather’s waist with the other. “Atlas, come!” he ordered as he rolled quickly to the side.

The edge of the skateboard clipped Zach’s calf hard enough to make him grunt in pain, but all that mattered was that he had Heather safe and sound beneath him, the puppy cradled in the crook of one arm, and Atlas beside his beautiful owner.

They were out of the path of danger now, and he should have let Heather go. But how could he when she was so soft, so warm...and was looking up at him with those big eyes that had turned his heart over in his chest from the first moment he’d seen them.

He’d wanted her from that first moment, but strangely, he wasn’t thinking about sex now. Not entirely, anyway.

“Did you really have to do that?” she asked in a voice that trembled slightly.

He brushed her hair away from her forehead, letting his hand linger in the soft strands that had come loose from her braid.

“Yes.”

He wanted to press his lips to her forehead, wanted to reassure himself that no harm had—or would—come to her.

He leaned closer and brushed his mouth to her skin before saying, “It would have really pissed me off if you’d been obliterated by a pimply fourteen-year-old and his skateboard.”

“I was all set to stay irritated with you,” she whispered, sounding aroused and breathless and anything but irritated. “Say something cocky, please.”

Strange, but for the first time that he could remember, he didn’t want to.

This was the perfect chance to take that kiss he knew she wanted to give him, more than just brushing lips against her cheek.

He’d just saved her and she was grateful—he could feel her heart beating against his as her breath came too quickly. Lord knew she’d been driving him crazy with her curves, her pretty smiles, her expressive eyes all morning long.

Damn it.

He couldn’t do it...all because he liked her.

Too much.

Zach rolled onto his back on the grass and stared up at the blue sky, biting back a string of curses at his stupidity in willingly giving up his chance to finally seduce Heather.

Once the puppy was set free again, Cuddles immediately scampered onto his chest and started licking first him, then Heather, long enough that the puppy got them both laughing as they tried to roll out of the way. And when Heather’s fingers accidentally slid against his, it was the most natural thing in the world to fit his against hers so that he could lift her hand to his lips and press a kiss to her palm.

His phone rang at the same moment hers did and he felt her fingers stiffen in his. And even though it turned out that lying there, fully clothed beside each other, was better than any time he’d ever spent naked with another woman, he made himself let go of her hand as she moved to get back on her feet.

Neither of them said a word as they checked their messages and then walked back to his house, and as she and Atlas got in her car and drove away, Cuddles whined in his arms as if her heart had just been split in two.

Chapter Eight

Heather didn’t believe in backing down from a challenge. It was how she’d been able to build Top Dog from a one-on-one training business into a full-service training center and doggy day care. She wasn’t afraid of standing up for herself or facing down difficult situations.

But she hadn’t gotten to where she was by being stupid, either.

And that was what spending any more time with Zach Sullivan would be. Stupid. To the nth degree.

It wasn’t even the two almost-kisses that worried her. Kissing, even sex, was something she knew how to compartmentalize. Just because she wasn’t looking for a happily-ever-after didn’t mean she was a nun.

But that moment when she and Zach been laughing together and his hand had found hers...she scrunched her eyes shut to try to shake away those feelings of warmth. Of contentment.

Of sweet connection.

Only, no matter how hard she’d tried since that morning to block Zach out—to pretend he hadn’t made her feel something deep and true, to try to ignore how he lit up every time about his family, and that he’d take a bullet for them—every time she thought about him she’d ended up right back in the same spot. Not just stuck in desire, but longing for something she’d didn’t even think she knew how to believe in.

The clock was ticking closer to 5 p.m. and Zach would be appearing with Cuddles any minute now. But she’d be busy meeting with her advisory board members to discuss the pros and cons of a possible expansion into wholesale dog treats. Luckily, everyone had been available when she’d called them a few hours earlier.

Heather was leading the last of her board members to the conference room when she felt the air in the building shift. She didn’t need to turn around to know that Zach was there. And not just because she could have sensed his presence in the middle of a hurricane. Not even because Atlas was vibrating with the need to greet his tiny little friend.

But because the combination of the beautiful man and Cuddles always elicited an overwhelming chorus of cooing and giggling.

She tried to get the conference room door closed, but before she could, Jerry Caldwell, a leading organic dog food manufacturer, spotted Zach and called out his name.

The man she was working so hard to avoid pinned her with an intense look that had her breath coming too fast before he walked over to shake Jerry’s hand.