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Okay, I could behave—and scoot. Kind of. I wasn’t going to sit or do anything like that when I was so comfortable. It was called survival skills.

Or something.

“Woof!”

What? He’d already gotten on the bed—hogging more than half of it, mind you, with his back against the wall—and I didn’t have belly rubs yet.

Something wasn’t adding up.

“What do you want, pup?”

Fine. I’d do it all myself.

If I sighed forlornly as I moved to sit on my haunches? We wouldn’t talk about it.

Moving so that I was straddling his thigh was easy enough. Grabbing his hand while keeping eye contact and my own hands curled into fists—because puppies didn’t have opposable thumbs, obviously—was just as easy too. I was nothing if not a resourceful pup.

Then I moved his arm to my belly. He didn’t apply any resistance. His hand only shook the tiniest bit when it connected with my body.

“What are you—” Tony swallowed. “Do you want?—”

“Woof!”

I could be impatient.

My impatience must’ve sent the message across. Tony’s eyes widened before his muscles unclenched.

“You want belly rubs? Is that it?”

He must’ve seen me ask for plenty of those at the club. Well, I didn’t usually ask like this—I was supposed to be an alpha pup, dammit. But I had bad days, too. Bad judgement days required an extra dose of belly rubs to make up for the bad judgement.

It made sense in my head.

“Woof!”

Tony shook his head. I didn’t get the feeling that it was a bad thing, but it didn’t make a lot of sense, either. It was probably one of those gestures that made more sense to human!Jaime than pup!Jaime.

Yeah, that tracked. I’d think more about it later.

Right now, I was too focused on the way his hand splayed, fingers stretched, over my abdomen. He really had big hands, and I had a thing for those. My breath hitched, my chest heaving up and down as I watched him. He was barely moving, as if one wrong flick of a finger would break whatever this was between us.

I shifted closer, leaning forward. I wasn’t one for making out while I was in a puppy headspace, but I needed to feel more of him. His body acted like a magnet. I was bad at resisting those. I didn’t want to try. I just wanted to get lost in the moment, to get more of it. More touches. More heat. More need.

“Easy, pup,” Tony warned.

I didn’t think he was annoyed. He really was posturing too hard. Everything would be much easier if he let go. I couldn’t say that with words, but I preferred using my body anyway. I pushed forward until my packer hit the patch of skin where his T-shirt met those stupid joggers he had no business owning.

He moved his hand higher up. Not much. Maybe an inch or so. He applied more force, too. I shivered. I didn’t submit just because someone proved their strength, but it was a first step in getting me there.

I squirmed on his lap.

“You want to lose some clothes?”

I squirmed some more, catching my bottom lip between my teeth while I considered the question. Losing clothes was not required to hump someone. There was something more degrading about not losing them I usually chased when I was in a mood like today. But there was something vulnerable to losing clothes. There was a rawness to it, too, to having less layers to shield from the burn.

I bobbed my head rapidly before I remembered I was a puppy. The bark I let out was weak. Tony didn’t mention it. Ipushed his hand to the fly of my pants before he got the wrong idea about which clothes I wanted to lose.

Tony froze. I huffed. Someone smarter than me would’ve waited until their partner’s first time was out of the way before slipping into an impatient headspace. I was clearly not that someone. First times and hand-holding weren’t things I did. I went for experienced partners and Domms who knew what they wanted and how to get it out of me.