Page 13 of Coach (Shady Valley Henchmen #8)

Este

“Oh, boy,” I said when I heard a drilling sound coming from the other side of the duplex. “I guess we have a new neighbor, huh, girl?”

Trix growled toward the shared wall, but it was a half-hearted sound.

She was still beat from a long game of fetch—her new favorite thing in the world we both discovered once the fence went up.

It has been great to start to curb the boredom and excess energy that led to a lot of her barking and reactivity.

“I’m kinda hoping it’s another woman,” I told my dog as I went to the kitchen to check for baking supplies. New neighbors meant I had to offer baked goods. I didn’t make the rules. “For your sake. And therefore mine.”

I’d just gathered all the dry ingredients on the counter when there was a knock at my front door.

Despite knowing I was safe, that there were no signs that I needed to have my guards all the way up, my whole body tensed, my blood froze, my heartbeat started to beat hard and deep.

I didn’t realize my hand had gone automatically for the knife in my drainboard until I felt its smooth handle in my palm.

There was another knock, and I heard Trix’s nails click as she made her way toward the front door.

She wasn’t barking.

So it was probably just the mail lady.

I hadn’t ordered anything, but maybe there was some sort of mail for the landlord she needed to drop off.

I slid my hand behind my back but kept the knife in my palm as I made my way toward the living room.

It wasn’t until I was almost at the door that I heard a voice call through it.

“You home, Este?”

Saul .

I tried not to notice the way my heartbeat thrummed, how my blood warmed, how desire pooled.

I slid the locks and pulled open the door.

“Hey, Saul,” I said, shooting him a smile.

“Fence looks great.”

“It killed me to go with black paint,” I admitted. “But it did kind of make the whole thing blend in.”

“You made up for it with the hammock.”

“I was so happy when I came across that one at the thrift store. It’s perfect. Well, aesthetically. It’s kind of uncomfortable.”

“Looks like it might be pulled too tight. If you loosen the links, it might be better. Hey, girl,” he called.

Following his gaze, I saw Trix trying to wedge herself between me and the doorway.

“Not a single bark. I’m impressed. Were you cooking, or expecting a serial killer in the middle of the day?” he asked.

My hand had fallen from behind my back, and the big chef’s knife was on full display.

“I never get drop-by visitors,” I told him, moving aside in silent invitation. “So, what brings you by?”

I was kind of hoping he might say to finish what we started the last time he was in my home.

But nothing about his body language said he was ready to ravage me.

“I actually wanted to see if you wanted to come on an adventure with me.”

“An adventure. That’s mysterious. Is it to a new home improvement store?”

“It’s to a dog shelter.”

“A dog shelter?”

“A buddy of mine has fallen on some hard times, and his dog ended up in a shelter. He’s fucking sick about it. I wanna go and adopt him, so he can have him back.”

“That’s really sweet.” I placed my knife down on the coffee table. “But why do you want me to come?”

“I’ve never adopted a dog before. Not sure how it’s gonna go. Wouldn’t mind an expert.”

“I mean, I’ve only done it once. But I’d be happy to come. Do you want to go now?”

“He’s chomping at the bit to get his dog back.”

“I bet. I can’t imagine. Let me just find my… there you are,” I said, finding my shoes and shoving my feet in. “How long do you think we’ll be gone? Trix is usually fine for seven-ish hours. Though on slow shifts, I do sometimes rush home just to let her pee.”

“The shelter is only about forty minutes away. So back and forth, plus however long it takes to adopt him.”

“Is he in a normal kind of shelter? Or one of the private rescues?”

“Normal shelter. Why?”

“Because it’s much easier to adopt from a shelter. They don’t usually insist on the home visits and such. Typically, if they’re okay with your form answers, and you have the money, they will let you take him home today.”

“That’s the plan. Any sneaky questions I should be aware of?”

“Well, I sort of lied to get Trix. I claimed I owned a home. Bad, I know. But I knew she’d have a better—and longer—life with me than in a tiny box with a clock counting down to her destruction because she was labeled aggressive.”

“Homeowner. Got it.”

“They ask for a vet’s name too. We can use Trix’s vet. That’s another thing Shady Valley really needs. Their own vet. It sucks having to go out of town.”

I grabbed one of Trix’s extra leashes. “Okay. I’m ready to go. You be a good girl, alright? I won’t be too long, I promise.”

We made our way to the front door. “She’s going to sleep the whole time. I never realized just how much dogs sleep until I got one.”

If Saul thought my three locks on the front door were weird, he said nothing, just waited patiently for me before leading me to the car.

“So, who are we? Am I your sister? You know, to tell the shelter employees.”

Saul’s gaze slid down me, making each inch of skin goosebump. “Sister?” he asked when his eyes were on mine again.

“Yeah, that probably wasn’t too convincing.”

“We have to be together,” he said. “If that’s not a problem,” he added, pulling open the door to his truck for me.

“Problem? No. Not at all.”

I prayed I didn’t sound as eager as I felt about the whole charade.

There were much worse ways to spend an afternoon than pretending to be in a loving relationship while saving a beloved dog from a sad fate.

Saul offered me a hand when I reached to pull myself up into his mammoth truck.

There wasn’t a sizzle when our hands touched.

Nope.

That would be absurd.

The inside of the cab was tidy but had little clues to Saul’s personality all around.

There were two small books shoved into the door pocket: the Tao Te Ching and a book of nature poetry. His extra cupholder currently housed several random screws, bolts, and washers. And despite what was clearly a thorough vacuuming, a few tiny shards of sawdust clung to the fabric of the carpet.

As he slammed my door, though, I was overwhelmed with the scent of him all around. I took several deep, greedy breaths before he climbed in and turned the truck over.

“So, what else are we lying about?” I asked.

“Well, I can do all the lying if you’re worried about it.”

“I’m not.”

I’d lied a lot to get Trix.

Despite claiming as much, I wasn’t a homeowner, and I didn’t have a fenced yard. But I did have a desperate need for protection and a determination to make a good life for her. Eventually.

I liked to think I was making up for those early days now with a big fenced yard, home-cooked meals, and more toys and treats than she knew what to do with.

“I’m happy to fib a little to get a loved dog back home with his owner. Is he local?”

“He is for right now. But he’s heading out of town in a few weeks to start over. He’s just getting some things sorted first.”

“I’m sure he will be more motivated if he has his dog back. What kind of dog is it?”

“An Aussie named Steve.”

“Like Steve Irwin?”

“Exactly,” Saul said, shooting me a warm smirk. “He just turned seven. My friend has had him since he was about a year old, after he was dropped off at the shelter with all of his siblings.”

“People suck. The shelter made me so sad when I went to get Trix. Especially because of all the other dogs who, like Trix, were heading toward being put down. I wanted to take them all with me. All of them had a human who failed them at some point.” I winced, realizing what I may have insinuated. “Not that your friend failed Steve.”

“He believes he did. He’s beating himself up about it. It was kind of out of his control, but he’s kicking himself for not having a safety net for Steve.”

“Wow. I never really thought of that either.” It was going to be all I could think about moving forward, especially given my situation.

If something happened to me, Trix was almost certainly going to end up back at a shelter.

There, they would discover her hatred of men.

Which was going to severely limit her chances for adoption.

Then, what? Would she wonder why she was back there? What happened to me? What she might have done to be punished like that again?

Saul’s hand grabbed my thigh, fingers squeezing. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”

“But what if it does?”

“If it does—which it’s not—I will take care of Trix for you.”

“You barely know me.”

To that, he shot me a raised-brow look that had heat flooding my system at just how intimately he did, in fact, know me.

“You know what I mean.”

“I know plenty. And even if I didn’t, I know Trix deserves a good home, even if you aren’t able to take care of her anymore.”

That was fair.

And I felt like I knew Saul well enough to know he was the kind of man who was impeccable with his word.

“Okay. Thank you. That makes me feel a little better.”

Even after knowing he’d comforted me, though, that damn hand just stayed right there on my thigh. It was a few inches too high to be considered friendly. And the hold was just firm enough to feel possessive.

It wasn’t long before my hyper-fixation on noticing it was sending little shockwaves of need through my body until I felt it throbbing between my thighs—acute enough to have me shifting in my seat every so often.

I tried to focus on the music on the radio.

I tried to ground myself with things I could hear, feel, smell, and see.

But I was so surrounded by Saul that the little mindfulness exercise only made me even more turned on.

When shifting wasn’t enough, I found myself pressing my thighs together so hard that the muscles started to fatigue and shake.

“This is a weird direction,” I said when he turned off the main road and headed toward a more desolate area.

“This isn’t the way to the shelter,” he told me, turning off the side street and into a long, abandoned parking lot.

This was when, normally, my alarm bells would be ringing, when I would be thinking it was time to hop out of the truck and run for my life.

All I felt with Saul, though, was a gentle kind of curiosity.

“What is this?”

“Campgrounds, technically. But no one comes here. The water feature that used to be a big attraction dried up years back.”

“What are we doing here?” I asked, glancing around, not seeing a single soul save for a twitchy little squirrel digging around under a tree.

“We seem to have a problem.”

“Problem? Like with the car?” I asked.

“No, honey, not with the car.”

Before I could ask what he meant, though, his hand released my thigh to press between my legs. A surprised, whimpering gasp escaped me.

“You’ve been rocking around in your seat for the past twenty miles,” he said, his fingers pushing more firmly against me, eliciting a deeper moan. “I had a sneaking suspicion this may have been the reason why.”

“You… had your hand on my thigh,” I said through panting breaths as I tried to hold myself back from humping his damn hand; I was so desperate for more.

“And you couldn’t stop thinking about it sliding up,” he said, leaning closer. His other hand moved around me, trapping me. Like I had any intention of running away. “Of slipping under your pants and panties,” he went on, his hand gliding under my waistbands and down. “Of teasing down.”

His voice was a low rumble that I felt in my stomach, felt humming through my veins.

“Of seeing if you’re aching for me.”

“I am,” I sighed, too needy to care how desperate I sounded.

“Are you?” he asked, his dark eyes burning into mine.

Then his hand pressed against my cleft, making my whole body jolt as a gasp escaped me. The sound was drowned out by his rumbling approval at finding me just as wet as he’d been anticipating.

“Tell me,” he demanded, fingers staying stubbornly still. “How many times did you wake up in bed thinking of me, your pussy drenched like this?”

“Every night,” I admitted, my hips doing a helpless little rock to get even the tiniest bit of friction.

“Every night,” he repeated. All at once, his fingers moved.

His thumb pressed against my clit as two fingers thrust inside me.

“That sounds familiar,” he added, reaching for my hand and pressing it against the firm outline of his cock against his pants.

“Yeah,” he said when my walls tightened around his fingers in response.

“Been thinking about how your pussy would tighten around my cock when I’m buried deep inside you. ”

My hips did another circle; my head fell back with a moan.

Saul leaned in, his lips going to my neck as his fingers started to work me.

He wasn’t teasing or exploring right then. He was working me with expert precision, driving me up at a ruthless, unrelenting pace, as his tongue flicked the pulse point at my neck.

The world tightened, narrowed, as the orgasm screamed through me, stealing my voice, my breath, and any control I had over my own body, leaving me shaking and shuddering in the aftermath.

Saul’s head shifted up, his lips planting a soft, sweet kiss on my lips as his hand slid out of my panties.

Then he just… shifted back in his seat like he was going to get back on the road.

I wasn’t ready just yet.

I reached for his hand when it moved to shift us out of park.

Then, when his gaze landed on me, I slid my hair tie off my wrist, keeping eye contact as I pulled my waves back into a ponytail.

Saul’s eyes went molten as he leaned back against the seat, his body tense with anticipation.

I leaned across the car, making short work of freeing him from his pants, then sucking him into my mouth.

The deep groan that escaped him had my sex clenching hard as I took him deep.

Saul’s hand slipped to the back of my neck, not pressing, just holding onto me as I started to move up and down his length.

“Fuck, baby,” he groaned as I moved on him faster and faster, my lips twisting around his length, my tongue teasing across his head as I went.

Saul’s breathing got fast and shallow. His fingers crushed the back of my neck. His hips rocked as he got closer and closer.

“Fuck, I’m—” he started to warn.

I moaned around his cock, and the vibration sent him over the edge.

He came with a strangled groan, his taste flooding my mouth, dragging another little moan out of me as I swallowed his release down.

I took every last drop, then rested my head on his thigh to catch my breath.

Saul’s hand settled on the back of my head as we both found our breath.

His hand slid to my ponytail, wrapping it around his fist and gently pulling until I lifted up, until I was face to face with him.

Then he kissed me hard and long until I swore I felt it in my bones, in my soul.

Only then did he pull away.

“Ready to go save a dog?” he asked, eyes soft.

I was ready to turn around, go back to my house, and lose the next twelve hours in bed with him.

“Yep.”