Dante followed in watchful silence, coming to stand right beside her as Tess placed the trembling animal onto the stainless steel table. She put the scope under the dog's chest and listened to the rapid beat of his heart. There was a pretty significant murmur, and his respiration was definitely off, as she suspected. She felt carefully around his pronounced rib cage and made a note of the lack of elasticity in his flea-ridden fur. "Has Harvard been sleeping a lot lately? Lethargic?"
"I don't know."
Although Tess hardly noticed Dante moving, their arms brushed against each other, his solid, muscled body like a warm, protective wall beside her. And he smelled incredible--something spicy and dark that probably cost a fortune. She drew in a deep breath of him, then bent to inspect the dog's mite-infested ears. "Have you noticed a loss of appetite or a problem keeping food and water down?"
"I couldn't say."
Tess lifted the terrier's lips and checked the color of his diseased gums. "Can you tell me when was Harvard's last vaccination?" "I don't know."
"Do you know anything about this animal?" It sounded accusatory, but she couldn't bite it back.
"I haven't had it very long," Dante said. "I know it needs care. Do you think you can help, Tess?"
She frowned, knowing it was going to take a lot to reverse everything the dog suffered from. "I'll do what I can, but I can't make any promises."
Tess reached for a ballpoint that was lying on the countertop behind her and fumbled it. The pen dropped to the floor at her feet, and before she could bend down to pick it up, Dante was there. He caught the Bic in nimble fingers and held it out to her. As she took it from him, she felt his thumb skim over the back of her hand. She drew her arm against her body in an abrupt motion.
"Why do I make you so nervous?"
She shot him a look that probably broadcast that very thing. "You don't."
"Are you sure? You seem... agitated."
She was, actually. She hated to see neglected animals such as this one, which looked like a poster child for the SPCA. And stress over everything that was going wrong in her life right now was also weighing her down.
But running undercurrent to all of that was the disquiet she felt just being in the same room with this man. God help her, but when her gaze lit on his, she was blasted with a very vivid, very real impression of the two of them naked together, limbs entwined, bodies moist and glistening, arching into each other on a bed of scarlet silk sheets.
She could feel his large hands caressing her, his mouth pressing hot and hungry against her neck. She could feel his sex sliding in and out of her, as his teeth grazed the sensitive spot below her ear, which throbbed now like the heavy beat of drums.
She was held suspended in his smoky amber eyes, seeing all of it as clearly as if it was memory. Or a future that danced just beyond her grasp...
With effort, Tess managed to blink, severing the strange connection.
"Excuse me," she gasped, and hurried out of the room, awash in confusion.
She closed the door behind her and took a couple of quick paces down the hallway. Leaning back against the wall, she closed her eyes and tried to catch her breath. Her heart was racing, pounding against her sternum. Her very bones seemed to vibrate like a tuning fork.
Her skin was warm to the touch, heat blooming around her neck and in her breasts, and down, in her core. Everything in her seemed to have awakened in his presence, all that was female and elemental coming online at once, reaching out for something. Reaching out for him.
God, what was wrong with her?
She was losing it. If she was smart, she'd leave Dante and his sickly pet in the exam room and hightail it out of here right now.
Oh, sure. That would be really professional. Very adult. So he'd kissed her once before. All he'd done now was brush fingertips with her; she was the one overreacting. Tess took a deep breath, then another, willing her hyperactive physiology to calm down. When she was finally in control again, she turned around and went back to the exam room, running through a dozen lame reasons for why she felt the need to run away.
"I'm sorry about that," she said as she opened the door. "I thought I heard the phone--"
The flimsy excuse cut short when she saw him. He was sitting on the floor as if he'd dropped there not a second before, his head hung low and caught between his large palms. His fingertips were white where they dug into the thick hair of his scalp. He looked to be in excruciating agony, his breath hissing through his teeth, eyes squeezed tightly shut.
"Oh, my God," she whispered, stepping farther inside the room. "Dante, what happened? What's the matter with you?"
He didn't answer. Maybe he was incapable.
Although it was clear that he was hurting in some major way, Dante radiated a dark, wild danger that seemed almost inhuman it was so powerful.
Seeing him there in pain on the floor, Tess felt a sharp stab of d?j? vu, a niggle of foreboding that tickled her spine. She started to back away, ready to call 911 and let his problem--whatever it was-- belong to someone else. But then his big shoulders hunched over in a tight, pained ball. He let out a moan, and that low, anguished sound was more than she could bear.
Dante didn't know what hit him.