One Intimate Night

‘I’m not quite sure,’ Piers had admitted.

‘Enjoy it whilst you can,’ Jason had told him. ‘Belinda is making noises about us buying a camper van. She says it will be ideal for touring holidays with the kids!’

As Piers approached the entrance to the practice he saw a large notice pinned to the door with an arrow on it, stating ‘Training Classes—this way.’

Following the direction of the arrow round the side of the building, he could see a long, low range of outhouses in front of him which had obviously been converted for a variety of uses. It was plain which one was his destination from the small crowd of owners and dogs milling around outside it, all of them surrounding a small red-headed girl dressed in a white tee shirt that lovingly moulded itself to her softly rounded breasts and a pair of jeans which moulded themselves equally tenderly to a femininely curved bottom.

Very sexy, was Piers’s first thought—his second was that it was no wonder the majority of dog owners surrounding her were male.

It was obvious that she was the class’s teacher, but Piers deliberately held off from approaching her. It was his habit to assess everything carefully and detachedly before allowing himself to become involved with anyone. A little caution, in his view, was no bad thing, but Ben, it seemed, had other ideas. A momentary lapse of attention, a small slackening of Piers’s firm hand on the dog’s lead, and Ben seized his chance.

Georgia had seen Ben and his unfamiliar human attachment arrive out of the corner of her eye, but she had been too busy welcoming her class with small treats and warm words of welcome to pay too much attention—at least not openly. Inwardly, though, there was nothing wrong with the speed of her reactions, nor the lightning way that her senses registered the awesomely male aspects of Ben’s handler. Tall, broad-shouldered, well muscled, if the way his tee shirt was being flattened against his torso by the breeze was anything to go by. Very thick short dark hair, a rather grim expression in those bitter-chocolate-brown eyes, it was true, and a certain very determined compression about the folded line of his mouth, but otherwise quite staggeringly good-looking, and more sexy in his jeans and tee shirt than any man except an actor as seen in a chocolate-bar advert had any right to be.

Ben, meanwhile, for reasons which only a similarly attuned canine mind could appreciate, had spotted the human who, so far as he was concerned, was responsible for his present blissful lifestyle in doggie heaven with Mrs Latham. He’d made a connection in his brain between Georgia’s brief appearance in the waiting room at the vet’s and his re-homing with Mrs Latham and, being the affectionate animal that he was, he quite naturally wanted to show his appreciation.

Having convinced his besotted owner that a collar worn anything less than loose enough for him to slip his head through and free himself from at will was an instrument of torture highly likely to cause him death by strangulation, as soon as he spotted Georgia he slipped his head from his collar with practised ease and tore across the yard towards her, scattering pets and owners as he did so, launching himself at Georgia and almost knocking her to the ground with the force of his enthusiastic greeting.

‘Ben...down,’ Georgia instructed firmly.

Tongue lolling, Ben obligingly wagged his tail.

‘Ben,’ Georgia repeated, ‘down.’

Ben nuzzled her neck lovingly.

‘Dr Dolittle, I presume,’ Piers drawled sarcastically as he reached his escapee charge and unceremoniously yanked him off Georgia by the scruff of his neck, instructing him in an ominously quiet voice, ‘Sit.’

Ben knew when a little diplomacy was called for. Obligingly he sat very heavily on Piers’s feet, leaning lovingly against him and looking up into his eyes.

Ignoring this touching appeal, Piers sternly refastened Ben’s collar—several notches tighter.

Georgia knew that it was up to her to take charge, but for some reason her thought processes seemed to have turned to gooey marshmallow. All she could focus on was how wonderfully broad Piers’s chest was, how flat his belly, how corded with male muscles his arms were, as Ben twisted and turned in his hold, giving sharp, short barks of feigned distress.

‘I don’t know who was responsible for foisting this delinquent hound on my godmother,’ Piers was saying through gritted teeth, ‘but if I ever find out...’

So he was Mrs Latham’s godson. Sternly reminding herself that she was a trained professional, and that right now her attention ought to be focused on her canine pupils and not on the six-foot hunk of hormone-level-raising male gorgeousness standing in front of her, Georgia dipped her hand into the box of rewards she had put down at her feet, proffering one to Ben.