Clearly, she needed to work harder to remember what they were together: dog trainer and puppy owner. Nothing more.
“Now we’ll work on positive reinforcement. What I’d like you to do is call out Cuddles’s name a few times while they’re playing. You don’t need to tell her to come, but every time she looks at you, give her a treat or pet her or tell her how great she is.”
Zach nodded, then turned his focus to the puppy. “Cuddles.”
The puppy looked up at him, still holding the tattered rope in her mouth, to see what her temporary owner wanted. He was immediately there with a treat and a hug. What a lucky pup she was to be the recipient of so much of Zach’s focused attention.
He stepped back. “How’d I do?”
“You’re a glutton for praise, aren’t you?”
He moved to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes, his fingertips making the barest contact with her skin. “That good, huh?”
Oh God, she thought, as thrill bumps rose across the surface of her body at his gentle touch, good didn’t even begin to cover it.
“Do it again,” she said, her words coming out far too breathy for anything outside of a bedroom.
His eyes darkened as he slid his fingers against her hair again, this time brushing the pad of his thumb across her cheekbone. “With pleasure.”
She got so lost in sweet sensation, in the sinful promise of pleasure in his eyes, that it took her far longer than it should have to step back from his heat.
“Not that. Say the puppy’s name again.”
For a moment, she thought he was going to ignore her clarification and pull her against him instead. Her eyes dropped to his mouth of their own volition. What, she couldn’t stop wondering, would it be like to feel them press against hers? Not one of those soft kisses he’d given her against her cheek in the kitchen, but a raw, demanding kiss that left her no room to hide exactly how he made her feel?
Abruptly, he turned and called for the puppy. Again, Cuddles responded immediately and he showered her with praise and affection.
Heather could feel her cheeks flaming at the embarrassing way she kept losing herself over him, especially after the way she’d mentally derided so many other women for doing the exact same thing. Tightening her resolve to keep her wits about her, she turned her entire focus back to the training session.
When Cuddles had responded to Zach saying her name a good dozen times, she said, “I think that’s good enough for her to start to associate pleasure with you.”
“Pleasure?”
Oh no, what had she just said?
She forced herself to continue as if it were what she would have said to any other client. “The more she associates treats and affection with you, the less likely it is that she’ll get her jollies from shredding your couch apart. Especially once she learns that you don’t approve of that behavior.”
“I thought you said yelling was out.”
“You won’t need to yell at her anymore. Because if you catch her pulling feathers out of a pillow and don’t smile and pet her and tell her how wonderful she is, she’ll be disappointed.”
“I wonder if the same thing would work with my staff?”
She had to laugh at the idea of him dealing with the big men she’d seen working in his garages the way he just had with the puppy.
A young couple walked past, their hands linked, their mouths fused to each other’s faces. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t stopped just then to paw at each other and murmur adoring words against each other’s lips.
Zach caught Heather’s grimace. “You don’t approve of the loving couple?”
“I could have lived without seeing them clean each other’s tonsils, but other than that, I’m happy for them for as long as it lasts.”
“As long as it lasts?” He looked confused. “I thought all women believed in forever?”
Just the stupid ones. “Nope, not all of us.”
He was helping her pack up her bag as he said, “Why not?”
Their conversation had crossed the line again, from professional to personal. Clearly, Zach wasn’t big on boundaries. So instead of answering him, she just shrugged and said, “What about you?” even though she could fairly easily guess the answer.
“I’m not a forever kind of guy,” he said, as if that explained everything. And then, “Some guy you were dating broke your heart, didn’t he?”
Any warmth she might have been letting herself feel toward him immediately cooled. “My heart is perfectly intact, thank you.”
He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it. Your parents split up and you’ve never gotten over it.”
She had to unclench her teeth to say, “Wrong again. My parents are still together. Not,” she added pointedly, “that it’s any of your business.”
And not that their intact marriage had given her one single good thing to believe about love—or any hope whatsoever in a beautiful forever. In fact, it was the just the opposite whenever she thought about her parents’ relationship, about the way her father had cheated on her mother probably from the first day they’d met, and the fact that her mother stayed with him, like a dog begging for scraps regardless of the way he treated her.
Heather picked up her bag and called for Atlas so that they could leave. She never should have come over to Zach’s house this morning in the first place, or had breakfast with him, let alone a second one-on-one training session. She couldn’t wait to get back to her office. Back to her normal life. Back to the way things had been before thoughts of Zach Sullivan—and what his kisses might feel like—had started to crowd out all her good sense.
But instead of getting the message that she was done talking about why she didn’t believe in love, as Cuddles came sprinting up behind Atlas, Zach said, “There’s got to be a reason.”
Professional had gone out the window so long ago she didn’t even try to get back there this time. Instead, she said exactly what was on her mind. “Let me make sure I have this straight. A guy can not be looking for love because it’ll complicate his easy life. But a woman has to have all sorts of trauma to make her like that?”
Even the nauseating couple stopped licking each other’s faces to take in their heated discussion. Well, heated on her side anyway, because Zach looked completely unrepentant. Worse, he seemed amused with her reaction.