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.

“That sounds about right.”

She threw the bag of doggy treats straight at his heart.

* * *

Beautiful women fell at his feet, they didn’t chuck things at him. And they definitely never said they didn’t believe in forever.

Was Heather perfect, or what?

Hot damn, he couldn’t wait to get her into bed, and keep her there. Especially now that he knew she wasn’t secretly looking for the big commitment.

The fun they were going to have once she finally came around...

The dogs threw themselves on the doggy treats that had spilled out of the bag when it bounced off his chest.

“Was that part of your lesson on positive reinforcement?” he teased her.

He tried not to laugh when she growled at him as she bent to pick up the bag and shoo the dogs away from the food. He was bending down to help her when he looked up to see a teenager on an out-of-control skateboard barreling down the hill straight toward them.

The kid was yelling for them to get out of the way and Zach quickly scooped Cuddles up in one hand and slid his arm around Heather’s waist with the other. “Atlas, come!” he ordered as he rolled quickly to the side.

The edge of the skateboard clipped Zach’s calf hard enough to make him grunt in pain, but all that mattered was that he had Heather safe and sound beneath him, the puppy cradled in the crook of one arm, and Atlas beside his beautiful owner.

They were out of the path of danger now, and he should have let Heather go. But how could he when she was so soft, so warm...and was looking up at him with those big eyes that had turned his heart over in his chest from the first moment he’d seen them.

He’d wanted her from that first moment, but strangely, he wasn’t thinking about sex now. Not entirely, anyway.

“Did you really have to do that?” she asked in a voice that trembled slightly.

He brushed her hair away from her forehead, letting his hand linger in the soft strands that had come loose from her braid.

“Yes.”

He wanted to press his lips to her forehead, wanted to reassure himself that no harm had—or would—come to her.

He leaned closer and brushed his mouth to her skin before saying, “It would have really pissed me off if you’d been obliterated by a pimply fourteen-year-old and his skateboard.”

“I was all set to stay irritated with you,” she whispered, sounding aroused and breathless and anything but irritated. “Say something cocky, please.”