Requested Surrender (16 page)

His lip twitched as he fought back a smile. “There’s no ‘again’. I never said. Would it make you feel better if I left you a note in the morning?”

“I guess.”

She may as well have kicked the can to the curb. Gathering her hair in a loose ponytail he combed his fingers through it. “Do you know what I like best about a woman in a corset?”

“Her tiny waist?”

“Not particularly. I like soft curves, not hairpin ones.” He stopped messing with her hair and rested his chin on her shoulder adding, “It’s the way it makes a woman walk. With grace and confidence. That’s the way I’d like to see you walk into a room. As if you’re wearing a crown and everyone can see it.”

She dropped her head back and shot a sideways glance at him. “That’s
so
not me.”

  “If you believe that, then it’s true. So stop believing it and make it happen. If not for you, for me. Can you do that?” When she nodded he drew her in close. “Wonderful. You want me to show you what I can do?”

He didn’t wait for an answer as he went after her. Slipping a hand between her legs, hooking his fingers under the elastic ribbing, parting her slick folds and delving inside with his middle and forefinger.

“David.”

He used his chin and nuzzled. Pushing her hair to part until he got to some prime real estate on her neck. Naked and vulnerable terrain that he licked and bit before he whispered, “Tell me again. Tell me how you want to be my special girl.”

He didn’t mean to skate so firmly over her G-spot. He meant to draw this out a little and hear those words, but all he wound up hearing was her cry of pleasure as she wilted right there in his arms.

Much later, when he tucked her into bed, he thought he’d exhausted her. He was sure she was going to drop right off to sleep. So when he left her, making it nearly back to his room and heard her whispered words, he halted.

“Thank you for caring enough to correct me.”

He entered his room feeling like he’d climbed Everest, slayed a giant, or brokered a deal for world peace. All because of one bratty little angel.

“Could you put the name down of the woman you’re picking up tomorrow on that note you’re leaving for me?”

Correction. A bratty little angel with a big voice. Damn she had a set of lungs on her.

Chapter Twelve

David’s note read:
Her name is Phyllis.

That’s it? Lacy took the Post-it Note off the back of his bedroom door and flipped it over. Surely there had to be more to it than that? Nada.

“Musta stepped on a nerve there.” She purposely shrugged because she was mad at him. Furious. Did she have a right to be? Absolutely. She’d practically poured her heart out to him last night and this is the thanks she gets?

You asked him. It’s not his fault you don’t like the answer.

She didn’t bother with breakfast. She went straight to the library and began cleaning albums. When a note fell out of one of them a half hour later, she didn’t even bother to read it. She stuck it on one of the table edge and continued cleaning. She was in no mood to have fun. Her heart had an ache in it. An honest to God ache and her stomach was tied in knots as she wondered about the woman, Phyllis, he was picking up. The same woman he continually dropped off. Was it an old girlfriend? A submissive he’d done scenes with?

She tortured herself for another twenty minutes with possibilities and then determined she needed a break. Not only from her morose thoughts, but also from the tedious task of cleaning the vinyl. Looking around, she spotted the copy of
Captivating Z
she’d started reading yesterday and decided that would do the trick. Only it didn’t. Three hours later she was thinking, the book was sexy enough, and the characters engaging, but the ending? The ending was the worst ending ever. It was so bad she was still thinking about it over lunch and then later while she sketched out a few designs in the studio. Maurice wasn’t a good Dom to Z. On the surface it seemed he was. He did a lot of things right, but the one thing he chose to do wrong was their downfall as a couple. Z made one mistake and he cut her out of his life. After all they’d been through. The ups and downs and he was good with leaving things this way? Fucking stupid and so regular asshole alpha-maleish, she wanted to toss the book in the garbage. But it was David’s favorite book.

His
favorite
book…

That sent her off in another thought direction while she tried to understand the ‘why’ to that? Didn’t he believe in a happy ending?

“I thought I’d find you here.”

Lacy heard David as he came into the room. She swiveled around on her stool and waved. “Hi. Gee, you’re back much earlier than I thought. Hope everything went the way you wanted it to.”

“Not really.” He got halfway to her when there was a commotion at that door. Lacy stood at the same time David turned. Leaning to see around him she realized it was Andrew. The guy had the door cracked open and looked to be playing footsy with something as he called, “I’m sorry, Mr. Hollan, but she bit one of the kitchen staff and then defecated on Francesca’s favorite mat.”

Lacy was in the middle of processing this news when a tiny little fluff ball shot through the door and came at her in series of graduating crazy circles. Running and barking all the while.

“It’s okay. Thanks, Andrew. Oh, and tell Franny I’m sorry. We’ll buy her a new rug.”

“But what about your meeting, sir?”

“I’ll work something out.”

Lacy waited for the mini Tasmanian devil to slow down before she bent to pet it. Her hand was no more than a few inches away when devil-dog lunged at it. All she heard was the snap of teeth as they clacked together.

“Phyllis, no!”

She stood straight up. “You named your dog Phyllis?”

David rushed forward and scooped the squirming pooch up. “She looks like one, no?

Lacy frowned and shook her head. “Since I don’t know anyone by that name, I really can’t compare.”

She was astounded that David gently pet the dog as he spoke softly to it, “Settle down. There, that’s better.”

“No, it’s not. You’re rewarding her bad behavior.” When he scowled, she added, “And in this instance the reward is not the punishment.” She tried to pet the darn thing but the pooch turned to snap at her again. “Damn, she’s a vicious little thing, isn’t she?”

“It’s—” He turned aside so the dog wasn’t within biting distance of her. “No! Be a good girl.”

Lacy was thinking
like that was going to work
when David looked up.

“Sorry, she’s still learning her manners.”

She scowled and tried again to make friends as she reached out. “She’s too old to be behaving this way. Ow!”

“Quit sticking your hand in her face and she won’t nip you.”

Lacy gasped. “That’s your answer to an aggressive dog?”

“She has all her shots.” It was as if he were dismissing
her
when he lifted Phyllis up to his cheek to settle her. Miraculously the dog calmed right down.

“Oh, brother. You shouldn’t be giving her attention like that. She needs to learn her place in the household.”

He wasn’t dismissing her now. He stared right at her. “She’s not the only one.”

Nice. Glaring back, she insisted, “The dog needs some boundaries set. She needs to see the lines so she doesn’t cross them.”

“Again.”

She chose to ignore his annoying hiked brow. “Seriously, David. You think you’re helping the poor thing, but all you’re doing is enabling it to continue with bad behavior. Dangerous behavior.”

“I appreciate you’re a vet and all, but my little princess has had a bad life.”

“A bad life isn’t going to fly when you find yourself in a courtroom being sued over her causing injury.” The dog curled up its top lip and showed teeth. Prompting Lacy to add, “You call that a princess and
me
a brat?”

He walked over to the stool that she’d vacated and sat down. “Phyllis was a rescue and it isn’t like I’m not trying with her. I’ve taken her to one doggie daycare after another. She’s been to every school within twenty-five miles of here. When those options dried up I was forced to take her to the more rural ones. And yet I’m continually told the same thing. She’s untrainable.”

“That’s ridiculous. No trainer worth their salt would tell you…” She looked at the snarling dog and then back up at him when it finally hit her. “This? Her? She’s the Phyllis you’ve been picking up and dropping off all over the state?”

He hugged the bit of fluff, who Lacy was sure at the moment was giving her the na-na-na-na eyes, and said, “Yes. Not
all
the trainers said that she was untrainable, by the way, but the ones who didn’t had questionable methods in mind to correct her behavior.”

“Questionable as in strict?”

He seemed so annoyed at the prospect she softened her voice.

“Sometimes it’s better for an owner to step away when they’re too emotionally involved.”

“I know that. I—” He put Phyllis down. “I’ve never owned an animal before and I never thought I would. I wouldn’t have if...”

Lacy felt for him. Becoming an unexpected parent tugged on heartstrings a person didn’t even know they had. She ignored Phyllis’s yapping and asked, “How did you come to rescue her?”

“I looked out my office window. Don’t think I haven’t thought of that fateful moment a thousand times.” When she continued to stare at him, he added, “It’s a long story.”

Crossing her arms she inclined her head. “I have time.”

“I don’t. I have to find someone to look after the beast while I go meet Basel. For a big guy he’s scared shitless of her.”

“I’ll take care of her while you’re gone.” He looked hopeful, so vulnerable and so unlike her normal David, that she didn’t want him to leave right away. “But before you go, you have to tell me how you got her.”

“I can’t ask you to do this. She’s a little menace.”

“I’m a vet. I’ve looked after worse.” Not really, as most of the animals she’d been in contact with were sedated, but he didn’t need to know that. “The story? I know there is one.”

David put Phyllis down and readjusted himself on the stool. “All right. I’ll tell you. A couple of months ago Miguel and Tia, they were husband and wife and also my gardeners. They were out trimming the hawthorns when they began arguing. I heard them and when the yelling started I went to the window. That’s when I saw Miguel kick Phyllis—only she was called Coco then. He booted her hard. I couldn’t have that so I went out there.”

Lacy nodded. Damn straight. “You took their dog away.”

“No. When I got out there I saw Miguel push his wife. He may as well have kicked her, so I fired him on the spot.”

“Amen to that. I bet Tia was happy.”

“No, she wasn’t. After he left she started screaming at me. I’m not exactly sure what she was saying as I don’t speak Spanish, but I was pretty sure after she handed me the dog and made like she was washing her hands of both of us. She called me a jackal. Then she left.”

Lacy had a fairly good visual. She tried not to laugh as she looked down at the dog playing a vicious tug-of-war with the hem of her pants, and frowned. “Are you sure it was you she was calling the jackal?”

David stood and released a heavy sigh. “Doesn’t matter. I wound up with no gardeners and a dog that liked me exclusively, and even then that’s only some of the time. I felt bad, though. Phyllis was a commodity to them. They were using her to find moles. Who does that in this day and age?” Lacy didn’t even think David was aware of the fact he was flipping through her sketches as he went on. “Andrew said they took care of her needs, like her shots and stuff, but they didn’t treat her like a pet. She was kind of wild. In the beginning she wasn’t too bad, but then she started acting out. I figured even though they weren’t great to her she missed them or something.” He stopped being nosey and turned. “Surely you understand why I couldn’t return her.”

“Of course.” By now Phyllis was in kill mode and if Lacy didn’t put the kibosh on it, her pant hem would be ripped. Bending low, she held up her hand. “
Basta
!”

Immediately Phyllis stopped pulling and let go of the material before she sat down. Lacy nodded and when she straightened she saw David’s amazement. “What? She understands.”

“I never thought of swearing at her.”

Lacy blinked and then laughed. “I didn’t swear at her. I told her ‘enough’ in Spanish. Isn’t English her second language?”

David gave her a funny look. One that warmed her up and made her breathless all at once. “I suppose it is.”

She was feeling scattered again so to cover this, she walked around him and pretended to straighten up her sketches on the easel. “No worries. I’ll take good care of her.”

“I don’t doubt that.” He curled down and whispered in her ear, “Right now I’m wishing I didn’t have a meeting to attend, so I could take care of you.”

The shiver those words caused to waterfall down her spine made her visibly tremble. Did he see it? “David…”

“What?” He moved a wisp of her hair off her shoulder and bent to kiss her there. The effect was she trembled harder as he said, “I want you to wear your collar tonight with one of those little black dresses you own. No going commando.” This time he bit her shoulder. “Understood? If I decide to play with you at the party, I want to be able to take things off you and the dress itself might be a bit of overkill.”

Closing her eyes, she leaned back into him. “Do we have to go?”

He pressed his lips against the naked skin of her shoulder again. Only this time he used his tongue and gave her a little lick before he asked, “Don’t you like parties?”

She pressed her temple into the side of his jaw and moved her head up and down enjoying the scratch of his stubble against her skin. “No. In fact I wish we weren’t going to my brother’s party next week.”

“Don’t say that.” He brought his arm around and hugged her up to him tight. “I promise to make it fun.”

“Which one?”

“Both,” he said, before he kissed her one last time and then left. She was glad he had because she didn’t want to argue with him and if he insisted that he could make her brother’s party fun, she’d have to disagree. Those occasions were never, ever, fun.