The Protective Dominant (4 page)

She sighed, wishing she had the courage to wear those for her weird mall date with Taz. She knew he was just doing this out of charity, trying to take care of her.

How would he react if she came over to his place wearing a mauve silk tank top and matching shorts and these adorable little shoes?

She could picture those remarkable green eyes widening in shock and maybe…interest? She wasn’t sure. Sometimes her belly warmed and she got all flustered around Taz and she thought maybe he liked her too. But on all those occasions he always said something nasty.

Could he be…afraid?

The thought made her freeze, stare into her own unremarkable mossy hazel eyes in the mirrored doors. Taz—afraid of her? No way.

Yet she knew what it was like to be afraid now, the need to crawl away, hide, anything to avoid facing what terrified her. Sometimes she thought she saw that same shine of darkness in his eyes, as if he was afraid of being touched.

She snorted. Ridiculous. Taz was the top firefighter at their local fire hall, Station 57. She knew because she’d asked about him at the local coffee shop where most of the firefighters hung out.

Holding her gaze in the mirror, she muttered, “He
is
afraid. I’m not wrong.”

Somehow the words and the assurance behind them made her feel more grounded. More herself.

A fist pounding against her front door made her jump.

Taz.

Oh, crap. She was way late and her grumpy prince had come to get her.

She snatched up some clothes, dressed in a hurry and ran down the stairs before she could think about what she was about to do, go out to the mall for the first time since…

She opened the door and he was standing there with his hands on his hips, wearing mirrored sunglasses she immediately hated because they made it impossible to read his eyes.

“I was knocking for a long time. What were you doing?”

“Looking at my shoes.”

“Oh, Christ.”

She couldn’t stop a small grin. “Yes, I will probably spend far too long looking at shoes at the mall. You’ve been warned.”

“I’ll man up.” He placed a hand on her lower back. She tensed then immediately relaxed. Taz had earned that trust.

He gave her a boost up to the passenger side of his massive Ford truck. “You’re such a little thing.”

“But mighty.” She did up her seatbelt then clung to the handle of the door. Her heart was hammering. She wanted to jump out and run back to her house.

He tugged his glasses down and looked at her.

She smiled ruefully and let her death grip go, but as they drove from their neighborhood, she couldn’t help the way her fingers kept twisting together.

The mall was, as Taz had pointed out, supremely unimpressive. Since the fire that had raged through their town the same day of her attack, a lot of the smaller boutique shops had been lost and were currently being rebuilt, so that left only this place.

Taz helped her down from the cab. “If you’re hungry we can probably pick up a hotdog or something.” He looked at her. “Or maybe a tofu dog.”

She had to smile again at the way he was trying to be accommodating. The smile still felt alien on her face. Had it been so long since it had come naturally?

“Uh-uh. No dark thoughts. We’re at the
mall
.”

“You make it sound like Disneyland.”

He narrowed one eye. “When was the last time you went there?”

Her breath caught in her throat. “Nuh-uh. I couldn’t handle the crowds.”

He continued to study her so she knew he was only tabling their going there. He was really taking this rehab project with her seriously.

She ducked her head, feeling ashamed. Why couldn’t she just get over her past?

“Hey, we’re about twenty feet from more shoes than I want to see in a lifetime.”

Just that easy, he made her smile again.

It was hard watching Jenny take one step forward and two steps back. He could always tell when she grew afraid. Her body would stiffen and that darkness would cloud her eyes. Usually he was a sarcastic bastard, but for her he tried to make her laugh, loved to make her smile.

It made him feel, for the first time in his life, like a real hero.

Corny, Taz
, he told himself.

Jenny spent an hour looking at shoes, trying them on, running her hands over them so it made him sweat. He couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to be lying in bed, fully naked and aroused, and have her run those delicate little claws over him, fondle and stroke and measure and consider before she brushed open lips against his nipples or ran the backs of her fingers down his hot, pulsing cock.

“Is something wrong?”

He tossed his leather jacket over his lap. “Nope. Did you decide on a color?”

She grinned. “Sky blue.”

The shoes were hot, seriously hot. Ice pick heels the color of a summer sky and yet what would she wear them with? He couldn’t figure it. They would so not work with her innocent farm girl clothing.

But he loved looking at her trying them on, sashaying back and forth in front of the mirror with that deep look of concentration on her face. He decided right then that the next time he had a woman in his playroom, he’d get her to walk back and forth wearing only heels.

Except… He didn’t want that. He hadn’t been with anyone, not anyone since she’d been hurt. He’d been too busy taking care of Jenny.

And taking care of her was proving to be addictive.

He groaned, rubbing his forehead.

“Hey, is shopping for shoes really that painful?” she teased.

“Uh, yeah. I am a guy.”

“Good thing I’m done then.”

He gave her a shocked look for effect. “You
are
?”

“Your girlfriends must love you—a man willing to spend a Friday evening in a shoe shop.”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”

Handing the pair she’d chosen along with the box to the sales clerk, Jenny raised her brows at him.

“I haven’t had any. Girlfriends, I mean.”

“Oh, but…” Her eyes widened and he saw her do the math. Nope, he’d never had the same lady at his house more than once. No barbecues, no hot French kissing in his hot tub, no romantic strolls through their neighborhood.

“I’ll get those.” He pulled out his wallet at the counter.

“Hey!” Jenny tried to push him out of the way, but she might as well have tried to move a boulder.

“I dragged you out here. You deserve a reward, baby.”

She growled again and, God, he
loved
that sound coming from her.

“Like I’m your good little girl or something?”

“Exactly.”

Chapter Four

He bought her ice cream.

She was still annoyed with him over the shoes—what was that about? Why had he seemed to get as much satisfaction out of buying her shoes as he had by feeding her that morning?

“Okay, where else do you want to go while we’re here?” he asked, leaning down and licking some of the vanilla from her cone.

It froze her, such an intimate thing. “Um. I don’t know. I forgot to bring my list.”

“So we’ll wing it. What about Victoria’s Secret?” He patted the shoes he insisted on carrying for her. “I wouldn’t mind spending an hour in there.”

She swallowed a lump of ice cream. “Ah, yeah.” Like that would ever happen. At home she had a chest full of beautiful lingerie. She was wearing some now under her unassuming clothes. But no male had ever seen her in them and, after what had happened, she didn’t think she could bear it. Could she?

“Want to look at the puppies and kittens?” He took her hand and dragged her toward an SPCA adoption promotion that was set up inside the food fair.

“Oh, no, I avoid those,” she said. When he looked at her in surprise, she continued. “I donate monthly, but I would want to take them all home.”

His face softened. “Yeah, you would. But something tells me it would be a good idea for you to spend a little time with something smaller and more helpless than you are. To take care of something you have to be the strong one, right?”

Since she couldn’t tug free of his grasp, she surrendered. He walked her by cages, and pretty soon her heart was aching. All those little eyes, those faces. Some full of hope, some dull and lifeless, as if the hope had already died in those small lives.

One puppy caught her attention. His cage was marked ‘Jet, four-month-old golden retriever’. He wasn’t looking at her or anything. He had his head in his paws, and her heart ached as she studied him. When kids tapped on his cage he politely backed away. She could see other animals getting adopted but despite the popularity of his breed, she knew no one would take him because he was so sad.

“That one,” she said.

Taz’s eyebrows rose. “You want to do this? Really?”

One of the volunteers caught Jenny’s interest and began to fill her in on Jet’s past. “His owner kept him outside on a deck. He barked for hours until someone reported it and we took Jet. He’s got some real issues with separation anxiety. He’s bonded with one of our vets, but when he’s not around him, he gets like this—really shut down.”

Jet’s issues sounded a lot like Jenny’s—she shut down unless she was with Taz. She stared into those empty eyes then at the intimidating, huge paws. This was not going to be a small dog when he reached full growth.

Jenny looked at Taz. He had his arms folded, watching her neutrally. And it hit her—he was trusting her to know her own mind, just as if she wasn’t broken. She swallowed and nodded to the volunteer, a smiling older woman. “I’d like to adopt him, but I have no idea what I’d be letting myself in for. I’ve never had a dog. I do have a big yard that’s partially fenced.”

“You’d want to fully fence it if you could,” the woman advised. “I know, since I’ve got a few dogs. You can’t be a volunteer and not want to take them all home.”

Jenny blinked, thinking of her beautiful, perfect garden beds. “He wouldn’t, uh, dig or anything?”

Humor sparkled in the woman’s eyes. “You’d have to teach him not to, but no guarantees.”

Again Jenny looked at Taz. He sighed and cupped the back of her neck. “I’ll build you a fence for the rest of your yard.”

“Really? I’ll pay for the lumber and your time.”

He muttered something under his breath she decided she was better off not hearing.

“What do I do now?”

It turned out not to be a case of just taking the pup home. Jenny decided to visit a pet shop and get supplies because she had a good feeling about the dog despite the suggestion she visit Jet a couple of times at the local shelter to see if she could bond with him.

But she paid the adoption fees then knelt down in front of Jet’s cage. “I know you’re sad, but maybe together we can help each other,” she whispered. “Because I’m sad too.”

When they left the mall, Jenny was dazed, but it occurred to her that she hadn’t gotten lost once in her darker moments. “Wow, now I need a list. Lumber store—”

“We’ll go to the home supply store together. You’ve got cedar posts in your yard now. I can match them and, besides, I have a truck for carrying lumber. We’ll go now.”

“What? Now?” But he only shut the passenger door on her words before silently hopping in on his side. She relaxed against the seat, too exhausted from her first trip out in a long time to argue with him.

At Home Depot, he found the right pre-made fencing in no time and would have paid for it, but she put a stop to it, threatening to walk out and get a cab home if he didn’t let her. It put him in a lousy mood, which he took out on shoving the supplies in the back of his truck.

All right, so he was moody again. She decided she had other things to think about, like whether she’d lost her mind over a puppy. “He’s going to dig up my flowers. I just know it.”

Taz grunted.

“What have I done?”

He finally looked at her as they turned into their neighborhood.

“I can’t undo it. I have a dog.”

“You have time to grow into it.”

“I’ve never had a pet. But how hard can it be?”

“I don’t know, but if you haven’t had one, probably pretty hard.”

He parked and she sat back with a sigh then looked at him. “Thank you. I haven’t… I didn’t feel bad all evening.”

He nodded and handed her the bag with her shoes inside.

Feeling suddenly awkward, she got out of his truck. “Well, uh, thanks.”

“I’ll start work on the fence tomorrow morning. You can cook me breakfast.”

She blinked. “Yeah, I can do that.”

He nodded again and headed toward his house. Then he paused and looked over his shoulder at her. “We’ll go somewhere else next time. Somewhere you’re afraid to go.”

Her throat tightened. “All right.” She thought maybe she could do it.

As long as he was with her.

* * * *

“Didn’t see you running on the beach this morning,” Luke said as Taz got out of his truck on the driveway leading up to Luke and his new wife Sian’s beautiful house on the water. Taz took a deep breath, appreciating the fresh sea air.

Maybe he should consider moving closer to the water…

Except then he wouldn’t be living next to Jenny. Unacceptable. He had to be around to keep an eye on her.

“Thanks for loaning me that jigsaw,” Taz said, ignoring his friend’s implied question about his whereabouts.

“Sure. So are you coming out to give a hand at the rebuilding party for Coffee Dreams
?
”

The coffee shop had been severely damaged in a firestorm. Taz missed it, even though Sian and Dharma, the two women who worked there, seemed to enjoy giving him grief over his attitudes about women. “It’s tomorrow, right?”

“Yep, after work.”

Taz thought about it. “Yeah, I’ll be there. Can I bring someone?”

“You? Bringing someone?”

“Yeah, what of it?”

Luke shut his mouth. “Nothing. Do I know this woman?”

“Maybe.”

“Taz, man, you gotta tell me more than that.”

A proprietary grin tugged at Taz’s mouth.

“Shit, you’re gone over this girl.”

“Am not. See you later.”

“Taz!”

He shut the truck door in Luke’s face.

* * * *

The lightning woke Taz hours later. He sat up in bed and a fine mist hit his chest. He’d left the window open so that he could hear Jenny, so he could see her if he needed to. Another blade of blue white speared the ground and some instinct made him lunge to the window.