“Are you going to stick that in Dozer?” I nod at the needle in his hand.
“Don’t worry, it’s just to sedate Dozer. It won’t hurt him.”
Liar. Needles f**king hurt.
I take a step closer. “Look, I just need to know … is he going to be okay?” My voice suddenly sounds small. I’m reminded of how I sounded in the hospital when we found out the treatment hadn’t worked. That mom was going to die.
A lump forms in my throat. And my eyes start to water. A dog. I’m getting emotional over a f**king dog.
I clear my throat.
“He’s going to be fine.” Dr. Callie smiles kindly.
The receptionist holds the door open for us. For the first time, I notice the name badge on her uniform – Penny.
“If you want to wait up front in the reception area, I’ll come and let you know how Dozer is doing as soon as I can,” Penny says.
I follow Mia to the door. Stopping, I turn back to Dr. Callie. “Take good care of him.”
He nods.
Penny closes the door behind us, staying in the room.
I stare at the door. My eyes start to water again.
Stop acting like a pu**y, Matthews.
“Shall we sit?” Mia says from behind me.
Pulling in a deep breath, I blink my eyes clear and turn around.
The first thing my lowered eyes make contact with is Mia’s bare stomach.
Flat, soft creamy skin that is just begging to be licked. I lift my eyes, and of course, I have to check her tits out.
If she just raised her hands above her head, I’d totally get a view…
Jesus Christ. What the f**k is wrong with me?
She ripped her t-shirt to help Dozer, who is currently being treated by a vet because he was hit by a car, and here I am checking her out like a sex-crazed idiot.
“I owe you a t-shirt.” I point to the bare skin I was just staring at.
She glances down. Her cheeks flush red, and she wraps her hands around her mid-section, covering herself. “Don’t worry about it. It was just a cheap Walmart shirt.”
She drives a Mercedes and wears Walmart? This girl makes no sense at all.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
With a brisk nod, I turn and walk past her toward the reception area.
I know she’s behind me, so when I reach the seats I step aside and allow her to sit first before taking the seat beside her.
See, I’m not a total douche. I can be a gentleman.
I lean forward, resting my arms on my thighs. They’re still aching from carrying Dozer. This move puts me real close to Mia. She smells just like she did last night—vanilla.
No one should smell this good. It makes functioning difficult. Or not functioning, if you catch my drift.
I can’t remember ever being this hot for a girl before. Just my f**king luck that I can’t touch her.
“Thank you … for what you did for Dozer,” I say. I don’t look at her. If I want to keep my thoughts clean, then it’s a good idea to avoid as much visual contact as possible.
“No problem.”
Her voice is so soft, just as I imagine her skin feels. Soft and warm, and I bet she’s really tight…
“I like dogs,” she adds. “All animals, in fact. They’re a whole lot nicer than people.”
There’s a sudden sadness to her voice, and I can’t help but look at her.
Her lips are downturn, and I notice she’s still wearing those god-awful sunglasses.
“You can take the sunglasses off, you know. There’s only us here, and I’ve already seen what you’re hiding behind them.”
Her whole body stiffens.
There’s a long pause where she does absolutely nothing. I’m not actually sure that she’s still breathing. I wonder if I’ve said the wrong thing. Gone about this the wrong way?
I don’t want to upset her.
Why? I’m not actually sure. It’s not like I’m usually concerned with a woman’s emotional goings on. But with her, something is just … different.
She lifts her hand to her face and slowly slides the sunglasses off.
I watch her slender fingers tremble as she turns the arms of the sunglasses in and sets them on her lap, hands covering them.
Then I notice that she has these sore looking calluses on the knuckle of her right hand. I notice them because they look out of place with the rest of her soft, flawless skin.
Maybe she has eczema or something.
I lift my eyes to her face.
Her eyes are closed. The bruise so very evident.
Anger pulses inside me again, so f**king fierce that I could punch a hole in the wall and still not feel clear.
I clench my hands in my lap. “The ass**le that did that to you…?”
She bites her lip and looks away.
The caveman inside me is beating his chest right now, ready to beat the shit out of the ass**le that did this to her. No woman should ever go through that. Especially not her. Definitely not her.
“I can hurt him, Mia. Just say the word and it’s done.”
I hear her sharp intake of breath. Wide, blue eyes meet mine.
Jesus, she’s breathtaking. Even with the black eye.
Her eyes are as stunning as I knew they would be. They’re the color of the water of a caldera.
After high school, I went traveling with some buddies—it was before my mom got sick, and I had to come back home. We were in Lombok, an island in Indonesia, and we had trekked out to Mount Rinjani. There was a caldera there. The water stays hot permanently, due to the volcanic activity, and is so purely blue. All filtering shades rippling together to make the most amazing shade of blue you will ever see.