Animal Attraction(54)

Dell could get on board with the eating him up part. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Hey, if you don’t know, I can’t help you.” He tapped Dell on the head with his knuckles. “Yeah, still hard as wood. You always did have to learn the hard way.” He headed to the door. “My money’s on you, though.”





Fourteen





Late the next afternoon, Jade signed in the last patient of the day—Lulu the lamb was by turns sweet, curious, and holy hell on wheels.

Keith had brought Mrs. Robertson and Lulu to an exam room. Jade was at her desk doing the whole wind down for the day when she heard Mrs. Robertson and Dell laughing.

Two minutes later, Mrs. Robertson and Lulu checked out with Jade and left.

Jade turned to her last chore, Dell’s laptop. The other day on the helicopter back from a S&R training, he’d made a bunch of notes for her to add to patient files. She’d been asking him to e-mail them to her, but he hadn’t, so she’d confiscated the laptop to do it herself.

That’s when she found the patient files she’d never seen before, a whole set of them that had never been entered on the books. Frowning, she scrolled through them. Wellpuppy and -kitten checks, simple surgeries like neuters and spays, dentistry, vaccinations . . . Confused, Jade searched, but though she found names, dates, and detailed services provided, there was no billing information.

Because he hadn’t billed, she realized. Not for any of it.

She went deeper and found that these services occurred approximately once a month and went back years. Thoroughly baffled, Jade went into the back and found Dell in front of the x-ray machine, laughing with Mike, who was cleaning up the equipment.

“What’s wrong with Lulu?” Jade asked.

“She ate Mrs. Robertson’s birth control pills,” Mike said.

“That’s not dangerous for her?”

“Not the pills,” Dell told her. “But the case is . . . problematic.”

Jade stared at Dell. “She ate the case, too?”

Dell smiled. “Yeah but no worries. The x-ray shows she broke up the case pretty good, though. It’s going to all come out okay in the end.”

Both men cracked up at this. When they’d composed themselves, Mike said good-bye for the night.

Dell surprised Jade by snagging her hips and drawing her in close, gripping her with a protective, possessive familiarity that should have pissed her off.

Instead, her heart stuttered to a stop. She looked down at his hands on her, at his fingers, the ones she’d had on her body all night long three nights ago now, tender. Rough.

Demanding . . .

Tilting her head up, she looked into his face. “What are you doing?”

“Breaking my promise. I’m gonna kiss you, Jade.” He flashed her a wicked smile that blew a few brain cells. “Want a breakdown of what happens next?”

“I—” It shouldn’t be so sexy when he spoke in that low alpha voice. She lost her train of thought when his hands ran up and down her sides, dangerously close to the swells of her breasts.

“God, I love this top,” he murmured, dipping his head to kiss her neck. “And you smell good enough to eat.”

“Dell, we’re at work.”

“When we’re not at work, you ignore me.”

“That’s . . . that’s not true.” Was it? “You didn’t come by or call, either.”

He went still and stared at her, looking genuinely flummoxed, as if he was so used to women coming to him that he’d not even thought of it. “You are so spoiled,” she said. “And—” Her phone was vibrating in her pocket. She pulled it out, saw that it was her mother, and put it back into her front pants pocket.

Dell’s brows went up.

“It’s nothing.” But the phone kept vibrating insistently.

Dell slid his hand into her pocket, taking his sweet-ass time pulling out the phone, making sure his fingers brushed against her hip bone, letting his thumb slip beneath the waistband of her skirt to touch bare skin as he looked at the ID screen. “It says Mom,” he said. “Jade, you can’t ignore your mom.” Before she could say a word to that, he hit Answer and said “Jade Bennett’s phone, how can I help you?”

Jade tried to snatch the phone back, but Dell used his superior height against her. “Yes,” he said very sweetly into the phone. As if he were ever sweet. “As a matter of fact, Jade is right here. Hold on a moment.”

She snatched the phone. “Mom, is everything all right?”

“Of course, darling.”

“Okay . . . but I’m at work, you know that, right?”

“I know.” Her mother’s voice was clear enough for Dell to hear. “So who was that lovely young man?”