“Oh, come on.” Leo rolled her head back with a laugh.
“We’ll get strays.”
Laughing, Leo pointed both of her hands at Dom. “Yes, that’s the fucking point.”
Dom growled. “No.” Turning her fiery gaze, she was ready to start flinging the blame on me. “Your little plaything is enough of a rabid bitch for one house. We don’t need another.”
“Fuck you.” Rolling my eyes, I couldn’t help but find her absolutely ridiculous. And insulting.
Moving toward me, Dom’s stature forced me to take a step back. I clattered into the metal desk against the wall, giving away my nerves for me.
Her blue eyes burned with anger, the thought of my happiness clearly inspiring a desire to annihilate it. My ass wasdigging into the sharp corner of the desk as Dom huffed hot air into my face.
She’d been cagey, distant ever since the press conference. And I was starting to think that she knew I was onto her. For all of her attempts, she wasn’t very good at lying. At least not to me. Maybe she’d mastered the art of deceiving Leo and Spencer, but she certainly didn’t have me under her spell.
Not yet.
Shaking my head, I laughed in Dom’s face. “What have you been up to today?”
“That’s none of your business, Viper.” Dom hissed.
“Just trying to be friendly.”
Pushing off the metal desk, Dom released me from the cage of her presence and walked across the shop.
But I wasn’t ready to take my teeth out of her flesh. “Don’t feel like sharing? Got something to hide?”
She stopped in her tracks and I knew I’d made a mistake. Her back heaved, straining the black tshirt that stretched across the miles of muscles.
Spinning on her heels, she crossed the shop in two paces. And I was overwhelmed by flashbacks of being strung up just feet from here.
Shit.
She’d make me suffer for that, take out her pains on me as long as she wanted. And I’d agreed to it.
As soon as she was within reach, Dom gripped my wrist and pulled me into her body.
A whimper escaped my lips under her tight grip.
Dom gritted her teeth, just as Leo and Spencer moved from their respective positions in the shop to stop her.
They knew how Dom worked, knew that she wouldn’t really hurt me. Not in a way that I wouldn’t quietly fantasize about. But that didn’t stop them from reacting.
Dom’s lips parted to speak. “Don’t worry, Viper?—”
A string ofwoofsechoed down the alley just outside the shop’s door.
“Is that her?” Spencer moved toward the door, all of the tension in the room crumbling as Dom’s grip loosened just enough for me to slip out of her grasp. I knew she wouldn’t let me get away again.
I slinked past the door, Spencer holding it open for me. Scanning the alley, I searched for the big Rottweiler that had been skulking around. And then I spotted it, face buried in a pile of garbage as it chowed down on scraps.
Spencer followed behind me as Leo cracked open one of the food cans she’d just stacked.
I knelt down, trying to make myself smaller to the scared dog. Lifting its head, it met my gaze. Orange eyes stared back at me. The small brown marks just above her eyes moved closer together as she focused on me.
Leo held out the open can, lightly whistling at the dog as she rolled the can across the asphalt. “Here, darlin’.”
The dog’s head lifted a little, trying to get a better look at the food on the ground. It must have smelled good, the curiosity beginning to get the better of the little rottie.
