Page 89 of Worst in Show

“You really won’t tell me?” I ask, batting my lashes. I fiddle coquettishly with one of the buttons on his coat.

It works. Leo’s jaw slackens, and his arms drop to his side. Before he has time to react, I snatch the book from his hand and run toward the barn with a triumphant hoot. “I win again!”

Leo tilts his head back and snorts before strolling after me at a leisurely pace. “Come on. Let’s focus.”

“Or what?” I stop. “You’ll make me run behind the car the whole way home?”

He smirks. “That would be cruel.”

“Hmm… tell Diane and Dawn on me?”

He steps into my space, prowling closer. “I’m not a child.”

“You’ll… throw me up against the wall and ravage me?” My words come out of left field, a scenario I may or may not have conjured in my dreams last night.

His eyes widen almost imperceptibly as he takes one final step my way. We’re only a foot apart. “That depends,” he says, his gaze not leaving mine.

My breath catches, and I make two attempts before I manage a sound. “On?”

“On what you want.” A devilish smile. “I think you know I’d be game. For any of the above.” He extends his hand, palm up. “May I have my book back, please?”

I hold it out, and he takes it, his fingers brushing mine. The last one, I want to say. I pick the last one!

He uses the book to point to the barn doors. “But while you’re thinking that over, we need to get a bit crafty. Make some jumps. There should be things we can use in there. Want to take a look?”

No, I don’t want to take a look. I want him to touch me, for his hands to push under my shirt, his fingers making my nipples even harder than they already are. I want to grind into him, and have him strip me down, and—

“You’ve seen this contest before,” Leo says. “What kinds of obstacles do they have?”

I also want him to never have opened his stupid store here, and I definitely don’t want him to win the show.

Damn it.

I clench my legs together and steel myself. I can do this. “Other than the tunnel and the cones, nothing too complicated. There’s a low jump and a seesaw. A small one.”

“Easy to make.”

“And the dogs usually start out sitting on a raised block.”

“Like a table.”

“Yeah. But most of the dogs are pets, not show dogs or agility pros, so as long as they don’t completely botch the course, it’s fine.”

“That’s good for us.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m setting my standards a bit higher than ‘won’t botch the course.’”

“Obviously.”

He cocks his head sideways and studies me. “You’ve changed,” he says. “You’re different than when we started out. Hungrier. Good for you.”

I blush at his words, even as I acknowledge that he’s right. And he doesn’t even know the extent of my starvation.

“But so we’re clear,” he continues, “just because I want to kiss you, doesn’t mean I’ll go easy on you in the show.”

My stride falters. He says it so easily. Maybe it’s payback for how I duped him into dropping his guard with the book earlier. Well, I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing how his words affect me. “Cholula, here,” I call. The tiny dog turns on a dime and comes hauling back to us. “Good girl,” I praise, crouching low, before I turn to Leo again. “Oh yeah, golden boy? I think we both know Cholula and I will smoke you.”

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