Page 41 of Sleeping with the Frenemy

“This is the heating pad. I usually use it for cramps.” He looked like he was going to argue with her. “Don’t be that guy,” Sofi said.

“What guy?”

“The guy who gets all weird about something as perfectly normal as cramps and periods. It’s so cliché.”

“True. Fine. Give me the uterus.”

“Here.” She put it on his shoulder. “Hold it there for fifteen minutes.” She moved to sit on the chair perpendicular to the couch. The dog hopped off Leo’s legs immediately and tried to climb right into her lap. She held him at bay with a hand on his chest. “No, Dog. I am not that kind of animal person. Go back over there.”

The dog whined. He placed one paw on her leg and just stared at her with that sad face.

“I don’t care how pathetic you look,” she told him. “You are not about to put your big butt in my lap.”

“And here I thought since you went to the gym so much, you’d be able to handle more than thirty pounds,” Leo said, grabbing the remote off the coffee table and turning on the huge mounted TV.

“You be quiet. This is between me and the dog.”

As if to punctuate her point the dog let out another whine and put his other paw on her knee. Then he outright cheated by putting his head on his paws and looking up at her with those sad eyes.

“Dammit,” she groused. She reached down and lifted him. “Come on you manipulative con artist.”

The dog immediately curled up in her lap and tried to hide his face between her arm and body. She began to stroke his back. “He’s actually pretty soft,” she said after a few minutes of companionable silence. She’d figured his fur would be coarse, but he felt like velvet.

“I’m positive he’s still a puppy,” Leo said from the couch. “He looks young in the face and he’s obviously smaller than an adult. Although, he’s pretty low-energy for a puppy.”

“He’s just a baby and he was living on the streets?” That was terrible. Sofi had never had a pet. Her mother had told her that they barely had enough money to feed and house themselves, there was no way that they could add another mouth to feed. However, the thought of someone purposefully allowing harm to come to the sweet little guy on her lap seemed too much. Then she noticed the scrapes, scabs, and patches of missing fur where wounds had obviously healed over. “Good thing we found him.”

“Yeah. Now he gets to go live in a shelter with a bunch of other unwanted dogs.”

“But someone will adopt him.” Sofi was telling herself this more than she was telling him.

“I hope so,” was all he said in response.

Realizing that she too was falling under the spell of two sad eyes and a scrawny little body, Sofi shook herself mentally. “I think it’s been fifteen minutes. The heat needs to come off.” Sofi lifted the dog into her arms and stood. He awoke from his nap and looked a bit startled before he saw her. His tail wagged and he tried to lick her face. “No,” she said sternly. “No face licking.” He stopped. She looked to Leo. “Follow me.”

She led him to her room, puppy in her arms. When they arrived, she put the dog down. “Don’t you dare pee on my rug,” she told him. She thought he’d take off and begin to explore the new space but he stayed right at her feet.

Leo was staring at the setup on her bed. For once she couldn’t tell what he was thinking by the look on his face, but he was flexing his fingers around the stress ball again. “Do you want me on my front or back?”

Dear lord. The images that question evoked.

He must’ve read her mind, because he said, “Thinking naughty thoughts in front of a baby? You dirty girl.”

Sex had never been an issue between them. They didn’t justworkon every level—they excelled. They were like a line of black powder and a fuse both leading to the same pile of gunpowder and TNT. She’d never found Leo’s equal and she was sure that he’d never found hers. That was what made everything that much harder. How could they give up something so damn good?

Because nothing else about us works,she reminded herself. “Lie on your back first,” she said, doing her best to keep her voice level.

He did as he was told and she grabbed the bottle of oil that she used after a particularly hard workout. It had arnica, lavender, chamomile, and rosemary. She knew it wouldn’t magically heal the damage caused by the bullet, but even if it helped him a fraction it was worth trying. She stood next to the bed and warmed the oil in her hands. The puppy came up next to her and settled into a ball at her feet. She looked down to find Leo eyeing her steadily. “I’m not going to use tons of pressure, but tell me if anything I do is too much.”

He nodded.

Sofi took a deep breath and then put her hands on his shoulder. For the first time she allowed herself to look at it closely. There was a scar along his collarbone where the bullet had obviously gone in and the doctors after. There was another smaller one a few inches over by his deltoid and one on top of his shoulder, closer to his neck. She could only imagine what he’d gone through. He must’ve been so scared and in so much pain. Sofi held her breath in an attempt to keep her emotions under control as she applied the lightest of pressure against the proof of how close she’d come to losing him for good.

“Hey,” he said.

She raised her eyes to his face and noticed for the first time that her vision was blurry, she could barely make out his features.

His other hand came up to her face and wiped her tears from one side, then the other.

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