Her Possessive VET || COMPLETED||✔

7

It’s us.

“Where have you been?” he says angrily as if he’s been anticipating my arrival, waiting on me like I was away at sea only to finally return to the shores we share. “I mean…it’s been a long time.”

“Four years,” I manage to muster.

Then silence. A long pause between us.

His head shakes from side to side as he blinks three times in rapid succession. “What can I do for you?”

And just like that he’s back to being DoctorDonovan Decker again…not the man who was just looking at me like he wanted to rip my clothes off with his teeth.

There’s still a bit of it there though, like he’s holding it back.

His nostrils flare as I see him trying to reel himself in in real time. Like an animal that has the key to escape its cage but knows it can’t…not right now.

“These puppies. Someone abandoned them by my apartment.”

“Where?”

“My apartment.”

“But where? Where are you staying?”

Is he asking to know where I live?

“Just off Columbus Avenue…at the corner of Baker.”

He grits his teeth. “That place isn’t right for someone like you. It’s not safe. You deserve better. You deserve…” His voice rising like the peak point of a symphony.

“It’s all I could afford.”

“Afford? What the…what’s wrong with your dad?”

“I didn’t tell him I was moving back. I wanted to make it on my own, like you.”

“Like me?” His eyes widen and his stance softens instantly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that…well, I know a bit of your backstory.”

“What do you know?”

“About your childhood…and…well, you know just random stuff like how you met my dad and have been best friends since you were kids. How you’d fight for him. How you have fought for him. How loyal you are to him and how much he appreciates it.”

“I don’t need many friends. Heck I only need one friend when that friend is as good as your old man.”

“Old man?”

“It’s a saying. It means nothing.”

“I know. I didn’t mean anything by it.” But I want to tell Donovan that I don’t see the thirty-nine-year-old man standing a few feet from me as old. Not. At. All.

His muscles have the kind of thickness that only a man’s have. His wisdom and his bond with my father is older than me, and of course the boys my age.

They’re busy doing keg stands every weekend and talking about who they want to “bang.”

Donovan looks like he does about a hundred handstand pushups before breakfast and the only thing I know of him banging are the nails into the walls of my childhood home he helped my dad build.

“But there’s something about me you don’t know.”

“What’s that?” Please say what I want you to say, Donovan. Please.

“If I tell you then you’ll know and you won’t know anymore.”

We just stare at each other and finally we both burst out laughing.

“That was some funny, twisted redundancy. I think.”

“You always did have your nose in a book.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Girls your age don’t know words like redundancy.”

“We’re smarter than you’re giving us credit for.”

“I give you all the credit…in a lot of ways.”

I hear the cutest bark and look down to see Curly chewing on the end of my bed sheetI used to bring them in.

“They need shots and a full check-up, right?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Are you going to keep them?”

“Yes. There’s no going back now.”

I watch his Adam’s apple move through his throat. “No going back now,” he repeats.

He moves closer, his boots making loud footfalls on the cold, clinical floor underneath his feet.

Reaching in to take one of the pups from me, suddenly Moe lunges toward him and I instinctively reach for him to catch him, making sure he doesn’t plunge to the floor.

Donovan’s hands do the same and we catch him at the same time, his huge hands underneath mine.

I feel the electricity shoot through me. I feel his calluses pressing against the underside of my knuckles.

And I feel a grip that’s strong and yells, “I’m never letting you go.”

And I don’t mean the puppy.

I slowly slide my hands back, Moe fitting snugly in Donovan’s oversized mitts.

I curse myself in my mind for breaking our connection, the void of no longer touching him making me angry at myself.

“How are you around needles?”

“A wimp.”

“You want to wait outside then? I promise to be fast, yet gentle with your new friends.”

“Okay.”

His arm curls as he tucks Moe underneath his arm like a loaf of bread before moving toward the door.

I don’t even think about not checking out his butt. God, he’s built like a Greek god.

He turns back and catches me staring, and suddenly I’m the one blinking and shaking my head trying to bring myself back to earth.

I set Larry and Curly down on the floor and move to the door.

“I promise to be fast. I don’t want you to wait longer than you already have.”