“That looks like a good bush.” Sean pointed to the shrubbery outside his apartment building. “Take a leak on that.” The white dog sniffed and moved to a different shrub altogether. Sean still couldn’t believe there was an actual dog at the end of the blue leash. Let alone one with only three legs. Growing up, he’d never had a pet, no matter how many legs, because his mother thought all animals were filthy.

Now she was upstairs with a “migraine” and he was on poop duty with Buddy. The dog kind of hopped and walked at the same time, and Sean did feel sort of sorry for the little thing. Together they moved down the street a little ways, stopping when Buddy sniffed a tree.

His mother had told him that the idea for a “therapy dog” had been hers, but he had his doubts. She’d spent a few days with Lexie and came back with a disabled dog. This had Lexie’s fingerprints all over it.

Buddy circled the tree and Sean followed. After the reunion show yesterday, he’d wanted to put his fingerprints all over her.

“Come home with me,” he’d whispered in her ear as they once again found themselves in a parking lot. When they’d first made their agreement, they’d decided not to have sex. Well, she’d mostly decided and he’d gone along with it because he hadn’t known that almost every time he was near her, his body would react. He wanted her again. Naked like before, and she could deny it all day, but she wanted it, too.

“I can’t go home with you.” They’d stood at the back of his SUV and he’d had to fight an urge to open the hatch and stuff her inside. “We’d end up in bed.”

“It’s gonna happen sooner or later.” Her eyes hid behind black sunglasses and he pushed them to the top of her head. “I vote for sooner.”

“We can’t,” she said, but with little conviction. He pulled her long body against him and pressed her into his chest and belly. He let her feel how much he wanted her, and he took advantage of her gasp and opened his mouth over hers. Everything about Lexie turned him on. The touch of her hands sliding up his chest. The smell of her neck and taste of her lips. She opened her warm mouth a little wider, and her slick tongue tangled with his, drawing him in deeper. The suction got a little tighter, the kiss a little wetter, the world around them a whole lot hotter.

Raw lust pulsed through his body and hers. So good he slid his hands to her behind and pressed her into his erection. She felt so good and he could hardly control the sharp edge of desire slicing through him.

He lifted his head and gasped for air. “Let’s take this to a bed.”

He looked into her eyes, hazy from passion.

“Come home with me.”

She blinked and her brows drew together. The wrinkle on her forehead wasn’t a good sign. “I can’t do that, Sean.”

“Yes, you can. All you have to do is get in my car.”

She took a few steps back, and his arms fell to his sides. “There’s too much at stake now.” As she turned away, he thought he saw a tear spill from the bottom of her lashes. At the time, he’d been too turned on and too frustrated to care. He hadn’t been able to think past his throbbing hard-on.

Buddy sniffed a light pole, and apparently it was a better spot than the shrubs or tree. He lifted one leg and finally went. Sean had a little poop baggy, but he didn’t know the rules for where a dog could whiz and where it couldn’t. The light pole looked as good a spot as any. Instead of taking the time to slowly walk back to his apartment, Sean picked Buddy up, careful not to touch any wet spots on his fur. The dog licked his chin and mouth when he made the mistake of looking down. “Stop,” he commanded, but Buddy didn’t. He licked Sean’s throat and the front of his Pabst T-shirt from halfway down the block, up the elevator, and into his apartment.

“Your dog’s back,” Sean called out down the hall.

He expected to hear moaning or some other sound of distress. When he didn’t, he set Buddy on the hardwood floor, then followed after his little walking hop.

What he didn’t expect was to see his mother fully dressed and her open suitcase on the bed. “What are you doing?”

His mother looked across her shoulder at him as she tossed her clothes in the suitcase. “I have to take Buddy home. He needs to get used to my house. I have to be careful of his front paw, and a sidewalk is no place for a dog to do his business. He needs a yard.”

“You’re leaving now?”

She nodded and zipped up her suitcase. “I called Jimmy, the fella with the flying frog.”

He couldn’t say that he was sorry to see her go. “I’ll take you to the dock,” he said, and picked up her one suitcase. He’d easily been replaced by a three-legged dog. Strangely, he couldn’t say how he felt about that.

Later that night at the Key Arena, he couldn’t say how he felt about seeing Lexie on the third tier. Or the next night, either. He had three back-to-back games in Seattle, and each time he glanced up, she was there. And each time “Crazy Train” boomed through the arena, the flash of her smile made him chuckle.

On the road, she sent him daily texts. Part memo, part schedule, and chatty comments about her day. He told her about his hat trick against New York and that his mother had called to report on Buddy’s progress, as if he was an actual member of their family. One of the things she always mentioned was her store and the planned grand opening. So the night he returned to Seattle, he plugged the store’s address into his GPS and drove to see for himself.

“What do you think?” she asked as she showed him white and gold tables and red velvet chairs. He hardly noticed anything but the way she looked in yoga pants and a maroon shirt with mesh cut-outs in the back.

“Beautiful,” he said, looking at her.

“Thanks. I’ve worked really hard.” She pulled a stretchy tie from her ponytail and combed her fingers through her loose hair. “The office is back here,” she continued, and he followed her into a stark white room, filled with a desk, several chairs, and a red velvet lounge chair wide enough for two. The business smelled of new wood and fresh paint. “We’ll move this to the front window once the painters have finished up there.” She talked about her fears with opening a physical store and the net profits between e-sales and retail. “A store on the Internet can get lonely. I want to be around pet lovers.”

Sean watched her gather her hair into a tight ponytail and thought of the first time he’d seen her. Running down the dock, white dress flowing behind her, shoes flashing like disco balls. “You are full of surprises, Lexie Kowalsky. You’re different from the woman who dove into the Sea Hopper.”

With her chin on her chest, she looked at him out of the corners of her eyes. “I’m the same woman. You just met me at my worst.” Her hair secure, she turned to face him. “Your mother told me what you said about my attic.”

He moved to the center of the room, close enough to reach for her. He thought a moment, then began to laugh. “I had to throw her off track.” He grasped her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “There is nothing dusty about you.” Then he kissed her because he’d been waiting long enough. Waiting for her soft mouth and slick tongue. Waiting to pull her against him and feel the rise and fall of her breasts against his chest.

She’d been waiting, too. Her hands slid up his ribs and across his shoulders to his hair. The waiting was over.

He slid his hands to her backside and cupped her cheeks through her thin pants. He pressed his erection into her and she sucked in a breath. Sean’s testicles drew up tight against his body, and his rock-hard erection ached. He looked down into her gorgeous face and blue eyes, her lips wet from his kiss. “I’ve been thinking about this since I left Sandspit.” He curled his fingers into the bottom of her maroon shirt and pulled it up. Up past the waistband of her pants and navel, up her flat stomach to the bottom of a blue bra, holding the plump undersides of her breasts. Her ponytail swung across her bare back as he pulled the shirt over her head and tossed it aside. “I thought about this.” He brushed the tips of his fingers across her voluptuous breasts and the lacy edge of her bra. He wanted to take his time and do all the things he’d been thinking about for weeks now. All the places he wanted to kiss. He wanted to draw it all out until neither could stand one more touch or kiss or whispered breath against sensitive skin, but the moment he unhooked her bra and her soft breasts filled his hands, those moments were forgotten, and all that occupied his head were thoughts of getting completely naked in as little time as possible.

He pulled off his shirt and kicked off his pants and shoes. He picked her up long enough to carry her to the lounge chair. Within seconds he’d stripped her completely naked and lay between her legs, keeping his weight on his elbows. Her soft skin pressed into him, her hard nipples scoring his chest. He placed his hands on the sides of her face and kissed her long and deep. The head of his penis touched between her legs where she was warm and wet and slick, all the things he craved. She moaned into his mouth and ran her fingers through his hair. Her short nails scraped his skull, sending shockwaves of fiery lust down his spine to his feet. She rocked her hips, sliding the apex of her thighs against his hard-on. He pulled back and looked into her eyes, deep blue and filled with desire. She wrapped one leg around his waist and moved against him, pleasuring herself and him.

He remembered how good she felt inside, and he wanted that again, as many times and as many ways as possible.

“Sean,” she whispered between little pants of breath. Then she said one word that sent him spiraling and fighting for control. “Inside.”

A deep groan was torn from his chest as he pushed into her incredibly soft flesh. She was tight around him, so luscious and slick, he remembered the condom in his pants pocket. Too late. Much too late to think of stopping. He pulled out and slid into her twice before he buried himself deep.

“That’s good.” He felt each of her fingers pressed into his back and she whispered, “Give me more.”

He looked at her face, and the fire in her eyes, and a little moan escaped her lips. He kissed her mouth as he drove into her, unhurried, taking his time, feeling the pleasure build within him and her.

He watched her face, the lust in her eyes and the pink of her cheeks. “Faster,” she said through a whisper, and he matched the thrust of his hips with hers. The sounds of her pleasure heightened his pleasure and drove him faster.

“Talk to me, Lexie.”

“Can’t,” she said, then she called his name as the first pulse of her body drew tight around him. Her back arched and her orgasm squeezed him so tight he could hardly breathe. He pulled air into his lungs as an intense climax hit him and knocked every last bit of oxygen from his lungs. It started at his toes and worked through him. It lasted too long but not long enough, and when it was over, he felt like he’d been cross-checked and fallen to the ice on his knees, the wind knocked out of him and too weak to get up.

He swallowed hard and croaked next to her ear, “Are you okay?”

“No.”

Alarmed, he raised his head and looked into her face. “Did I hurt you?” Then he saw her satisfied smile and hung his head with relief.

“I don’t know that I’ll ever be the same,” she said. “That was amazing.”

His smile matched hers. He knew the feeling.