Wounded (Dogs of War MC Book One) Read Free Page A

‘Wolf’ won’t I?” Stay? How had that thought crept into her brain? She lathered him up again, being extra careful around his wounds, and mulled over the thought of keeping a half ton dog in her house. It would be different, but not bad, maybe it’d take away some of the ache of being new and friendless. “But you don’t want to stay do you boy? You want to roam wild and free through the hills, running deer and scaring the bejesus out of hunters. That’s the life you need.” His cold nose touched her cheek and soon after a huge, rough and wet tongue slurped against the side of her face. She crinkled her nose as she shrugged, wiping her face against the fabric of her shirt, “Ewww. Wolf kisses. You better not have the hydrophoby. I’d hate to have to put you down like Old Yeller. Come on, hop out and let me dry you off.” She was beginning to take for granted that he was going to do what she said, and wasn’t surprised at all when he hopped out of the tub directly onto the towel she’d laid on the floor. She just shook her head, he was obviously a mind reader. She might need to call the Dog Psychic and make an appointment.
    “Look at all this hair, it’s going to take forever to towel dry. Are you going to freak out if I turn on the hair dryer?” His tail thumped against the floor. “Ok, but if I turn it on and you do freak out I’m going to have to… get the hell out of here and run for my life. You ready?” The hairdryer didn’t bother him at all, in fact he closed his eyes and seemed to be leaning into the hot air.
    “You really are a beauty aren’t you?” as he dried she could see how vibrant the red of his hair was against the soft cream color, with a smattering of black woven in giving him that untamed look, “I know, I’ll call you Red! That fits you perfectly. Except you’re the wolf, not the little girl in the woods. But I bet you’d lead that little girl right to her grandma’s door, wouldn’t you, you big sweet baby?” she nuzzled her face into his neck and inhaled his clean smell, a combination of her shampoo, Dawn dish detergent, and wildness. It was very comforting.
    The phone rang jostling her out of her dangerous cuddle session, “Hello?”
    “Hey Sidney.”
    It was David. Of course it would be. She hadn’t thought of him in the last two days so of course he’d call and bring it all back to the surface, “Hello David.”
    “Are you busy?”
    She looked down at Red, who had followed her back into the living room, “Actually yes, is this important?”
    “No, not really, I just hadn’t heard from you since you moved and I wanted to check in. I do still care about you Sidney.”
    “Really?”
    “Of course I do, how could you doubt that?”
    “Well it’s easy. You see, three weeks before we were supposed to get married, I walked in on you fucking our receptionist in the apartment we had just rented together. It made me a little dubious about the depth of your feelings for me.”
    “Sidney…”
    “David…,” The awkward moment of silence extended all the miles between them and his ire was almost palpable. She knew that right now he was looking for the words that would make her feel guilty for having mentioned the ‘incident’ again, waiting for her to mumble something that would negate the truth she had just leveled. Instead she let the silence hang, she wasn’t going to let him do this to her any longer.
    “Sidney, I don’t know how many more times we have to go over this.”
    “Zero. We have to go over it exactly zero more times, all you have to do to never hear about it again is leave me alone.”
    “You know that I love you.”
    “No, actually, I don’t. I know that you enjoyed being engaged to me, I know you liked the idea of marrying me, and I know that the benefits that went with both of those were things that you loved.”
    More silence stretched between them.
    “What would I have to do to convince you that I want us to work?”
    Sidney couldn’t