through her clothes. The contact tugged at something deep inside her, something hot and expectant and eager, as if he’d grabbed her arse instead of her upper arms. Rae liked men and Rae liked sex, but the way Zach turned her inside out without even trying…
She was starting to think she should do something about it.
“Your ex-husband,” he said, and grabbed the gate, holding it open for her.
She blinked as she and Duke walked through, reckless thoughts scattering on the breeze. “What?”
“He’s your ex-husband. Kevin. Not your husband.”
“Oh, right. Yes. Well.” She cleared her throat. What were they talking about, again? “He doesn’t like dogs. He’s very focused. He has, this, you know.” She stabbed her hand through the air, straight ahead, eyes narrowed, because that was what she thought of when she thought of Kevin. Like the thrust of a blade. “He’s focused. And dogs are a responsibility that detracts from focus. I said I’d look after them, but he said when there’s a dependent in the household, it affects everyone. So I never had a dog.”
“How long were you together?”
“Twenty-two years. Then he, uh, knocked up his assistant.”
Zach choked, wheezed, spluttered. “What?”
Oops. She hadn’t meant to say that, but she was Ravenswood Rae, so maybe it wasn’t a big deal. Zach certainly wasn’t staring at her with horrified pity or anything like that. No; he looked outraged, actually, so outraged that she found herself grinning in response.
And so outraged that it felt easy to talk about. “Ridiculous, isn’t it? I mean, first—what a fucking cliché. Second—pregnant! He got her pregnant! And I wasn’t even allowed a dog! Hypocrisy, thy name is Kevin.” She wandered over to the park’s little roundabout and sank onto the wooden platform. “It’s okay, though. Now I have Duke. Do you want to know something sad?” Because she was beginning to think Zach could handle a little sadness, that it wouldn’t make him stiff and sympathetic.
He looked slightly dizzy, his eyebrows practically lost in his hairline, but he nodded slowly. “Hit me.”
“I like Duke so much more than I ever liked Kevin. I mean, I hate Kevin, because he’s a slimy, traitorous liar. But even before that—before I found out about the affair, I mean—I didn’t feel good around him the way I feel good around Duke.” Or the way I feel around you.
“Yeah,” Zach said softly. “That is sad.” But he didn’t sound sad; he sounded absolutely furious, and looked it, too. His mouth was a hard line and a muscle ticked at his jaw as he stared daggers at the ground. She imagined burning, ice-blue knives sinking into the floor. That wouldn’t do. The kids would arrive tomorrow to find their park a jagged mess of wounds that never bled, and she knew just how much trouble those were.
So she patted the roundabout she’d sat down on and said, “Duke. Play.”
Duke’s tongue rolled out of his mouth like a red carpet and he gave a little hop of excitement. He threw himself onto the platform with so much enthusiasm, she felt the structure shake beneath them.
Zach was clearly alarmed by the sight of a 200lb dog lounging on a children’s roundabout with all four legs in the air as if waiting for a belly rub from the heavens. “Uh… What’s he doing on there?”
“Just watch.” She’d ruined the adventure, babbling about Kevin, so now she’d make everything fun again. Holding on to the red-painted bars with one hand, and Duke with the other, Rae used her legs to push off. The roundabout started to spin, slow and heavy at first, then easier as they gained a little momentum. She didn’t go too fast, though. Duke didn’t like it too fast. When she got the speed just right, his tongue lolled some more, and he tipped his head back in an expression of doggy joy. She watched him and laughed, the sound snatched away by the wind as they spun.
That same wind brought Zach’s astonished chuckle to her ears. He was slightly blurry around the edges now, and he looked like night turned into a man: pale as moonlight with that silky, pitch-black hair and those hypnotic eyes. His smile was a gorgeous kind of danger. No wonder so many people got lost in him.
He was a bad boy fantasy with a dirty mouth and a bleeding heart: sweet, sexy, achingly gentle. He’d be gentle in bed, too, wouldn’t he? Not with her body, which craved something else, but with the tender, vulnerable