but it was impossible with one hand. Deciding she couldn’t get much wetter, Ildaria left him pressed to her chest, held him in place there with her free hand and simply leaned forward over the tub so that most of the water would land in it as she rinsed him down.
Once she had the worst of the yogurt removed, and the water ran clear, Ildaria turned off the showerhead. She tried to set him back in the tub then but he still wasn’t having that. Pressing closer, he rubbed his face against the cloth of her bra, and then pretty much tried to bury his head inside it between her breasts.
“Come on,” she said with amusement, getting back to her feet. “Let’s get you dry.”
H.D. didn’t respond except to press his snout deeper into her bra until she snatched the towel off the rack next to the tub and wrapped it over him. Then he lifted his head out and tried to bury himself in what he could reach of that.
“Si. Enjoy it while you can,” Ildaria murmured, rubbing the towel over his back as she carried him back out of the bathroom. “But your bath isn’t done. We still have to find your shampoos and give you a proper bath or you’ll be sticky.”
She didn’t know if H.D. would have understood her words, but it didn’t matter. She was pretty sure he couldn’t hear them what with the way he was twisting his head back and forth against the towel.
Wrapping him more firmly in the cloth, Ildaria carried him out to the kitchen to fetch the keys G.G. had given her to his apartment in case of emergencies. She then took him across the hall to fetch the dog shampoo and conditioner.
Ildaria found them under the kitchen sink where G.G. had told her they would be the first night she’d watched H.D. after moving into her apartment. Then she carried him and the items back to her apartment and straight to the bathroom to set him in the tub again.
Ignoring the betrayed expression he was now giving her, Ildaria gave him a proper bath this time, soaping him up with the dog shampoo and rinsing him, then soaping him up again and repeating the rinsing process, before moving on to the conditioner.
Ildaria had never realized they had such a thing as dog conditioner, but H.D. had small tight curls that G.G. swore became a frizzy tangled mess if the conditioner wasn’t used, so she applied it liberally, and let it sit for a couple of minutes, before rinsing that off him as well.
The first towel was a sopping mess and a new one was needed for drying him this time, but Ildaria slicked her hands over H.D. first, removing as much of the liquid as she could. It helped that H.D. gave a shake as she grabbed a fresh towel for him. Well, it helped him, but just managed to soak her even further, sending water spraying everywhere. Her bra was already soaked through so it made little difference there, but now her face and hair were soaking too.
Ignoring that, Ildaria wrapped H.D. up in the towel and scooped him out of the tub. She then knelt to set him on the floor, intending to rub him dry, but the moment she set him down, H.D. scampered out of the bathroom. The towel was dragged along the first few feet, but fell off as he skittered out the door and turned right.
“H.D.!” Leaping back to her feet, Ildaria hurried after him, catching up to him just at the entry to the living room. She noticed G.G.’s black Doc Martens only a couple feet away as she scooped up the pup. Straightening abruptly, she clutched H.D. to her chest and took a startled step back, as she took in G.G.’s stunned expression. Blushing, she muttered, “Sorry. I was bathing H.D. and didn’t know you were here.”
“I knocked,” he said quickly as if she might think he hadn’t. “When you didn’t answer I got worried and used my key.”
Ildaria had enough wit to realize the sound of the shower must have kept her from hearing the knock, but that was all the wit she had at the moment. G.G. hadn’t been this close to her in quite a while, not since shortly after the shared dreams had started. That was when real contact between them had stopped. She didn’t remember being affected by his nearness like this before the dreams, but