Unleashing the Storm by Sydney Croft

dizziness sent a
flashing swirl of spots in front of her eyes, and she slumped to the floor, her
back scraping the kitchen cabinets, her legs sprawled before her. Immediately,
six dogs climbed into her lap.
    “Shit.”
Tom dumped the plates into the sink and hurried to her side. “Kira? You okay?”
    She
blinked up at him, not entirely sure what he’d said. And wow, he had the bluest
eyes. Four of them. Cool. “I’m crawling with dogs.”
    “I
can see that.” He settled down on his heels, lifted one of her eyelids with his
thumb and peered into her eye. “Have you taken anything today?” He dropped his
hand to her wrist, pressed some fingers against her pulse. “Any medication?
Alcohol?”
    “Nope.
No, no, no.” She waggled a finger in front of his face. “I can’t. I’m like a
dog.”
    He
swore again. He sounded so sexy when he swore. “You’re not making any sense.”
    “Dee,
oh, gee. Clean out your ears. Dog. My, um…metabolism. It’s like I…” She
searched for the word, but she came up with things that didn’t fit. Like
“typewriter.” And “hayfield.”
    “Process?”
    “Yes!”
She clapped, startling Brutus, a three-legged yellow Lab lying across her
thighs. “You’re so smart, Tommy Knight. Deaf, but smart. One of my cats is
deaf. She’s not very smart, though. She’s over there.”
    Kira
tried to turn toward the utility room where Miss Priss liked to sleep, but her
head just lolled to one side, so everything in the kitchen tilted and swayed in
a psychedelic swirl of color. Groovy.
    Tom’s
hands framed her face and brought it around so she was looking at him. “You
said something about your metabolism. What was it? Might be good to know.”
    “Um…my
body. It processes stuff weird. Drugs. Chocolate. I don’t catch human diseases.
No colds. No flu. I got Parvo once. I have to go to the vet.” She frowned. “Did
I say that out loud?”
    She
shouldn’t be talking about any of this, but her mouth kept opening, and words
kept falling out.
    “I’m,
uh, going to put you to bed now.”
    “Mmm,
bed.” She let her finger trace his lips. “What time is it? Should I be horny
yet? Because I don’t think I am. Maybe you could touch me and find out.”
    “God,
I hope you don’t remember this tomorrow,” he muttered.
    “I
remember everything.” She tapped her temple. “Like an elephant. I like
elephants. They talk slow, though. So slow. They think humans are stupid.
Probably because they are.”
    “Come
on.”
    He
slipped an arm behind her back, but froze when her newest acquisition, a German
shepherd that had been trained for police work but had been retired due to
excess aggression, rumbled low in his chest, baring his teeth.
    “Luke,”
she said, wrapping her arm around the growling dog’s neck and hugging him to
her side, “it’s okay. Tommy’s helping.” Her gaze felt jerky as she dragged it
back to Tom. “He smells danger on you. You do kinda reek of it. It’s like a mix
of gunpowder and…something else. Cheese, maybe. No, not the word I was looking
for.”
    “Okay,
Kira, I need you to focus. Can you tell Luke to not tear my arm off?”
    “Oh,
right.” She gave Luke a stern stare. “Do not tear Tom’s arm off.”
    Luke
pouted and glared at Tom as if the dog planned to win the next round but
grudgingly gave him this one.
    “Good
boy.” Tom shooed the rest of the dogs away, and then before she knew it, she
was in his arms and being carried down her hallway and to her room.
    She
snuggled against his chest, inhaled his scent, a pleasant mixture of grass and
soil, sun-warmed skin and gunpowder. No cheese, for sure. But there was
something else beneath it all, beneath even the subtle fragrance of the sex
they’d had earlier…a wafting thread of anxiety and fear. Was he worried about
her?
    “That’s
so sweet, Tommy,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck to bury her face into
the curve of his shoulder.
    “What’s
sweet?” He pushed open her bedroom