Can't Touch This (Can't Touch This #1)

“Glint? There’s no glint.” He swiped his face with a hand. “See? Definitely no glint.” He laughed under his breath. “Come on. It’s either let me do what I want or put some money on the table to make it interesting.”

I gulped.

Money.

“I’m not a gambler.”

“Neither am I.”

I sighed. “Look, it’s not that big a secret.”

He leaned in, enveloping me in a delicious cloud of sexy aftershave. “One question. Does Polly know about this secret?”

Now that I could answer safely. “Polly knows everything about me.”

“And now I want to know everything about you.”

“Not this you don’t.” I pushed past him with the trolley. Not looking at him, I bent to haul a twenty-kilogram bag of organic and no chemicals or additives dog food.

“Hey, let me get that.” Ryder shoved me aside and scooped up the bag easily before placing it neatly in the trolley. “There you go. See…teamwork.”

I gave him a weak smile. Why did I think bringing him here was a good idea?

Ugh, I’m such an idiot.

The overhead lights were suddenly far too bright—almost interrogation bright—as we continued down the aisle and I stopped to grab another bag of dog food, only this time it was for puppies aged three to twelve months.

“Let me.” Ryder once again placed the bag on top of the other.

And away we went again. With a squeak of trolley wheels and some crooner on the overhead speakers.

Why hasn’t he tried to guess yet?

Turning right, we headed down the next aisle. This was the feline section.

In went two bags of kitty chow and a bottle of glucosamine for older arthritic cats that I subscribed to patients and believed it worked for joint health even if some vets didn’t think such things.

By the time we were in the third aisle where collars, leashes, and squeaky toys littered the space in an array of diamantes and rainbow fashions, Ryder murmured, “Whatever you’re keeping from me, I don’t think it’s a bad secret. Just tell me…”

I made the mistake of looking up.

His hazel eyes grappled mine into submission. “Please?”

I swallowed hard. “Um…”

Ryder strolled around me, stopping to finger a dog collar with pretty heart shaped cubic zirconias indented into the pink leather. “Okay, answer me this.” Pointing at the quickly filling trolley, he asked, “Just how much of these supplies are for your clinic?”

A sudden hot flush raced up my spine. “We haven’t gotten there yet. But I’d say I need a couple of dog bowls, a rabbit nail clipper, some bird seed, and a few puppy pads for toilet training.”

“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” He prowled around me again, his hand making contact with my waist to trail around my spine to the other side. “So, the massive amounts of dog and cat food you just put in that groaning trolley…who is that for? Do you have a dog I don’t know about? Visa is a strong-willed cat but I doubt her attitude requires feeding that much.”

“We do feed the animals at the practice while they heal from surgery, you know.”

He nodded seriously. “I believe that without a doubt. So that’s where this is going? Updating your supplies for all the critters in recovery?”

It would be so easy to nod and keep my secret. But I couldn’t do that. Not to him. Not to myself.

It’s nothing to be guilty about.