He chuckled and complied. As he had that day in his house, he felt little hesitation or reserve in disrobing in front of her. He wasn’t normally so bold when it came to showing off his body, but something about the way Ruby watched him stripped him of all his reserve. There was that smile playing about the corners of her mouth—the one that didn’t think he’d actually go through with it—as well as an appreciation that set fire to his veins once he finally did.

She wanted this. She wanted him.

Him. Spencer Wilson, the lesser twin, the sober veterinarian, the uptight dog-show judge.

“You know you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, right?” he asked as he made quick work of removing his clothes. He was pretty sure he’d lost a few buttons in the process, and it was going to be difficult to find where he’d thrown his socks, but he couldn’t find it in him to care.

Right now, in this moment, he was going to enjoy the hell out of himself.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she said with a pointed look at the erection that had finally sprung free.

He shook his head. “I’m not just talking about your body parts. I don’t know what it is, Ruby, but when I look at you, I feel…”

It would have been very easy to leave things there, to lower himself to the bed and to the pleasures awaiting him, but he wanted to get this part out first. Sensing it, Ruby lifted herself on one elbow. “What?” she asked, her brows beginning to knit. “What do you feel when you look at me?”

“That beauty is the last thing I care about,” he said and immediately took it back. “Wait—no. That isn’t it.”

He did care about beauty. He always had. When he saw a line of perfectly coiffed and trained show dogs, all of them the best examples of their breed, he felt something click inside him. He liked how predictable their points were, how ordered the rules of their existence. Any person from any background could look at them and determine who was the most beautiful of all.

But it wasn’t until they started moving that Spencer really fell in love. All those little personality quirks that no amount of good breeding could hide, the stamina and drive to perform for hours on end, the way a dog would sometimes look at him… They knew. The dogs knew he was there to judge them, that he was watching them through cynical eyes.

And the ones he really liked, the ones he always chose as winners, lifted their heads and kept going anyway.