Page 25 of Beware of Dog (Lean Dogs Legacy #6)

Cass could feel how angry Shep was when she put her arms around his waist on the back of the bike.

When she tried to take her laundry sack with her, he told her to leave it, which meant, furious or not, he planned on bringing her back here afterward.

When she pulled out her phone before they left the flat, he asked, in a truly ugly voice, if she was texting her “little no-balls boyfriend.” “No, I’m texting Melissa,” she informed him, sweetly, and it was a considerable effort to keep her laughter in check.

All his movements, when he pulled on his jacket, and zipped it, and shrugged his cut on over it, were military-precise, quick, and bristling with badly-restrained violence.

Down in the gated, guarded parking lot where he kept his bike, he climbed aboard, cranked the engine, and didn’t deign to look around at her.

Cass finally grinned where he couldn’t see her and climbed up behind him.

His waist was tense as a porch column between her arms.

When they slowed in front of the precinct, Cass unlinked her hands and sat back, lightly gripping his shoulders, ready to hop off and wave goodbye. To her surprise, he swooped the bike in close to the curb, and parked it.

“What are you doing?” she asked when the engine cut off.

He motioned her off the bike, and she slid to her feet so he could swing his leg off. She stood, waiting, while he unclipped his helmet, popped it on the handlebars, and fluffed his hair.

“What are you doing?” Cass repeated.

He sent her an unreadable look through the dark lenses of his shades, and motioned to the front steps.

He was coming with her, clearly. And Cass had been called a brat, by him and others, but she wasn’t so bratty that she would argue about this.

Somehow, his mood had worsened on the ride over.

She was delighted by the fact, swallowing back laughter.

So she nodded, and turned, and went up to the double doors, keenly aware of the gritty sound of his boot soles following her.

Melissa and Rob worked up on the second floor. When they stepped into the elevator, a uniformed officer stepped out, and he paused and did a double take at Shep’s cut. Cass pushed the 2 button in a hurry, and the doors closed on the officer’s frowning face.

Cass sent a look across the cab at him. “You might have left the cut at home.”

He stared at the doors, hands linked in front of him, silent sentry.

The elevator arrived, emitting them into a short little waiting area in front of the Sex Crimes bullpen and offices, a trio of wooden benches set against a section of wall straight ahead.

Bryce was there, sitting on the edge of a bench, bent forward at the waist, elbows on his thighs and hands wringing together.

One foot jiggled, which shook his whole body, a portrait of extreme nervousness.

His head hung forward, but lifted sharply as the elevator doors opened. He spotted Cass, and his eyes widened, and a relieved smile split his face. “Hey. Oh, wow,” he said, standing. “You made it.”

Then he saw Shep.

“Oh, Jesus…” He leaped back as though struck, tripped on the bench, and sat down in an ungainly heap.

Cass covered her mouth with her hand to hide the laugh that formed in her throat. When she’d composed herself, she dropped it and said, “Hey.”

He lay sprawled back on the bench, arms akimbo, legs spread: a hapless sacrifice on a monster’s altar. “Is this…” He swallowed with an audible gulp, throat jerked. “Is this one of the brothers you mentioned?”

“No,” Cass said, brightly. “My brothers are much more tactful.”

Shep muttered something she couldn’t, and likely didn’t want, to hear. He was still wearing his sunglasses, like a douchebag.

“Are you ready to head in?” she asked Bryce, when she wanted to say why the fuck am I here? You giant toddler.

Speaking of…

As they headed into the bullpen, Shep stepped around to her other side, so she couldn’t walk next to Bryce. Byrce said, “Oh, Jesus,” and startled so hard he nearly crashed into a detective.

That was when Shep’s aggressive over-protectiveness started to annoy rather than delight her.

Cass sped up, got in front of him, and turned to see if Bryce was alright.

He was a mess is what he was, apologizing profusely to the detective, who’d dropped a folder and scattered some paperwork. Cass knelt down, gathered the papers amidst Bryce’s unsuccessful flailing, and passed them back to the detective with a tight smile.

“So sorry, here you go.”

The detective gave Shep’s cut a once-over, subtler, but more astute than the officer’s from before. She needed to get him behind a closed door, and fast.

She straightened, took a tight grip on Bryce’s sleeve, and dragged him in the direction of Melissa and Rob’s nosed-together desks.

“Whoa! Okay, slow down.”

She didn’t.

Rob was at his desk, on the landline, and did a double-take as they approached.

Melissa arrived behind her chair, holding a steaming mug, and her brows lifted. “Thanks for coming in, Bryce,” she said, mildly. “And Cass. And Shep.” Her brows lifted a fraction higher when she got to him. “I don’t remember requesting a joint interview.”

“You didn’t.” Cass pasted on her widest, fakest smile. “Bryce called me this morning because he was starting to have doubts, and Shep”—she tipped her head in his direction—“heard me agreeing to come provide moral support.” She willed Melissa to understand.

Melissa looked at Shep, at Cass, Shep again, and the next glance she shot Cass said she knew exactly what was happening. “Rob?”

“Yeah.” He stood, and extended an arm toward the cushier meeting rooms. “Come on, Bryce, and we’ll get some paperwork going, okay?”

Cass shot Bryce a thumbs-up when he glanced back at her over his shoulder.

As they wove their way between the sea of desks, Rob’s arm going companionably around Bryce’s shoulders, Melissa turned to Shep, expression hardening, and jammed a finger toward the nearest conference room.

He stared her down and didn’t budge.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Cass muttered, threw up her hands, and led the way. Inside, she went around to the far side of the table and plopped down into a chair.

Shep loitered near the door, doing his best Arnold in Terminator impression.

Once she’d shut them in, Melissa glared at him. “What is your problem?” When he didn’t answer, she turned to Cass. “What is his problem?”

“He’s having some sort of malfunction because I spoke on the phone with a classmate. It was rather charming at first, but now it’s just ridiculous.”

Cass didn’t know how she’d expected Melissa to react, but she hadn’t thought she would display such alarm: wide eyes, a paling face, a sharp turn of her head Shep’s direction.

She advanced on him, drawing her small frame up as high and as tense as it would go, finger aimed at his chest. “What did you do?” she snapped. “Did you hurt her?”

The accusation was the tool that finally cracked Shep’s facade.

His brows flew up, and then his shades followed; he shoved them up into his hair and goggled comically down at Melissa. “What?” His voice was strangled, alarmed, too-high, and hilarious. “Did I hurt her ? Do you have brain damage?”

This whole morning was proving flattering in the extreme for Cass.

“Do you ?” Melissa shot back. “You’re parading around a police precinct flying colors. My captain’s breathing down my neck about being compromised, and in waltzes you, making my life more difficult.” Her Mississippi accent thickened when she was pissed off, and it was out in full force now.

Shep spread his arms. “Well, that’s what you get when you have a stupid-ass dalmatian for a boyfriend.”

“Oh no. No, this is not my fault. My dalmatian has a sliver of discretion, meanwhile you’re allergic to it, apparently!”

“Guys,” Cass tried. This was quickly swerving from funny to Shep-says-unforgiveable-things-to-a-brother’s-old-lady territory. “Guys, come on.”

“If you would do your goddamn job—” Shep started, and his voice was getting harder again, the leash slipping off his anger.

Cass smacked the tabletop. “Guys!”

She thought it meant something that Shep was the only one whose head turned toward her. Melissa folded her arms and stared daggers through the side of Shep’s face. But Shep didn’t see her, didn’t care; all of his attention was fixed now on Cass, staggering in its intensity.

It took her a moment to find the appropriate words.

She thought she shouldn’t be blamed for her tongue-tied state; who wouldn’t be while on the receiving end of that sort of look?

In the moment before she smoothed her expression and came out with something soothing, she thought Shep saw straight through her.

That he knew exactly how affected she was, and that, beneath the funny, and the flattering, she was wholly out of her depth when it came to handling the way he felt about her.

Finally, she said, “None of this is helping. Melissa.” It took considerable effort to break eye contact with Shep. “I tried to come alone.” When Shep snorted, loudly, she added, “I didn’t want to come at all, but I was afraid Bryce might not show up if I didn’t tell him I’d meet him here.”

Melissa turned to her. “Yeah. He’s squirrelly.” She frowned. “But how the hell do you know he’s our witness?”

“We have Art History together, and he told me.”

“He told you ?” Melissa’s brows shot up. “Shit.” She shook her head, rubbed at her chin, and said, with greater feeling, “ Shit .”

“What?” Cass asked.

“Nothing.” Melissa grabbed for the door handle. “Stay here. Both of you. Do not go back out there.” Then she let herself out and pulled the door firmly shut in her wake.

~*~

Something Rob had told her early on came back to her now as she stalked across the bullpen toward the interview room where he’d taken Bryce. Don’t ever get too caught up in thinking a case is simple. Sex crimes are never simple . And this one had felt simple.

Sig was a spoiled rich asshole too lazy to put any effort into charming a girl, and too entitled to handle a possible rejection.

He dosed Cassandra’s drink. When that didn’t work, he got a little revenge, and got his little dick wet with Jamie.

Because he was a scumbag, it was simple and logical that one of his friends turned rat.

Too simple.

Melissa rapped on the door and waited in the hallway until Rob stepped out.

“What?”

“Close the door.” When he did, she said, “Cass is here because Bryce told her he was the witness.”

Rob had been in this line of work too long to evidence surprise beyond a faint lift of his brows. “Damn. What a little bastard.”

“I know Cass didn’t go to him,” Melissa continued. “He had to come to her. The giant bitch-fit Shep’s throwing about it means Cass had very explicit orders not to go anywhere near Sig or any of his friends.”

His brows lifted a fraction higher. “She had orders ? From that guy out there?”

Melissa rolled her eyes. Rob had dealt with Pongo for several years now, and even Toly; he’d encountered Shep off and on, if not properly been introduced to him.

She’d guarded the club’s privacy, but she’d explained things to Rob in a way that meant he shouldn’t have had to ask that question just now.

“Not orders like you’re thinking. Shep said to steer clear, and she’s a smart girl. Most of the time. I bet she listened.”

Rob nodded. “Alright. Well. What are the odds our buddy Bryce in there is here on Sig’s orders?”

“Good enough I’d put money on them.”

“Wanna come see?” He hooked a thumb at the door.

“Oh, definitely.”

~*~

With Melissa gone, and the blinds of the conference room closed against the police activity beyond, Shep unzipped his jacket with a hard jerk, propped his hands on his hips, and glowered at the door like it had just insulted his mother.

Cass knew that she had to be the one to say something, and that she would need to choose her words carefully.

She needed to diffuse the situation, return him to his usual don’t-give-a-shit resting bitch face rather than this hilarious and terrifying rage-glare, but at the same time, she didn’t want to fold herself back into her previously occupied, designated box.

She was done, she decided, in the face of his fury, being a babysat kid.

It was time to speak plainly, to say what she wanted without spooking him into a categorical rejection.

No pressure, in other words.

Still looking at the door, he said, “I don’t know if you’re dumber than I thought, but if you think that kid out there isn’t trying to—”

“Frank.”

His first name always got to him. He fell silent. His teeth snapped together. When he turned toward her, his expression had gone guarded.

“I know what I want for my birthday.” When he didn’t react, just stared at her blankly, she added, “You asked me the other day what I wanted for my birthday, and I figured it out.”

His lips pressed flat. His gaze narrowed. He sensed a trap. But not, she knew, exactly what kind of trap.

He clearly wanted to stay on topic, but said, as though against his will, “What?”

Cass took a slow, deep breath. Here she went. “I want to have sex. With you. I want you to fuck me for my birthday.”