Page 32 of Beware of Dog (Lean Dogs Legacy #6)

Shep exercised previously-unseen levels of restraint through the cab ride, and the lugging of her belongings.

There was no discussion about which room she’d stow her things in: his, obviously.

They made and ate dinner: a salad loaded with veggies, dressed in vinegar, with plain hamburger patties.

“I gotta cut back on the carbs,” he said, and she teased him by poking at his nonexistent love handle.

He opened up a beer, and poured her a tumbler of the wine he’d bought her yesterday, and they decompressed in front of sitcom reruns while they talked about inconsequential things: chiefly, which episode of Seinfeld was the objective “best.” (Cass loved the one with the fusilli Jerry, but Shep always cracked up over George shoving kids and old ladies out of the way during the apartment fire, so they were both clearly disturbed individuals.)

He went down on his knees in the shower and put his mouth on her, his strong hands at her hips all that kept her upright.

She screamed when she came with his tongue up inside her, embarrassed afterward because she’d thought that sort of thing only happened in porn.

Then he patiently talked her through taking his cock into her mouth for the first time, his little grunts and sighs and curses of pleasure so gratifying she touched herself while she finished him off with her hand.

He didn’t get serious until they were cuddled up in bed, naked and clean and shower-warm, the room dark around them save the orange slats of light through the blinds.

Shep slid his hand down from her waist to her ass and hauled her a little closer. She slipped her leg over his, enjoying the rasp of the hair on his thigh. “Okay,” he said, and she groaned inwardly, because he had his Serious Protector Voice on. “What happened at school?”

“I went to class, I took notes, I—ow!” He’d pinched her bum, and she reached to rub the offended area.

“You walked outta that place looking like your dog died today,” he said. “And I know that wasn’t for no reason.”

Cass sighed, and pressed her face into the side of his chest, the clean-smelling skin just past his armpit hair. “I thought about asking you to punch girls,” she said.

“Ah.”

“Or punch them myself.”

“That’d probably be better.”

“But I don’t wanna get kicked out of school.”

The pillow rustled, and when she tilted her head back, she found that he’d turned his so he could look at her face. In the semi-dark, his eyes were black wells, his mouth invisible. The edge of an orange bar of city light struck the bump at the middle of his broken nose.

She reached up and skimmed her finger down its familiar, uneven slope. “How’d this happen?” She’d always wanted to know.

He huffed an amused sound, his breath warm against her fingers, but he didn’t try to stop her exploration. “The first time? Or the other times?”

“Ooh, all of the above.” She dug her chin into his pec, a captive audience.

“The first time was in Ranger school.” She could tell he rolled his eyes thanks to a flash of white in the dimness. “I, uh…” His voice went embarrassed. “Fell off that big wall you have to climb and landed on my face.”

“Ouch.” She laughed. “I’m laughing with you, not at you.”

“Yeah, yuck it up.” He caught her wandering fingers, kissed them, and then pressed them flat to his chest, over the slow, grounding thump of his heart through warm skin. “The second time was a bar fight, right after I got my discharge papers. I was…not in a good place.”

It was far too easy to imagine him younger, angrier, lost. She ached for that version of him. “I hear loads of people have trouble adjusting after service.”

“Hm. I met Maverick pretty soon after that. The third time was another bar fight, but this time I had backup.” His teeth flashed white as he grinned. “I lost track after that.”

“Poor lamb. You have head trauma.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, probably.” Then he sobered, his body stilling slowly like water settling in the wake of a passing boat. “Cass, do you like school? I mean, I know you love art. But do you like going to school for it?”

“I…no one’s ever asked me that before.”

“Well.” He filled his hand with her ass and squeezed in a reassuring way. “I’m asking.”

She took a deep breath, and a moment to truly consider. Laid her head back down when the process made it feel heavy. “My mum is…a good mum. But she’s a little uncertain. Sweet, but…”

“Yeah. I get it.”

She nodded. “Raven stepped in early to do the decision-making. She sent me to private school, paid the way. She always said, ‘You’re going to university.’ It wasn’t a question of ‘if,’ only what I might study. I insisted on art. We argued, but she finally looked at my work and was swayed.”

When she fell silent, he slid his hand back up her body and stroked her hair, working out the shower tangles with his fingers.

“I actually do love the school part of it. My classes, and learning, and getting to experiment with styles and mediums I didn’t even know I enjoyed.

I used to think I wanted to go into anime, and then animation, but now I’m not sure.

And I never knew I was good at metalwork, so that’s been cool. But.”

He tucked her hair behind her ear, and stroked her cheek with his thumb. “But the people,” he prodded.

She sighed. “Yeah. When I was in primary and secondary school, I had friends. Even good friends. But I knew that they didn’t—that they didn’t love me.

It was all well and good on school grounds, but I had this family I couldn’t tell them about, and my family did love me, and I loved them.

This whole thing with Jamie, and with Sig…

” She bit her lip when her eyes felt hot.

“People are always gonna judge you for who you’re related to, honey. It sucks, but it’s just the truth.”

“I know.”

“You can either walk away from your family—”

“ Never .”

“Or say ‘fuck you’ to the idiots giving you a hard time. Hey. Come here.” She loved the way he could haul her around on a whim; the way he scooped her up and pulled her to lie on his chest, straddling him, so they were face-to-face, his features more distinct in the dark up close like this.

He looked sad, she thought. Sad for her, maybe.

He swept her hair back with both hands so he could hold her face.

She sniffed. “I don’t want to live in the dorms anymore.”

“So don’t,” he said, like it was that easy. “Live here with me.”

Overwhelmed, she leaned down to kiss him.

~*~

Neither of them suggested the obvious, which was that Cass should move back in with Raven. Cass didn’t want to, and Shep acted as if staying here with him was the only logical solution.

The weeks that unfurled felt both like a honeymoon, and like a slumber party, and like every other day, considering how integral a part of her daily life Shep had become over the past three years.

Without a base of comparison, Cass had no idea if it was normal for forty-six-year-old men to be so amorous, but she certainly wasn’t going to complain about it. She felt horny all the time , fever stricken and unhinged.

He loved when she wore nothing but one of his shirts, and would press up behind her while she was trying to do homework, slide his hands under the material and up to her breasts, playing with them until she arched into his touch and begged him to lay her out on the floor, which he was all too happy to do.

He told her to chop the onions for their dinner, and then five seconds later was grinding against her ass, and then turning her around and hoisting her up onto the counter so he could tug down her shorts and eat her out.

They tipped over a sack of flour that time, which exploded on the floor and sent flour everywhere.

He bitched so much while they were attempting to clean it up that she threw a handful into his face.

He sputtered, laughing, cursing her out, and it devolved into a full-fledged flour fight, which devolved further into shower sex.

Little details she’d always noticed but never been able to act upon drove her crazy: the way the collar of his white t-shirts lay against the back of his neck.

The ripple of muscles in his chest and abs when he stretched each morning.

The way he always wiggled his toes when he kicked his feet up onto the coffee table.

The little shaving nick under his jaw that she licked and sucked on until he gritted out a curse and shoved her farther down his body with one hand, the other shoving down his sweats.

He taught her how to ride his cock, facing forward and back, his big hands leaving finger-shaped bruises on her hips and thighs.

Took her from behind: braced over the arm of the couch, and on her hands-and-knees on the mattress, on the floor.

On one memorable occasional, he hoisted her up and pinned her against the wall, so she had to hold onto his waist with her legs, and bit marks into her throat while he drilled into her, again and again.

All of it was new, and then not-new, and it never got old. But Cass’s favorite was lying on her back, face-to-face, sharing slick kisses and hot breath while he fucked her deep and slow. She scratched red lines into his back and his hipbones bruised her inner thighs.

But they still did the things they’d always done.

They cooked together, and ate together smushed on the couch.

He made relentless fun of her reality shows, and they both commiserated about how much realer and cooler the practical effects of John Carpenter’s The Thing were than the CGI of the remake.

They went food shopping together, and made fun of people in the Park, and after three whiskeys, he turned on ridiculous nineties pop and dragged her around, both of them smiling and laughing like idiots, Shep insisting he knew how to dance.

On quiet Saturdays, when she slipped out of bed and went to one of her canvases set up in the living room window nook, he’d wander out, shirtless and sleepy, and drag a chair up so he could sit behind her stool, hook his chin over her shoulder, stubble tickling her neck, and hum appreciatively at her project.

He liked broad cityscapes best, the people small and forlorn-looking in the corner, swallowed up by the buildings around them.

Cass kept waiting for him to tell her this had been fun, but it was time for her to get out. Or that he needed some space, some goddamn breathing room because they were attached at the fucking hip.

But he never did.

She was so overflowing with love she thought it must be beaming out of her eyes and mouth, seeping out of her pores.

She thought everyone everywhere must have been able to smell it on her.

But no one did, not even Raven, too distracted and tired to remark on what must have been a lightbulb glow wreathing Cass’s face at all times.

She’d never been happier in her life. Shep didn’t say as much, but he smiled more than she’d ever seen, and it took ten years off his handsome, rugged, wonderful face.