Page 35 of Beware of Dog (Lean Dogs Legacy #6)

There were bars in the city that he liked, and then there were bars that would serve Cass without checking her ID.

Shep took her to neither. He was aiming for safe, somewhere with a low likelihood of getting messed with, so they wound up at Hauser’s.

Even so, he looped a proprietary arm around her waist once they were inside the door, and scanned the crowded, low-lit room for threats.

“This what you had in mind?” He had to duck down and press his mouth close to her ear to be heard over the music.

She turned her head, and her eyes were huge and right there , her lips plump and damp like she’d been chewing at them. She still didn’t look like herself; he’d think she’d been drugged if he didn’t know better, if her pupils hadn’t reacted normally.

“What would you do?” she asked. “What would you do if you were here with a woman?”

He frowned. “I am here with a woman.” He squeezed her hip to drive home the point.

For a second, her usual Shep’s-so-stupid frustration peeked through. But then she looked almost desperate. “ No . If you were here, and you met this beautiful, sexy woman you wanted to shag—what would you say to her? How would you pick her up?”

Was he taking crazy pills? Did he have a head injury? “I…Cass…” When her frustration spiked again, he asked, “Are you wanting to role play or something?”

A look of relief touched her face, then. She nodded. “Yes. Let’s go with that. Pretend I’m a hot woman you want.”

You are the hot woman I want! he wanted to shout at her. But their usual back-and-forth wasn’t going to work in this instance, he thought.

“I…” It took him longer than it should have to shift gears.

He’d picked up plenty of one-night stands in his life, but it had always been a passive curiosity, an itch that needed scratching.

He’d never wanted to hold them, and reassure them, and touch their faces.

Had never looked at them yawning and tousled in the morning and felt lucky, felt so full of affection his jaw ached from smiling.

He took a breath, resisted the urge to smooth her hair back off her face, and said, “Well. I’d ask her if I could buy her a drink.”

She nodded, and gazed up at him expectantly.

“Can I…” he started, but that wasn’t right. If she wanted the one-night-stand experience for some ungodly reason, he supposed he better put his back into it.

He adjusted his stance, let his hips and shoulders get loose, put a smarmy smirk on his face, and dropped his voice low.

Trained his gaze on her mouth, which was not a hardship, and which offered a glimpse of the way her lower lip sucked in when he drawled, “Hey, gorgeous. What’re you drinking tonight?

Cosmo? Martini? Or are you a whiskey girl?

” The last he punctuated by slipping his fingers up under the edge of her sweater and skimming the pads over bare skin.

“Oh,” she murmured, quietly, and he had no idea why this would do it for her, after they’d been fucking and cohabitating for a month, but whatever. He saw her debate asking for that whiskey, wanting to be brave, but in the end, she said, “White wine. Sauvignon Blanc if they’ve got it.”

“Coming right up.”

Ordinarily, with a stranger, he would have suggested she grab a table while he grabbed the drinks, but like hell was he sending her off on her own, even in this place.

He towed her along with him until he could sidle up to the end of the bar, and then positioned her halfway behind him and signaled the bartender.

He still didn’t know the guy’s name, but he recognized Shep and greeted him with a nod.

Shep held up two fingers. “Lemme get a double Jack on the rocks and a Sauvignon Blanc.”

The bartender leaned back the barest fraction to get a better glimpse of Cass.

Shep lifted his brows. “Problem?”

The guy shrugged. “Not for me.” And went to pull the drinks.

Cass’s hand slipped into his back pocket, and he wanted to tell her that was way too forward for some chick he’d just offered to buy a round for, but, well…he’d had a few that forward in his time. And he liked it besides, the flutter of her small fingers, the way she felt bold enough to do it.

The drinks arrived with a flat look, and Shep slid over a twenty. “Send over refills in a little while.” He picked up the glasses, and looped his arm around Cass’s shoulders as he turned to her, wine glass held under her nose in offering. “There you go, sweetheart.”

She took it with one hand, and left the other where it was in his pocket. “Thank you.” She sounded almost shy, a little flustered.

“Come on. Let’s find somewhere to sit.”

By some miracle, a back corner booth was available. Shep urged her to slide in first, and then followed her, their backs to the wall, with a view of the bar, and, more importantly, the door.

Shep spread his arm along the back of the booth, took a sip of his drink, and turned to her. “So. Come here often?”

He fully expected an eyeroll, a shoulder shove, bright bark of laughter over the stupid, overused line. Instead, she stared up at him like she wanted to eat him alive.

Her voice was breathless when she said, “No. This is my first time.”

That was true. It was her first time here.

But…Jesus. Jesus Christ. He needed to go splash cold water on his face.

Instead, he took a long slug of whiskey and said, intelligently, “Huh.”

Cass took a swallow of wine, and then another, and another. Slow down , he wanted to say, but that wasn’t part of the fantasy she was aiming for.

She set the glass on the table, twirled the stem between her fingers, and gave him an uncharacteristic, low-lidded look.

She got like this sometimes in the throes, but it was genuine, unconscious.

Now, it was a clear act, but it was still doing things to him.

And that was before she hooked her leg over his thigh, hiked herself up, and laid a hand on his chest.

The left side of his chest.

He hissed before he could help himself, and hated the way she froze, eyes going big.

“Nah, it’s fine, baby.” He moved her hand to a different place. “I got new ink today and it’s sensitive. You didn’t know.”

A spark of real interest—of the real Cass—flared in her eyes. “New ink? Really?”

“Really.” He felt smug.

“What is it? Can I see it?”

“When we get home.”

She blinked, and then her expression slid back into her faux seductress persona. She curled her fingers in the collar of his hoodie and said, “Oh? You’re going to take me home?”

His blood was heading south, but that was down to proximity, and her big, beguiling eyes, and the warm scent of wine on her breath as she leaned in closer. But he wanted her , and not whoever the hell she was trying to be.

“Okay.” He put both hands on her waist. “What are we doing?”

Her face fell. “I thought…” She bit at her lip, and then slid back down to the booth, leg still hooked over his thigh, but the facade wrecked. “You’re not into it, are you?” She shook her head. “Fuck.” Reached for her glass and drained it off.

“Hey, hey, come on, stop that.” He took the empty glass from her hand and set it on the table.

She was pouting, and that wasn’t good , but he didn’t know what it said about him that he was relieved to see her petulant side.

“If you wanna play, we can play, I can get into it. But this is out of nowhere. Or, well, not nowhere. What did Raven say to you?”

She shook her head, thick dark hair falling over her face, shielding it.

Shep tucked it behind her ear automatically. “Cassie Jane.” She sucked in a quick breath, lips quivering, and her eyes flashed up to his, taken aback. She looked like he’d struck her.

His stomach caved in. “Oh. It’s what I said, isn’t it?”

She regarded him a long, guarded moment. “Do you think I’m going to get tired of you?”

Yes . “I never said that.”

“You said ‘give it time.’ Do you think just because my sister’s wealthy that I expect you to, I don’t know, keep me in some sort of style ?”

“Baby.” He didn’t want to upset her, or drive her away, or ruin her birthday. “I don’t…I didn’t say that. I just want you to know, going in, that I can’t. There is no style with me. What we’re doing? How we’re living? That’s the best I can do. If you want more than that—”

“I don’t!” Her eyes filled with tears, and he leaned in close and pressed his face into the side of her head. In a small, miserable voice, she said, “Do you?”

He reached with his other hand, cupped her chin, turned her head, and kissed her. Hard, and hot, and way too filthy for a public place. It worked: she whimpered, and clutched at his jacket, and kissed him back desperately.

He drew back just far enough to say, “Why don’t we go home and celebrate your birthday just us, huh?”

“Home,” she echoed, and then nodded, forehead pushing against his. “Yeah. That sounds good.”

~*~

Cass had seriously thought she might faint when Toly and Shep went out onto the balcony back at Raven’s. Because that had seemed like a terrible idea, she’d walked on shaky legs down the hallway to the nursery, where Raven was walking circles around the rug, bouncing a fussy Nat on her shoulder.

Raven had glanced up, fresh tears on her cheeks, and said, straight away, “I’m so sorry, darling, I really don’t want to fight. I don’t want to control you. I’m just so bloody tired .”

“I know.” Cass had realized she was crying, too, and was glad of the excuse of their spat; that way she didn’t have to say, Toly just found out about Shep and me and he might kill Shep and throw him off the balcony.

Shep was bigger, heavier; had been a soldier and was now a brawler.

But her own family had taught her the lethality of men like Toly.

Slender, quick, and comfortable with a knife, it wouldn’t be pretty if the two of them came to blows.

She’d reached for the baby. “Here. Let me have her.” Once Nat was squirming in her arms, warm and denser than she looked, Cass had said, “I’m sorry, too.”