Page 40 of Beware of Dog (Lean Dogs Legacy #6)

“Not that I have any basis for comparison,” Cass said, face heating. “But…dear God. I don’t know why I bother getting out of bed.”

Raven cracked up, and then Cass did. They were tipped together, laughing, when Toly appeared in the threshold, cautiously optimistic.

“Everything okay?”

“Everything’s lovely, darling,” Raven told him. “When’s the pizza arriving? We’re starved .”

~*~

They all four sat on the bed, eating pizza straight out of the box, Nat sleeping in a nest of pillows. Cass had her left leg stuck out so that her socked toes rested on Shep’s thigh.

“What a bitch,” Shep said between bites when Cass told them about Jamie’s mother that morning.

She poked his leg with her toes. “She’s upset.”

He grabbed her toes and squeezed, more reassurance than punishment, though his face screwed up. “Some fuckhead rapes her daughter, that same fuckhead pays to have her house watched, and then she blames you? When you’re just trying to help her kid? She can bite my ass.”

“Yes, well,” Raven said, dabbing her lips with a napkin. “Misdirected though her anger might be—”

“Really?” Toly drawled, picking black olives off his slice of supreme. “You’re going to play devil’s advocate here?”

Raven blushed.

Shep caught Cass’s gaze and lifted his brows, delighted. You seeing this shit?

She grinned. Nobody got Raven twisted up and off her game like Toly, and it never got old to witness.

“Okay, she’s a bitch,” Raven relented.

Shep let out a single, gratified, “Ha!”

Toly cut him a sideways glare.

“But,” Raven continued, “I do believe that she’s, most of all, frightened. I’ll go see her myself, and explain to her the importance of Jamie testifying at trial.”

“Who’s watching them?” Cass asked. “Prince’s crew?”

Shep shook his head. “Nah. They were tailing you.” He made a face. “Us.” He’d shown her the pictures and she may or may not have shouted in alarm and thrown them to the floor.

“Someone else, then,” Raven said. “Can we offer them protection?” She looked between the guys. “If not, I’ll hire outside contractors.”

Toly said, “I’ll call Maverick and see who he can spare.” He cocked a black brow. “Unless your brothers are bored in Tennessee.”

“Hm. They might be. But…” Raven glanced at Cass, and then at Shep. “I suppose you’ll have to share with everyone at some point.”

Shep shrugged, as if unbothered, and reached for a slice of the bechamel sauce with artichokes and sausage. Cass could read the sudden tension that stole across his shoulders, though.

“The trial’s not ‘til May,” Cass said. “It could be an extended assignment.”

“Worthwhile, though,” Raven said.

Nat stirred in her sleep, little fusses and kicks, and Toly’s expression transformed when he reached to smooth her little flyaway hairs across the crown of her head until she stilled.

Gazing at her with as much emotion as Cass had ever seen from him, he said, “Why don’t we just kill the little fucker? ”

“Trust me, that’s what I wanna do,” Shep said.

Cass said, “But the Blackmons have Shep on camera pistol-whipping Sig in their house. If he turned up dead or missing, they’d blame the Dogs.”

Toly’s head whipped around toward Shep. “You did what?”

“I don’t wanna hear it, Mr. Moscow, not after the shit you’ve pulled in the past.”

Toly’s eyes flashed dangerously, and Raven waved a hand through the air.

“Boys, no . We’re not doing this.” Her tone brooked no arguments, and didn’t receive any. “What’s done is done, which means the best option going forward is to get Jamie to trial.”

Shep said, “But what if little Siggy was extra incentivized not to fuck around with us anymore?”

Raven sent him a look.

“Worth a shot.”

~*~

Nat woke back up, because she always did.

The guys gathered up the leftovers, they migrated back into the main part of the flat, and Toly crammed the pizza boxes in the trash.

When he pulled the vodka out of the freezer, he got down two glasses, and then pulled the whiskey off the top of the fridge unasked.

Nat was put into her swing in front of the nightly news, and Raven slid into Toly’s lap in the armchair he usually favored.

Cass wound up tucked against Shep’s side, secure under the heavy weight of his arm, occasionally stealing sips out of his glass as he got warmer, looser, and louder thanks to the whiskey.

She was struck suddenly by the notion that they were sitting here for the first time as two couples. It was like a double date. The idea left her giddy.

She tilted Shep’s hand toward her, not bothering to pluck the glass from his fingers, and took the last shallow sip from the bottom of the glass, throat burning, head spinning pleasantly.

Getting tipsy with him was always an entirely different and entirely pleasurable experience, compared to drinking alone or with friends at a party.

She felt safe. Like it would be okay if she fell, because she would land on him.

“Damn thief,” Shep said, and leaned forward to grab the bottle off the coffee table.

“You’re not going to be able to ride,” Cass warned, laughing, fingers curling in his hoodie when he flopped back with a fresh drink.

“Stay here,” Raven said with a wave. Cass searched for judgement in her face, but her smile was indulgent.

“I’m celebrating,” Shep said. “Your sister didn’t gouge my eye out with that meteor she calls a ring.” He aimed his glass at Toly. “And by the way, dude. What the hell were you thinking? How’re you ever gonna top that ?”

Toly had one arm snug around Raven’s waist, and gestured to her with his free hand. “You’ve seen her,” he said by way of explanation.

Raven made a scandalized sound. “Are you saying I’m shallow? I told you I didn’t need a ring.”

“I wanted to make sure all the assholes in the fashion business knew you were taken.”

“Aw.” Raven stroked his hair back. “That’s very sweet, in a barbaric sort of way.”

“Please, he was overcompensating,” Shep said.

Toly shot him the bird.

“I don’t know who he robbed or killed to get that thing,” Shep said, turning to look at Cass, “but I can’t afford that kinda ice, so don’t expect anything that crazy.”

He was so flushed, so unfettered and boyish in his happiness, it took her a second to parse his words. Don’t expect anything that crazy . He’d said as long as you want me , but he’d not said marriage . That’s what he was thinking, though, wasn’t it?

She didn’t know if she wanted to cheer or cry, so she whipped her phone out instead. “Here. You look hot, take a pic with me.”

“A selfie? Oh, come on, I’m not a teenage girl.”

“Neither am I. Take the picture.”

He sighed theatrically, but when she held the phone out at arm’s length, he dutifully pressed his face in close to hers so they’d both fit in the frame. She snapped two pics, and then he turned to kiss her cheek on the third one.

A flash blasted off to the side, and Raven said, “Aw.”

Shep shot her the bird.

“You watch yourself,” Toly said, but Raven laughed.

Cass took hold of his middle finger and folded it down. The near corner of his mouth was twitching with a held-back smile.

“If you don’t like flashbulbs, the Met’s going to destroy you,” Raven said.

Shep sat back and resituated his arm across Cass’s shoulder. “Nobody’s gonna want pictures of me there.”

With a leap of excitement, Cass noted he didn’t say he wasn’t going.

“Hm.” Raven made a considering face. A devious one. “That depends on how I dress you.” She smiled evilly. “I’m thinking red.”

“Over my dead fucking body.”

But Cass perked up at the idea. “Dark red.”

“Of course.”

“With black lapels?”

“Ooh,” Raven said. “Yes. Velvet or satin?”

Cass considered.

“No red,” Shep told first her, and then Raven. “No. Red.”

“Don’t fight it.” Toly hid a rare grin in the edge of his glass. “You know you’ll wear whatever they pick out.”

Cass scratched at his chest through his shirt, right over the tattoo, and he sighed and thumped his head back on the couch.

Raven caught her eye, and sent her a sisterly, conspiratorial grin of the sort they’d never shared before. It felt good .

After one more unnecessary whiskey, of which Cass didn’t partake and which made Shep more than tipsy, they dispersed for the night with pleasantries and, on Raven’s part, a tight hug for Cass.

Shep was being too loud, but thankfully Cass’s room was on the far side of the flat from the main, and she didn’t think he’d disturb Raven, Toly, or Nat.

“I’ve never actually been in here before,” he declared, hands on his hips, studying the array of posters and art prints on the walls.

“What? That’s not true.” Cass found a clean pair of sleep shorts and a tank top in her top drawer and started changing.

Even if she’d skipped a nip from the last drink, she’d had enough that her movements were slow and uncoordinated.

The room was pleasantly fuzzy, and she couldn’t stop smiling over the fact that Shep was here, and that it wasn’t a secret; that it was allowed . “You’ve been in here before.”

“Yeah, but, like, in and out. I haven’t been in here.”

He hadn’t stayed in here, he meant. Hadn’t examined its contents at his leisure knowing he’d get to turn down the covers and sleep in the bed.

Changed, Cass sat cross-legged on the end of the mattress, content to watch him explore.

He leaned in close to the corner of a big canvas and clocked her signature. “You did this one.” He tossed a proud glance over his shoulder, then looked back at the piece. “Who is it?”

“Roy Mustang.”

“He some kinda cartoon character?”

She sighed. “Do you really want to discuss the finer points of manga in general, and Fullmetal Alchemist in specific?”

“Nope.” He moved on to the next canvas with her signature, ignoring the band posters and bought art, and then chuckled. “Family portrait?”

“Yes.”

She’d had to cobble it together from various photos, so it didn’t look like a staged group photo, but a very retro sequence of floating torsos. Her brothers and their old ladies, and Raven, and Reese, and Toly. And…

“Hey.” Shep pointed, finger hovering over the canvas, the thick scores of red and blue and black oil paint she’d used to create her stylized portraits. “Is that me?”

Once, not too long ago, she would have been self-conscious to admit that it was him. Now, she said, simply, “Yes.”

He shot her another over-the-shoulder glance, this one stunned.

“Why are you surprised?”

He rubbed at the back of his neck, which had gone pink. “Dunno. Guess I’m not, really.”

She made grabby hands. “Do you want to keep playing art critic or come to bed?”

In answer, he started stripping off his clothes as he moved to join her.

He lost his balance tugging his jeans off his left leg, wobbled, muttered, “Shit,” and nearly face-planted on the carpet.

Cass laughed. “Shuddup, brat,” he said, when he was finally free and climbing up onto the bed in just his boxer-briefs.

She caught him by the shoulders when he swayed in toward her—but he wasn’t off balance, just leaning in for a kiss. A very wet, heated, whiskey-flavored kiss.

Cass wound her arms around his neck and climbed up into his lap, wanting closer.

She hadn’t yet found a definition for close enough .

Like this, heat radiated off his skin, and his muscles shifted smooth and hard beneath her hands when he took her by the hips and hauled her in even closer, so she was straddling his waist. She loved the way they fit together physically, the breadth of his shoulders under her arms, the way his hands covered her breasts over the threadbare cotton of her shirt.

He hummed a low growling sound against her mouth, and then trailed his lips down her jaw, her throat, his nighttime stubble striking sparks along her skin.

Cass shivered and speared her fingers through his hair, cupping the back of his head, urging him on.

He paused when he reached the chain resting in the join of her neck and shoulder, and pulled back with the damp sound of a seal breaking to hook a finger in the chain and draw the dogs tags out of the neck of her shirt and into the light.

Cass kept her hands in his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp as he smoothed a thumb over his own name, his ID number, his blood type, his religious affiliation.

She hadn’t taken the tags off since he gave them to her on her birthday, not even to shower.

She’d grown used to their smooth weight between her breasts, the gentle chime of metal.

She found herself fiddling with the chain or stroking them in class when she felt restless.

Maybe it was silly or childish, a symptom of a young woman in love, but she relished having them, touching them and knowing he was out there beyond the walls of her classroom, thinking about her, and waiting on her, and probably formulating a plan for dinner that he would relay when she swung on the back of his bike.

How can he be so mean, and so scary-looking, and so damn cute? she wondered. What she said, smiling, smoothing her thumbs along his temples, was, “No thoughts, head empty.”

“Hm?” He tipped his head back, gaze searching her face, soft and fever-bright in a way that had nothing to do with alcohol.

“Nothing,” she assured, chest full to bursting. “It’s just a meme.”

His brows drew together. “The fuck’s a meme?”

Cass laughed, and kissed his frowning mouth.