Page 13 of Danger and Dominance (Black Fox Security Doms #1)

If she’d seen the red flags at some point…

If she’d gotten away sooner…

If she’d just kept her mouth shut at Stronghold instead of trying to safe word.

It had been a call for help, but she’d done it without thinking through the consequences for other people. She’d done it without thinking about how everyone else might be affected. She felt incredibly selfish when she thought too much about it.

All she’d been thinking about at that moment was herself, how much Don was hurting her, and hoping someone would make it stop. Hoping someone would come rescue her. Iris, Master Law, and the rest of the Stronghold members had, at a cost to themselves.

“Cassidy. Eat.”

For the first time, Jensen’s Dom side showed through, and Cassidy’s fork was halfway to her mouth before she realized what she was doing. She’d heard the command, and her hand had moved of its own accord.

Shoving the forkful of pancake into her mouth, she stared at Jensen.

He might have a boyish face, he might be the youngest of David’s team, and his nickname might be ‘Baby,’ but he was definitely a Dom.

Meeting her gaze, seeing her taking a bite, he nodded approvingly and went back to drying off the pan he’d just washed.

Well, damn.

Even knowing that appearances could be deceiving, she hadn’t entirely expected that of him. He was so happy-go-lucky. Especially compared to some of his team. Like David.

She wanted to ask Jensen about David, but she couldn’t think of a question that wouldn’t sound like she was fishing for information. Because, of course, that’s exactly what she would be doing. Maybe if she asked about the team as a group?

“How long have you been with Black Fox Security?” she asked. That was safe, right?

“Since it started.” Jensen hung the pan up in its place on the potholder hanging from the wall before turning to face her, wiping off his hands.

“Lincoln was our commander in the field, and when he left, we went with him. It took a bit of time since we weren’t all able to leave at once, but we all knew we wanted to join him. ”

“Kincaid said you each have your own specialties?”

“We do. We’re all pretty well-rounded, but we have our things. Like Mason with psychology and profiling. Claudia’s our sniper, and we all take turns being her spotter, but Drew is the best at it. He’s also the muscle when we need it.”

“What about you?”

“I’m the sneaky one. Like a ninja.” Jensen winked at her.

That made her laugh. But he’d still left out the person she really wanted to hear about.

Why was she so interested in David? She couldn’t really say, other than her instant attraction to him.

Which was not a good reason to be trying to find out more about him. It would be a good reason to stay away.

Her ‘picker’ when it came to men sucked, as evidenced by Don.

On the other hand, if she was going to be protected by a team of people, she wanted to know more about them. That was reasonable.

“Does David have a specialty?” Since she’d asked about Jensen specifically, it couldn’t hurt to ask about the final team member. Nothing suspicious at all.

“Nope, he’s our ginger of all trades.” Jensen grinned. “He knows a little about everything. I think he feels like he has to since he’s technically in charge of our missions. He doesn’t like it when he doesn’t understand something or has to ask us to do something he knows nothing about.”

“That makes sense.” It also made a good leader, she would imagine. Not that she’d ever been in a place to know.

“What are your plans for today?” Jensen asked. “Did you want to go anywhere?”

“What? Oh, no,” she said as she realized he was thinking about whether he would need to accompany her anywhere. “I don’t need to go anywhere. I was thinking I would look over the job listings Jennifer gave me yesterday and see what’s available, then just… try to decompress.”

“Cool. What were you doing before?”

“Um…” Cassidy hesitated, feeling her cheeks heat with shame because she knew how what she was about to say was going to sound. “Well, Don didn’t want me working, so I was going to nursing school, but I dropped out.”

Red flag. She knew that. At the time, it had sounded good, though.

Why work if she didn’t have to? Why not stay at home and do whatever she wanted to do and keep up the housework so they could save some money instead of having someone come in to clean?

And if she decided she really did want to be a nurse, she could always go back.

But somehow, they’d never had the money when she wanted to go back, even though he’d ‘saved’ money by getting rid of the cleaning service he’d had. Somehow, it had never been the right time for her to go back. According to him.

“Ah. Gotcha.” The expression on Jensen’s face was sympathetic, not judgmental, but it didn’t matter.

She was judging herself.

“Well, I don’t know if there will be anything in there that correlates to that. I think it’s mostly admin-type stuff, but who knows.”

“Admin-type stuff sounds great.” That’s what she’d been doing at the temp agency where she’d gotten a job. Master Adam from Stronghold had helped her out with that. Now, she was getting help with this job.

At some point, she was going to have to stand on her own two feet. Even if it meant Don finding her.

But not yet.

Not right now.

Maybe when she was ready to do that, she’d move somewhere far, far away. Europe might be nice. She’d always wanted to visit Ireland.

“Well, good luck. Let me know if you need anything.”

Jensen shot her a smile and ambled out of the kitchen, leaving her alone to think about what she was going to do with this temporary stopover between the life she was escaping and the life she wanted.