Page 25 of Danger and Dominance (Black Fox Security Doms #1)

Cassidy

Something was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

She needed to leave for her job interview, but something was very wrong.

And not wrong in the way that said ‘danger.’

She couldn’t stop giggling.

She felt woozy. Not dizzy. Woozy. Like her vision was zooming in, then zooming back out, wavering around the edges. It made it kind of hard to walk.

“Cassidy, are you ready to go?” Jensen called from the front hall.

She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, gripping the sides of the sink.

“Coming!”

Did her voice sound weird? She couldn’t tell.

Crap, crap, crap.

She had to go.

She needed this job.

She didn’t know what was wrong, but she knew she had to go.

Let go of the sink.

Were her eyes red?

Let go of the sink.

“Everything okay?”

“Coming!” She let go of the sink.

Found the doorknob. Turned it.

Focus, focus, focus.

One foot in front of the other.

Everything’s fine. Just keep moving. Don’t stop, won’t stop.

Oh God.

She managed not to stumble as she made her way out into the hall where Jensen was waiting for her. He glanced up from his phone and put it in his pocket.

“Ready?”

“Yeah.” One foot in front of the other. Jensen obviously didn’t realize anything was wrong. Maybe she was sick? Maybe there was a tumor in her head, and it was making everything wonky.

For some reason, that made her want to giggle, but she suppressed it.

One foot in front of the other, out to the car.

Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot.

Open car door.

Sit down.

Okay, it was more like a controlled fall, but she made it! Hooray!

“Are you alright?” Jensen asked, sitting down in the driver’s seat.

“Great!” She beamed at him. “Everything is great. Isn’t there a song about that? Everything is great?”

“I think it’s called Everything is Awesome.” He eyed her. “You seem a lot more excited than you did earlier.”

“Oh… well… you know. Job. Money.” She waved her hand in front of her.

“Right. Um… seatbelt?”

“Right!” Crap, she’d forgotten her seatbelt. Concentrating, she managed to wrangle it over her body and click it into place. Click, click. She giggled again.

Cassidy stared out the window, pressing her hands into her lap to keep them from moving around the way they wanted to. The car started and began to glide down the street.

“It’s Cuppa Joe’s coffee shop, right?” Jensen asked.

“Yeah.” The name had stood out, so she remembered it, even though her brain wasn’t working properly right now. Maybe coffee would help whatever was going on with her. It couldn’t make things worse, right?

“And this is for the companion position?”

“Yeah… I’ll need to drive if I get it, but that’s okay because she’s apparently got her own car. She just can’t drive it around. As long as I don’t get pulled over, I won’t come up in the system.” She would make sure she was always obeying all the traffic laws to keep that from happening.

“Even if you do, just let one of us know, and we’ll have Lincoln pull some strings.”

Cassidy gave him a thumbs-up.

Oh my God, what’s wrong with me?

She put her hands back in her lap. Would sitting on them be suspicious?

Sitting on them would probably be suspicious.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Crap. He was onto her.

“Fine!”

A long silence filled the car as Cassidy stared straight ahead out the front window. She should do something. Anything. Something to prove that she was as fine as she was claiming to be.

Act normal.

How did she normally behave? How did she normally act?

What did she normally do with her hands?

“Cassidy,” Jensen said slowly. “Did you happen to eat one of the brownies next to the fridge?”

The question was so out of left field, it took her a moment to process it.

“I’m sorry, were they for something specific? I thought they were leftover from last night and that they were up for grabs because last night Mick said that we could?—”

“Cassidy, those are pot brownies.” The car came to a halt at the red light, and Jensen leaned forward, banging his head against the top of the steering wheel—deliberately. “Oh, fuck. I totally forgot to warn you.”

“Pot brownies? Oh my God, I’m high?” She’d never been high before. She’d never done any kind of drugs before. Mick had offered a vape before, but she hadn’t, though the brownies… “Oh God… is pot legal here? Am I going to be in trouble?”

“Well, you can’t take a pee test for a couple of weeks, I think.” Jensen shook his head. “Medicinal pot is legal, but recreational isn’t, so just… you need to keep it to yourself. Crap. Maybe we should reschedule.”

“No! What if someone else gets the job? This is the one I actually want. I’ll… I’ll focus. It’ll be fine.”

The light turned green again. Jensen sighed but put his foot on the gas pedal.

“Shit… I’m sorry. If this doesn’t work out, I’ll help you find another job that you want. So will Mick. In fact, I’ll put him in charge of it.” Now Jensen was babbling, which at least helped her keep her mouth shut.

He pulled off to the side of the street, and for a moment, she thought he was changing his mind and was about to turn them around before he nodded toward a cute storefront with a green awning and a huge cup of coffee painted on the window with steam rising from the mug.

“That’s it. Are you sure? We can call and see if you can reschedule.”

“No, we’re here. Let me just do it. It’ll be fine.”

This so wasn’t going to be fine. She should listen to Jensen and turn around right now, but for some reason, the words coming out of her mouth didn’t quite match up with her thoughts. Or maybe it would be fine?

“Okay, come on. I don’t think anyone who doesn’t know you will notice. It took me a bit to realize something was wrong.” Jensen huffed and opened his car door. “I’ll get you something to drink and eat. That might help.”

That actually made her feel a lot better. If he hadn’t immediately realized that something was wrong, then someone she didn’t know shouldn’t. She could totally do this.

Focusing on the door handle, Cassidy grasped it and pulled, then pushed the door open. I’ve got this . I’ve totally got this.

Jensen came around to help, closing the door behind her and offering his arm for her to lean on. Which helped. Moving was definitely harder than not moving. She’d be fine once she was sitting down.

“Okay, who are we looking for?” he asked, guiding her toward the door to the coffee shop.

“Mrs. Brenda Jamieson. Jennifer said she’d be sitting in the corner next to the cupcakes, and she’d be wearing a purple shirt.”

“Got it.” He pulled the door open, angling himself so she could walk in while still on his arm. Her gaze skittered around the inside of the shop, which was very cute. Lots of small tables, little nooks with couches and armchairs, and even some bean bags around a low table near a bookshelf.

The far side of the shop was where the workers were, behind a display case of various baked goods—the cupcakes were on the far right. She found the purple shirt, which was on a woman sitting next to a big redheaded man, another man sitting across from them.

“Oh, fuck,” Jensen whispered, at the exact same time her heart dropped into her shoes.

That wasn’t just any redheaded man sitting next to the older woman in the purple shirt.

That was David.

Oh, fuck.

David

The interviews were not going well from his grandmother’s perspective—she hadn’t liked any of the interviewees so far—and they weren’t going well from David’s perspective because she wasn’t going to choose any of them.

All of them passed his parameters… well, except the guy currently sitting in front of them, who apparently did not take the hint that it was time to go.

He could tell his grandmother was not into him, even though Ted was doing his best to be charming. Unfortunately, he didn’t have nearly the charisma he thought he did.

“Thanks for coming in to meet with us,” David said for the fourth time, more forcefully this time. “We’ll give you a call.” Also said for the fourth time.

Ted beamed at him from across the table, lifting his hand to run it through his long blond locks and winking at David’s grandma.

“Great! I think we could get along really well.” He winked again. He did a lot of winking. That or he had a condition that made his left eye spasm. A lot. “I know I would love to spend more time with you, Brenda. Have you ever?—”

Crap, this was how he’d kept things going every time, just changing the topic of conversation to something else instead of getting up.

“Ted, you’re done. My next interview is here.” Grandma’s voice was flat. She’d been excited over Ted’s blond good looks when he’d first arrived; that she was so ready to kick him out of his seat meant his personality had really failed him miserably. “She needs your seat.”

“She is?” David looked down at the pile of files he had in front of him. Dammit, Ted had overrun his time to the point where David hadn’t been able to give it even a cursory glance ahead of time. His grandma had looked at them in the car.

“Yup, right there. Hello, dear!” His grandmother waved, calling to someone across the shop. Ted turned around to look, too. Peering past him, David froze.

Cassidy and Jensen were the only two people standing just inside the door, and Cassidy was the only ‘she’.

Dropping his head down, he yanked out the next file and opened it. Cassidy’s headshot stared back at him from the very top. The same one used on the file Lincoln had shown him before they’d ever met.

Inwardly, he groaned.

So much for taking some time to get his head on straight before he saw her again.

“Bye, Ted,” Grandma said cheerfully. “You need to move out of Miss Simone’s seat.”

“Oh, uh, alright then.” Ted cleared his throat. “I look forward to hearing from you.”

No, he didn’t. And as punishment for putting Cassidy in the line-up without warning David, he was going to make Jennifer call the man to let him down.

He had a feeling she’d snuck Cassidy in without telling him because she wasn’t sure how he’d feel about it.

She was right. He didn’t know how he felt about it.

Especially after last night.

He was supposed to be staying away , not lining up a job with his grandmother for her.

Taking a deep breath, he lifted his head as Ted finally vacated his seat.

“Here, miss. Good luck.” The smirk on his face and the smugness in his voice indicated the exact opposite, as if he was trying to hint that he already had the job in the bag and she was wasting her time.

Which she might be, but not because of him.

“You’ve got this,” Jensen muttered in her ear as he sat her down. Cassidy was pale as a ghost. “I’ll go get you a coffee and a muffin.”

Mutely, she nodded.

“Hello, dear. Don’t worry, I don’t bite,” Grandma said, leaning forward and smiling at her reassuringly.

Cassidy stared at her, her eyes seemingly twice the size as they normally were.

Was it just him, or were the whites a little pink?

Shit, had she not been able to sleep last night because of what happened between them?

“Hi,” Cassidy whispered and then cleared her throat and tried again. This time, her voice squeaked. “Hi.”

“Hello, I’m Brenda.” Grandma beamed.

“Grandma, this is Cassidy,” David said when Cassidy kept staring at them, her gaze darting back and forth between them. She looked like she wanted to run. Had she not realized that the interview was with him?

Maybe Jennifer had left them both in the dark.

Dammit. She was lucky she wasn’t a member at the Outlands because he would have paddled her ass for this trick—or found someone to do it for him.

She was too much like a little sister to him for him to imagine paddling her himself, but he would happily hand her off to someone else after this.

Unfortunately, since she didn’t come to the club because of her parents, he was stuck with giving her duties like calling Ted to let him know he hadn’t gotten the job as punishment.

“Oh, you know each other?” Grandma asked, looking back and forth between them, obviously delighted. David groaned inwardly. She was both completely incorrect and way too correct in her thinking.

“Cassidy is a client of Black Fox,” he said sternly, giving his grandmother a look.

She didn’t need to know anything about what had happened between him and Cassidy last night, even though the look she gave him made him feel like she just knew , anyway.

“She does need a job, though I didn’t know she’d be applying for this one. ”

“I wanted to be a nurse,” she blurted out, then pressed her lips together so hard, the skin around them went white.

David stared at her. She was not acting like herself at all.

Even with her surprise at seeing him there, even with last night, this is not the kind of behavior he would have expected from her.

At her most upset, she’d still been calm and composed.

Right now, she was jittery. Nervous. Still looked like she was about to run.

It couldn’t just be about last night.

Could it?

“So, tell me about yourself, dear. Do you like to read?” Grandma was on a mission to draw Cassidy out.

He could already tell that she liked Cassidy more than anyone else they’d talked to today.

Maybe he’d made a mistake in letting her know that he and Cassidy knew each other, but hiding it wouldn’t have been right.

“I do.” Cassidy blinked rapidly. “Um. What do you like to read?” Her gaze dropped down to Grandma’s shirt, and her eyes somehow managed to get even wider. “Holy crap… do you know what your shirt says?”

“Yes,” Grandma said, sounding pleased, at the exact same time David spoke.

“What does it mean? Wait, no, I don’t want to know.”

Unfortunately, as he said the second part, Cassidy was already answering.

“Shut the fuck up and take that dick like a good girl.”

She slapped her hands over her mouth, looking like she wanted to sink into the floor, but it was already too late. David choked on absolutely nothing, wishing he could carve the knowledge that his grandmother knew what it meant out of his head. He also knew that something was really wrong.

Jittery, reddened eyes, looking like she was trying really hard to focus…

“Are you high?” He could hear the disbelief in his voice as he asked the question. Why on earth would she have gotten high this morning, but all the signs were pointing in one direction?

Cassidy froze, staring at him, hands still over her mouth like she couldn’t figure out whether to lie or tell the truth.

Grandma slapped her palm against the table.

“You’re hired!”

“ Grandma, no .”