Page 23 of Danger and Dominance

“Your money.”

“You helped pick them.”

Fair enough.She hadn’t known they were for Jennifer, though; she’d thought they were for him and Mick.She didn’t like pickles, but she hadn’t had the heart to tell him that when he’d been so intent on picking out a good selection.

“Why didn’t you give them to her at work?”

He shrugged casually, avoiding her gaze.“Feels a little weird to be giving someone a gift at work.You can pass them on to her tonight without it being weird.”

Cassidy narrowed her eyes, studying him.

“Jensen, do you have a crush on Jennifer?”

“What?No!”Now, he looked at her with an affronted expression, but she wasn’t buying it.The Baby doth protest too much.“She’s way too young for me.I just know she likes pickled vegetables and thought we could pick some up for her.But I don’t want her to feel weird about accepting them from me or thinking that I’m trying to hit on her or make her uncomfortable at work or anything.”

Well, if Jennifer didn’t return Jensen’s interest, Cassidy could see how that might make work awkward.She could see his point about Jennifer being young, though the age difference between them couldn’t be more than ten years.The same as Master Law and Iris back at Stronghold, and she’d definitely heard of bigger ones.But Jennifer was just out of college.

At any rate, Jensen looked so defensive, she just smiled.She didn’t call him out on the fact that he was practically stumbling over his words to reassure her that he didn’t have a thing for Jennifer.Which meant he probably did.

“Got it,” she said.“I’ll make sure she gets them and that she knows we picked them out together.”

Sheer relief replaced the anxiety in his expression.Yup, he totally didn’t like her.

“Great.Thanks.”He smiled weakly.“I’ll be back to pick you up later.I’m only five minutes away at David’s.”

David lived only five minutes away?

Immediately, Cassidy bit her lip against asking the question.There was no reason to.It didn’t matter.She knew Jensen had checked in daily with David about what she was doing because Jensen had told her, but it wasn’t like David was interested in her beyond that.

Unfortunately, it seemed Jensen wasn’t the only one with a crush.

She hoped that his was more attainable than hers.

9

David

Every time someone opened his door, David’s head snapped around to see if it was Jensen.He was dropping Cassidy off on his way over to David’s.Not that David expected anything to happen to them on the way, but he was still anxiously awaiting Jensen’s arrival.

During game nights, Claudia got the ladies together to play games, and the guys gathered at David’s to watch movies.Usually, the kind their significant others weren’t interested in.Quite often, they were pretty bad.Tonight, they were watching Wrestlers vs.Zombies.David did not anticipate it becoming anyone’s new favorite.

Unfortunately, Drew arrived first.Then Mason.Then, finally, Jensen.Normally, Lincoln joined them as well, especially when Ashley went to game night, but they had decided to go to the Outlands tonight.Lincoln had not been happy about Marshall appearing at Black Fox earlier that week, even though they hadn’t heard from him since.He had some extra energy to work off, and Ashley was only too happy to assist.

With everyone around, David couldn’t exactly pounce on Jensen and demand to know how Cassidy was doing, even though he kind of wanted to.

He’d spent the past few days with everything under his control, everything running smoothly, and the only pie he didn’t have his fingers in was Cassidy.Even with the daily updates from Jensen, he didn’t feel like he knew what was going on.Was she still anxious?Had she picked out a job?Did she feel comfortable leaving the house?

Jensen’s daily ‘she’s doing fine’ texts should have been enough, but they weren’t.The amount of information was incomplete.And if he didn’t know what was going on, he couldn’t anticipate problems or figure out how to help.

“Baby Bodyguard!How’s the easy life?”Drew asked, joking, when Jensen walked in.

“Easy,” Jensen joked back, sauntering in.“Seriously, we should take up bodyguarding from home more often.It’s the easiest gig I’ve ever done.I get to work and train from home while eating amazing home-cooked food for every meal.”

David scowled at him.

“You’d better not have her cooking for you all the time just because she’s there.”

Putting his hands up in a gesture of surrender, Jensen was already shaking his head before David finished speaking.