Page 49 of Danger and Dominance

“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 shejust 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.”

19

David

“It was an accident,” Jensen whispered, shooting a surreptitious glance over to the table where Cassidy was sitting with David’s grandmother, hungrily tearing apart the muffin he’d gotten her.Grandma was chattering about something, looking very pleased.A vein pulsed in David’s temple, and his jaw felt like it was locked into place.“It’s not her fault; she didn’t realize Mick had made pot brownies, and I didn’t warn her because I thought she was eating breakfast.Who eats brownies for breakfast?”

They wouldn’t be David’s first choice, either, but he had a sister, so he knew there were certain circumstances under which he could imagine her eating a brownie for breakfast.That time of the month.After a really long trip.During times of great stress.