Page 28 of Trees Take the Long View

"I don't know. I'm feeling pretty fiscally irresponsible right now." I waggled my eyebrows at him.

He coughed into his fist. "Would you straighten out? We're on—"

"I don't think I can. I'm pretty gay."

He covered his face with both hands—possibly embarrassed, possibly so I wouldn't catch him laughing at my awful jokes. I wanted to pry his hands down and find out, but managed to restrain myself. "All right, all right—how about you tell me about our next case?"

"Ourcase? So you admit you're involved, then? Perhaps even, shall we say, consulting?"

"I admit nothing. But tell me what we're doing this time."

"Weare doing something very interesting and top secret."

"Ooh. Color me intrigued. Top secret, is it? Very hush-hush?"

He grinned. "Not saying a word till we land and have some privacy."

The man in front of us straightened up, his neck stiffening, highly offended.

I didn't have any more flirting in me, not unless I could start kissing Dean with abandon, so I had to stop and distract myself with something. I played a simple game on my phone, and tried to think of anything but how great he smelled, so very close to me, his scent filling my nostrils and making me horny. Sometimes it was easy to be close to him and patient, and sometimes, like now, I was so incredibly sexually frustrated.

Don't get me wrong: he was worth it. He was worth any amount of frustration or waiting any amount of time. But sometimes it was not fucking easy.

While I amused myself on the phone, and took the time to text Freddie another quick thank-you for his help, Dean got to work on his laptop, tap-tapping away at his reports. He had a lot of reports to write; it was just another part of the job.

If I got paid for consulting, would I have to write reports, too? Well, I could do it. I wasn't quite sure how to feel about him trying to get me money for helping. It was a balanced line to walk. It would be better if he didn't feel guilty for having me along, with all his talk about taking me away from my job or whatever. And it would be good if I wasn't a burden to him as well.

But as for the rest? Well, I wasn't along for money, or to work with the S&P. I was here for him, and I wanted that to be really clear. I didn't give a rat's ass about working for them again. I just wanted to be around him.

And yeah, maybe I wanted to help out a bit to prove my worth as a mate—there's always a certain element of showing off, trying to impress a mate, in that courtship dance. Far as I could tell, he wasn't trying to impress me. But as I had to keep reminding myself, non-shifters had different ways of approaching pair bonding.

Hell, even different sorts of shifters had different ways of approaching these things—even different packs or family groups within the same type of shifters. So I had to be patient, and—just in case all this fiscal planning was part of his way of proving he was a worthy mate—I had to not fight him too hard about any of the money stuff he was trying to do for me.

He stopped typing for a moment, looked up at me, and smiled. What a shy, soft smile it was, so honest and unstudied. There was no way this was all one-sided. Just no fucking way.

My heart lifted higher than the plane. Oh yeah. We were going good places together.

#

"A white Bengal tiger? Who thinks they can buy one of those anyway?"

"Apparently they're not illegal to own in this state. It's more a case of they probably shouldn't be owned, but the laws won't stop you."

"But a white Bengal tiger? Aren't they endangered or something?"

"I'm pretty sure all tigers are endangered at this point, but that doesn't stop some people from buying them as 'exotic pets.'"

"But this one is apparently a shifter, and there's some sort of trafficking ring going around."

"Well, that's one working theory. I'm supposed to look into it."

"If some poor tiger shifter is being exploited..." I wanted to grind my teeth in rage. Cat-type shifters were rare enough. They shouldn't be trafficked as "exotic pets" on top of every other challenge they had to face. It was just unfair.

I mean, if someone was trafficking wolves it would be disgusting and immoral just the same, but to pick on a kind of shifter that was already so rare and struggling for survival...

"Well, let's see what we can do about it," I told Dean, and cracked my knuckles.

He gave me a curiously proud yet scolding look. "But you're not a consultant of any sort, right?"