Page 78 of Beware of Dog

Still newly-started, his heart lurched. He had the sense he was wading into deep water, and that maybe he wasn’t as good of a swimmer as he thought. But he said, “Okay, we can do that,” and she pulled his hand from her face so she could drag his arm around her shoulders.

Twenty-One

There were bars in the city that he liked, and then there were bars that would serve Cass without checking her ID. Shep took her to neither. He was aiming for safe, somewhere with a low likelihood of getting messed with, so they wound up at Hauser’s. Even so, he looped a proprietary arm around her waist once they were inside the door, and scanned the crowded, low-lit room for threats.

“This what you had in mind?” He had to duck down and press his mouth close to her ear to be heard over the music.

She turned her head, and her eyes were huge andright there, her lips plump and damp like she’d been chewing at them. She still didn’t look like herself; he’d think she’d been drugged if he didn’t know better, if her pupils hadn’t reacted normally.

“What would you do?” she asked. “What would you do if you were here with a woman?”

He frowned. “Iamhere with a woman.” He squeezed her hip to drive home the point.

For a second, her usual Shep’s-so-stupid frustration peeked through. But then she looked almost desperate. “No. If you were here, and you met this beautiful, sexy woman you wanted to shag—what would you say to her? How would you pick her up?”

Was he taking crazy pills? Did he have a head injury? “I…Cass…” When her frustration spiked again, he asked, “Are you wanting to role play or something?”

A look of relief touched her face, then. She nodded. “Yes. Let’s go with that. Pretend I’m a hot woman you want.”

You are the hot woman I want!he wanted to shout at her. But their usual back-and-forth wasn’t going to work in this instance, he thought.

“I…” It took him longer than it should have to shift gears. He’d picked up plenty of one-night stands in his life, but it had always been a passive curiosity, an itch that needed scratching. He’d never wanted to hold them, and reassure them, and touch their faces. Had never looked at them yawning and tousled in the morning and felt lucky, felt so full of affection his jaw ached from smiling.

He took a breath, resisted the urge to smooth her hair back off her face, and said, “Well. I’d ask her if I could buy her a drink.”

She nodded, and gazed up at him expectantly.

“Can I…” he started, but that wasn’t right. If she wanted the one-night-stand experience for some ungodly reason, he supposed he better put his back into it.

He adjusted his stance, let his hips and shoulders get loose, put a smarmy smirk on his face, and dropped his voice low. Trained his gaze on her mouth, which was not a hardship, and which offered a glimpse of the way her lower lip sucked in when he drawled, “Hey, gorgeous. What’re you drinking tonight? Cosmo? Martini? Or are you a whiskey girl?” The last he punctuated by slipping his fingers up under the edge of her sweater and skimming the pads over bare skin.

“Oh,” she murmured, quietly, and he had no idea why this would do it for her, after they’d been fucking and cohabitating for a month, but whatever. He saw her debate asking for that whiskey, wanting to be brave, but in the end, she said, “White wine. Sauvignon Blanc if they’ve got it.”

“Coming right up.”

Ordinarily, with a stranger, he would have suggested she grab a table while he grabbed the drinks, but like hell was hesending her off on her own, even in this place. He towed her along with him until he could sidle up to the end of the bar, and then positioned her halfway behind him and signaled the bartender.

He still didn’t know the guy’s name, but he recognized Shep and greeted him with a nod.

Shep held up two fingers. “Lemme get a double Jack on the rocks and a Sauvignon Blanc.”

The bartender leaned back the barest fraction to get a better glimpse of Cass.

Shep lifted his brows. “Problem?”

The guy shrugged. “Not for me.” And went to pull the drinks.

Cass’s hand slipped into his back pocket, and he wanted to tell her that was way too forward for some chick he’d just offered to buy a round for, but, well…he’d had afewthat forward in his time. And he liked it besides, the flutter of her small fingers, the way she felt bold enough to do it.

The drinks arrived with a flat look, and Shep slid over a twenty. “Send over refills in a little while.” He picked up the glasses, and looped his arm around Cass’s shoulders as he turned to her, wine glass held under her nose in offering. “There you go, sweetheart.”

She took it with one hand, and left the other where it was in his pocket. “Thank you.” She sounded almost shy, a little flustered.

“Come on. Let’s find somewhere to sit.”

By some miracle, a back corner booth was available. Shep urged her to slide in first, and then followed her, their backs to the wall, with a view of the bar, and, more importantly, the door.

Shep spread his arm along the back of the booth, took a sip of his drink, and turned to her. “So. Come here often?”

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