Something warm and rough touched her throat, just beneath her jaw. Two firm points of pressure. His fingers.
“Yeah.” He leaned back, expression grim before it got too far away and went blurry. “Somebody dosed you. Come on.”
That sounded like a lot of work: getting up, going somewhere. But when she opened her mouth to say as much, all that came out was a sad little humming grunt.
“Jesus. Okay. C’mon, sweetheart.” Big hands hooked her under her arms and hoisted her upright.
“Oh,” she said, startled by the sudden force of the movement, by the effortless way he lifted her.
Then she said, “Oh,” again, because her stomach sloshed and…
Okay, yep. There came the vomit.
Two
“She alright?” the cabbie asked, doubtfully, after Shepherd mopped her chin with the spare bandana in his back pocket and bundled her into the backseat. She was out cold, which worried him, but her breathing was normal and she wasn’t convulsing. When he lifted an eyelid, her pupil responded, but only fractionally.
“Fine,” he told the guy in a don’t-fuck-with-me voice that usually worked. “Her jerkoff friends got her drunk. Fucking kids.”
“Ah,” the guy said, and put the cab in gear. “I hear ya. You’re a good dad for picking her up this time of night.”
Thankfully, the dark hid the heat that flared to life in his cheeks. He didn’t correct the cabbie. Sayingactually, I’m an unrelated male acquaintance tasked with minding her by my illegal clubsounded like a good way to spend the rest of the night in a cell.
He gave the guy the address, sat back, slung an arm around Cass’s shoulders, and was thankfully left alone for the short ride to the club-use apartment where he’d crashed earlier.
He hadn’t stopped to think about it until right this moment, with Cass breathing hot and sour-smelling against the side of his neck, but he spent more nights at the apartment in Manhattan than he did at the clubhouse in Albany. He could pretend it was because the bratva and the civilian mob that was Prince’s outfit needed lots of hand-holding and oversight…but it had been almost three years since those two outfits helped New York and the Tennessee prez raid a high rise and kill a mogul-turned-sex-trafficker, and the ship more or less sailed itself at this point. Likewise, he could insist that Maverick had stuckhim on permanent babysitting duty, and that he loathed it, and was counting down the days until Cassandra Green decided to go back to Britain, or went down south to bunk with one of her other siblings. But Maverick had issued no such order. Neither had Raven. She’dasked. She’d said, “Oh, Shep, would you mind…?” And he’d grumbled, and muttered, and made vague unhappy noises.
But.
But. The truth was: after almost three years, he wasn’t sure how to kick the habit of worrying about where the kid was going, who she was seeing, and what sort of trouble she was landing herself in. He’d been appointed her guardian during a high-stress, high-stakes time for the club, and then no one had told him to stop, so…
He was still guarding. He did whatever Mav wanted him to do in the city, trying to look useful – no, indispensable. It was important for someone to have a finger on the Manhattan pulse, and Shep had appointed himself as that guy, since he was in the area anyway. He kept waiting for one of his brothers to give him shit about it, but, so far, no one had.
He wasn’t so stupid he thought it would never happen. But until it did, he was enjoying the city. Its conveniences and diversions, the chance to be the downtown go-between, always a coveted position given the staggering boredom of Albany. And, well…
Mercy Lécuyer would have to duct tape him to a chair and take the pliers to him to get him to admit it, but he enjoyed Cass, too.
Which was why he was currently fantasizing about that stupid beanie-wearing kid with Cass on the sidewalk taking a nicedeepswim in the Hudson.
Cass didn’t stir when they reached the building, and he had to haul her out of the cab and lug her up to the door. Heleaned her up against the wall while he dug out his keys, and then had to grab her around the waist so she didn’t slide down the façade and faceplant on the sidewalk.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Forget the Hudson. He was going to put that kid’s beanie-wearing head through a plate glass window.
“You could help a little,” he griped, and she smashed her face into his shoulder and started to snore. “Lazy. Your generation is so fucking lazy. Come on.”
It was easier to scoop her up into a bridal carry and cross the lobby that way. A stoner stepping off the elevator blinked at them, then looked down at her lax face. “Nice.” He gave Shep a thumbs up as they passed one another.
“Shut up,” Shep told him, and juggled Cass higher against his chest so he could kick the button for his floor.
He had to shift her so she was slung fireman style over his shoulder so he could unlock the apartment door when they got there, and she finally moved a little.
“Wha…?”
“Hold on.”
Her hands fluttered around, bouncing clumsily off his ass, and he decided not to think about that. Better for everyone.
