Bear My Baby (Shifter Squad Six 1) by Anya Nowlan

spitting image of his daddy one day. Though hopefully without his penchant for beating up anything he didn’t approve of.
    “That’s better,” Cassie said calmly, struggling against the current that wanted to drag her safely into the depths of his eyes. “Put him down. He’s just a creep. He didn’t do anything to me.”
    Connor hesitated for a moment but Jake’s hands were falling limp at his sides now. With a sigh, Connor motioned Cassie to get out of the way and then gently let the man slide to the ground. As soon as Connor let go of him, his knuckles white with exertion, Jake crumpled to a ball, coughing and wheezing.
    “You fucking psycho,” he wheezed, eyes red and popping out of his head.
    He’d definitely blown a few blood vessels. By the looks of how Connor was rolling and unrolling his fists, the guy was lucky to have gotten off that easily.
    “At your service,” Connor snapped back, his face a mask of anger.
    As soon as he looked at Cassie it fell though. The rage left his eyes and his jaw relaxed. In a flash, that cocky bad boy she’d fallen for like an addict for crack was back, grinning and completely at ease. Or, well, not completely at ease. Cassie could see the tension in his shoulders, the way he held himself ramrod straight, like he couldn’t trust himself to really let go around her.
    “You want to tell me what you’re doing here? Should I be running for the back exit again?” Cassie asked, putting as much snark into her voice as she could.
    One low chuckle from him wiped that all away. Connor looked at her like the only thing he really wanted to do was to bend her over the bar and fuck her while every single person in the joint watched them. Frankly, Cassie wasn’t sure she could have resisted him had he put that up as an option.
    “No. This time, the only one you need to be running from is me, honey,” he said, stressing that slight drawl he had that would make her knees buckle underneath her so easily.
    “Yeah? Is that an official suggestion?” she asked, the corners of her mouth turning up in a smirk.
    She couldn’t help it. He did that to her. Made her feel confident, like she could ask for anything and actually receive it. Like she could jump off a building and fly. But at the same time, klaxons were going off in her head. He wasn’t exactly the kind of guy to trust, was he? That smirk left her lips and a healthy scowl returned in its place.
    “Just a friendly warning,” he said, putting a hand on her elbow and leading her deeper into the back of the club.
    He sounded far too serious saying that.
    “Where are you taking me?” she asked, getting massive flashbacks from the last time he’d been cryptic with her.
    “Somewhere where we can talk,” he said, looking straight ahead and maneuvering her through the comings and goings of the people around them.
    Connor led her to the fluorescent-lit back corridors of the club that led out to the second exit, mostly abandoned. He stopped and turned, effectively pinning her in a corner where all she could see was ghostly blue light and the way it lapped at Connor’s perfect features. The ones she had been imagining every night when she was alone with her thoughts. Yeah, she’d definitely remembered a few things wrong. Like for example, she hadn’t remembered that mole that made a small dot on his right earlobe, or the almost chiseled straightness of his nose.
    He still took her breath away. Even when she was supposed to hate his guts. It was… enraging.
    “What do you want to tell me?” Cassie asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
    She felt defenseless before him. Hell, knowing him—though she obviously didn’t—he was probably enjoying that. But the cocky grin was gone and the man who stared back at Cassie was not the self-certain, prick of a man who had fucked her on every piece of furniture that little cabin had had. It was the man who she’d seen staring after her when she was escorted into the back of an armored