For Your Paws Only (Supernatural Enforcers Agency #2) (16 page)

Chapter Fifteen

Cutter skimmed through the files that Lucie had acquired for him on her laptop. He didn’t know what came over him when he had woken to find Lucie straddling him earlier, but he was glad he gave in to it. He couldn’t imagine anything more perfect than the time he spent with Lucie in her bed. It wasn’t just the sex – it was
her
. Being with her, talking to her, he came alive with her. His wolf howled in agreement.

He’d been a fool. His wolf was also in agreement on that front. However, he was still worried about hurting her. He still didn’t think they should be together in the long run. Sure, she soothed him now, but what would happen if something really happened to piss him off? What would happen if he had a really bad nightmare? She may think she can handle it, but would she feel different when waking up to find his paws wrapped around her throat? No, it was too risky. He’d give her as much of him as he could, and then he’d walk away and let her get on with her life.

In the meantime, he needed to make things clear with her before she got the wrong impression and started picking out wedding centerpieces.

“Lucie, I,” he bit his lip, unsure of how to proceed.

Lucie, having donned a tight pair of shorts and a vest after he destroyed the clothes she had on frowned at him as she snuggled and petted the monstrous Delmonte. The white beast had returned while they were enjoying the last moments of their post coital bliss. The animal let his presence be known by jumping on the bed and hissing at Cutter. The fact that Lucie immediately jumped off him to give the feline intruder a kiss and a cuddle didn’t bother him whatsoever.
Mental harrumph
.

“Uh oh, I know that look, that’s the ‘we just had sex but I’m dumping you look.’”

“I’m not dumping you,” he grumbled, “and how exactly do you know that look?”

Lucie rolled her eyes. “I guess you’re about to give me some spiel about how wonderful, magnificent, incredible I was in bed – all true, of course.”

“Of course,” he agreed wholeheartedly.

“But that you think we should just be friends because you’re in no position to be in a relationship.”

Cutter rubbed the back of his head. Well, yes, that was pretty much the topic of conversation he was trying to broach.

“It’s okay, don’t get your pink, fluffy robe in a twist over it,” yes, he was wearing her robe again – it was comfortable, “I get it. This is hardly the time to play Romeo and Juliet. In case you hadn’t noticed, I was really horny, too. It was great, and I wouldn’t say no if you wanted to do it again. So, thanks.”

“Uh, you’re welcome?”

His wolf was just as baffled as he was by her response. Shouldn’t she be begging him to reconsider? Why did he feel like he was the dumpee? Could it be that his little hedgehog wasn’t as enamored with him as he thought?

Cutter watched as she went back to petting and cooing the feline horror.
Stupid cat
. He pulled his pink robe – what? It is really comfortable – around him more tightly and glared at the laptop screen. His wolf let out a feral growl as he came across the crime scene pics. The fucker who did this was going to pay.

Huffing he slammed the laptop shut and rested his hand on top. Lucie raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything, not about that, anyway.

“Are you hungry? I’m famished,” she declared.

He had to admit he hadn’t eaten much all day, and their vigorous bedroom activities had depleted his energy somewhat.
Although…

“What are you offering?” he asked, waggling an eyebrow suggestively.

“I don’t really want to cook; I was thinking about ordering Chinese.”

“I guess,” he said sullenly, “if nothing better is on the menu.”

“Chinese it is,” she laughed.

“Won’t it look weird if you order enough for two?”

Lucie shimmied over to the phone and pulled out a menu. Her ass jiggled mesmerizingly in her tiny, tiny shorts – they barely provided full cheek coverage.

“No, I usually do. I can never decide which dish I want so I always order too much and then I have the rest for lunch the next day.”

She put in an order for various dishes before pulling out a pad of paper and a fluffy, pink pen. “Okay, we need a plan of attack.”

“We need a pen that looks like it was barfed up by a parrot to make a plan?”

“Yes, we do.”

Cutter tapped his fingers on top of the laptop. “I don’t think you should be a part of this. It could be dangerous.”

“But, couldn’t you argue that I’ve already helped you, so I’m already in danger?” She said it with such a sweet smile – it didn’t seem to match her words at all.

“No one knows I’m here; you’ll be fine, but maybe I should go before…”

“No, no, no, no, no!” she cried, raising her voice ever so slightly. “We’ve already been through this. It’s best that you stay here given the severity your injuries.”

He gave her a leer. “You didn’t think they were severe when you were trying to suck me dry with your pus…”

“I helped you,” she interrupted, blushing, “and lied to my bosses for you - you are not ditching me.”

“It’s not about ditching. I’m… I’m no good for you.”

His wolf whined at him; he wasn’t just talking about the messy situation in which he found himself.

Lucie snapped her fingers in his face. “Hey, you zoned out there for a moment. Look, I’m a big girl,” his eyes automatically dipped to her abundant breasts stretched in her tight, tight vest. She snapped her fingers again with a sigh. “I decide what’s good for me – not you. And as with all the things that came before you - ice cream, cake, nachos, reality TV and bikinis - I have decided that, in spite of popular opinion, they and you are good for me.”

Cutter nodded, and he had only one thing to say about that, “Bikinis are
very
good for you – but not in public, only in my company. In fact, you don’t have to bother wearing anything at all in my company.”

She ignored him and started scribbling on her notepad. “Okay, so we guess Clayton discovered something, something that apparently dragged him to Ursa and made him need to speak to Sadie Beauchamp.”

“Yes.”

Lucie started chewing on her pen but grimaced and spat out a feather. “Any idea what?”

“No.”

“I see,” she rubbed her lips together, “now what?”

Disappointed by the end of the bikini discussion, and sporting an erection that was downright uncomfortable, Cutter thought it best to try and throw himself into the case.

“I don’t think we’ll get anywhere with Clayton, and according to the file Sadie Beauchamp only arrived in town a few weeks ago, so no one really knew her. However, Marie and her boyfriend only arrived a few days ago. Apparently, the night Marie died, he was in police custody for attacking a police horse.”

“Charming,” she murmured.

“According to Diaz’s notes, the boyfriend is a drug dealer and user. He wasn’t forthcoming about Marie and wasn’t exactly cut up about her death or that her sister was missing. Diaz suspects the asshole knows something but won’t help. I wouldn’t mind talking to him.”

“Do you know where to find him?”

“LLPD arrested him outside the Slippery Newt; it’s a bar on the other side of town. I’ll try there first.”

“We’ll,” she corrected him, cheerfully.

“I’ll,” he rumbled in a much less cheerful tone.

Lucie gave him a beatific smile. “You can’t go alone; it might be dangerous. What if you get into a fight with him?”

Cutter almost burst into hysterical laughter at the thought of his mild-mannered little hedgehog getting into a fight between him and a drug dealer. His beast, on the other hand, reverted to his desire to tie her to the bed to keep her out of trouble.
Wisely, he kept both reactions to himself.

“You’re not an investigator.”

She nodded and seemed to take that on board. “Well, maybe Wayne or Avery…”

“I don’t want to drag them into this.” It was bad enough that he had pulled Lucie into the madness, possibly endangering her and ruining her career.

“Well then, I’m all you’ve got,” she declared, gleefully.

“But it might be dangerous,” he reiterated for what felt like the fiftieth time, although he doubted she was going to listen to him –
why start now?

“Ha! Danger’s my middle name… well, actually it’s Martha but you get my drift. And, what other choice do you have?”

He folded his arms over his chest and almost thrust out his bottom lip like a petulant child. “I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it.”

“Well, just stay out of the way.”

“If we’re only going to talk to him, it won’t be an issue. I mean, you’re going to be low-key right? You’re still recovering from your injuries, and you’re a wanted man remember?”

Cutter smirked. “Wanted man? This ain’t the wild west, sweetheart. But don’t worry, I can be subtle.”

*

“I don’t think you’re being very subtle,” said Lucie standing back in the middle of the rooftop. His little hedgehog wasn’t keen on heights. He felt better with her being away from the edge, too. He was already paranoid about her getting hurt, he didn’t need to add tripping and falling off a roof to the list of things he needed to worry about.

Cutter looked back at her over his shoulder. “Really? Huh.”

The coyote shifter in his paws, wriggled, squirmed and squealed again. Cutter gave him another shake and told him to, “Shut the fuck up.”

Okay, maybe dangling the good-for-nothing dickhead upside down from the top of a building wasn’t the subtlest option, but he could be doing something a hell of a lot worse.

Luck was with them – well, a tiny bit of luck in comparison to the events of the past week – and they found Marie’s boyfriend, Max at the Slippery Newt. They followed him back to Sadie’s apartment. It was still a crime scene, but no SEA officer guarded the door, and they caught him breaking in and looking for anything he could steal and sell. It was his belief that everything in that apartment was rightfully his since Marie was dead. He was taking Sadie’s belongings so he could sell them – to make up for future loss of earnings that Marie’s death caused him. On hearing that garbage, Cutter didn’t think twice about dragging the slimy coyote up to the roof and giving him an airing over the side of it.

“Where’s Sadie?” barked Cutter.

“That judgmental bitch? How the fuck should I know?”

“Did you ever meet Nicolas Maroni?”

The coyote stopped struggling against Cutter’s steely grip on his legs. “No.”

His wolf huffed. He didn’t even have to scent him to know that was a lie.

“Try again,” he rumbled, throatily.

“Fine, I may have done a little business with Maroni back when we were in Ursa. But Sadie, she worked for him in one of his clubs. He whored her out to his friends.”

“Give me a reason not to drop you?”

“You can’t kill me,” whimpered the coyote.

“Please, even I’m starting to think he’d be doing the world a favor!” called Lucie.

The coyote let out a grunt of frustration. “I know that Sadie was banging someone from the SEA.”

Cutter pulled him over the ledge and dumped him on the rooftop. He loomed over the shaking coyote. “How do you know?”

He tried to scramble away, but Cutter put a boot on his chest. At least he and Lucie’s ex shared the same show size, even if the clothes he was wearing were baggy.

“She told Marie; Marie told me.”

“Who was it?” demanded Cutter.

“I don’t know.”

“Not helpful.”

Cutter reached down to pick him up again, and the coyote squealed. “I don’t know their name but I saw them.”

“Keep talking.”

The coyote stammered through his speech, “I was thinking I might be able to get some money out of her, so I followed Sadie the other night when she went out to meet him and…”

“And?”

“It wasn’t a
him
– it was a
her
.” The coyote imparted the information in a whisper as if it was the most shocking news he had ever told anyone.

“Her?”

“Yeah, some uptight looking blonde hyena, tall and skinny, dressed in a business suit. They met outside the park and got in the hyena’s car; they argued and then they started making out and then Sadie left.”

“What were they arguing about?” asked Lucie from his left elbow. Her curiosity had drawn her closer to them.

“I don’t fucking know; I can’t hear through car doors.”

He gave Lucie a look of derision that was soon wiped off his face as Cutter snarled at him. “Anything else?”

“That’s all I know.”

Cutter stared at him for a good couple of minutes, and when the coyote didn’t add anything, he nodded. “Stay out of trouble, or I will come back and I will drop you next time.”

*

“Are you thinking…?”