Working Stiff:Casimir (Runaway Billionaires #1)(38)

Arthur stood and walked over to her, reaching around her to place his  cup in the sink. "And now we're all off to volunteer at the animal  shelter."

"I have work to do," Cash said. "You guys can go with her."                       
       
           



       

Cash was gazing into his empty coffee cup so he didn't see the instant  of calculation that passed through Arthur's silver-blue eyes.

Arthur snaked his arm around Rox's waist and dragged her against himself.

She stumbled as Arthur pressed his body to hers. A week ago, she might  have grabbed his ass, but right now, she had her hands up and was  already pushing at him. "Hey!"

Arthur said to Cash, "Excellent. That'll give us a chance to get to know Roxanne so much better."

Yeah, that's right. Rox had all the hotties making passes at her for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

She pushed Arthur's chest. "Get off me."

Maxence was hiding a smile behind his phone.

Cash glanced up and saw Arthur's arms around Rox and her shoving at his chest with an annoyed look on her face.

He stood. "Get your hands off her."

Arthur dropped his hands and chuckled. Rox straightened her tee shirt  and went back to washing her cup. If that limey grabbed her again, he  was going to learn how Southern girls defended their virtue, and she  just bet that an effete European wouldn't even see her knee coming.

Arthur said, "Come on, Casimir. You don't want to leave your ladyfriend  alone with two notorious rakes. We would steal her from you even before  she saw me snuggling a kitten."

"Oh, yes," Maxence said. "Two notorious rakes. You wouldn't dare."

Cash said to Maxence, "I thought you were reformed."

He shrugged, still trying to hide his smile. His big, dark eyes widened.  Wow, he looked like he was wearing mascara and eyeliner, but when Rox  had shown him how to make coffee, she had seen him close enough to be  sure that he wasn't. He said, "You never know when I might snap. I hear  people are wagering on it."

"It's true," Arthur said. "I have ten thousand laid down that he'll go  on a bender in Monaco around Christmas, but I'd be more than willing to  let that go to see him break with my very own eyes."

"Ten thousand dollars?" Rox asked, aghast.

"Euros," Arthur said.

Sweet baby Jesus, that was even more money. She rolled her eyes and  turned back to washing her cup, even though it was already spotless and  sanitized.

"And you never know what's going to make those repressed types snap,"  Arthur said. "Roxanne here might bend over at a most inopportune time  while we were in the animal shelter, and bam! Father Maxence would be  all over her ass like a bull elephant in musth."

Rox turned around, her hands on her hips. "Could you guys try to treat me like a human being and not a walking vagina?"

Cash cracked up, and Arthur raised his hands helplessly. He stage-whispered, "I'm trying to make a point, here."

"Come with us to the animal shelter, Cash." Rox smiled at him. "Please."

Cash's smile turned sheepish, and he looked away and back at her. "Oh, all right."





KITTEN SOCIALIZERS





"Hey, Brandy! I'm here!" Rox called as she walked into the lobby of the animal shelter.

They had stopped at the big box store on the way to buy supplies. Arthur  and Maxence pretended that they had seen such a store before, as they  were worldly cosmopolitans who had seen everything from every walk of  life, but they examined the enormous boxes of dishwashing soap with a  little too much genuine shock.

Rox hoisted a thirty-pound bag of cat kibble onto the counter and yelled, "We brought dog and cat food!"

"About time you showed up. Why haven't you called me back?" Brandy  turned the corner at a trot and skidded to a stop, staring at the men.  "Well, hello."

Rox said, "And I brought you some fresh meat, too."

"You sure did." Brandy took off the stained apron she was wearing, and  Rox noticed that she sucked in her slim waistline and thrust out her  small boobs.

Rox gestured. "This is Cash, the guy who's been letting the motley crew and me live with him for a while."

Brandy stared at Cash, taking in his bright green eyes, muscular chest,  and tight waist, and turned to Rox. "Okay, now I get it."

She rolled her eyes. "And these are two of his old school friends who are visiting, Arthur and Maxence."

Lines of mock pain gathered between Arthur's eyes. "Everyone keeps using this ‘old' word. It's most distressing."

Brandy batted her thick eyelashes at them. "Hello, boys. You're here to volunteer?"

"Yeah," Rox said. "I told them they could socialize the kittens."

"Are they coming back next week?" Brandy asked, smiling and sucking on  her finger at Maxence, who smiled serenely, seeming to not notice the  blatant sexual innuendo.                       
       
           



       

"I don't think so. Are you guys staying that long?"

Maxence shrugged.

Arthur said, "Probably not. I imagine we'll be back home by then, depending on circumstances."

Brandy stopped smiling. "Then you boys can hose down the dogs' pens.  Kitten socializing is for people I can count on to be here every week."

After the three guys had cleaned the dog pens and scrubbed a bunch of  cat boxes, Brandy finally relented and let them socialize the kittens.

When Rox came to check on them, Arthur was sitting on the floor,  flinching and giggling as two tiny balls of fluff used their needle-like  claws to climb his shirt. When one reached his shoulder, he plucked it  off and set it in his lap to scale him again.

Maxence was sitting on a steel table, swinging his long legs and using  one finger to stroke the tiny skull of a very young kitten who was  apparently in a coma in his other hand. He had taken off his suit jacket  and rolled up his sleeves, baring his thickly muscled forearms.

A tattoo of three shields, arranged around a Celtic triangle knot, inked  his right forearm, just like the one on Cash's right arm. On Maxence's  tattoo, however, the red and white diamond checkerboard pattern pointed  toward his wrist.

Cash was sitting on the other side of the room. An adult gray cat was sitting on his legs.

Wow, if Rox had had her phone out, she might have just had the most popular page on social media: three hot guys with kittens.

Cash lifted his finger to his lips, though he was smiling, and his  emerald green eyes were laughing. The bandage on his face wrinkled when  he smiled.

The cat whipped around to look at Rox and crouched, skittish, but Cash  whispered something to her, and she sat down and turned back to him.

Good Lord, that cat sitting on his lap was Fairy Dust, the cat whom no  one else could touch and might be feral, the one who was slated to be a  barn cat unless someone could get through to her. Her gray fur was  matted and clumped from where she had been chewing it and pulling it  out.

Cash held out his fingers to Fairy Dust. She sniffed them. The cat  hesitated, watching him with wide eyes, and rubbed her cheek on his  hand.

Rox tiptoed over to Cash and slid down the wall to sit next to him. He  didn't look at her, just kept his hand out for Fairy Dust.

The cat watched Rox but didn't run off.

Rox didn't even try to hold out her hand. This was such a triumph that  she didn't want to interfere. Rox did, however, take one covert picture  of Fairy Dust nuzzling Cash's fingers to show Brandy.

Fairy Dust just might find a home someday instead of ending up as a barn cat.

"How did you do it?" she murmured under her breath to him.

"I just waited," he said. His fingers found hers in the scant space between them. "I'm a patient man."

"That's what makes you such a deadly lawyer. You grind the opposing counsel down until they are sitting on your lap, purring."

He smiled, still scratching Fairy Dust under the chin. "I can wait however long it takes."





NEW MEXICAN





Arthur and Maxence cajoled Cash to take them to his favorite Mexican  restaurant, so Rox drove the three guys to a hole in the wall in Los  Angeles, the decor done in neon and Christmas-color paint. They were  shown to a booth with cracked red vinyl in the corner farthest from the  door, the best seat in the house.

Rox squeezed in next to Cash, while Maxence and Arthur sat on the other  side, angling their shoulders away from each other the best that they  could. Mexican tile covered the table top. Rox rubbed her fingers across  the sandy grout and puffy dollops of paint just like she always did  when she and Cash came here.

Cash said, "Now, something that you learn while living in the Southwest  or California that you never learn in Europe is the difference between  Mexican food and New Mexican food. Have you chaps ever heard of a town  named Hatch, New Mexico, or the special kind of chiles that they grow  there?"