“Oh goodie.” She rolled her eyes. “That asshole.”
“Yes, that asshole,” Vincent grinned at her and she melted. That was stunning.
“What day?”
“It’s not official yet; I just know it’s coming.” Vincent leaned back in his seat and looked out the window, thoughtful again. “He likes to think he can outplay me.”
“Well, maybe he’s smarter than me.” She shrugged.
“Definitely not.” Vincent flicked a look at her. “This was the best game of chess I’ve had in years. Thank you. I wasn’t expecting you to put up a real fight. Cute trap.”
“Yeah, well, I’m useless on white side. You take it next time.” She grinned at him. This was the only game of chess she had ever enjoyed. Axel used to stomp her into the dirt and call her stupid.
“I know why you’re good at it, just so you know,” Vincent commented as she stood up. Her blood ran cold. Did he? “Living the life you did, you had to think several steps ahead to stay safe. Chess probably feels like second nature to you.”
“Sure,” she mumbled, shrugging again. He was partially right. It wasn’t to survive in general, it was to survive Axel. “Thanks for letting me know about the thing.”
“Of course,” he said quietly, standing up. “Again, thank you for the game.”
She left him there and rubbed her forehead. She was playing with fire in all ways possible today. Calling Charlie, kissing Jasper, and whatever the fuck just happened during that chess game with Vincent.
The next day, Sawyer hoped, would fare better, not worse. Before the sun came up though, it was off to a rocky start.
“Get up, we’re going out for training,” a growl echoed in her room. She groaned and pulled a pillow over her face.
“It’s fucking Sunday, Quinn. A day off,” she yelled, muffled by the pillow. “Piss off.”
“Get up,” Quinn snarled. “Five minutes to get on the back porch, or I’ll drag you out there.”
She wanted to strangle him. Fucking asshole. She threw the pillow at the door and heard it thump against the door as Quinn slammed it closed. The noise gave her an immediate headache.
She rolled out of the bed, shoving the wolf that was there gently away from her.
“Scout, what the hell?” she growled, as the damn thing tried to crawl in her lap for a pet. She was fine with them now, but this was too early on her day off. Why did Quinn leave him in the room?
She only took a couple minutes to grab clothing and her bag. When she got to the back porch with Scout on her heels, she glared at Quinn.
“You better have coffee, mother fucker,” she snarled.
“There’s no coffee in survival situations,” he told her blandly.
“Fuck you and your survival situations,” she snapped, dropping her bag on the porch and going back inside. She headed straight for the kitchen, Scout still bouncing around her legs. She put coffee on and jumped up to sit on the counter as Quinn stomped in behind her.
“You don’t need coffee every morning,” Quinn growled as he walked over to her.
“Yeah, I definitely do,” she hissed. She didn’t get much more out, as Quinn yanked her off the counter and threw her over his shoulder. She growled but didn’t fight.
This wasn’t the first time. The last time had just been on Wednesday, when he got her up at two in the morning for a run-through of the things she’d learned already. She knew better than to fight him, this time. The last time, she hadn’t been able to escape no matter how much she fought. He had carried her until he dropped her into the stream that ran through the property. It was like he didn’t feel pain, the prick.
He placed her on the porch and waited for her to grab her bag before walking off. She followed him, mumbling obscenities to herself. She hated playing in the dirt. She hated every damn minute of it. She would rather be tarred and feathered than rough it in the woods.
She was incredibly cranky this morning.
“Get started,” Quinn told her as they made it into a clearing. She dropped her bag and began work on a fire.
Once the fire was started—it only took ten minutes—she began work on securing potable water. She moved through the process smoothly. Repetition had made the entire thing muscle memory for her.
With water secured after an hour, she wiped sweat off her forehead and moved to making a shelter. A simple branch lean-to would have to be enough for him. She broke fallen branches to the sizes she needed and continued on her task.
He just watched her silently as she finished the shelter. She looked around at the vegetation. She could identify several now. Most were inedible but the ones that weren’t, she collected quickly, to make a small stash of food.
Finally, she collapsed next to her fire and glared at him.
“What’s next?”
“How do you know you did it all correctly?” he asked, looking down at her. Shade was lying next to his feet while Scout trotted over to sniff her. She pushed the wet nose away from her stomach gently.
“What did I mess up?” Last time, she had screwed up on which plants she could eat. A pretty bad fuck up.
“Nothing, just wanted to know why you were so confident.” He shrugged.
She kept glaring at him, mad that he had questioned her when she had gotten it all right.
“What’s next?” she growled.
“Hunting and traveling,” Quinn sighed, “but I’m not teaching you those.”
“Excuse me?” She sat up and raised an eyebrow.
“I want you to hunt with your abilities, but you don’t have those. As for traveling, it’s not hard. You know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, follow that.”
“You aren’t going to teach me star charts and shit?” She narrowed her eyes on him, and he shook his head.
“No,” he chuckled, and she clenched her jaw at the sound. Fucking god damn it. He just had to be slightly attractive after torturing her. “I think you’re fine.”
“So, two weeks,” Sawyer sighed. “I finished in two weeks. Thank fuck.”
“For now.” Quinn walked over and used his magic to have the earth devour her fire. She sighed and watched her hard work disappear. She didn’t like the ‘for now,’ but she wasn’t going to let that dampen her happiness that she wouldn’t be playing in the dirt for a little while.
“Can I go back to the house?” She asked, looking at the sun that had come up.
“Actually, I wanted to show you something,” he said, holding a hand out to her. She grabbed it and let him pull her up. “Follow me.”
“Where are we going?” she asked as they walked on a trail she had never used.
“You’ll see,” was all he told her.
They walked for nearly thirty minutes before she heard the water. The property had a stream running through it, that much she knew, but what she saw wasn’t what she’d expected.
“This is our swimming hole.” He waved to it and then started pulling off his shirt. “You can come out here whenever you want. I figured you would like to know about it.”
She eyed the area with barely restrained happiness. A couple of streams fed a clear, deep-water pond. One of the streams went over a rock face, making small waterfalls. The same rock face looked like the perfect place to jump in from and had several dry rocks that were probably amazing to lay out on.
“Is this where the guys disappear to sometimes?” she asked as Quinn unbuttoned his pants.
“Yeah.” Then he dropped his pants and she let out a strangled noise. He wasn’t wearing underwear. Of course, he wasn’t. “I’m going swimming, but you can keep standing there like a weirdo if you want.”
With that, the beautiful nude ass of Quinn’s dove into the water. Fuck. She watched him surface, his long hair out of its ponytail. He stopped paying attention to her as his wolves jumped in after him. She turned back to the woods and wondered if maybe she should just make a run for it. Life was officially just too much. Screw it all, she was going to combust if she didn’t
figure out what to do with her… needs.
She looked back to the water, where Quinn was wrestling with Shade in a shallower portion. His head came up from the activity, and he met her eyes. His hair cascaded around his face, slick and perfectly straight from the water. He was just stunning, and her heart tried to stop when he smiled.
“You can head back if you want, but I thought you might like a day being lazy.” He straightened his spine, and she took a deep breath at the sight of water dripping down his chest. He would probably kill her if he knew she found him attractive. The fact that he was being nice to her today was already throwing her for a loop, and then he got naked.
“I, uh, don’t have a swimsuit,” she called back, shrugging. “I’ll just go lay in the sun on one of the rocks.”
“Whatever works.” Quinn watched her walk over to the rocks. She turned her back to him when she got there. She didn’t want a farmer’s tan, so she pulled off her shirt and looked down at her pants. Did she dare? She considered it and finally undid them and slid them off. She was fine with a tan in her underwear, she could even it out later in the summer.
When she turned back around, Quinn was still watching her, his eyes more intense than before. She ignored that and laid back on one of the large, smooth rocks next to the small waterfalls. She let the sun warm her, and, soon enough, her eyes were closing a little. Now this definitely made up for the shitty morning of being dragged out of bed.
She didn’t pay attention to the time, rolling over when she felt like she was getting too warm. She frowned when something blocked her sun.
“Well, ain’t this a sight?”
She sighed heavily at Elijah’s voice.
“Drink it in,” she said quickly. “It’s the closest to naked you’ll ever see me.”
“I highly doubt that, but we all have our delusions,” Elijah chuckled, and she rolled her eyes behind her eyelids. “Why aren’t you swimming?”
“No bathing suit,” she told him, wiggling her butt for him to notice the simple grey boy shorts she had on. Stupid thing to do.
“Shake it a little more, I need material for my spank bank,” Elijah joked, toeing her butt. She turned her head and looked up at him out of the corner of her eye.
“That’s disgusting.”
“You should be happy I’m being honest about it.” Elijah grinned down at her and she eyed him. He was only wearing boxer briefs and his fucking black cowboy hat. She filed that image away into her own ‘spank bank’. She put it right next to the image of Quinn’s nude ass.
“Forgive me if I don’t give you the same curtesy,” she laughed, rolling over onto her back again. She put her arms behind her head and blatantly checked him out. He lifted his arms away from his body and let her. He even did a turn for her. How kind of him.
“How’s that?” He winked at her, and she gave him a thumbs-up.
“Perfect, all filed away.” She grinned at him, and he bowed to her.
“Now about this bathing suit problem.” His grin turned devious, and she narrowed her eyes. “I think you are sorely mistaken, if you think you need one.”
She tried to scramble away from him, but was too slow. She screamed as she soared through the air and fell into the cold water.
“Ass!” She roared when she surfaced, glaring at the now hysterical Elijah. He turned and shook his own and she glared at it. That fucking bubble-butt mother fucker.
She was climbing back onto her rock when she was hit in the face with the last shred of clothing he had on. He laughed as she pulled them off her head and tossed them into the pond.
“No!” He tried to sound dismayed, but the laughter in his voice was obvious. She stood up and stole his cowboy hat next, while he wasn’t paying attention. He turned to her and she kept her eyes on his face. Had to keep looking at the face. “Now, you wait a damn minute.”
She grinned at his more serious tone now that she had the hat. She took off, climbing farther up the rocks as he tried to grab her. She put it on her wet hair and listened to him fire off a string of curses that would have made a sailor blush.
“You ruin my hat, and I’ll end you, little lady,” he growled.
“Try me, tough guy,” she taunted, leaving the cowboy hat on her wet head.
She’d forgotten about Quinn during the exchange with Elijah, so she was surprised when the hat was stolen from her head while Elijah grabbed her ankles. She was pulled down from her spot into his arms. She caught a glimpse of Quinn jumping down next to them as Elijah threw her back into the pond.
“Damn it!” She gasped for air when she got back to the surface. “Cheaters!”
She stopped talking the moment her eyes cleared though, eyeing the man meat on the rocks. Elijah was grinning, and she inadvertently got a look at the cock that screwed her when they met—and not the way she had wanted to be screwed. Quinn brushed dirt off the hat and handed it back to Elijah, who hung it carefully on a low hanging branch.
Both were just as great from the front as they had been from the back.
“What’s wrong, Sawyer? Cat got your tongue?” Elijah dove into the water after that and Quinn followed.
Fuck, now she was stuck with them between her and the sunning rock she’d claimed. She was thirsty as fuck, and that wasn’t helping her. She needed about three hours of alone time, if she wanted to make it through the day without losing her mind. She also needed to get the fuck out of the water, she realized, as Elijah swam over to her.
She dove down and let her feet touch the bottom. She pushed off, going underneath Elijah before he could grab her. She stayed under until she reached the rock and climbed out as quickly as possible.
“Running scared, darling?” Elijah called over to her. She looked over her shoulder at him and raised an eyebrow.
“I’m going to sun-dry, and you are going to leave me alone. How’s that?”
“Whatever you say, little lady,” he chuckled, splashing water at Scout, who jumped in to play some more.
Sawyer laid back out on the rock, letting Shade lay next to her. He must have been out of the water for a little while, because he was already dry. She ran a hand over his fur absentmindedly.
“May I?” Quinn’s voice cut into her peace, and she opened one eye to look at him. He was pointing at the rock. “Lie up here and dry off?”
“Go for it,” she yawned. Shade was between them, so she didn’t much care anymore. And if he was lying down, she wouldn’t have to see the erection he was sporting. Hopefully.
She stopped thinking for a moment. What? Why the fuck was Quinn hard?!
She groaned and put an arm over her eyes, trying to banish the image and the thought. Thirsty. She was a woman living in an oasis, dying of thirst.
“Got room for one more?” Elijah chuckled. He didn’t wait for her to respond, only collapsed onto the rock directly to her left. She gave him a look, trying to figure out why the hell he was laying buck-ass naked right fucking next to her.
Then Shade got up and moved away, and she groaned. She turned to the left and saw Elijah grinning at her. She rolled onto her right side, only to find Quinn on his back with his eyes closed.
“You guys are killing me,” she mumbled angrily, sitting up to leave.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Elijah laughed. She turned towards him and got another eyeful of the nude cowboy.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she hissed.
“I don’t.” Quinn sounded confused and she looked over to him. He had one eye open.
“She’s having a hard time with us being nude,” Elijah continued to laugh. “She doesn’t want to see it.”
“Why not?” Quinn frowned, and Sawyer closed her eyes and massaged her forehead. “It’s not like you haven’t seen a nude male before.”
“Oh hell,” she groaned. “It’s not that.”
“No,” Elijah chuckled. “It’s that she’s got an itch to scratch and won’t accept the open invitation I’ve given her to have it scratch
ed.”
“Huh.” Quinn didn’t say much after that, and they all remained silent for a moment. “Why not?”
“It’s complicated,” she sighed, slapping Elijah on his abs for bringing it up. “I’ve got other things to worry about.”
“Well.” Elijah grabbed her hand and pulled her down slowly. She playfully glared at him, but couldn’t bring herself to fight him. The idea of being nearly on top of him was just too good to pass up. It was just too easy to flirt with Elijah, it really was. “When you’re done worrying about those other things…”
“Like Axel trying kill me?” she reminded him, raising an eyebrow. “You mean after that?”
“Sure.” Elijah let her go, still smiling. “After that.”
“Fuck between you and…” She stood up, shaking her head.
“Jasper? I heard him talking to Zander yesterday,” Elijah chuckled. “When do I get a kiss, darling?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she mumbled with a small smile. “You’ve already gotten one. You know. The night you put handcuffs on me?”
“Yeah but no one got a happy ending that night and…” He gestured to himself, but she didn’t let her eyes follow the hand. “I could use one. You probably could, too.”
“I’m going back to the house. I’ll find my happy ending there, alone.”
“Have a good walk,” Elijah called out to her as she grabbed her clothing and threw it on.
“Walk?” She grinned at him. “The walk is going to suck, but masturbating while you’re stuck out here saving your hat is going to be amazing.” She grabbed his hat from the branch and tossed it into the pond.
“You are a witch,” he snarled, diving into the pond. Quinn was actually grinning at her when she looked over at him and winked.
“You should run,” he said as she pulled on her shoes.
“I know.”
And she did, laughing as she heard Elijah cursing over his wet cowboy hat. It was easy in moments like these to forget she was a prisoner in their home, waiting to be found and killed by a man who thought he’d already done it once before.
The Redemption Saga Box Set Page 22