“I do,” he said. There was something closed-off about it. She didn’t know where to go from there, so she stood up and began to walk out. “Wait, Sawyer.” She looked back at him and felt awful for the sadness in his eyes. “I’m fine with waiting, but I do want more than this. More than chess games and work.”
“I don’t know what to give you,” she admitted. “I don’t, Vincent. All I have is nightmares and I don’t know how to…Jasper is helping. Once I feel like it’s safe, I’ll come back to your room, Vincent. I’m not trying to avoid you or put you to the side. I’m just scared of hurting you.”
“We have a trip to New York coming up,” he reminded her. “We leave in a week. I…bought us tickets to something. I was hoping you would go out with me to see it.”
“I would like that, actually,” Sawyer told him honestly. “Really. And thanks for the reminder about New York, I had forgotten. Other things on my mind.”
“I think everyone has. It’s just a standard visit so they can give us an evaluation on how the case in Texas was handled. It shouldn’t be anything serious.”
“Let’s hope,” Sawyer huffed.
Vincent walked over to her and she took the chance to see how he looked, to really appreciate it. He was so put together now. His white button-down shirt was pressed and tucked into slacks that were also perfectly pressed, with that clean fold down the front. He’d shaved in the morning, that was also obvious, even with some stubble already coming back. He even had his dark, curly hair styled. She wanted to mess it up.
The idea of ruining his image made her want more.
When he was closer, she grabbed his shirt and pulled him the rest of the way. She ran her other hand through his hair, thoroughly ruining his styling. He kissed her roughly, realizing what she was trying to do. Her back hit the door and she let him pin her there, with no escape. Well, she could escape by phasing through the wood, but she liked to pretend he had her at his mercy.
“I don’t like you put together.” The words had all sorts of implications.
“Then mess me up.” Vincent chuckled, kissing her neck.
She did, untucking his shirt and unbuttoning it deftly. She was annoyed with the undershirt keeping her from his skin, so she pulled that out of his pants too. She slid her hands under it and ran her nails over his abs, making him hiss with need.
Someone tried to open the door, causing it to whack her on the back of the head. She growled at the pain as Vincent backed away so she could get out of its way.
Elijah walked in and laughed the moment he saw them. “I was looking for you, Sawyer.” He held up her phone. “You left this at the swimming hole. I see you’re busy with Vincent though, so here. I’ll go. You two kids enjoy yourselves.”
Sawyer snatched it and shoved it into her pocket. She looked back to Vincent and he just nodded. Oh shit. He wanted her to talk to Elijah about his sex life.
She was nervous as fuck now. “Wait,” she blurted out.
Elijah raised his eyebrows.
“Sawyer needs to talk to you,” Vincent explained. “About you and Quinn.”
“What about Quinn and me?” Elijah frowned.
“I saw…” Sawyer took a deep breath. She really had no idea how to broach this topic. She just jumped straight in. “I saw you sucking his dick. Which isn’t a big deal, you do you, but we flirt and…well, I thought there was something going on between us and it threw me for a loop.”
5
Elijah
Elijah stepped all the way into the office and closed the door after she closed her mouth. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting. He figured he would walk in on her and Vincent doing something, though he figured it would be chess, not what looked like a make out session.
Tit for tat, he thought. He seemed to catch her in positions she probably didn’t want him to, and now it seems she saw him in one. Well, Elijah wasn’t sure how he felt about her seeing him go down on Quinn. He knew he was a little mad at Quinn. Quinn would have known she was coming for a long time before it even got started. Elijah was fine with a little voyeurism, but it needed to be acknowledged by all parties beforehand. And why hadn’t Quinn told him after that Sawyer had seen them?
“What did Vincent already tell you?” He assumed Vincent already told her something. She would have either stopped Elijah and Quinn for an explanation or gone to one of the guys for an explanation. She wouldn’t have sat on it and stewed alone, not when it came to any of the team. She was too direct for that. Sawyer wasn’t going to keep secrets or allow them to be kept from her.
“That you guys are pretty much friends with benefits.” Sawyer raised her hands. “I’m cool. That’s fine. It’s not my business, ya know?”
“But we flirt and you…” Elijah was looking for the whole story.
“Jumped to conclusions that I shouldn’t have before talking to Vincent,” Sawyer admitted. “They don’t need repeating.”
Elijah went to his desk and sat down on the front of it. He felt a little bad. He should have told Sawyer before she saw anything. It would have kept this very strange situation from happening. He wasn’t sure why he and Quinn hadn’t talked to her about it yet. Busy? Meeting her, her past, her joining the team, her and Vincent, Texas. There had been so much going on that it just never seemed important.
“Quinn and I aren’t a couple,” Elijah declared. “He and I find physical comfort in each other, but it’s only ever strengthened our friendship, nothing else.”
“Yeah, I’ve pretty much gotten that,” Sawyer replied.
“I don’t think you do, not really.” He sighed. She was defensive as hell. He wondered what else was bothering her about it. “You thought if I do anything with anyone else, I’m cheating on Quinn and you don’t think that’s okay.”
“I mean, I have three boyfriends, so I realize the hypocrisy of the thought I had. And really, it’s not my business.” Elijah crossed his arms and just kept listening to her. “I just, for a second, was very confused. About everything, me and you, you and him. It’s fine, though. Not my business and I’ll make sure not to act like there’s anything wrong with it because there’s not.”
“Sawyer, if you get it, what’s eating at you?” he asked, grinning. He was figuring it out. There was a blush spreading over her cheeks and she glanced at Vincent, who shrugged. Elijah looked at Vincent, looking completely ruined. Shirts untucked and pulled up high enough to see his abs, his hair looking like he rolled out of bed.
He wanted Sawyer to admit it.
“Nothing that needs mentioning,” she told him, hard. She narrowed her eyes, her face still flushed.
“Yup.” Elijah’s grin felt like it was going to get stuck there. God, this woman was great. She was tough and direct and then completely out of her depth and didn’t know what to do. She definitely wasn’t going to admit that she thought seeing him and Quinn get busy was sexy as hell. He knew she did based on her flustered reaction.
“I’m sorry for invading your privacy and seeing it,” Sawyer said quickly. “It wasn’t my intention. I actually went back for my phone.”
“You could have said something, and we would have stopped. You didn’t invade anything, just caught us in a moment. Everyone here has done it at least once. No harm, no foul,” he said, making it sound like a promise. “It didn’t weird you out though? Two guys?”
“I don’t really care if you are two guys, two girls, or two apes,” she replied, crossing her arms as well. “I cared because you’re two of my friends, and I flirt with you and I didn’t know if I was going to ruin something I didn’t know about.”
“And you aren’t going to ruin anything because there’s nothing to ruin.” Elijah confirmed. “It’s okay. We’re best friends, Quinn and I. We don’t have sex that often. We just both crave some physical affection and that’s the extreme end of it.” He shrugged. “Sawyer, I’ve had sex with other people for years and he’s never been possessive or had a problem with it. If anything, he encourages it. If he ever found someo
ne else he trusted to be with, I would probably adore that person. They would need to be someone special for him to trust them, especially a woman.”
He was pretty sure he already knew the person Quinn would trust enough. Elijah already adored her.
“Well, that’s good to know,” Sawyer announced, nodding in a formal, prompt way he figured she got from Vincent. “I’m going to get out of my bathing suit now.”
“Have fun,” he purred as she walked out. He loved the bathing suit on her and he so wished to see what she looked like without it. He’d seen her naked before, but he hadn’t gotten the chance yet to commit it to memory, and he wanted to. He saw the scars, but he wanted to know them.
“That was interesting,” Vincent remarked mildly.
Elijah resisted the urge to tease the Italian for the disheveled state he was in. He could barely contain a reference to his new nickname for their CO, the Italian boy toy. Since he didn’t want to mess with Vincent, he directed his thoughts to Quinn. “I’m going to strangle him,” he said nonchalantly.
“Quinn?” Vincent frowned at him. “Why?”
“He damned sure knew she was there and never bothered to mention it. I would have preferred not to get blindsided.” Elijah told him. “I’ll get him back tonight. He’s coming inside. The nights are getting too cold for him.”
“I’m glad to know he’s not out there freezing.”
Elijah just nodded, silently agreeing with Vincent. Quinn very rarely slept indoors, even in his own room. He only came inside consistently during the winter, when it was too cold for a simple fire to keep him warm or too much work, since Elijah knew that Quinn grew up in Northern Canada, tucked away deep in the wilderness. He knew how to stay warm, but he was getting lazier with the conveniences of the civilized world. Every year, Quinn came inside for the winter earlier and left during the spring later.
Lots of things about Quinn were changing. He used to give Elijah a warning when someone was going to walk in on them, once he knew it wasn’t normal to walk in on someone having sex. Gave them both a chance to semi-prepare for it.
Elijah was half mad Quinn hadn’t said anything and beginning to get very curious as to why. Why would Quinn let Sawyer walk up on them?
He sat down in his chair and continued to ponder it. Quinn would have known well ahead of time that she was coming, so before they even had gotten started. Quinn had initiated it. He’d been hard and willing, and Elijah was more than happy to help a friend out, so he’d gone along with it.
Quinn was being a sneaky shit and that made Elijah curious.
“I’m going to shower,” he announced, walking out before Vincent could say anything.
He headed for his bathroom and caught the distinct sound of Sawyer and Zander bickering up in the attic. Elijah chuckled, looking up to the ceiling, directly underneath them, and waited to see if it would escalate. Zander was going to lose his girl if he didn’t learn how to install a filter between his brain and mouth. Elijah hoped it didn’t happen, but he also wasn’t going to fix Zander’s problems for him. The guy was emotionally immature and inexperienced with relationships.
Elijah chuckled. Zander and Jasper were exact opposites. Elijah wondered how in the hell they had remained friends for so long, and Sawyer being in the house only made those differences more apparent. Zander: experienced in the bedroom but awful at pretty much everything else, which was made worse by his rash behavior and recklessness. Jasper: no experience with the bedroom, or none that mattered, but he was an intelligent and decent fellow, if a bit shy about it all and insecure.
Elijah stripped and carelessly tossed his clothes on the floor. He didn’t really like living like a slob, but it was one of the few ways to get at Vincent. He thought Vincent was anal about folding clothes and being neat at every possible opportunity, and Elijah needed him to loosen the fuck up. It was a stark reminder that he was Axel’s brother. Vincent wasn’t an OCD, narcissistic neat-freak like Axel, and Elijah wanted him to stop pretending to be.
Once the water was hot, he stepped inside and sighed happily. A hot shower after a day at the swimming hole was pure bliss. The only thing that would make it better was her there to help with his back.
The thought made him hard. Elijah groaned and looked down at himself. He’d just gotten off in the woods. The damn thing had no right to demand more.
“Fuck,” he mumbled, wrapping a hand around it. He stroked himself slowly, hoping to just get it done and over. One thought stuck in his mind through the entire thing. Sawyer watching him with Quinn. What if the tables had turned? What if he watched her and Quinn? Or Quinn watched him and her?
Or he had them both?
The mere idea finished him, and he leaned back on the wall of the shower. He thought he knew why Quinn let her sneak up on them.
And everyone calls me the pervert.
Elijah finished washing and moved to his bedroom. He picked up a sketchbook off his dresser and sat down at his desk in the quiet.
“Turn on station, genre, Country,” Elijah told his sound system. “Volume, four.” He called a pencil to his hand with his telekinesis and opened the sketchbook. Sawyer was on every page, and he was about to add another. He had another sketchbook full of Quinn. Another full of his family, which now had updated versions, since he’d seen them in Texas.
The horrified look on her face when she had woken up from her nap in the sun.
The look had freaked him out. It’s why he needed to draw it, put it on paper. Get it out of his mind.
When he was done with the details of her wide eyes, looking at something he couldn’t see, he closed the sketchbook and placed his hand over it.
“Elijah. Quinn is in and wants to cook more of the venison.” Vincent’s voice politely interrupted his silence.
He groaned. He needed to enchant the sketchbook before he went down.
Enchanting was about intent and power. His intent was that the sketchbook couldn’t be opened by anyone except him. He pushed his magic into the sketchbook, a lot of it and it was like filling an empty bowl with power, or wrapping something in paper, depending on what he was doing. This was a wrap, an external enchantment. He was powerful enough that nearly no one could break past it. Quinn could, but would respect his privacy, but none of the other guys could even attempt it. Elijah made this enchantment to keep nosy Sawyer from discovering just how much he watched her, looked at her, thought about her. She would be able to break it, if she was inclined, but she would need to work for it and then he would know she was trying.
She had enough on her plate without him adding another person to the dance around her bed. And Quinn. He had to look out for Quinn, so he didn’t get lonely if they all fell for Sawyer, who desperately seemed to want none of them to fall for her and was just accepting her poor fate.
Elijah tucked the sketchbook into a drawer and left his room.
He found Quinn rubbing down several large pieces of venison, steak cuts.
“We need to talk after dinner,” Elijah warned him.
“Okay?” The wolf-like Magi frowned at him and Elijah raised an eyebrow. Quinn shrugged and went back to what he was doing.
Dinner went well. He was always happy to cook anything Quinn caught for the team. They all enjoyed it, since it broke up the monotony of Chinese takeout and whatever they could buy for groceries. Elijah wondered why no one had commercialized venison yet. It was delicious, and Quinn had tricks about how to treat the meat that made it more tender than some of the best beef.
“I’ll do dishes,” Sawyer announced, pushing her plate away from her. “It’s my turn, I think.” Elijah watched her leave. She’d been quiet for the meal and that was unusual. He collected the plates she couldn’t carry and followed.
“What’s on your mind, little lady?” Elijah asked, throwing out the scraps they had leftover before putting the plates on the counter next to her.
“I was on the Dark Web earlier. Argued with Zander about it. Nothing important.”
“Why
are you on the Dark Web?” he groaned. He knew she shouldn’t be doing that. She knew she shouldn’t be doing it.
“Truthfully?” Sawyer shrugged. “Boredom and a touch of curiosity.”
“You know, next time you’re bored, you know where my room is. Come see me. I promise not to be annoying like Zander,” he whispered, sliding a hand over her lower back.
“You mean you won’t make me scream in frustration?” she gasped. “I fucking hope so. Two people like that and I might start killing people again.”
“I would make you scream from a lot of things, but I’ll never leave you frustrated.” Elijah kept the comment light, teasing and flirtatious, but he was confident in the truth of it. Her cheeks turned a little flushed and flustered, and she swatted his abs with a wet, soapy hand. “You walked into that one, Sawyer.”
“I seem to walk into all of them with you,” she said while chuckling. She waved him away. “All right, you get out and let me do this. Fucking pervert. Distracting, incessant pervert.”
He laughed as he left her to the dishes. He grabbed Quinn in the hallway, who willingly followed him without a single word.
Elijah took them to Quinn’s room and locked the door once they were inside. He paused, unlocked the door, let the wolves in, then relocked it. Shade and Scout jumped up on Quinn’s bed and curled into furry balls, their tails covering their faces.
“You couldn’t warn me?” he asked immediately.
“Warn you?” Quinn frowned at him.
“That Sawyer was there at the swimming hole while we were getting down and dirty? While I went down on you? She didn’t see anything else.” Like Elijah flipping Quinn over and taking him from behind.
“Oh!” Quinn’s face turned to shock, and a bit of ‘oh shit.’ It was an expression people didn’t see on Quinn very often. “Um.”
“Words,” he muttered. “Use them.”
“I didn’t think you would mind?” Quinn said cautiously, a little confused. “I didn’t think it was a big deal?”
The Redemption Saga Box Set Page 69