Danger Zone

by Dee J. Adams

  “I was worried about you. How’s your hand?”

  “Sore.” He clenched his fist and grimaced. “Mac’s jaw is made of fucking granite.”

  Ellie faced him, her empathy must have been in her eyes because Quinn pulled her against his chest and held on. There was nowhere else she wanted to be.

  “I’m fine,” he told her. “I just had a crappy day, that’s all. I hated seeing you go into the lake and I hated the conversation I had with Mac. He’s such a prick sometimes. But slamming my fist into his face sure made me feel better.” He sighed as he combed his fingers through her hair. “This feels good. I needed this.” He pulled away and looked into her eyes. “I needed you. Need you.”

  Dipping his head, he kissed her softly and Ellie got lost in the sensation of his lips, his hands skimming her body. She felt a tug on her hair as Quinn angled her head back and kissed her more deeply.

  “I love doing this,” he whispered at her lips. “I love wrapping your hair around my hand. Holding you and taking you the way I want.”

  Boom. She was wet. Just that fast.

  “Stop it,” she said quietly. “I want to talk to you. I didn’t come here to have sex with you.” He looked hurt, so she clarified. “I’m not saying I don’t want to have sex with you, I just want to talk about today first, okay? Maybe I can help you with Mac somehow. I’d like to try. You’ve been there for me…steady as a rock, for almost two weeks now. I’d like to return the favor. Trace told me that Mac is—was—your guardian. I didn’t know that.”

  Quinn shook his head. “Mac was never my guardian. He may have thought he was, but he wasn’t. My dad was alive until I was eighteen. I didn’t need a guardian.”

  “It sounded as if your dad wasn’t around before he died. Trace made it seem as if Mac was in charge of you.”

  “He sure as hell wanted to be.” Quinn shook his head and picked up a beer from the table. He must have raided the honor bar. She hadn’t seen him drink at all other than that first night in the bar with the crew. “Hell, who am I kidding? He was in charge. He pulled all the strings and I was his fucking puppet.” He took a drink and stared out the window. “I’m done being a puppet.” He said the words quietly, but with conviction.

  Ellie wanted to understand all of it. “Trace also said that she’d been expecting this for about six months. What did that mean?”

  Quinn snorted. “She said that, huh? I should give her more credit,” he mumbled.

  He kept his back to her. “The accident six months ago was my fault. If I hadn’t been arguing with Mac on the phone, I would’ve noticed her car sooner. Could’ve done something about it. As it was, I didn’t see her until it was too late.”

  He hadn’t mentioned that part. “You can’t blame yourself,” Ellie insisted. “You weren’t on the wrong side of the road, Quinn, she was. Give yourself a break.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t. And I can’t give Mac a break either. I told him to quit harping on me. I told him to call me back when I got to the office, but he wouldn’t shut up and I wouldn’t stop and the next thing you know. Bam. Head-on collision. I didn’t see her until it was too late.” As he looked outside, Ellie knew he wasn’t seeing any part of the city. He was back behind the wheel of his car six months ago. “I don’t know why I thought she’d fall back behind the truck, but she didn’t…” He sighed and dropped his chin to his chest.

  She reached out and touched his arm. Quinn’s hitting Mac went beyond business. “You blame Mac as much as you blame yourself.”

  Quinn only shrugged. He rubbed his right fist, but it was the left one that was red and bruised. Guilt practically streamed off him.

  “Quinn…” She wrapped her arms around him and held tight. “You were just as much a victim as she was. You can’t blame yourself.”

  “Maybe.” He exhaled hard and looked down at her. “I don’t know. It was a defining moment. I knew everything had to change with Mac and me. I’ve let him get under my skin my whole life and I won’t do it anymore.”

  “Life is weird,” she said. “Shit happens and we have to deal with it. Our lives would be totally different if my brother and your mother lived. Maybe we wouldn’t be here now if you hadn’t had the accident. Everything happens for a reason, right?” She crossed the room and fought against the sting in her eyes because she really didn’t believe her words. “At least, I tell myself that, but then I think about Ashley and I get angry. And I think about Phil and I get angry. There is no good reason for good people to die. No good reason for bad things to happen to good people.”

  After Phil’s death, her mother had been present in her life, but she hadn’t been a mom. She became a stranger who cleaned house and made dinner automatically. Almost robotically. But nothing Ellie ever did had been good enough to bring her back from losing her only son.

  Ellie pushed aside the heartache. “How did your mom die? If you don’t mind me asking.”

  Quinn turned, his brows quirked together. “Aneurysm. She was in the kitchen one night and passed out. It happened that fast. I don’t even remember. Mac was there. He remembers.” Again, he looked out the window.

  Ellie swallowed back the knot in her throat, moved back to Quinn and wrapped her arms around him from behind, soaking up his warmth. “Everything might’ve been different if she’d lived. Do you think about that?”

  “Sometimes. I used to when I was little and saw other kids with their mothers. Then I’d tell myself I couldn’t miss something I’d never had.” He shrugged a shoulder. “But deep down it always hurt. I just learned not to go there. There was no point in going there. It couldn’t be changed.”

  Maybe that’s why Ellie hurt so badly when it came to her parents. She remembered what life had been like before Phil died and how different everything was after. “I don’t know what’s worse,” she said. “Not having a mom or having a mom that’s not there.”

  Quinn faced her, lifted her chin. “It’s worse having a mom that’s not there. You see her every day, but she’s not doing or saying the things that are important.”

  She stared up at him, his eyes a clear liquid silver. “How do you know so much?”

  Quinn stroked her jaw with a knuckle. “I don’t. That seemed like a foregone conclusion.” His gray eyes softened. “That’s what happened after your brother died, isn’t it? Your mom checked out?”

  “Both my parents, really, but mom more so than dad. Phil was her everything. She pinned every hope and dream on him.”

  Shaking his head, Quinn pulled her against him. “How could she do that to you? I don’t get how a mother can abandon one child after losing a child.”

  Ellie had her suspicions. She’d heard her mother whispering to her father about how different she was. How she couldn’t compare to Phil. It hurt so much then and still had power to hurt now. “Phil was really smart. He was going to graduate early and already had an academic scholarship to UCLA. It all disappeared when he died.”

  “You could’ve accomplished the same thing.”

  Ellie held back a snort. By the age of seven she’d already started falling behind in school. She hadn’t been able to read like the other kids or do math as well. It wasn’t until high school that she realized—via a television program—that she was dyslexic. But she’d been a star athlete and one by one, every teacher had passed her regardless of her grades.

  “I doubt it,” she finally said. “We were very different. I was never academic the same way he was never athletic.” She dared not continue with this conversation because she wasn’t ready for the consequences. “Tell me about you and Mac growing up.” She took his hand and sat at the edge of the bed.

  He settled next to her. “What’s to tell? Mac ordered and expected me to follow. Any deviation from his rules was considered high treason.” He lifted a brow. “I got good at high treason. By college I was professional.”

  “So the ‘keg parties’ line wasn’t an exaggeration?”

  “Nope. That was all true. I never did drugs, but
I doubt Mac believes that.”

  “Mac thought all the parties were your wasted time?”

  “He was probably referring to the fact that it took me almost seven years to graduate college.”

  “Big deal. That’s still a great accomplishment. So what if it took extra time. Besides, what does it matter? The fact is that you made the company what it is and you have the right to get out if you want.”

  A half smile curved his lips. “I like having you on my team,” he said softly. If the smile hadn’t done it, his words certainly had. He made her feel special. She’d never been with a man who made her feel worthy. She pushed back the heaviness in her chest.

  “I like being on your team,” she told him.

  He brushed his lips against hers, lingering at her mouth, his breath warm. She could’ve ended the conversation by kissing him again and taking him down to the bed, but she wanted more. Some sick sense of balance kicked in and she wanted his heart and soul. The same things he’d unknowingly taken from her.

  “If you don’t want to do what Mac wants…what do you want to do?”

  Quinn shrugged and snorted. “That’s the kicker. I’m not really sure. I focused so hard on rebelling that I don’t know what I want. I just always knew what I didn’t want. Usually it was the exact thing Mac pushed on me.”

  “There had to be something you were interested in,” she prodded.

  He stared at his shoes. “I liked helping the lower classmen during the last couple years.”

  Helping his fellow students? “You mean you tutored?”

  He chuckled as if it were some cosmic joke. “Yeah. Freaky, huh? Me. A tutor?”

  She grinned and pictured the line of freshman—girls—all lined up to have Quinn as a tutor. “Not at all. I can see it very clearly.”

  “Some of the incoming students needed help in math and science. Refresher courses, you know, and I made extra money tutoring. I’m not stupid, you know. I never was. Mac just always treated me that way.”

  Ellie flinched at the word stupid. She knew she wasn’t stupid. Knew her common sense and other abilities compensated for her dyslexia, but sometimes the word still got to her. She crossed back to the window, her secret burning a hole in her heart. Turning, she forced a smile. “Beer money?”

  Shaking his head, he laughed. “My reputation precedes me.”

  “You never told Mac that you tutored, did you?” she asked. “Because he would’ve approved. And you didn’t want his approval.”

  He came toward her, so tall and delicious her mouth watered. His faded jeans hung low around his hips and his tight T-shirt hugged his chest and biceps. The outside was just as beautiful as the inside.

  “Your brother doesn’t know you. Not at all, Quinn. You should sit him down and talk to him. Really talk to him and show him the Quinn I know.” The Quinn I love. Her heart flipped. She loved him. No question about it now. She’d fallen hard.

  He brushed his thumb along her bottom lip. “How about I talk to him another day? How about we do something so that right this minute I can forget he even exists?”

  When his lips grazed hers, Ellie lost all train of thought.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Quinn moved forward, pushing Ellie steadily back toward the bed. He pulled his lips away from hers long enough to strip both their shirts over their heads before kissing her again. These were his lethal kisses. The slow, deep ones that made her hum inside. The ones that made her lose track of everything but Quinn. Not much compared to having his tongue in her mouth, stroking her, playing her until she burned for him. Every touch imbedded in her memory as if it were engraved in stone.

  After making quick work of her jeans, which he laid on a pile on top of their shirts, he stepped back and looked at her. Her black bra and thong didn’t do much in the way of covering her, but she liked the smile on his face.

  He opened his mouth and she stopped him with a finger to his lips. “Shh,” she said. “No words this time. Just our bodies.”

  Quinn nodded slowly. His gaze intensified as desire smoldered in his eyes. He shucked his jeans and underwear and stood before her. In all her years in Hollywood, in all the hours she’d clocked at the gym, she’d never run across a more beautiful male in her life. From his broad shoulders, to his six-pack abs, to his narrow waist. Not to mention the erection that had its place in the Guinness Book of World Records. Every inch of Quinn screamed virile male. He made love like one too. He was fierce, raunchy and carnal.

  And apparently, so was she because she didn’t mind when her took her hard. The way he looked at her, touched her, as if he’d die if he couldn’t have her. She’d never dreamed that something so primal could be so emotional too.

  Standing in front of her, Quinn waited until she met his gaze. The curve of his lips sent her heart thudding loudly in her chest. He was doing it with just a look. Unbelievable. She was wet from one hot look and a sexy grin.

  When his fingers brushed her skin as he unclasped her bra, a rush of tingles swept from head to toe. Goose bumps rose on her flesh as he eased the bra off her shoulders. He circled each nipple with his thumb and her breathing faltered.

  Payback time. Ellie stepped closer until his erection teased her belly. She caught his attention when she smoothed her thumb over the head of his penis and slicked the drop of moisture around and around. Without further delay, he stripped the thong down her legs and tumbled her to the bed. It was so unexpected and so totally Quinn that she laughed.

  “Shh,” he said, because he loved to tease her.

  She might’ve responded if he hadn’t kissed her so thoroughly. Somehow, he’d eased between her legs. A place he fit perfectly. In that moment she realized no one else would ever do. No one would ever make her feel so hot, sexy. So cherished.

  He hovered at her entrance as he kissed her, his slick tongue dancing with hers in perfect rhythm. Pulling away, he stared down at her, his gaze intense and full of emotion. The moment stretched on until he moved his hips, seeking entry.

  Ellie opened her eyes wide. Condom! But she didn’t say it. Somehow Quinn knew. Or he remembered, because he shifted away from her. His wide-eyed, tight-lipped expression was one that would be with her until the day she died…so cute that Ellie burst out laughing.

  “Oops,” he said, hopping off her. He scrambled for a condom in his toilet kit, found one, slipped it on and pounced on her. Naturally, she was still laughing. “Not that funny,” he whispered in her ear.

  She slid her arms around his neck “You didn’t see your face,” she told him. “It was very funny.”

  “What happened to no talking?” he said, grazing his lips along her jaw.

  “No talking about sex,” she corrected.

  He looked in her eyes. “So if the topic is baseball, I can talk when I fuck you?”

  “Quinn!” She smacked his shoulder, mildly affronted at his use of the F-word. But he didn’t know that she considered these intimate moments making love. He didn’t feel the same way. Now was definitely not the time to think about it. Now was the time to enjoy him for the hours they had remaining. “No, you may not. Now it’s no talking. Period. About anything.”

  His brows lifted. A challenge. He pressed against her entrance, but she shook her head no. Those dark brows of his quirked in question why?

  Ellie lifted her head and kissed him. In a move she’d learned while doing a film, she leveraged her leg over his calf and flipped Quinn onto his back, straddling him. His nostrils flared. His eyes got darker and his hands got busy touching everything in front of him.

  Oh, yes, the man liked what he saw. For some reason, she hadn’t had the pleasure of being on top until now. Probably because Quinn made her come so fast, it hadn’t been necessary.

  The way he held her breasts in his hands, the intense expression in his eyes as he touched her made her acutely aware of their time together. How would she get along without him when he left? How would she survive without his touch?

  She fought back the sting i
n her eyes. Because she didn’t want to ruin the moment, she forced a smile and guided him inside her. As usual, the first time was so tight and intense she wanted to cry out. It felt as if she couldn’t expand anymore to take him, but she always did. And it always felt exquisite, meant to be.

  When she looked down at him, he was focused on her, watching, touching. Every inch of skin tingled where he stroked. Inside and out. His gaze never left hers and when it did, his blatant appreciation of her body nearly melted her.

  Ellie rode him slowly. Every delicious slide brought her closer to completion, but she didn’t want to come. She wanted to stay on the edge with him, just like this, with her body humming and every cell alive and sizzling. She wanted him as hot as he was making her.

  With his jaw locked tight, he gripped her hips and drove up inside her, hitting a cluster of nerves at her core that almost set her off. She was so close it wouldn’t take much more to explode.

  Grabbing his wrists, she trapped his hands on the pillow, bringing her mouth next his. She licked his bottom lip and he shoved up inside her. She nipped his earlobe and he thrust harder. Every time he tried to kiss her she backed off. She wanted to be in control. But when he lunged for her mouth a third time, he didn’t let her stop him. He sat up and covered her lips with a need she felt clear to her toes, sweeping his tongue against hers in a slick, sensual dance. Holding her so closely that her breasts flattened against his muscled chest.

  Finally, he pulled away, held her face in his hands. His intent gaze said so much. The desire in his eyes went beyond lust and stalled the breath in her lungs. As if he understood her need to own this moment, he lay back down, bringing her with him, kissing her so hot and heavy that she gasped for air.

  She moved on top of him again, harder and faster, her knees hugging his hips, squeezing him tightly. With every stroke she saw more emotion in his eyes. It was almost more than she could take. The bond they shared struck her soul-deep and sent her senses soaring. She was close, right at the edge. He was too, she could tell. Two more strokes and she was a goner. One…