Stripped Away

by Sydney Somers

  Completely boneless, she gave only a small whimper of protest when he moved to stretch out beside her.

  “Sleep,” he murmured, locking one arm around her waist.

  “Oddly enough I’m wide awake now.”

  He propped his head up on his palm. “And you wanted to…”

  She stretched her arms overhead and rolled out of bed. “I think I feel like a shower.” She felt his eyes on her and turned around. “Did you know that I’ve had the most incredible dream of you and I in the shower together…” she trailed off provocatively, wanting to lure him into the shower with her to find out how incredible it would feel in the flesh.

  She started into the master bathroom, paused.

  “Touch me. Learn me in all the ways I dream about when I’m at home alone.”

  Quinn froze, the words whispering through her mind. Her words?

  Her pulse throttled ahead and she clung to the doorjamb, her nails digging in for purchase as her knees wobbled.

  “Quinn?” His voice sounded far away as she fought the fog that shifted and swirled through her mind.

  She closed her eyes.

  “You know you won’t remember this in the morning.”

  “I might,” she whispered against his mouth.

  “Probably not.”

  She shook her head. “I want you so badly nothing is going to let me forget what it feels like to finally have your hands on me.”

  Her breath left her lungs in a startling whoosh, and she turned around, leaning into the doorframe. “Brax?”

  “Yeah?”

  She didn’t even need to look him in the face. She heard in it in his tone. The caution, the uncertainty. She slowly raised her gaze to his and like the final strike to the wall in her mind, everything started to crumble. More memories. She shook her head, not believing this was happening to her. Not again.

  Quinn swallowed past the thickening lump in her throat. “Not you too.” Not Braxton. She squeezed her eyes shut wishing she hadn’t gotten out of bed.

  “I…wanted to tell you. I was going to tell you.”

  She laughed, the sound borderline hysterical, more so because it seemed pathetic to wonder if this would be what finally made her snap into a million pieces and fall apart.

  This wasn’t her. She’d always been strong. She wouldn’t do this again. Wouldn’t let it slip beyond her control.

  “It happened, didn’t it? That dream of us in the shower. It happened.”

  “The night you were infected by the lust demon.”

  “That was over two months ago.” The first burst of hurt uncoiled in her stomach.

  “I know,” he said quietly.

  She waited, hoping for some foolish second he had the perfect excuse for not telling her what happened between them. As though her brain was now set in permanent replay, it was too easy to recall the way he’d followed her into the bathroom, taking her against the wall, giving her what they’d both wanted.

  And then acting the next day as though it never happened—lying to her when she’d asked if anything had happened.

  Anger rushed up from the deepest part of her heart, boiling over. He stood motionless.

  “That’s all you have to say? ‘I know’? Jesus, Braxton.” She stalked across the room to where her bag was.

  “Wait a second.”

  She ran her hands through her hair. “God, I was so grateful this last week that I had you. Someone to just be there, and then it turns out you’ve been about as honest with me as everyone else.” She yanked her clothes on.

  “Just listen to me for a minute.” The rough plea in his voice slowed her down.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, waiting, her heart sinking with every second that he hesitated.

  “A dozen times I wanted to tell you.”

  Quinn gave him a blank look. That was his best foot forward, the first thing he had to say? “Right.” She pivoted around for the door. She needed to get out of there.

  Braxton cut her off, blocking her path. “I never wanted to get involved with anyone I worked with. Things had always been comfortable between us—”

  She snorted.

  “Then you were infected and knowing—hearing—that you wanted me as much as I wanted you, I just…stopped fighting it.”

  “Good for you.” She’d counted on him that night to tell her the truth if the infection affected her memory.

  She tried to shove past him. He barely gave an inch. She might be faster than he was, but no amount of speed would take her through the wall of his chest without one of them getting hurt. Seeing as how her insides weren’t all that keen on any more pain than necessary, that wasn’t an option.

  “Part of me hoped you’d remember,” Braxton added, his determined expression tearing at her. “And the other part thought maybe it was for the best that you didn’t. That everything would get messy and complicated and it would screw up our professional relationship.”

  “Messy?” She shook her head, realization dawning with a greasy swirl in her stomach. “Or were you just worried that it would look like you were taking advantage of me? Couldn’t risk having a mark on that clean record. Wouldn’t want to let Rae down.”

  The guilt that flashed across his face turned her heart cold.

  “Move out of the way, Braxton.”

  “No.”

  “Now!”

  “I thought if I just gave it some time, and if it wasn’t just the infection talking that I’d see some glimmer of it in you.”

  “How would you know? After that day you started avoiding me like the fucking plague. You never stayed alone in a room with me long enough after that to see a damn thing.”

  He dragged his hands down his face, unblocking the door enough so that she could slip by him. She was already down the stairs before he reached the end of the hall.

  “Damn it, Quinn. You can’t just take off on your own.”

  She didn’t bother responding, snatching her keys off the kitchen counter, and slipped outside. Dusk had already turned the sky a fading scarlet as she stormed down the driveway with no destination in mind other than somewhere away from Braxton’s.

  * * *

  He tipped the bottle back and chugged until the amber liquid succeeded in numbing the twisting in his gut. The sensation would pass in a minute or two, after which he planned to have another beer, followed by another.“Can’t say I expected this.”

  Braxton acknowledged Gage with a grim smile and a tip of his head. His friend slid into the booth opposite him. “Is Jordan with her?”

  Gage nodded, waving to Kane for a beer for himself. He eyed the few empty bottles already on the table. “I think I would have gone with the hard stuff myself.”

  “Now that would just be irresponsible, wouldn’t it?” He mulled it over anyway, thinking the suggestion had a certain amount of merit. Might make it easier to forget the look on Quinn’s face before she walked out.

  Kane delivered Gage’s beer with little time for talking. The small bar was doing a brisk business tonight. No sooner did Kane fill an order than another three patrons stepped up to the bar. Braxton had always liked the setting, the dim lighting and sports memorabilia covered walls always good to help him unwind after an assignment.

  Tonight, however, nothing seemed to be unwinding the tension digging in like burs tangled around his spine.

  Braxton raised his bottle in salute and clinked it against Gage’s. “To me being a complete ass.”

  “Fucking up is practically a rite of passage in our line of work.”

  He picked at the label on his beer. “I should have told her.”

  Gage didn’t comment either way, and Braxton finally met his friend’s gaze as the silence stretched between them.

  Crossing his arms, Gage leaned back in the booth. “I let Jordan think I was dead for years. I’m the last one about to cast stones here. So why didn’t you tell her?”

  “You heard me when I said I was an ass, right?”

  “Did you tell
her that?” Gage took a long swallow of his beer.

  “Yeah, but she was already in the car and halfway down the road by then.”

  Gage snorted. “You’re lucky you got a word out before she bolted.”

  “I wanted to tell her, but with everything else…” How many opportunities had he let slip by him? More than once his fear that she would react exactly as she had stopped him. Since he’d sat down he couldn’t stop imagining how differently things might have turned out if he’d told her the truth sooner.

  “I know how it is, man. Believe me, I know.”

  Braxton stared into his bottle. “So how did you and Jordan work that out?”

  Gage grinned. “If you ask her we still are.”

  “Comforting.” He finished his beer, but couldn’t bring himself to reach for the other full one on the table.

  “Quinn’s been through a lot. Just give her a little time.”

  “Time is something we might not have.” Not with a Scion potentially lurking close by. He moved to stand up.

  “Whoa, buddy.” Gage put his hand on Braxton’s shoulder, propelling him back into the booth. “Quinn is pissed. She needs to blow off some steam. She’ll be fine. Jordan is with her and shortly she’ll be at our place. She’s not stupid enough to try and stay at her place alone. Not with a Scion gunning for her ass.”

  “I feel much better, thanks,” Braxton said dryly.

  Gage sighed. “Sorry.” He jerked his head at the remaining beer. “How about I just give you a ride home?”

  Quinn had only been staying with him for a few days and already the thought of walking through the door knowing she wouldn’t be there made the freshly scarred part of his heart ache all over again.

  And he had no one to blame but himself.

  * * *

  “Look, I know what’s it’s like to be in the dark about something pretty huge.” Jordan headed out of Jake’s and turned down the sidewalk, walking along next to Quinn.Quinn allowed herself only a moment’s glance over her shoulder to the back of the parking lot where the Scion could have ended everything for her. A shiver danced across the back of her neck, almost as though she expected it to come for her again.

  She wouldn’t be caught off guard the next time, wouldn’t allow herself to be cornered. Both the Scion and the mimic demon had used the images from her nightmares to screw with her head. Knowing the truth about what happened to her parents—as hard as it was—made her stronger. There would be no more cringing at the voices in her head, no more cowering from the memories she had no choice but to come to terms with.

  She’d survived that night six years ago. She’d survive this. Whatever it took.

  She watched her feet as they circled the block, heading back towards her place. She’d been so quick to leave Braxton’s she hadn’t stopped to gather the few things she’d taken along when she’d been released from the clinic.

  “Maybe we’re too different for things to really work out.” Admitting that, much less saying it aloud, drove the knife a little deeper under the edge of her heart. “Even before that night at the field office and we… I always drove him up the wall. For every moment he stays in control and follows protocol, I’m kicking back and taking it as it comes. He likes to work on his car and screw around on the computer. I’m addicted to TV and trolling at night for demons.”

  Jordan burst out laughing.

  Quinn stopped and glared at her friend.

  In defense, Jordan held a hand up. “Braxton is a jackass for lying to you. I’m not even going to disagree with that. But don’t go hunting for excuses as to why things won’t work out between you two so you don’t have to deal with what happened.”

  “I’m not.”

  Jordan shot her a doubtful look.

  “I get to be mad.” He’d lied to her. For two fucking months. In a way she’d come to grudgingly accept the reasons the network had sought to keep the truth from her and Cass. She wasn’t happy, but she understood the need to always balance the truth with protecting the innocent. But Braxton keeping the truth from her protected no one but himself.

  “You get to be downright volatile,” Jordan agreed. “But speaking from experience…” She trailed off, glancing sharply down the street. “I think you might have had company tonight.”

  Quinn dug her key from her pocket and let them into the building. She concentrated, filtering through each sense until, like Jordan, she was certain there were no demons laying in wait for them within her apartment.

  “One has been here in the last hour,” Jordan said. “Maybe more than one. We should make this brief.”

  Quinn nodded, hating the feeling of knowing hostiles had crossed the line and broken into her home. She hastily grabbed a few things and stuffed them in a bag to take to Jordan’s. In the morning she’d figure out what her next move would be. She damn well couldn’t keep going like this. She had a life and so did her sister. She was done letting the past interfere with the present.

  Jordan was on her cell phone when Quinn finished up. Even without hearing the threads of conversation about Gage and Braxton being at Kane’s, she would have known the subject involved her by the expression on Jordan’s face. “I’ll see you at home,” she said into the phone, then disconnected.

  “How did you guys work through the fact that Gage lied to you?”

  “Well, as far as Gage knows, we’re still working through it.” Jordan winked.

  * * *

  He was waiting for Quinn the second she emerged from Royce’s office the following morning. The moment she spotted him, she pivoted around, heading in the opposite direction. As mad as she was entitled to be at him, Braxton wasn’t letting her just walk away.After Gage had dropped him off last night, he’d paced the halls, finding nothing to help him figure out how to fix things with Quinn. Not even working on his car had taken his mind off what he would do if she wanted to end things.

  He caught up with Quinn a little too easily. “You can’t avoid me forever.”

  “No, but I figure two months should make us about even.”

  “Quinn, just listen to me.” He sidestepped her, cutting her off.

  “There’s nothing to say. You had a dozen opportunities to tell me the truth and chose not to.”

  “It’s not that simple.” He cringed as he realized how lame that sounded.

  “It never is with you.”

  “So I should have told you the morning after you were infected when you made it clear the idea of just coming on to me freaked you out?”

  Quinn’s eyes shrank dangerously. “I was afraid that I had said or done something that made you uncomfortable. That you might know how much I was attracted to you when I wasn’t certain what you felt for me.”

  “Had I realized that, I wouldn’t have convinced myself that the things you said were driven by the infection.”

  She stabbed a finger at him accusingly. “How many times before then did I ask you to go for a beer, to hang out?”

  “I thought it was a bad idea.”“Along with telling me the truth apparently.” She spun on her heel to stalk away from him.

  He ran to keep up with her. “I was an idiot. And then after the day in the elevator it hit me how stupid I had been.”

  “And yet you didn’t rush to tell me then either. Not even after we’d slept together several times.” She stormed around the corner towards the break room.

  “Should I have told you when Cass was missing? Or when that mimic demon nearly buried a dagger in your heart? Or when you learned the truth about your parents?”

  Quinn whipped around so fast it made his own neck hurt. “So it’s my fault you didn’t tell me the truth?” Sharp, predatory steps closed the distance between them.

  “No damn it, I just didn’t want to see you hurting any more than you were already were.”

  “Ah, yes. Much better to save it to be the last bomb dropped.” Hurt lingered under the acidic tone.

  Frustration wormed through his stomach. “I’m not trying to blame yo
u for the fact I wasn’t honest with you, but it doesn’t change what’s between us.”

  The brittle edge to her laugh worried him more than watching any demon go after her. “And that would be what? Sex? Complications? Isn’t that what you wanted to avoid in the first place?”

  “That was before I fell in love with you.”

  She flinched as though he’d taken a swing at her, then her eyes brightened with anger. “You son of a bitch.” Without another word she stalked away.

  Quinn slammed her locker shut, wishing it was Braxton’s face. Damn him. Damn him for lying to her. And damn him for tossing out that he loved her at the worst possible moment.She wanted to be mad. Needed to be mad, and then he had to say the only thing that could possibly wrench her insides any tighter.

  She pressed her forehead against the locker, pulling in a deep breath. She didn’t know whether to be grateful he’d let her walk away or annoyed that he could throw an admission like that into the mix and then let her stew on it.

  “Rough morning?”

  Quinn planted both palms against the cool metal and shoved away to face Darcy. “Understatement of the year to the extreme.” She’d been prepared for a lot of things this morning, counting on at least one confrontation with Braxton. She hadn’t anticipated him going so far as to tell her he loved her.

  She clenched her fist at her side, clueless as to what to do with that. The timing couldn’t have been more wrong, but then nothing about their relationship had ever been predictable. For as long as she could remember, she thrived on riding the moment and somewhere in the last two weeks that was something else that had been stripped from her.

  Under other circumstances his confession would have… Quinn shook her head. It didn’t matter how things might have turned out once upon a time.

  Darcy propped her foot up on the bench to adjust her shoelace. “Rae wasn’t kidding when she said I was in for a new working dynamic when I transferred in.”

  “How long have you been a Destroyer?” Right now she’d talk about dust mites if it would help take her mind off Braxton.