Quinn Security

by Dee Bridgnorth

  That made her laugh and as she sobered up, serious all over again, she asked, “So why haven’t we?”

  “Had sex?”

  “Yeah,” she breathed, feeling drawn to him.

  “I don’t know.”

  It sounded like he was willing and realizing that, as she looked him in the eye, caused a warm swell of relaxing heat to swirl through her.

  “So…” she dared to ask him, “when you came over here the other night and…”

  “Couldn’t keep my hands off you,” he supplied.

  “You weren’t trying to figure out if I was meant for you?” she made herself ask, the thrill of the question almost more than she could bear.

  She didn’t think she’d asked him such a big question, but maybe she had. Shane didn’t seem capable of answering without thinking about it for a long moment.

  “Maybe I was,” he finally admitted, and it turned her on even more.

  “How would you figure that out?” she asked in a breathy tone that probably revealed her extreme interest in the idea. “You’d have to sleep with me?”

  “No, not necessarily,” he said, and the grin on his face grew. “How does any man figure out that the woman he’s with is for him?”

  “If I knew the answer to that, I’d probably be married by now,” she told him humorously.

  “Do you want to be married?”

  “Someday,” she said. It seemed like the most likely outcome, but she felt compelled to add, “I like my freedom, though. I’ve never been able to imagine the type of man who I wouldn’t mind tying me down.”

  “You wouldn’t be tied down with me,” he told her, and then his warm expression quickly straightened into a serious, stern, guarded one, as though he’d said too much, revealed too much. He cleared his throat and informed her, “Werewolves aren’t like that. A werewolf would never stifle his mate, and she’d never be able to tame him either. It’s a totally different ballgame.”

  It sounded perfect. Like Whitney could be with a werewolf and never have to compromise her spirit, something she’d sensed she’d have to do if she ever got serious with a man. But Shane wasn’t a man. He was so much more than that.

  How had this conversation gotten so deep and serious? Were they really talking about being together? Bonded and married? How insane was this?

  Her instinct was to grab her coffee mug, take it to the kitchen, and pour herself a fresh cup, but when she reached for her cold mug on the coffee table to do just that, Shane caught her arm and pulled her close.

  She melted like butter against the firm wall of his muscular chest, one slender arm draping around his huge shoulders, as she rested her other palm against his chiseled abs, feeling the definition through the thin material of his black tank top.

  The slight grin was back on his face and as he drew near, bringing their lips very close together, he told her, “We can kiss and it doesn’t have to mean so much.”

  “But what if I want it to?” she breathed.

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t think anything I do with you would be meaningless, Shane.”

  It seemed to please him to hear. He brushed her cheeks with the backs of his fingers then took gentle hold of her chin and guided her in for a kiss.

  As soon as their lips met, Whitney knew that what she had said had been the truth, but not the whole truth.

  She knew that she could be with him. It was a feeling, a strong instinct, and also a wishful desire.

  But could she become a werewolf as well in order to be completely his?

  She didn’t know.

  ***

  Right around the time that Whitney was refreshing her coffee mug, knowing full well that polishing off the pot would seriously compromise her sleep but figuring that Shane’s presence in her cabin would likely have the same effect anyway, all the way across the Fist Jack Quagmire was pondering the strange result of having taken Angel to Lucy Cooper for the guidance and directive he couldn’t seem to get from Troy Quinn.

  Jack and Angel had returned to her cottage some hours ago after a tensely silent ride home. Whatever Lucy had shown Angel during their hand-held, joint vision had been too sad, grim, or disturbing for Angel to enlighten him about. All he knew at this point was that his high hopes for leaving Lucy’s cabin as Angel’s official one true mate had not come to fruition.

  It was starting to sink his spirits.

  In the bedroom on the second floor, he sat on the edge of the bed and watched as Angel finally changed out of her diner uniform, peeling the blue, button-down dress off of her shoulders and stepping out of it. He studied the lines and curves of her perfect body—the pinup girl lingerie she wore, the garter belt that held her thigh-high pantyhose up—and wondered if she’d ever be his.

  As she stripped out of those, standing in front of the closet, and pulled a white housedress on, he asked her, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She’d barely eaten dinner. Jack had suffered from the same absence of an appetite downstairs. If he was glad for anything, it was that she hadn’t opted to return to Angel’s Food like she’d planned. Whatever had happened at Lucy’s had put her in a state of mind that wouldn’t accommodate customers and managing a restaurant.

  “I wouldn’t know what to say,” she said softly as she finally looked at him, having buttoned up the closure at the top of her around-the-house dress.

  “You wouldn’t know how to describe it or you don’t know how to be the bearer of bad news?” he asked for the sake of clarity.

  His heart sank when she returned, “Both.”

  He slumped in low, contemplative silence for a long moment then in disbelief asked, “So it is bad news? We won’t be able to be together?”

  “Yes. No,” she wavered. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, can you at least tell me what you saw? What she showed you?” He pushed for answers even though he could see in her eyes that she was dreading it.

  “It’s not like she showed me a way for us to be together,” she began as she sat beside him on the edge of the bed and took his hand. “I didn’t see any ritual that we might be able to perform, Jack.”

  “Okay,” he said slowly, as he tried to wrap his mind around that as optimistically as he could. Just because Lucy couldn’t see a ritual that they might be able to perform to untie Angel from Dante to free her up to be Jack’s one true mate, didn’t mean there wasn’t a way. Of course, Troy had been absolutely no help in that department, so it seemed they were back to square one. “I’m listening.”

  “Lucy…” she trailed off, sighed, and then a mile-long stare came over her.

  “Angel?”

  “Lucy showed me what it would feel like if I bonded with you—”

  “So there is a way!” he exclaimed, latching on to the one shred of positive news he’d heard on the subject since they’d started their effort to be together.

  “Hold on, Jack,” she warned. “Don’t get so excited.”

  “I’m calm. I’m listening,” he repeated. “She showed you? What exactly?”

  “I don’t know, it’s hard to describe. It wasn’t a vision. It was a feeling.”

  “Okay,” he said again, urging her to go on.

  “It gave me the impression, Jack—”

  “Stop using my name to appeal to me,” he said impatiently. “Just tell me—”

  “I’m trying to!” she returned hotly. He let her take her time, take a few breaths, and she finally said, “The feeling Lucy showed me gave me the impression that there would be no separating from Dante. If I tried, all I would be for you would be an empty vessel, a shell of my former self. It felt horrible, Jack. And it told me that Dante has my soul and always will.”

  Tears welled up and stung his eyes. He didn’t want Angel to see him like this, helpless and frustrated, so he blinked them away and swallowed hard.

  “Troy promised,” he angrily muttered.

  “Jack,” she breathed through a grimace and when he looked down at their hands he realiz
ed he was squeezing hers much too hard.

  He loosened his grip and felt his teeth clench, jaw tightening to compensate for the fury that had built up in his fists. It had to go somewhere, this furious feeling that was filling him, and if he couldn’t expel it from his body, it would tighten up this or that part of his body.

  “We have a good thing going right now,” she reminded him. “My body and soul are one, and I’m here with you. Maybe that can be enough?”

  “Maybe it can,” he allowed even though he vigilantly disagreed. “But do you really think Dante is going to let us get away with this indefinitely? He owns you. I can’t stand it.”

  “I can’t either,” she promised. “But I’m telling you, I wouldn’t be able to stand living life as the empty shell of my former self that Lucy proved to me I would be if I ever tried to break the bonds that tie me to Dante.”

  “He’s going to come back for you, Angel,” he insisted. “He’s going to control you and make you do his bidding, and there’s nothing either of us will be able to do to stop it.”

  She fell into somber silence because, he sensed, she knew he was right.

  He went on, “Dante already forced you to lure Reece out into the old Halsey land. We’ve still got the sheriff breathing down our necks about it, if you haven’t noticed.”

  “Rick is harmless.”

  “You’re wrong about that. He could throw you in jail at any moment and you know it. What if Dante seeps into your mind, controls you, makes you do something far worse? I don’t want Rick tossing you off into prison, which he has the authority to do. He can craft a strong case against you, pull strings and favors with the courts over in Jackson Hole, and then where will we be?”

  Angel considered the worrisome possibility then suggested, “I doubt Dante would allow that.”

  She hadn’t meant to be offensive, but that’s how Jack took it. It disturbed him to no end that Angel’s victimizer, her abuser, her slave-master would also be her savior if she got into serious hot water.

  “No,” he said. “I can’t accept any of that.”

  “Lucy also showed me the feeling that I’d have if we left things alone for a while.”

  “And?”

  “And it felt just like it does now.”

  “This doesn’t feel great to me,” he assured her.

  “It feels fine to me, Jack,” she promised. “And you have to trust me that it’s far better than the alternative.”

  Jack was about to respond with even more determination, which would come wrapped in insults against Troy Quinn, but there came a knock at the door downstairs. He almost hadn’t caught the sound of it since it was faint from the second-floor bedroom, but Angel had heard it as well and widened her eyes at him.

  “Who could that be?” she asked him as he rose from the bed and started down the stairs.

  Angel padded barefoot down the treads after him, staying close to his heels, but when he reached the front door, he urged her back. She looked underdressed in his estimation. He didn’t want whoever was out there to catch sight of her in her flimsy housedress.

  “Why don’t you go on up and throw on a robe or sweater or something?” he suggested and she leveled her eyebrows at him.

  “I look fine,” she informed him, “and if you don’t answer the door, I will.”

  The knocking rose up again and without further ado, Jack opened the door to find Sheriff Rick Abernathy waiting stiffly on the other side.

  “Angel Mercer,” Rick stated, his tone carrying the kind of authority that alerted Jack to what was about to come. Jack pressed his mouth into a hard line, balling his fists, as Rick went on to state, “You’re under arrest for aiding and abetting the unlawful imprisonment of Reece Gladstone, as well as impeding an investigation.”

  Jack turned into flying fists of pure reaction. He didn’t think twice. The realm of consequences was so far beyond him that he was rendered physically and mentally incapable of thinking his actions through to their farthest conclusion.

  The next thing he knew, his tight fist made contact with the sheriff’s jaw and Rick was sent careening sideways. As he stumbled away, cursing through bloody teeth, Jack saw that Police Officer Rachel Clancy had been standing right behind the behemoth man.

  Rachel captured Jack in an instant, clamping both of his hands behind his back and slapping a pair of handcuffs on him as she asked, “You okay, Sheriff?”

  “Goddamn you, Jack!” he swore as he straightened up and worked his jaw with his large hand. “Christ, I don’t want to have to arrest you, too!”

  “I thought we were friends!” Jack seethed.

  Rachel asked Angel, “You aren’t going to take off, are you? ‘Cause I’ll chase you down, no doubt about it.”

  Angel was too stunned to bolt or even respond as Rachel hauled Jack towards her idling cruiser and tossed him in the padded back. She shut the car door for good measure and then circled back to apprehend Angel, who hadn’t moved a muscle.

  Jack watched from the back of the police cruiser, his wrists already burning from the cold, metal cuffs.

  He heard Rachel kindly offer Angel, “Come on, let’s get you into some appropriate clothes. We’re in no rush.”

  “Thanks,” Angel breathed, bewildered, and the women disappeared inside the house as Rick marched over to the cruiser and leaned down so he could meet Jack’s glaring gaze through the glass.

  “You really screwed the pooch this time, Jackie boy,” he told him.

  Jack had nothing to say to that.

  The man was right.

  ***

  Back at Whitney’s cabin, where she and Shane had absolutely no idea that in the heart of the Fist, PO Clancy had just escorted Jack and Angel into separate jail cells, Whitney sucked down the dregs of her coffee with nothing on her mind except for the thrilling possibility of becoming a werewolf. Shane’s werewolf. Being with him. Permanently.

  The discussion had turned into a mild, titillating flirtation of hypotheticals, the boldest of which was that, if they both wanted, Shane could have her, sexually, without need or risk of turning her into a werewolf. The notion was more than appealing, but the more they flirted along those lines, the more timid she grew, which was probably why she’d been compulsively gulping coffee, making trip after trip into the kitchen to refill her cooling mug.

  There was none left now, however. She had nothing to busy herself with or distract her from his dark, penetrating eyes. With every returning trip to the couch, she’d sat closer and closer to him, to the effect that now the length of him was pressed warmly against the length of her, leg to leg and shoulder to shoulder.

  Shane wrapped his arm over the couch back behind her. She could feel the heat rolling off of him. She sensed his interest. The way he was holding his gaze on her felt like an invitation. She could feel those lips pressing against hers again if she wanted. But part of her knew that as soon as they made sensual contact, neither of them would be able to stop until they reached her bedroom and explored the full extent of their mutual attraction.

  “Why the Fist?” she asked him in a nervous, murmuring voice.

  “Why did my pack come here?” he asked for the sake of clarity.

  “Yeah.”

  His arm slipped from the couch back to her shoulders and the second she felt his strong, muscular arm across her shoulders, she found herself melting and molding into the firm wall of his chest. It felt comfortable, easily domestic. She could get used to this. She’d never felt safer in her entire life. Just being near him caused all of her defenses to lower. Until she was with Shane, she hadn’t realized how guarded she was constantly. It was nice being here, alone with him. No, it felt more than nice. It felt right.

  “In a sense, we’ve always been here,” he began, his rugged, deep voice smoothing out softly and calming her. “Centuries upon centuries ago, we roamed Yellowstone. Devil’s Fist hadn’t formed yet. We stretched all the way out into the plains. As the early American settlers came west and formed the town, we sta
yed. We coexisted and modernized. It’s been working.”

  It occurred to her then that werewolves might have a significantly longer lifespan than humans, so she asked, “How long have you been an adult?”

  “A long time,” he allowed.

  She thought on that, then asked, “Were you this age when I was growing up?”

  “I was.”

  “Do you remember me as a little girl?”

  “I remember your mother,” he told her then added, “and sure, I was aware of a feisty, disobedient redhead trotting around, but I didn’t give you much thought, to be honest.”

  That was more or less a relief since, had he taken an interest in Whitney as a little girl, that would be categorically creepy, she decided.

  “You remember my mother?”

  “Sally-Mae,” he supplied. “Yes, I do. She was a kind woman. Smart. Intuitive.” A grin came over him and he added, “My brothers and I never could figure out what she saw in Rick.”

  “Oh, go easy on him,” she said, nudging her elbow into his firm abdomen. As she shifted her position, curling up into him so that she could rest her head on his muscular shoulder and gaze up at his handsome face, she pointed out, “If you and I are together in any kind of real way, and I’m not saying we will be. I’m not presumptuous. But hypothetically, if we were, you’d have to get to know Daddy. He’d have to like you, you know.” Shane’s eyes widened at that, a glint of horror welling up that made Whitney smile. “You’d have to get his blessing.”

  “No comment,” he said, and they both chuckled. “Your mother actually knew about us.”

  Whitney straightened up and stared at him. “She did?”

  “She was intuitive,” he repeated. “She discovered our kind and my father, Xavier, confirmed it to her privately. She never told Rick. She kept our secret.”

  The way he mentioned all of this gave Whitney the impression that Shane thought, or hoped, that Whitney herself would have the same gumption as Sally-Mae, that she too would be strong enough to carry the secret, unintimidated, trustingly.