Quinn Security

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “Daddy?”

  “I was talking a lot of nonsense,” he said, hoping that if he brushed over the issue she’d drop it.

  But Whitney was, after all, Rick’s daughter and Rick hadn’t dropped a damn thing in his life.

  “Is there something I should know?” she pushed.

  “If there was, you know I’d tell you,” he said, feeling his stomach knot with the lie. It was true that the relationship they’d always had had been an open and honest one, and he clung to that fact, as he grit his teeth and prayed she wouldn’t ask him anything else. Dante had turned him into a liar against his own flesh and blood. It sickened him, but as God was his witness, he was going to protect his Whitney from darkness, even if that meant protecting her from learning the truth.

  “Well, I hope you know you can always talk to me,” she reminded him. “Shane, too. He’s your son now.”

  Rick teased, “Don’t make me sick again.”

  Whitney gave him a loving thwack to his leg and told him to behave then they drove the rest of the way home in easy silence, the grand Wyoming sky stretching out before them like it was a dome so vast it kissed the earth.

  ***

  Back in the Fist, the stationhouse was bustling with activity, so much so that Adelaide was met with an empty front counter when she entered it, no officers were manning the front of house. After politely waiting, she was unable to get anyone’s attention so she helped herself to padding through the station, going undetected all the way to the back where the jail cells were located.

  Harry looked just plain miserable in the last cell. He was seated in a hunched heap with his back to the room, staring at the wall or maybe into the shallow waters of his own mind.

  The man had never been very deep.

  He must have sensed her presence, however, because after a moment of her staring at the sad sight of him, he angled his bloodshot eyes over his shoulder at her and sighed.

  “Come to the bars, Harry,” she ordered in a firm voice. “I don’t want to have to shout.”

  Obstinate as ever, he took his sweet time sighing and grumbling to his feet. His steps were heavy and lethargic as he made his way to the bars where she was standing and scowling at him.

  “Things did not go to plan,” he admitted.

  “No, they did not,” she agreed. “What happened?”

  But before he could answer, she glanced over her shoulder at the sound of approaching footfall and found Detective Eddie Friendly nearing the jail cell.

  “Your lawyer is here,” he informed Harry then offered Adelaide a nod, “Ma’am.”

  She frowned at him and asked, “Are you hauling him off to prison?”

  “Not just yet,” he said good-naturedly as he unlocked Harry’s jail and led him out. “Let’s say you and I have another talk, this time with your attorney.”

  “I don’t suppose I have a say in the matter?” Harry asked.

  “’Fraid not, Marple,” was Eddie’s easy reply.

  Adelaide watched as the detective escorted her ex-husband through the station towards the interview rooms that were clear on the other side of the precinct and tried to fathom how they might possibly get things back on track to properly execute their important plan.

  ***

  When Conor informed Rachel of the professor’s findings earlier that day—that Lucy Cooper is a bloodline descendent of Colton Barnes and therefore Dante Alighieri himself—she was initially dumbfounded and then everything clicked just as it had for Conor and his brothers at Quinn Security. But Rachel’s instinct wasn’t to immediately dive into her box of evidence and research to connect more dots. She needed a run. A good, long, chest heaving and sneakers pounding run to both clear her head and help her fast-working mind to produce reasonable theories about how she could use the information to stop Dante once and for all.

  At Yellowstone, she jumped out of the pickup truck as soon as Conor had parked and started off at a clip. Conor didn’t rush locking up and when he started off after her, he stayed at a distance behind her but never let Rachel out of his sight. It seemed she needed space and he was willing to give it to her.

  She turned onto Eagle’s Pass after jogging through the grassy visitors’ area behind the corral stables that connected to a number of trails. Soon the harsh sun was blocked by a thick canopy of tree branches, their large leaves rustling in the slight breeze. The trail became cool and stayed flat. Rachel picked up her pace and gracefully weaved in and out of hiking tourists whenever the dirt trail became congested.

  He kept his eyes keenly trained on her, watching her grace. She didn’t so much run as glide. She was beautiful and perfect, but knowing that—knowing that he was certain she was perfect for him and that his heart was telling him they belonged together—bought with it a distinct edge of doom. He could feel dread twisting in his stomach like acid and as his chest began to burn, he knew it wasn’t because of the fast clip he was jogging at to keep up with her. Dante had gone after Reece then Lucy and then Whitney. Those attacks had been no accident. They weren’t coincidences. Somehow Dante had been able to practically smell it in the air that those women were important to Quinn men, and he’d specifically targeted them because of it.

  If anything should happen to Rachel, if Dante attacked her or abducted her and got away with it, Conor wasn’t sure what he would do. If Dante Alighieri ever got to her and did his worst, how could Conor go on?

  Eating him was the fact of Delilah Dane’s harrowing story. She had chosen death over having the rouge werewolf’s baby. Conor could feel it in his bones that Dante would not give up his plan to impregnate a woman after turning her and essentially taking her soul to the dark side. Whitney had told Shane, and therefore all of the Quinn men, that Dante had tried the same with her. Had she not fought, had Troy not conjured Dante by wedding Angel to Jack, had anything gone differently that night, Dante could have succeeded. All three couples were now safe from Dante’s threat and would be so long as they lived.

  But Rachel wasn’t safe. Not by a long shot. And neither was Conor.

  It was a little over an hour when Rachel, with Conor at a ten-yard lag behind her, reached the grassy visitors’ area again. She slowed to a walk, planted her hands on her hips, and fought to catch her breath.

  She reached her hands over her head, standing still, and began stretching, first towards the sky then leaning all the way forward until her palms were pressed against the grass at either side of her sneakers.

  As she rose up again and grabbed her foot to stretch out one hamstring then the other, Conor neared her and stretched as well, trying as hard as he could to convince himself that nothing would happen to Rachel. She was armed at all times, careful and smart, and she knew exactly who the enemy was. But it did little to quell his growing anxiety that at any moment Dante could strike.

  Rachel let out a long breath, smiled at him, and said, “I need a shower.”

  When they reached his cabin, she made a beeline for the bedroom, collected a fresh pair of clothes, and disappeared into the downstairs bathroom. She left the door cracked open, he noticed, and he was inclined to be presumptuous and proceed as though the open door was an invitation.

  “Are you coming?” she called out over the rush of the shower stream.

  He entered the bathroom, stripped out of his sweaty jogging clothes, and pulled the shower curtain aside to find Rachel glistening wet and gorgeously nude.

  “Come on in,” she urged him, as steam billowed up all around her.

  As he stepped inside, she draped her slender arms around his muscular shoulders and pulled him under the shower stream with her. The water was hot and cleansing, but it didn’t reach the chill in his bones.

  Rachel lathered her hands using a bar of soap and then washed his sculpted chest. Her movements were efficient but her touch felt like sensual caresses all over his body. He reached for the shampoo bottle, a coconut scent that Rachel had picked up in Jackson Hole, and after squeezing a dollop into his palm he proceeded to ma
ssage and lather her hair.

  As they cleaned each other, studying the lines and curves of one another’s bodies and kissing at times whenever they traded places or maneuvered around the small shower stall, Conor was reminded of Dean’s warning. The one his brother had issued the day they’d been sitting in Angel’s Food and discussing where things stood in the Fist once Dante had disappeared again.

  Dean had told him that uniting with Rachel should come from the heart, from destiny, and not out of fear that unless he bonds with his one true mate his life will remain in grave danger.

  Conor knew he loved Rachel, but he also couldn’t deny that the fear that had been building and burning and raging in his gut was influencing him. He didn’t consider himself a man who scared easily. He’d served in countless wars, had fought across enemy lines in hand-to-hand combat. He’d seen the life drain out of his attackers, knowing full well that they weren’t evil but simply men, just like him, who had been caught on the opposite side of a conflict neither had any control over. It had toughened him and hardened him. But regardless of everything he’d been through in his life, nothing had toughened him up enough to feel immune to how his love for Rachel was weakening him.

  He needed to talk to Troy. He’d avoided it long enough. Tomorrow, he resolved. He would talk to his oldest brother privately tomorrow and finally face the answer that he’d been too afraid to get.

  Having rinsed the suds from her hair and body, Rachel stepped around Conor so that he could stand under the hot stream. When he did, he pulled her in close, his large hands holding the perfect curves of her wet hips, and kissed her.

  She smiled and rubbed her hands over his soapy hair, rinsing out all the shampoo from his shag, and then kissed him again.

  “We might prune if we stay in here any longer,” she said softly, but he held her tightly and kissed her hard in protest, Rachel giggling through the kiss he’d crushed over her smiling mouth.

  Finally, he turned off the water and they stepped out onto the slick tiles and wrapped towels around each other.

  Rachel reached for the yoga pants and tee-shirt she’d brought with her, but he caught her arm and twirled her around and into the firm wall of his body.

  “Not just yet,” he growled out into her lips before kissing her again.

  As he held her against his body, feeling every warm inch of her dry skin against his, he began naturally responding to her soft shape and she soon reached down and took hold of his hardening erection.

  He groaned and let his eyes closed, enjoying the feel of her warm hand, the movements she was using, the way her slender fingers explored his growing dimensions.

  He cupped his large hands around her firm ass, his face nuzzled into her warm cheek, and they stood on the tiles for a long moment, breathing together as they massaged each other’s bodies.

  Where had she been his entire life? he wondered. The thought cracked through his brain. Why hadn’t he asked her out years ago? Why hadn’t he fought to have this with Rachel the second he saw her after she’d first joined the force and had become an authoritative presence in town? He could’ve been happy for years. He could’ve had her completely by now. He could have made her his wife and one true mate. He could’ve already established all the things in life that he now knew he wanted with Rachel.

  He felt suddenly hungry for her body. He wanted to fill her, consume her, and make her his. It was a primal urge, an overwhelming need. He had to have her. Now.

  Conor stooped briefly and swept her up into his arms, but this time she didn’t yelp with surprise. She easily molded her long arms around his shoulders, tucking her slender body up into him, and he carried her out of the steamy bathroom and into his bedroom where he laid her down on his bed.

  As he angled over her, she held his face and searched his eyes. He sensed more than saw her spreading her legs for him and as he lowered down and felt the length of her warm shape beneath him, smelling of coconuts and soap, he knew that tonight would be their night.

  Chapter Fourteen

  RACHEL

  As Conor released his muscular weight over Rachel’s body, it felt like he was opening her up on a cellular level. Every cell in her body warmed and expanded, ever fiber of her being felt poised—electric—to receive him. When she ran her hands over his hot skin, feeling the sculpted length of his back, the chiseled shape of his abs, the hard ridged of his strong arms, it was as though her fingers were memorizing the lines and curves of his body and all she could think was one thought.

  Mine.

  Conor was hers. It had been years in the making. Months of self-denial. And even weeks of wrestling with the strong, sexual urges that had crashed over her every time he was near. But it had finally happened. Here they were. On his bed. No interruptions. Neither were about to hold back.

  She searched his eyes as she held his face, those intense light eyes of his that seemed to see all the way down into her soul. The same eyes that had looked up at her from the body of a massive wolf. It was starting to feel like there was an invisible and unbreakable cord connecting them. But as Rachel tried to hold on to the feeling, to savor it and trust that it was there and that it wouldn’t disappear, a dark, dangerous knowing would cut through her.

  Why did she feel like all of this was only temporary?

  She tried to shake the grim feeling as she guided his face to hers and kissed him. She tried to force her mind to release the horrible thought that Conor wasn’t meant for her in the long run as she wrapped her long legs around his narrow waist. She tried to concentrate on the sexy sensation of his hard shape that was pressing against her lower stomach, but soon worry was consuming her.

  She kissed him harder, held him tighter, anything to wash away this dark sense of knowing that doom was waiting for them both right around the corner. She even reached down, sliding her hand between their slick bodies, and took hold of his erection, squeezed, proving to herself that he—and this—was real and here to stay.

  But the feeling persisted. Conor rolled with her and she straddled him, their lips never breaking apart and the dread remained. She slapped her palms onto his sculpted chest, lifting up and feeling his hard shape aligning along the length of her moist sex, but she was still plagued with the sense that this wouldn’t last. As she began moving, rocking her hips back and forth to stimulate herself, the length of Conor’s erection, hard and lying flat against his chiseled abs, she couldn’t escape the distinct feeling of sadness that her instincts were now slamming into her.

  “Hey,” he breathed as he cupped his large hand over her cheek and searched her eyes. “Where did you go?”

  “I’m right here,” she promised, but they both knew it was a lie.

  “Something’s bothering you.”

  She couldn’t stand it and refused to admit it so she hugged herself against him and forced them to roll together until Conor was on top of her again.

  “I want you,” she breathed, but the feeling that came with it was far more desperate.

  She’d really meant to say that she wanted this to last forever but was terrified it wouldn’t. But how could she say that to him? She could feel that he felt strongly for her, but she didn’t know if that was love. She had no clue as to how he really felt about her. She didn’t want to come across as the scared, needy woman who wanted to get the guy to make promises so that she wouldn’t feel insecure.

  But this wasn’t insecurity. It was terror. And it was building deep inside of her.

  Frustrated with herself, she rolled them again and the second she was straddling Conor, she inched down his thighs and legs until she was hovering over his incredible shape.

  When she smiled up at him, drinking in the sight of his aroused grin—they both knew where this was going—her smile was real, but it felt at war with the anxiety that refused to let go of her.

  She closed her eyes, willing as strongly as she could for the feeling to vanish, and wrapped her warm mouth around the tip of his impressive erection.

  Cono
r groaned. It was a sound as sexy as she’d ever heard. She wrapped her mouth around him again, taking more of his length, and began delivering slow, sensual strokes, pulling more and more of him in. As she found a rhythm, Conor breathing heavily and moving gently with her, he gently took hold of her head, running his fingers through her damp hair, and loving the feel of her.

  She hoped he was free of any worry and anxiety. Rachel felt like she had enough of those emotions rolling through her for the both of them. She wanted him to be suspended from the darkness that seemed to be swelling up all around them. She wanted him to feel elated, as he’d made her feel the other night, and she wanted to stay with him, in this sexual moment, for as long as possible. If that meant hiding away from the world and their problems and the impending doom that they both knew Dante Alighieri would sooner or later strike the town with, then so be it. There was no shame in hiding if it helped refresh and recharge. But Rachel felt, deep down, that they wouldn’t be able to hide forever as much as she would’ve liked to.

  Conor’s breathing increased, his growling groans becoming more raw and primal, but just when it seemed he was about to release, he pulled her up to him, crushed his mouth over hers in a hungry kiss, and then growled out, “Not yet.”

  “No?” she breathed.

  “I want more of you.”

  “You can have all of me,” she breathed, and the kiss that he delivered next in response was slow and tender.

  Again, she felt her entire body open up to him. She wanted him to thrust in, consume her, and to feel the sweet sting of pain cutting through her pleasure. If he was hard enough and rough enough, maybe it would jerk her out of her mind and the dark thoughts that had been tangled up in her brain, and she’d get a moment of relief. She wanted Conor to reduce her to her body and bring her there, but as her hunger turned to urgency, it seemed Conor was relaxing into the sensual rhythm of brushing and grazing their pursed lips together.

  It wasn’t hard enough. It wasn’t rough. It didn’t have the kind of violence that would stop these horrible thoughts of hers…