Quinn Security

by Dee Bridgnorth

  As he pulled his boxer-briefs down, the length of his erection sprang free and slapped lightly against his lower abdomen, but Rachel caught him in her hand. Her delighted smile ebbed away and was replaced by a serious, hungry expression, one that turned him on to no end.

  He was quick about stepping out of his boxer-briefs and returning to the couch, but before he could, Rachel sat up, took his hands in hers, and stood.

  As she looked up into his eyes, both of them standing before one another nude, Conor drank in the sight of her gorgeous body. Then, walking slowly and quietly, she led him towards the stairs.

  When they reached the foot of the stairs, Rachel having walked backwards, her hands clasped with his, Conor scooped her up into his strong arms and carried her the rest of the way.

  He rounded once he’d reached the landing on the second floor and entered his dark bedroom.

  As he lowered her down onto the bed, being tender in the manner he set her over the comforter, Rachel twisted, reaching for the lamp on the nightstand, and flipped it on. The room brightened with a soft, amber glow that seemed to kiss the lines and curves of her body.

  Finally, Conor lowered over her and groaned, deeply turned on, when those long legs of hers spread apart for him.

  She pulled him in, wrapping every inch of herself around his hard body, and kissed him deeply. He stiffened even harder between her legs. Her inner thighs felt like silk against him and he began to press and thrust, feeling her silky skin rub against the length of his erection.

  Whenever she let out a breathy moan, those sexy soft sighs that seeped through her lips at times, he felt himself grow larger and harder for her. More than anything, he wanted to thrust into the tight sheath of her body, hear her cry out in aroused response, and move with her, but unless or until she guided him to do just that, Conor would hold off. He was prepared to go as slowly as she wanted. If he could stretch this moment out for hours or even days, he would. Nothing felt greater than being alone and nude with Rachel in the dead of night.

  She reached down and took hold of him in her warm, slender hand and he groaned, nuzzling into her neck and feeling her wavy hair against his face. As she began to stroke him, he almost lost it.

  In instinctive response, he ran his hand down the length of her torso, feeling every inch of her toned body. Soon he reached soft hair that lightly dusted her sex and she moaned, but didn’t slow her own rhythm, that warm hand of hers wrapped around him and stroking.

  He gently explored her body. Delicately probing the heat of her. She felt warm and slippery, primed to receive his shape. She let out a quivering moan as he slowly penetrated his finger inside of her and in response she grabbed his tight ass with her free hand.

  They stared into each other’s eyes as they stimulated one another with their sensual massages. Nose-to-nose, Conor had never experienced this level of intimacy with a woman. When he gazed deeply into her eyes, he felt like he could see himself deep within her. Like part of his own soul was living within hers. It was a powerful feeling that seemed to contradict everything Troy had told him. How could this woman not be meant for him? How was it possible that he could feel so connected to her, if they weren’t meant to be?

  He tried to push the cruel feeling out of his mind and concentrated on the delicious feel of her body clamping and contracting around his finger.

  Then Rachel broke her own rule.

  “I can’t figure out,” she breathed, “why this feels so right, when at times, it feels like we’re doomed.”

  “We aren’t doomed,” he promised, though he feared they were.

  “Then why do I feel that way sometimes?” she asked him.

  The look in her eyes told him that she honestly wanted to know. Conor did as well. He didn’t have answers, though. All he had was a distinct feeling in his heart that told him this was the girl for him.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Me, too,” she said in a soft, small voice. “Do you feel it, too?”

  “That we’re doomed?”

  “Yeah,” she breathed as her response melted into a moan. He’d pressed his thumb against her sensitive button and was grazing it in tight, sensual circles.

  “No,” he said honestly. “I don’t feel like we’re doomed. I feel like we’re supposed to be together.”

  Her big brown eyes popped open and she stared at him.

  “Does that scare you?” he asked.

  “A little.”

  “Then maybe the doomed feeling you’ve been getting has something to do with cold feet,” he suggested. “Maybe you’re afraid that good things end. Or maybe you’re terrified that the great thing we have won’t end.”

  “Maybe,” she allowed. “Maybe I feel like the only way for us to be together is if I become a werewolf.” She paused and Conor held his breath. “The more I think about it, the more inevitable it seems. If I want to be with you, I’ll have to become a werewolf. If I want to save myself from Dante, then I’ll have to become a werewolf. It seems like all roads lead to me giving up who I am.”

  “No,” he insisted. “You don’t have to give up who you are. I wouldn’t want you to. Rachel, I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  “I’m not saying I don’t want to do it,” she said.

  It surprised him. But she groaned, releasing her hands from his body and holding her head as though if she wrestled with this any longer her mind would tear apart.

  “But I can’t stop thinking about what will happen if I do get turned. I can’t stop thinking about what will become of us if I don’t. There has been this ongoing debate in the back of my mind and it never stops. Sometimes I wish I’d never started investigating. Things were simpler when I didn’t know that there were werewolves in the Fist.”

  “Even if you’d never started investigating, Rachel, you wouldn’t have prevented yourself from knowing. Look at what’s happening to this town. Everyone knows that there are werewolves here. The walls have been closing in for awhile now, and not because of me and my brothers. Dante isn’t going to let anyone get away with living blissfully unaware. If you worked in the library or at Libations, you’d still be right where you are today.”

  “He has to be stopped,” she murmured.

  “Troy has been working on it,” he assured her. “We all have.”

  When she pulled him in for a kiss, it didn’t feel the same. There was weight and sadness in that kiss, a kind of heaviness that Conor didn’t want her to have to live in.

  Chapter Eighteen

  RACHEL

  Rachel couldn’t hold Conor tight enough.

  In the past week, she had held a dying young man in her arms, escaped a fire, and shot and killed an old woman. She’d fallen in love with a werewolf. She’d gotten arrested. And she’d discovered secrets about Devil’s Fist that changed everything she thought she knew about the town.

  If she could shut her brain off, she would have. If she could knock herself unconscious, she would have tried to. But even her sleep was plagued by nightmares. There was no escape, no relief, but still, lying with Conor in the tranquility of his cool bedroom was bringing her as close as she’d ever come to forgetting all the stress that had nearly drowned her.

  It felt like she could barely keep her head above water. But was asking Conor to turn her into a werewolf the answer? She honestly couldn’t see a way out. She really couldn’t. The doom that had been pressing in—that horrible, inescapable feeling—had everything to do with the inevitability that she would have to give up all she’d ever known as a mortal and become something she feared. Being with Conor was all wrapped up in that inevitability. He was right. The walls were closing in. But even if the town wasn’t under siege, she knew that if she wanted to be with him, she would have to become what he was, a werewolf.

  For now, however, Conor was a man. Just a man. Yes, she’d seen him shift into his wolf form. Ever since that day at Yellowstone when he’d turned for her, she ha
d been able to see the wolf inside of him, lurking darkly behind his eyes. But right now, lying with him in his bed, she could suspend all she knew about him and see him for what he plainly was—the most gorgeous man she’d ever laid eyes on.

  She pulled him in even tighter, wrapping her arms around his muscular shoulders, her legs around his waist. She savored the feel of his hard body. She couldn’t get enough of his weight as he stretched over her, on top and pinning her down. If he could crush her, she’d welcome it. Anything to distract her from the fear that had been crashing over her without mercy.

  Crushing her mouth over his, she kissed him hard. She inhaled his scent. Tasted his lips. Focused as much of her mind as she could on the feel of him. He was real and all man. She wished her life could be no more complicated than this moment. She wished everything started and ended with kissing Conor Quinn, feeling his hard body over her, knowing that if she wanted he would thrust into her and use his body to make her forget. That’s what she really wanted. To be filled. To be consumed by him. To get lost in him so deeply that her brain would shut off.

  With that in mind, she took hold of his firm buttocks in both of her hands. She pulled him in, feeling his shape, the hot lines of his legs, against her, and the length of his sex sandwiched between their stomachs.

  It felt like her entire body was opening up for him, not only the apex between her legs, but every cell in her body as though her very spirit was ready to receive him.

  “Conor,” she breathed and he eased up and looked down into her eyes. “I want you.”

  “Yeah?” he whispered, and the flaring interest behind his light eyes caused her stomach to clench and expand with hot arousal.

  “Do you want me?”

  “Yes,” he said immediately and without hesitation. “You’re all I want.”

  He kissed her and she plunged her tongue into his warm mouth, breathing him in as though Conor was the only air she needed.

  As their kiss subsided, he lifted up, grinned at her, then eased over to the nightstand and opened its little drawer.

  Having gotten a condom, he closed the drawer and rolled onto his back. Rachel sat up and took hold of his hard length as he tore the wrapper open. He paused though, letting out a groaning sigh and closing his eyes in response to her touching him.

  She decided to take over. His fingers loosened when she took the protection. She gently rolled it down the length of his erection, covering him and then came to straddle over his hips.

  They locked eyes as she angled him against her, lowering down and feeding his large dimensions into her tight body inch by inch.

  She could barely keep her eyes open. He felt too good. The way he was stretching her, slickly slipping inside, caused her skin to burn with tingles that danced across her every inch.

  When she had received all of him, his thick length deep inside of her, she rested her weight on his hips and her breathing turned quick and shallow. She was filled with a sweet sting of hot pleasure as the tight sheath of her body gradually expanded to accommodate his large size. She broke out in a light sweat, but it was nothing compared to the hot swell of stinging arousal that was rising and falling deep inside of her.

  Conor wrapped his large hands around her fleshy hips and squeezed. Yes, he was all man. His grip was firm and the strength he was using to hold her reminded Rachel of his manly, rough strength. She felt delicate and soft by comparison, and it turned her on even more. She was melting into him, gasping for air and quivering in response, and they hadn’t yet begun to move together.

  She leaned down and kissed him softly on the mouth. He felt so good inside of her that her mouth stayed slack, but his lips felt firm and hungry.

  When she lifted up again, arching her back to feel him even deeper inside, Conor began rocking her hips over him with those large, strong hands of his.

  A moan seeped out between her lips, through her shallow, heavy breaths, and as he moved her quicker, she let out a passionate cry, feeling his every hard inch massage her deep within.

  She planted her palms on the mattress beside his shoulders for balance as she began bouncing with him, bringing their rhythm to a hard and fast clip.

  He growled and groaned, closing his eyes at times, and staring up at her for long moments in-between. She couldn’t get enough of him. The hard thrusting rhythm they’d found was causing sharp swells of heat to blossom deep inside of her. He was bringing her there. She felt her body skyrocketing towards the peak, and the next thing she knew, Conor had her by the nape of the neck and lower back, and rolled with her.

  Looking up at him, her head on the pillow, legs spread and relaxed completely, she smiled as he began thrusting into her with long, pounding strokes.

  Rachel suddenly realized that all thought had disappeared. Her mind wasn’t racing. She had no fear. He’d saved her from it, from all the worry that had been crippling her more and more. It seemed there was just Rachel and Conor, a man and a woman, two bodies that had finally escaped the prisons of their minds.

  She felt a rush of heat surge through her then the first powerful clench of her climax. It was as though her body was swinging up, higher and higher, heat building with an incredible pressure that soon Conor’s thrusting body forced over the blissful edge, and she exploded with an orgasm, crying out and clutching his face, as he moved faster and faster.

  Soon Conor was groaning in her ear, coming over the crest of his own climax as her body eased back down into a calm territory.

  When he collapsed over her, out of breath and smiling, she held him tenderly in her arms and felt the length of him throb deep inside of her.

  His brow was beaded with dewy sweat and he’d never looked sexier as she held his face and searched his eyes.

  “Rachel, I—”

  “No talking,” she warned with a smile before kissing his mouth.

  She knew what he was going to say. She felt it, too. Love. It was undeniable. They hadn’t just merged the bodies. It had felt so much larger than that. It had felt like they’d just joined their souls together, bonding their spirits as one. When she looked into his eyes, she saw both Conor and the wolf that lived within him, and she also saw a piece of herself as well.

  She knew he loved her because she could feel the love he had for her pouring out of his light eyes. She loved him, too. She’d fallen in love with him. There was no point in ignoring or denying it. It was as real and present in this bedroom as Conor himself.

  But she didn’t know what would become of her if she heard him say it. She could see herself in Conor and she could also feel him inside of her heart. Part of his spirit was now growing within her, and if they acknowledged it with words, she wouldn’t be able to tell where she stopped and Conor began. It scared her. In the best way possible, it scared her. But she still needed more time before they took that kind of plunge. Because once they did, there would be no turning back.

  That night, Conor made love to her again and again. As the bright Wyoming sun broke on the horizon, they finally drifted into sleep. And as the dawn of a new day rose over the Fist, Rachel clung to the dreams that filled her and hoped that they would carry over into her waking life.

  ***

  The last time Kaleb had slept over his mother’s house had been at least fifty years ago so when he woke with the sun on his face and Lucy in his arms, it took him a very long time to remember where he was…

  …and that Gaylord had been the reason he’d had to crash here.

  “Oh, God,” he breathed, horrified as the situation slammed into him.

  Lucy stirred and smiled. “It all came rushing back, didn’t it?”

  He laughed, but it was a haunted feeling. “This can’t go on. If I have to chaperone one more date, I’m going to lose it.”

  “Awe, but the professor needs your protection,” she teased as she lifted up onto her elbow to stare down into his eyes.

  “Who’s going to protect me from the cringe-worthy awkwardness of their relentless canoodling?” he countered. />
  Lucy was nude under the sheets and Kaleb traced the small scar that the arrow had left in her chest. It was only a red dot, but it seemed huge and he didn’t like what it represented—the fact that his one true mate wasn’t invincible.

  The professor had found a way to stun and subdue an Astral. It had been the most nerve-wracking day of Kaleb’s life when they’d waited for Gaylord to find a method to break the spell. Lucy had walked around with a damn arrow in her chest, unable to leave Quinn Security until the professor had found a solution. It had worked, thank God, and she’d regained all of her powers.

  “Can’t you be happy for Sasha?” she asked him as she played with his hair.

  “I am happy for her,” he said. “Kind of.”

  She laughed then teased, “Gaylord could become your great-step-dad.”

  “That’s not a thing.”

  “It could be,” she suggested.

  “No,” he teasingly warned. “Don’t you dare.”

  “I already dared,” she laughed before kissing him. “Time for coffee.”

  When they got downstairs into the kitchen, the professor had already made coffee as well as pancakes and eggs and bacon, which amounted to a virtual feast of breakfast foods.

  Sasha was seated at the table with Nikita, who looked both perturbed and skeptical of the situation.

  “Good morning!” Gaylord beamed from where he was flipping pancakes on the griddle. “Coffee? Sausage?” he asked. “Help yourself.”

  Well, he was alive so Kaleb supposed he’d done his job.

  As he and Lucy sat down with coffee, he shoved a sausage in his mouth and told her, “I think I’m going to need your help.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We need to talk to Angel, get this plan in motion. I’ll drive you in to the diner and maybe we can catch her.”