Quantum Boxed Set: The Complete Series

by Force, Marie

  How can one morning with Marlowe have me thinking I might be missing out on something?

  When we’re done cleaning up, I toss the dirty dish towel in the laundry room that’s off my kitchen. “We need to tell the others what happened.”

  “Not yet.”

  “It’s a lot to ask Addie to lie to Hayden.”

  Her gaze drops to the floor. “I know, but I’m not ready for all that anger and testosterone.”

  “They’d want to be here for you.” I tuck a stray strand of her glorious red hair behind her ear. “Just like you’d want to be there for them—the way you’ve always been there for them.”

  “I’m not ready for them to know yet. I just need another day.” She looks up at me with bottomless green eyes. “Please?”

  If she looked at me just like that and asked me to capture the sun for her, I swear I’d die trying. “Whatever you want, sweetheart. You’re the boss.”

  “One more day, and then we can tell them. I’ll tell them.”

  “Okay. What do you feel like doing?”

  “I’d like to take a shower, if that’s okay.”

  “Of course it is. Addie brought a bag for you last night. She said she thinks she got all the most important lotions and potions, but to let her know if she missed anything.”

  I’m horrified when her eyes again flood with tears. “What is it?”

  “I’m just so lucky,” she says softly. “To have such incredible friends.”

  “We’re lucky to have you, too. Works both ways.” I kiss her forehead. “Go take your shower. You’ll feel better after.”

  “You think so? You think I’ll ever feel good again?”

  “You will. I promise.” That’s a promise I intend to keep, no matter what I have to do. She will feel good about herself again. Under no circumstances can we let that dirtbag Rafe win. I actually can’t wait to tell Flynn and Hayden about this. I’m dying to see what they’re going to do about it. One thing I know for sure is whatever they do will make that son of a bitch sorry he was ever born.

  I’m looking forward to that.

  Flynn and Hayden will close ranks around Marlowe and make Rafe’s life a living hell, the same way they did when Jasper’s asshole father tried to blackmail him. Quantum takes care of its own, and Marlowe is ours. With my thirst for vengeance profound, it’s painful to keep this from the others, but I have to respect her wishes.

  I’ll give her one more day, and then I’m calling in the cavalry. I just hope I’ll still have a job after they find out what I’ve kept from them.

  After Marlowe showers, we spend the rest of the day on my deck, lounging in the sun. We trade sections of the morning edition of the LA Times and then work on the crossword puzzle together.

  She’s tucked in next to me on a single-sized lounge chair, but I only have the one, so when she crawled in next to me, I raised my arm and made her feel welcome, even if her closeness has me trying not to have a typical male reaction to the nearness of a gorgeous female who smells good enough to eat.

  “What’s a seven-letter word for vacation?”

  I’m glad to see her engaged in something other than self-recriminations. “What else do we know?”

  “First letter is a G and the fourth is an A.”

  “Getaway.”

  “Yes!” She bites her lip as she fills in the letters, her brows furrowed adorably in concentration. “You’re good at this.”

  “I’ve been doing crosswords for decades.”

  “Another thing I never knew about you. What else is there?”

  “I’ll never tell. I’m an international man of mystery.”

  She flashes the toothy grin that made her a superstar. “I can’t believe I’m saying this the day after I was beaten up, but today has been fun.”

  “For me, too.”

  “Don’t you have to go to work?”

  “The club is closed today, so I’m all yours.”

  “You don’t have to babysit me, Seb. I’m okay.”

  “I know that, and I’m not babysitting you. I’m allowed to stay home with my friend. Someone else can do the cleaning and inventory this week. That’s what employees are for.” I texted Quisha, the trans woman I recently hired to help me manage the bar, and asked her to take care of the stuff I normally do, promising to pay her time-and-a-half for the extra hours.

  “You like to do that stuff yourself.”

  I shrug. “Won’t kill me to delegate once.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Are you making fun of my anal retentiveness, by any chance?”

  “Would I do that?”

  “Yes, I think you would.”

  She laughs, and once again the sound fills me with relief. If she can still laugh, she’s going to be okay, and I need her to be okay.

  I nudge her shoulder gently. “How you holding up?”

  “I’m strangely fine, other than some aches and pains. Maybe it’s denial or whatever you want to call it, but it happened, it’s over, and I’m going to put it behind me where it belongs.”

  “I’m glad you’re feeling okay, but what happened was traumatic and upsetting and painful, and you need to deal with it before you move on, or it’ll come back to haunt you. Trust me on that.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been there, done that.”

  I shrug again. “Maybe.”

  “Did you deal with it?”

  “Not the way I should have, and it fucked me up for a long time.” Sometimes I think I’m still fucked up from shit that happened twenty years ago. I’ve begun to accept that I’ll always be a little fucked up. Some things can never be fixed or forgotten, as much as we might wish that was possible.

  “The thing that bothers me the most is that I didn’t listen to the people closest to me who expressed serious concerns. Why didn’t I listen to you guys?”

  “Because you cared about him, Mo. No sense second-guessing it now. If you hadn’t been given reason to be afraid of him, why would you be?”

  “That’s the thing.” Her gaze is set on something in the distance. “There were signs that he wasn’t what he seemed.”

  “Like what?”

  After a long pause, she begins to speak in a low, soft tone that carries humiliation and regret that only enrages me more than I already am. “This one time, when we were in Paris, we got into a fight about me talking to a guy at a party. Rafe didn’t like how much attention I gave him, but he was a young actor asking my advice, and I enjoyed talking to him.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “I didn’t think so either, but he didn’t see it that way. It got pretty heated, and he said…”

  “What did he say?” My teeth are clenched together in an effort not to let her see how upsetting it is to hear that she’s been mistreated. I honestly can’t bear it, but she doesn’t need to know that.

  “He said I was an attention whore who could never get enough of the limelight.”

  All the breath in my body exits in one big whoosh that leaves me lightheaded from the pressing desire to find that son of a bitch and give him a taste of his own medicine. “Which, of course, you know is not true.”

  “I said as much, but when I tried to leave, he grabbed me by the hair and yanked me hard.”

  “Marlowe.” I want to scream.

  “He got right in my face and told me not to walk away from him when he was talking to me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I punched him hard in the gut.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  “He wasn’t expecting that, and it sent him reeling. I grabbed my purse and phone and got the hell out of there, leaving everything else behind. I went to a hotel and checked in, and made him grovel and beg for three days before I’d even talk to him. He swore to me nothing like that would ever happen again and apologized for what he’d said. He told me that the thought of losing me to some other guy made him crazy.” She shakes her head. “I was a fool to go back to him again. I’ve played that char
acter. Remember Gretchen in The Other Woman? I know how the story ends. What the hell is wrong with me, Seb?” She’d gotten an Academy Award nomination for playing a battered wife in the psychological thriller.

  “Nothing.” I’m so fucking furious that she could even ask that. “Not one thing is wrong with you.” I gather her into my embrace and kiss the top of her head, breathing in the fresh, clean scent of her soft hair.

  “There must be something wrong if I could let a man treat me like that and then take him back because he says pretty words to me in French and promises it’ll never happen again. It always happens again. I know that.”

  “It’s different when it happens to you. Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees when you’re in the thick of it.”

  “Or maybe we don’t want to see what’s right in front of us.”

  “That, too.” I hate to concede that point, but this is one of those times when the truth just hurts. There’s no way around it. It pains me to realize she kept this incident from her closest friends because she knew we didn’t approve of him for her. Did we endanger her by not supporting her relationship? God, that possibility kills me.

  We stay wrapped up in each other for a long time. Every second feels like a year to me because I want to hold her this way forever—and I’ve never once experienced that particular feeling before now. Usually, I’d be trying to wriggle my way out of something like this rather than holding on tighter. But a team of mules and twenty men couldn’t convince me to move. Maybe if the house were on fire I could be compelled to do something else, but short of that, I’m staying put and hoping she won’t be able to feel what her closeness, her softness, her sweetness are doing to me.

  She can’t ever know that I want her this way. I can just imagine how she’d look at me with empathy and pity as she lets me down easily. That’d be worse than wishing for something I can’t have. I need to rein this in while I still can.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Not really.” Her hand makes lazy circles on my chest, inside the shirt I didn’t bother to button. Every inch of my skin feels like it’s been attacked by fire ants, and that’s what finally breaks me.

  Out of desperation, I cover her hand with mine to stop it from moving.

  She raises her head off my shoulder to look at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” The single word comes out sounding strangled. “Is it time for more pain meds?” I need to get up and get away from her before I do something that can’t ever be undone.

  “I’m not in pain.”

  I am… I’m dying a slow death from the drumbeat of desire that’s more intense than anything I’ve felt before. I can’t let this happen. “I gotta pee.”

  She shifts to let me up, and I move quickly, hoping she won’t see the thick ridge of flesh making my shorts feel two sizes too small. I go inside and head straight for the bathroom attached to my bedroom, closing the door behind me and leaning back against it for a series of deep breaths intended to calm the storm inside me.

  It doesn’t work.

  I can still smell her and feel her lush curves pressed up against me.

  My dick is hard enough to pound nails, and there’s only one thing that’s going to give me relief at this point. I go to the bedroom door. “Hey, I’m going to grab a shower.”

  “Okay.” She’s still on the deck, otherwise known as the scene of the crime.

  I return to the bathroom, shut and lock the door and begin tearing clothes off in my haste to find relief. Under the hot water, I turn my face up, wishing I could wash away the thoughts I’m having about my friend, my friend who was beaten up by her boyfriend and who is taking sanctuary with me.

  Wrapping my hand around my cock, I give it a tight squeeze, wishing my erection would go the fuck away before it ruins everything. It’s not easy to hide a hard ten-inch cock from anyone, let alone someone like Marlowe, who misses nothing. She probably knows what I’m doing in here, a thought that humiliates me, but not enough to stop what I’m about to do.

  I squeeze a handful of shampoo into my palm and grasp my cock, stroking hard and fast to get this over with so I can get back to supporting my friend.

  My gorgeous, sexy, amazing friend.

  A deep groan escapes from my tightly clenched jaw. I’m disgusted with myself for being so weak, especially when I pride myself on always being in control after years spent spinning out of control. But something about her does it for me. She’s always done it for me, if I’m being honest.

  I’ve just never once allowed myself to entertain the possibility because she’s so far out of my league as to be laughable. It’s a joke to even think about anything more than friendship with her.

  But as I stand in my shower, one hand propped on the tile wall as I stroke myself to orgasm, it seems I’m doing a lot more than thinking about the impossible. What would it be like, I wonder, to spend every day like we did today, hanging out together, talking, laughing, fucking…

  “God.” That’s all it takes to send me right over the edge into absolute madness. I come as hard as I ever have, which is saying something when you consider that sex is my favorite hobby. If the thought of fucking Marlowe can give me the most powerful orgasm of my life, what would it be like to actually—

  “Stop. Right now. Get yourself together.” I need only think about how far I’ve come from the horrors of the past to know how critically important it is that I get this shit under control before I cross a line that can’t ever be uncrossed. I owe everything I have to Hayden and the others at Quantum, who’ve not only given me a job, but have made me part of their inner circle. Marlowe is beloved by everyone inside that tight circle, and if it came down to a choice between her and me, I’d be on the losing end every time.

  I need to remember my place and keep my filthy hands off her.

  I use the shampoo for its intended purpose and finish cleaning up, trying not to notice that my dick is still halfway hard. For fuck’s sake. Can I get a break here, please? I’m trying to do the right thing, and the least my body can do is fucking cooperate. In my bedroom, I put on clean clothes, and this time, I make sure my chest is covered with a T-shirt before pulling on the loosest cargo shorts I own, hoping they’ll hide any random boners that might appear out of nowhere.

  I can’t even believe this is happening. It’s been years since I’ve had to worry about rogue boners. Maybe I can convince Marlowe to call in the others sooner rather than later. Being alone with her isn’t working out well for me.

  Fuck you. It’s not about you, you selfish son of a bitch.

  While I agree with my conscience that it’s not about me—me sporting wood around her isn’t what she needs. She’s had enough of guys who think only of themselves. She needs a friend who can keep it in his pants and not make it about him.

  I stare at my reflection in the mirror, disgust warring with yearning. Now that I’ve let the genie out of the bottle and admitted to myself that I’ve had a low-burn thing for Marlowe Sloane for years, trying to jam the genie back in the bottle is fucking impossible. Be that as it may, no one else can ever know. Ever.

  Get it together and stop being a dick with a hard-on. It’s not about you.

  I open the bedroom door, determined to carry on like the genie is still in the bottle, even if the little bastard is out and proud and making my life a living hell.

  Marlowe has moved inside and is curled into a corner on the sofa. The bruises on her face are a startling reminder of what she’s been through and why I need to keep the focus on her. Whatever she needs, whenever she needs it. That’s what she’ll get.

  “Everything okay?” she asks, looking me over with eyes that see far too much. She probably knows exactly what I was doing in there.

  “All good. You?”

  She nods. “I called Flynn. He’s calling the others, and they’re coming over. I hope that’s okay.”

  Thank Christ. “Of course it is.”

  Chapter 6

  He’s different.
Whatever happened on the deck has him agitated and off-kilter, and what I think happened on the deck has me off-kilter and more than a little agitated myself. I only caught a glimpse as he took off, but I know a hard dick when I see one, and his dick was hard. For me.

  Holy. Shit. That’s all I’ve been able to think about since he made his getaway. Snort. There’s that word again.

  Getaway.

  And then when he said he was taking a shower, well, damn. I know what that means.

  Sebastian was hard for me.

  Again—holy shit.

  He’s always been an enigma to me, a man who is respectful, polite, friendly but distant. He doesn’t get “involved.” I’ve seen him in action with other women at the club, and again, he’s a respectful, professional Dom who takes care of the woman he plays with. He’s also incredibly selective, unlike some guys who’re less discerning. Seb has never been an “any vagina will do” kind of guy.

  So the fact that he’s having those thoughts about me is nothing short of astonishing.

  The man is the literal definition of the term sex on a stick.

  Tall, dark, handsome in a rough-around-the-edges kind of way with more tattoos than I can count on his arms, chest, back and neck. And… I lick my lips. He’s got one of the biggest, most beautiful cocks I’ve ever seen outside of porn. The thing about belonging to a sex club with your closest friends is that you know things about each other that vanilla people don’t know about their friends. It’s not like I sit around thinking about the guys’ junk, but let me tell you… Sebastian’s is memorable.

  I’ve seen it only twice, because he’s private about his sex life most of the time. He’s done only a couple of public scenes in the club. Both my glances were fleeting, but I’ve never forgotten the full majesty of aroused Sebastian.

  If the talk amongst the subs who frequent the club can be believed, he also knows what to do with his God-given assets.

  What the hell am I doing thinking about Sebastian and his God-given assets one day after I was beaten up and hog-tied by the man I thought I was in love with? What’s wrong with me? Sebastian says there’s nothing wrong with me, but there must be something if I’m thinking about his cock when Flynn, Hayden and the others are on their way over here so I can tell them what Rafe did to me.