Safe (Law & Order)
Page 9
pointed a gun at her and as if daring her to disobey him, his finger moved about the
trigger.
She inched back down from the window shaking her head. There was no way
she would willingly give herself into his hands. He was going to kill her anyway, wasn't
he? He pointed a gun at her forehead. He grinned.
“Now!” He fired a shot at the windshield, shattering the glass.
Briony screamed, realizing the windows weren’t bullet proof. He could have shot
her, had deliberately aimed to show her he could if he wanted to end her life right now.
What were her options? She could get out of the car and pray that Quentin would arrive
soon, or she could possibly be killed in the front seat of a cop car. Why the hell weren’t
the front windows bullet proof?
Would he really shoot her? God, she didn’t want to take that chance.
“Get the fuck out of the car or I swear you’re one dead bitch!” Donny’s entire
face was red and purplish, sweat running in rivers down his face.
She nodded and slipped out of the passenger door. Shivering, she got out. Where
did he plan to go? What did he plan to do with her? God, he couldn’t kill her. Right? Quentin and the others were looking for him. He wasn’t going to get far with the
swarm of cops all over this area.
She had to stall him.
Swallowing the terror clumped in her throat, she said, “Listen, I, I…”
“Shut up!” he roared, snatching her by her hair and dragging her off. She tripped
over her feet as he walked in a hurried pace down the sidewalk. She wanted to slow
him down. As long as she stayed out in the open, Quentin could find her, but if he
hauled her into one of these dusty little stores, Quentin could miss her.
Scalp on fire, she walked slowly, making him carry her somewhat dead weight.
“Walk faster!”
“I, I can’t! You’re hurting me!” she shouted, and latched both hands around his
wrist, trying to gather some damn relief from his hold on her hair.
“Shut up!”
Whack!
Reeling to the ground, Briony did what she could to brace herself. Her face
burned from his punch, but he’d let go of her hair.
“Get up!” he spat, and kicked at her.
She rolled herself into a tight ball and prayed. Quentin would come and save her.
He promised. He never broke his promises.
“If you touch her again, I’ll put a bullet right through that dough you call a
fucking brain!” shouted the only voice in the world Briony wanted to hear – Quentin. She uncoiled enough to see Quentin’s tight, angry face a few feet from her. He
wasn’t looking at her, but right at Donny Chestnut.
Whack!
The pistol’s barrel slammed against her already enflamed scalp.
“I’ll fuckin’ do her right here,” Donny Chestnut growled.
“You got nowhere to go. Nothing to gain, but a one way ticket to the grave.”
“The bitch goes with me,” Donny snarled back.
The whirling of sirens and the influx of police made her sick to her stomach.
Cornered, people did crazy things.
“Don’t do it,” Quentin warned. “Don’t.”
Whether Quentin was telling Donny not to shoot or not to give up, Briony didn’t
know. She looked at his face, all tight and white with rage.
“I want out of this or this fucking hostage gets dead. You get me pig face?”
Donny Chestnut spat.
The barrel of the gun shook against her head.
“Hostage?” Quentin scowled. “Fuck no!”
A loud bang followed by a whistle of air were all Briony was conscious of, and
then Donny Chestnut’s body dropped to the sidewalk like a sack of potatoes. She stared
stupidly at his prone frame trying to comprehend what just happened.
“Oh God, oh God,” Briony repeated. She couldn’t do anything, but reach out,
stretch toward her rock strength and safety – Quentin. Chapter Twelve
“Quent, stop it! I’m fine,” Briony complained as he placed another cold, wet cloth
against her skull.
He didn’t give a damn what the doctors said, he didn’t like the look of that
bump. Though she had suffered through a full M.R.I. at Quentin’s assistance, he wanted
to make damn sure there wasn't anything there the doctors hadn’t caught.
“You may feel fine now, but there have been plenty of people who thought they
were okay after a head injury and…” He couldn’t even finish the thought much less say
it out loud. It was just too much for him to even contemplate.
“Look, I have a slight headache, but it’s been two days. I’m fine, I promise.”
Damn, when she looked at him like that, he felt all powerful and helpless at the
same time. He had almost lost her, again. It had stopped his heart cold to see her in
Donny’s clutches. One shot to the head, quick and clean, Donny didn’t have a prayer of
tightening his trigger finger as a reflex. Had Quentin hesitated, Briony would be dead.
Pulling her into his arms, he buried his face in her hair, inhaling her scent. She always
smelled so good! Right here is where she needed to be for the rest of her life.
“I love you, Bri.” It came from the depths of his soul. He was completely, utterly
putty in the hands of this woman. “I swear to you, I won’t put you in danger again.”
“Hey!” Pushing him back, she gave him one of those fierce little glares he was
becoming familiar with. His little Bri was pissed. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for
what happened!” “I left you in the car. I should have never done that, Bri. Anything could have
happened to you!”
He was mad at himself, mad at his dead brother, madder than hell at the dead
biker. He was going to have to pay the nondescript grave Donny had been buried in a
little visit. No matter he had emptied his clip into a corpse after ensuring Briony’s
safety. Donny wasn't dead enough. If he could call him back just to kill him all over
again he would.
“Look, you were chasing him, he got away, but in the end you got him,” Briony
argued. “That’s all that matters. And you didn’t place me in danger. Bobby Ray did
that. You saved me. You kept me safe.”
He would die keeping her safe; it had become his only goal in life.
“I thought I was going to lose you,” Quentin admitted after a few minutes. “I’ve
never been so scared. If anything happened to you…” He had to stop obsessing about
it. His heart felt like it was being ripped out his chest every time he did.
“You wouldn’t have let him kill me,” she said with a certainty that both made
him proud and scared at the same time. Such faith. A man could never wish for
anything more than a woman who believed in him the way she did. “You would never
let anyone seriously hurt me.”
“Marry me.” The words blurted out his mouth before he could think about them.
Not that he would have called them back. He meant it. He wanted to spend his life with
her. Briony gasped, her beautiful brown eyes widening in shock. As adorable as she
looked all stunned and breathless, it kind of irked Quentin a little. Surely, she had
known this was coming. Although they had both been understandably distracted in the
past month since Bobby Ray’s death, she had to have known or at least suspected he
would want to make her his wife.
>
“I often dreamed to hear those words,” Briony admitted, easing Quentin’s mind
somewhat. “I often wondered if I would be strong enough to say no.”
For a moment, Quentin was sure he was hearing things. No, she didn’t just say
that.
“Bri –”
“No listen, Quent,” Briony tried to push away from him, but he wouldn’t budge.
In fact, he pulled her closer, erasing the space she had put between them earlier. “It has
barely been a month since Bobby Ray died. What would it look like for us to run off and
get married so soon? I mean,” she bit her lip, her eyes glazing with the sheen of unshed
tears, “what would your parents say? I would feel…I don’t know, I just think maybe we
should take this slow.”
Not going to happen. He needed to make her his wife. He needed her to bear his
name, and he didn’t really give a shit if it was the same one as she had now. It should
have been him giving it to her, not his dead jerk wad brother.
“My parents would be happier than you know,” Quentin told her softly. “You
think they couldn’t see our attraction? You think they didn’t know how I felt about you. Baby, my mother begged me to take you away from Bobby. She knew you were too
good for him.”
“But I wasn’t,” she cried softly. “I slept with the brother of my dead husband
before his body was even cold! What kind of woman does that make me?”
“It makes you my damn woman!” Quentin’s patience had run out. It was time to
make Briony understand how dead serious he was.
His lips clashed over hers in more than a mere kiss; it was a claim. His teeth
nipped her generous lips, demanding entrance. She surrendered so damn sweetly, her
body yielding to his bigger, harder frame, moaning as he plundered the moist recesses
of her mouth. His hands half-dragged, half-pulled the scant clothing from both of their
fast heating bodies.
“I’ve waited three long years to be with you like this,” he murmured, his mouth
traveling from her mouth to her cheek, her jaw, her neck. Her skin was so satiny
smooth, soft and welcoming.
“I love you, Quent, but –”
His mouth halted all further protested. He didn’t raise his lips again until she
was moaning breathlessly, her body rubbing against his in search of relief. He had no
intention of easing her ache. Not yet. Not until she consented to be his wife.
It might have been different had he believed for a second she didn’t feel the same
way. But he knew her. He knew Briony loved him, and her love made him feel like he
could conquer the world. He wasn't about to allow any kind of guilt to come between them. She had nothing at all to feel guilty for. She’d had three years of hell; he wanted
to give her a lifetime of heaven.
His mouth traveled once more, running his tongue across of silky texture of her
body. He kissed, licked, suckled, bit everywhere except her most sensitive place. He
rained kisses down the valley between her breasts, underneath them, on top, but he
refused to take them into his mouth when she cupped both mounds and lifted them in
offering. Instead, he moved southward, dipping his tongue into her belly button, lightly
running his teeth over her pelvis. As much as he wanted to snake his tongue further
south to taste her sweet honey, he held off, knowing he was driving her crazy.
“Quent-tin! Please!”
Damn, he loved to hear her voice all heavy and deep with need. Knowing he was
the man doing this to her, making her feel this way was better than anything he could
ever imagine feeling. Except for maybe when she was finally carrying his child.
“Uhhh, Bri, baby, I want to be inside you so bad,” he moaned against the soft
skin of her inner thigh.
She was so wet; her inner thighs had traces of her dew lightly coating the surface.
Quentin licked up every drop, wanting more but knowing he had to hold off. Just a
little while longer.
“I need you to touch me, Quent,” Briony pleaded, tugging on his hair to try to
pull him closer. Quentin welcomed the pain. It helped him keep his head. His gaze blazed a trail
up her writhing body, drinking in her curves, the deep espresso tone of her skin,
everything about her stole his breath and sent his pulse racing. So beautiful, so perfect.
“Tell me you’ll marry me, Bri,” he bit the underside of her knee, smiling at the
way her back bowed at the stimulation. Briony had wonderfully sensitive knees. He
loved how she responded. She was open and honest, giving herself up completely to
what she was feeling. “Tell me and I will give you what you need.”
His cock was leaking something fierce, but he didn’t touch it. He didn’t want
anything caressing his dick put pure unadulterated Briony.
“I-I just think it’s too…Oh, God, Quent, you have to touch me!” she cried when
he started to suck the backside of her other knee, right at the crease.
He could smell her arousal, his mouth watered in remembrance of the taste. But
he had to get the answer first. Briony would never go back on her word, and Quentin
wasn’t going to waste a second after she agreed. His vacation time had been approved.
He had already bought the ring and the tickets to Vegas leaving in the morning. He
didn’t want another day to pass without having her legally his.
“Say it, baby,” he voice was rough with passion. He needed her so damn bad!
“Make me the happiest man in the world, and I swear I will spend every second of the
night making you happy.”
He punctuated his statement by running his finger lightly over her wet slit. He
swallowed hard, silently willing her to say yes. She was pulling at her own nipples, desperately trying to find relief. When her hand reached down towards her mound, he
bit it.
“None of that now,” he moved her hand away, blowing across the hooded clit
peeking out as though to see what the problem was. “You know what I want, Bri. You
give me what I need, and I will give you what you need.”
Man, he wanted to just reach out his tongue and take a swipe. Just one little taste.
“Yes! Yes, I will marry you, damn it!” she finally growled. “Now get your ass up
here and fuck me.”
Ignoring her demand, Quentin dove between her thighs, lapping at the sexy
pussy that had taunted him with its juicy goodness. His fingers joined his mouth,
thrusting inside her until she was screaming out her release.
“Quent! Oh, God Quent!”
As good as she tasted, he had to get inside her. His woman, soon to be his wife.
The thought almost had him coming as soon as he gliding inside her snug channel. Her
walls contracted around him, trying to milk him before he was ready.
“Please, Bri, baby you have stay still,” he gasped, holding himself completely
still. He wanted this to last.
“We have all night, you promised,” she laughed at him, rolling her hips
underneath him.
“Shit!”
His hips slammed into her despite his best efforts to hold back. He didn’t want to
hurt her, and Lord she was so damn tight he wanted to take it easy, but she drove him to the brink. And she loved it. Her eyes closed. Her teeth worrying her bottom lip as she
strained to meet him thrust for thrust. Seeing her like this made him piston fast
er,
cupping her ass and pulling her into him. He wasn't going to last. No fucking way he
could hold on.
“Come with me, Bri,” Quentin grunted, unable to stop his wild plunges.
Especially when Briony grasped the cheeks of his ass, pulling him even tighter against
her. “Shit, baby come now!”
And she did, her pussy spasms rocking his cock, vibrating down to his balls.
Quentin came with a roar, spilling his seed deep inside her womb. All he could think of
was how he needed to do this over and over again until she was nice and round with
their baby, and then he would do it some more. Epilogue
Cecile Morel, his ass! Her name was Desiree Babin, and Tomas Richards would
be damned if she was walking out here unprotected. Grabbing her battered suitcase
from her grip, he threw it back in the general direction on the guest room, holding on to
the little vixen at her elbow. His own grip was a little hard, but if he gave her an inch
she would take the mile, and damn it he was tired of fighting her.
“What’s your hurry, Desiree?” he sneered, turning her none too gently to face
him. “You have someplace you need to be?”
His accent started to slip out, but he couldn’t help it. The woman got under his
skin. It was bad enough he had to dig to find out who she really was, and a little she
wasn’t, but discovering she was not only wanted by members of the bikers gang that
wanted revenge for the chick who had sold out Donny Chestnut, but she was running
from her goddamn step-father, himself a convicted rapist, was too much! Why didn’t
she tell him? Why couldn’t she trust him just a little?
“Wow, Tomas, that accent of yours is getting mighty thick,” the imp purred,
rubbing her full chest against him. Her own accent was getting pretty thick too. He
wondered if she realized her eyes were starting to dilate, or that her nipples were
hardening against him. “What’s up with the last name? Richards doesn’t sound at all
Cajun to me.”
“Not Cajun,” he gritted through clenched teeth. He wanted to push her sweet
little ass against the wall and stick his tongue down her throat while shoving his cock
deep in her pussy, but that wouldn’t be very smart. She would be out of here quicker than he could blink if he did that. He didn’t plan on ever letting her out of this