The sound pulled him back toward her desk until her voice mail cut in. This is Quinn. Leave a message...unless you’re trying to sell me something. Then don’t leave a message.
He yanked the chair out from her desk and found her backpack stashed on the ground. It was unzipped, her pink headphones trailing out of the opening as if she’d been interrupted halfway through putting her stuff away. Unease prickled up the back of his neck, the cold grip of intuition closing in around his stomach like an unrelenting fist.
It’s nothing; she’s probably gone to the restroom.
But she would have taken her bag with her if she was on her way out. At the very least it wouldn’t be open like that...would it?
Sighing, he kneaded the hard knot of muscle in his neck. There was a logical explanation, something so simple he’d laugh at how worked up he’d gotten. How irrationally worried.
“You looking for something?” A short woman with curly red hair and thick-framed glasses stopped beside him.
“Someone. Have you seen Quinn?” He inclined his head toward her desk.
Two large eyes blinked at him behind the thick lenses as she scrunched her nose up for a moment. “No, I don’t think I have. At least not this evening.”
Damn. He scanned the open-plan office. You could see the whole floor, other than the management offices and the conference room. Even the reception area was only partially blocked. And the meeting rooms had glass walls in keeping with the “open and transparent” working environment that Walt touted.
“What about Zach?” he asked the woman, walking into the other man’s pod and inspecting the empty desk.
A bag sat propped against a small set of drawers, but his laptop was still in its docking station. The screen was filled with an angry-looking character who had fire for hands and a manic, toothy grin.
“I overheard him saying something about going to the testing room a little while ago.” She scrunched up her nose again, but this time she had the distinct look of someone who’d caught a whiff of something rotten.
“What’s the testing room?”
“It’s like a computer lab where they test the games. All the individual screens hook up to a big projector so they can troubleshoot problems as a group and show off new designs.” She pointed in the direction of the elevators. “It’s on the next floor up. Didn’t they give you a proper tour?”
“It seems not.”
“Want me to show you around?” she asked with a hopeful smile.
“I really appreciate the offer...” Shit, what was her name again?
“Natalie.”
“Right, Natalie. Thank you for that, but I don’t want to keep you from your work. I know Walt has high expectations of you all.” He nodded and made his way toward the elevators.
He resisted the urge to run. Drawing attention to himself wasn’t smart, although he stuck out like a sore thumb without even trying. People seemed to give him a wide berth here.
When he made it up to the next floor—taking the stairs two at a time because he couldn’t bear to wait for the elevator—his heart was thundering in his chest. And not because of physical exertion.
A strange thing happened to him whenever he entered a dangerous situation. His senses narrowed and sharpened, though his hearing was still useless as shit in his bad ear. But the ringing seemed to stop enough that he could focus on the environment around him.
This floor had a corridor at the front. At one end, a glass door bore the logo of an accounting firm. It was locked. Another door—white, no window—simply said: Testing Lab. He tried the handle. Also locked.
A pin pad blinked at him innocuously. He hadn’t been issued a key card—no matter, he’d bust the door down if he had to.
Pressing his good ear against the door, he strained to hear any sounds inside. Nothing.
Then he heard voices, but not from the Testing Lab. In a handful of long strides, he’d made it to the door of an accounting firm that shared this level with Third Planet, when he realized there was a wheelchair-accessible restroom right next to it. The restroom’s white door blended seamlessly into the walls, and the only thing that told you it was a bathroom was a small silver lock with an icon of a wheelchair above it.
“What do you want, Zach?”
That was definitely Quinn’s voice; she sounded frustrated, but the high pitch told him she was scared.
He didn’t have a weapon, so he’d have to go in with his bare hands and hope that the idiot wouldn’t try anything risky. But if he laid so much as a pinkie on her...
Pressing gently against the door, he tested it to see if it was open. Locked. Fishing out his wallet from his back pocket, he plucked his gym card out. He’d busted down his share of doors, but he wouldn’t risk spooking Zach.
Sliding the card into the small crack between the door and the frame, he jimmied it up until the lock mechanism snagged. A soft click told him he was in.
* * *
THE COLD, HARD tile of the restroom lined her back, giving Quinn the support she needed to stay upright. The space was larger than a regular restroom, probably four to five times as big and designed for wheelchairs and mobility scooters. But there was nothing she could use to defend herself here, not a toilet brush or a metal dish...nothing.
If it came down to it, their struggle would be decided by physicality. And that didn’t fill her with confidence. If only she’d worn her steel-capped boots.
“Why the hell are you here?” Zach waved a fistful of paper at her. Her notepad. “I know you’re not a real employee. Didn’t take much to figure out you’re some little snitch.”
Her heartbeat drummed in her ears like a toddler letting loose on a set of pots and pans, each beat making her ears ring. Making her head ache. Making the fear push higher up her throat.
Don’t give in; don’t give up. You can fight him...you will fight him.
“Didn’t you hear me, snitch?” He took a step closer. In the already small space, claustrophobia grew like a weed inside her. “I know who you are. Did you think I wouldn’t understand this gibberish?”
She winced. After she’d talked with Natalie, she’d jotted a few notes down, but she’d done it in code. Fragments. How the hell had he figured it out? How could she have been so stupid?
Just keep breathing.
“You’re friends with her. Sarah.” He spat the word out with vehemence. “Did she hire you?”
She ground her back teeth together. “No—”
“Liar!”
“What do you want, Zach?” The catch in her voice betrayed how hard she was trying to keep her shit together.
Just as he started to speak again, the door swung open behind her.
“Do we have a problem here?” Aiden stepped into the restroom, and the air seemed to thin around her.
“Yes, we have a fucking problem.” Her heart thundered in her ears.
Zach turned, his hands balled into fists. “Stay out of it. This is none of your business.”
“Are you okay, Quinn?” Aiden asked, letting the door close behind him.
He filled the space, towering over Zach and making it clear that he was in control.
Nodding, her lips tightened into a small bud. Hot tears pricked the backs of her eyes and she blinked rapidly, her shoulders hunching forward. As the energy drained out of her, the room started to spin.
“Seriously, you need to get the hell out of here.” Zach’s face was beet-red, his eyes wild as his head swung back and forth between them.
“Do you know what I need to do?” Aiden’s voice was soft and low, a stark contrast to Zach’s. He didn’t have to yell because he had the upper hand. “I need to march you straight to your uncle so he can give you a lesson about what it means to be a man. Intimidating women does not make you powerful. It makes you a fucking
coward and a disgrace to your family name.”
“Oh, yeah? Take me to Walt,” Zach goaded him. “See what happens.”
“Walt might feel differently when we talk about who’s been leaking information out of this company.”
“It’s not me.” He folded his arms across his chest.
“You don’t think I could make him believe it?”
Silence.
Aiden’s crisp blue eyes were like icebergs, cold and hard and immovable. “Let’s see who he trusts more. I dare you.”
“Fuck you.”
Aiden held the door open and stared Zach down. “Don’t let it hit your ass on the way out.”
Tension snapped in the air, the crackle of adrenaline running through her veins as she watched. Waiting. Hoping that Zach would leave.
When he stormed out, the breath rushed out of her lungs and she slid down to the floor, knees tucked up against her chest. She wrapped her arms around her shins and tried to shrink into nothing. Tried to stop existing.
For a moment she feared Aiden would leave her and go after Zach. But he crouched down next to her, close enough that she knew he was near yet not too close that she felt threatened.
“Are you really okay?”
“I thought he...” She gulped air in, the dam holding her emotions inside threatening to burst. “I thought...”
“He’s not going to hurt you.” Despite the calm on his face, she sensed the rage toiling inside him.
“You let him go?”
“I didn’t trust myself to follow him, Quinn. I couldn’t be certain that I wouldn’t...” He closed his eyes and hung his head. “I don’t want to stoop to his level. But I’m not letting this go, believe me.”
She nodded and pressed her head between her knees. Nausea swelled in her stomach, the memories of her previous brush with violence clamoring over one another to gain center stage in her mind. Flashes of her fear, her panic.
You’re safe now. Nothing happened...nothing happened.
“Will you let me take you home?” he asked. “Please.”
“You never say please.” She wanted to lift her head but it felt so heavy, and here she was safe and warm with denial wrapped around her like a cozy blanket.
“I’m saying it now. I want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I said I was.”
“It’s for me, not for you.”
She stayed in the darkness of her cocoon. “Okay.”
Pause. “Can I touch you?”
This made her look up. “What?”
He held out a hand, the frown on his face deepening. It was impossible to tell what was going on behind those baby blues of his. But she knew one thing for certain: he wasn’t here for him. No matter what he said.
They were a team. She hadn’t felt it until now, because she’d been so busy concentrating on what she wanted out of this assignment. But he’d been there for her when she needed him most, and wasn’t that the definition of partnership?
What if there was more to life than chasing success?
Her hand slipped into his, and he hoisted her as gently as possible from the ground. The hardness of his chest against her cheeks was as reassuring as the ground beneath her feet. Solid. Stable.
He held her up, both physically and metaphorically. A strange sense of calm fell over her as they stood, quietly motionless.
What they had was uncertain; it was tentative and a little scary. But she felt the importance of it way down in her gut. Something was growing between them and she wasn’t ready to let it go.
Time seemed to melt away as they retrieved her backpack from her desk and got into a cab together. She didn’t even remember them making it over the bridge, but soon she was wrapped up in a blanket on her couch.
The kettle hissed, and Aiden’s footsteps were a comforting sound for her ears to follow. Anything to keep her mind off the memories. Tears dried up quickly, she’d discovered. But memories had a way of latching on and not letting go. Like leeches.
“What are you going to do about Zach?” she asked Aiden as he came over to her with a cup of hot chocolate in each hand. Two pink marshmallows bobbed in the dark liquid like fluffy little buoys.
“I am going to talk to Walt tomorrow and say that Zach threatened one of our consultants.” He set the mugs down on the table in front of her and waited to see which one she picked. The one with the message “Keep Calm and Kill The Undead,” obviously. “That can’t fly.”
“So that’s it, no more assignment?”
“That depends on how he chooses to handle Zach.” He circled his hand around her green One Up mushroom mug. “If Walt’s not willing to do anything about his nephew, then I’ll have to talk to Rhys about how we move forward. Did Zach threaten to hurt you?”
She tested the temperature of her hot chocolate. “He implied it.”
“How did he get you into the restroom? Did he follow you in there?”
“He cornered me at my desk, said he knew who I was and if I didn’t want to be exposed I’d better listen to what he had to say. He told me to meet him by the special access restroom upstairs.” She gnawed on her lip. “I shouldn’t have gone but I didn’t want to ruin our assignment. I thought I could calm him down, talk my way out of it.”
“You can’t reason with people like that.”
“No.” Steam curled up from her mug in slowly winding tendrils.
“You should have come to me.”
“I know.”
Truthfully, she’d been more worried that Zach had found out about Alana’s connection to Sarah. If Zach blew Quinn’s cover, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. But if he outed Alana’s attempt at blackmail...that could do some serious damage to her friend.
And angry as she was, Quinn wouldn’t let Alana be charged with a crime.
“What made you come after me?” she asked.
“A feeling. I was looking for you but I only found your backpack.” He shrugged as if it was nothing, but the tight set of his lips and pinched brows told another story. “I was worried.”
The marshmallows in her drink had dissolved and she fished the gooey remains out with her spoon. “Why?”
“Because...” he sighed. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. I care about you, Quinn.”
* * *
THE SECOND THE words were out of his mouth, Aiden wanted to take them back. Not because he didn’t mean it, but because her deer-in-headlights look told him it was too soon. It took eons for Quinn to trust anyone, and spitting out his feelings like that was not the way to go.
Her lips formed a small O shape and then she snapped them shut again as she placed her drink on the coffee table. She had the goldfish imitation down pat.
“I’m sorry.” He shook his head and put his hot chocolate back on the table beside hers. “I shouldn’t—”
But the words were drowned out when her lips landed on his. In fact, her whole body landed on his. Her thighs covered his own, and her hands were in his hair, tugging and pulling. She kissed him like the world was about to end, with the fervor and frenzy of a woman possessed.
Teeth and tongues clashed as he kissed her back. His arms held her tight, and fear surged through him like liquid fire. Now that he knew she was safe he imagined what might’ve happened if he hadn’t found her...and it made his soul ache.
Clasping her head between his hands he ground his lips against hers, eyes squeezed shut. Tremors running through him.
“Jesus, Quinn... I was so damn worried.”
“It’s okay.” Her small hands touched his face, tracing the length of his nose and the outline of his lips. “We’re okay.”
His hands slipped around her waist and ran up and down her back. “I won’t let anything happen to you, you know that, right?”
“I’m sorry, the princess is in another castle.” Her breath skated over his skin as she mimicked the famous “Super Mario” words. “I’m not a princess and I don’t want to be your damsel in distress.”
“I don’t think of you like that.” She drew his earlobe into her mouth, and his body started to hum with pleasure. The persistent flick of her tongue sent all the blood in his body southbound. “Trust me.”
“I do.” She drew back and looked him square in the eye.
“Really?”
“Not completely...but a hell of a lot more than I’ve ever trusted any other guy.”
“That’s because I’m not just any other guy.” He’d meant it as a bit of a joke but to his utter surprise, she nodded.
“You’re different. Good different.”
“Wow, a real live compliment from Miss Prickly herself,” he teased. “I’m shocked.”
“Don’t get used to it. You saved my ass today so I’m being nice. It’s a one-time-only deal. Expires at midnight.”
“That’s not even twenty-four hours.” He glanced at his watch. “That’s barely three.”
“We’d better make the most of it, then.” Her hips traced a slow circle over his, brushing over the hard length of his now very erect cock. God help him.
“You’ve had a shock, Quinn. The last thing I want is for you to wake up in the morning and regret this.” He wasn’t sure his ego could take it if she pushed him away, not now that he’d admitted out loud that he cared about her. “I’d rather go home and have the mother of all cold showers than pressure you.”
“First, I’m not proposing sex because I feel pressured.” Her lashes lowered and a faint blush fanned out across her cheeks. “That might not seem like much to you but it’s a big deal for me. I spent a long time being afraid of my libido and what kind of trouble it might get me into. But with you it’s different.”
“How is it different?”
“Well, you let me be in charge, for one.” The blush deepened. “Which I enjoy. But even if you’re taking charge you never make me feel unsafe. Or like my needs come second.”
A Dangerously Sexy Affair Page 15
