Stripped Away: Shadow Destroyers Book 2

by Sydney Somers

  She murmured in her sleep and pressed her cheek against the side of his hand.

  “Brax.”

  The sleepy voice echoed through his mind, and he realized she hadn’t whispered it, but thought it. The warm tangle of psychic waves rolled through his mind. He could count on one hand the number of times Quinn had ever dropped her mental shields long enough to project her thoughts to him. Lowering her guard that way meant giving him access to her thoughts, something he’d never known her to do.

  “Here we go.”

  Braxton pushed to his feet and crossed to the other side of the room under the guise of setting her bag on the small dresser as Gage strode back into the room.

  “You think those are necessary?” He nodded to the specially made restraints Gage held.

  “Maybe. Have you seen anyone affected before?”

  Braxton shook his head. He’d come across bits in the database from other field offices that agents could be at the peak of the infection for anywhere from a couple hours to a couple days and all they wanted was sex.

  “It’s not always pretty, and with her speed and reflexes I don’t know that I want to test her.”

  Braxton didn’t object when Gage slid the restraints on, but his spine snapped straight at the sight of her hands locked together. They both knew the restraints might not hold up if Quinn woke and was determined to get out of them.

  Gage sighed. “I guess we should call Rae and let her know.”

  “I’ll stay with her. Rae just got back herself and you’re dead on your feet.”

  “There’s always Drew.” Gage paused. “Forget I even said that.”

  “No problem.” Braxton stepped up next to his friend. “Go on home and sleep. You can always come back in early to let me catch an hour or two before debriefing.”

  Gage nodded. “You sure you’re fine with her like this?”

  Braxton cast another look down at Quinn. “I’ve got it covered.”

  The other agent headed for the door. “If you need me, call.” The same weariness, one Braxton had been picking up on more and more lately, filtered into Gage’s voice.

  “You okay, man?”

  Gage scrubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah, just…tired. Really, really tired.”

  Braxton didn’t need to read his friend’s thoughts to know there was a lot more to it than that, but he let it go and turned back to Quinn as Gage left.

  She stirred on the bed, and he wondered how long it would be until she woke up. Deciding it was going to be a long night, he grabbed a blanket from the closet and draped it over her. Doubting that he’d be getting much sleep, he locked the door behind him with a few taps on the keypad and went in search of coffee.

  He’d barely hit the common room, his fingers closing around the handle of a coffee pot, when the first waves of distress screeched through his mind. He bolted for the private quarters. Halfway down the hall he could hear her banging on the door.

  “Quinn!” He had to raise his voice to be sure she heard him above the yelling from the opposite side. Anger he’d anticipated, but the fear in her voice caught him off guard. Another side effect of the infection?

  “Braxton?” The banging ceased, but he could hear her fiddling with the doorknob. “What’s going on? Why do I have restraints on? I need you to take them off. Right now. I can’t—”

  “I think you were infected by the lust demon you fought in Prague.”

  “That’s not possible.” She didn’t sound certain and nowhere close to calm. Her fist struck the door. “I need you to take these off, Brax.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Take them off,” she snapped, panic threading into the demand.

  “Your leg, did you hurt it in Prague?”

  “I hurt it on the plane.” She paused. “I think I did.” She hit the door again. “Damn it, Braxton, I can’t think. I need to get these off.”

  Her voice faded as he heard her move from the door.

  “Quinn?”

  “Can’t think. Can’t breathe. Can’t…”

  With a furious pounding of his fingers over the keys, he released the lock and stepped inside, reengaging it behind him. The sight of her on the floor trembling, her knees drawn up to her chest, brought him up short.

  Jesus. “Quinn?” He crouched next to her, and she shied away from him.

  Something wasn’t right. This couldn’t be because of the lust demon.

  “It’s okay,” he said softly and coaxed her chin up until she met his gaze.

  Unshed tears shone in her eyes until she realized it was him. She pushed herself to her knees and straight into his arms. “I need you to take them off. Please, Braxton. I won’t go anywhere. I swear. You have to take them off. You can’t leave me like this.”

  He tried to sift through the jumble of thoughts her lowered guard allowed him to have access to. He needed to know what the hell prompted this.

  “Please,” she whispered brokenly.

  He started to rise only to have her bury her face against his throat. “It’s okay.” He smoothed a hand up her back, never imagining that being this close to her would feel so damn good. He tightened his hold on her for just another minute then carefully drew back.

  “I’ll just be a second.” He crossed to the cabinet where Gage had stashed the key before he left.

  Braxton sat on the edge of the bed where Quinn had moved to when she spotted the key in his hand.

  She rubbed her wrists. “Thanks. I couldn’t keep those on. They were just…” She trailed off, not looking at him.

  He continued to wonder why they had freaked her out so much. He doubted anyone was fond of waking to find their hands bound, but he’d seen her face down groups of demons and not show one ounce of the panic she’d displayed seconds ago. He thought about probing a bit, but as tempting as it was—and Quinn was nothing if not tempting all around—he curbed the urge and set the restraints on the table.

  She shook her head. “Can you put them in the closet or something?”

  He did as she asked, then leaned a hip into the table and gave her a critical once over. “How’s your leg?”

  “I don’t know.” She stood up, and tugged her pants down.

  The confident and completely comfortable-in-her-own-skin gesture had nothing to do with the lust demon and a lot to do with Quinn not caring what anyone thought.

  She peered at the small nick on her leg. “Son of a bitch,” she said.

  His attention had predictably wandered up her body, registering one of her Destroyer tattoos at her ankle, the other—the same one as his, a cloaked figure carrying a sword—at the small of her back. He noted the small injury on her thigh in the back of his mind as he drank in the sight of her. He wouldn’t have figured Quinn for a plain white cotton panty girl, but the view had the same impact.

  He got hard. Fast.

  “I thought it was from the plane, not the fight.” She dropped back onto the bed. “Hell. I really am going to need to be quarantined, huh?”

  “For a while.”

  “I don’t suppose I’m contagious and you’re stuck in here with me?”

  Something in the tilt of her head had him backing up fast. “Get some rest.”

  She laughed, but the smoky sound was anything but truly amused. “I’m not making you nervous, am I?”

  Braxton held his ground. “You need to sleep.”

  “I probably should.” She glanced at the bed, then back to his face. “I’m not tired though.”

  “Count sheep.”

  “That’s one option.”

  He really couldn’t take hearing the other. She didn’t get that apparently and continued with, “Or you could stay and keep me company.”

  “I have stuff I need to finish.” Stuff that was rooms away from where she sat on the bed with her legs folded under her, giving him just enough to look at to whip his blood into a firestorm.

  He backtracked to the door.

  She beat him to it. Only the fact tha
t he was used to Quinn moving that fast kept him from going on the defensive.

  “Stay. Please.” She blocked the door with her body.

  Braxton kept his attention fixed firmly on her face, reminding himself with the mental equivalent of a blow horn that her actions were driven by the infection.

  She lifted a hand and settled it over his heart. The heat from her palm seared straight through him.

  “I don’t want to be alone in here, Brax.”

  “Not a good idea.”

  “It’s never a good idea with you.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. It was sound logic from where he was standing at the moment.

  Her fingers closed around his shirt, and she closed her eyes. “I’m tired of being alone. Please don’t go.” Along with the carnal need that shimmered across her face, he heard the one thing in her voice he could relate to. Loneliness.

  He closed his fingers around hers and tugged her hand free. “This isn’t really you talking.”

  “Yes it is. I mean, I hear what I’m saying. And it’s almost like I’m drunk and I don’t care what I say, but that doesn’t make it less true. I want you to stay, Braxton. I want you period.”

  “You have to go to bed and I have to leave.”

  She edged away from the door and closer to him. “I can see on your face how much you want me.”

  He grabbed the doorknob, her proximity stretching his control like a sheet snapping wildly in the breeze before a thunderstorm. If he dropped his head just a bit, he could sample the mouth he’d been fantasizing about since she’d first sauntered through the field office doors.

  Her hand closed around his on the door. “Just for a few minutes.”

  “We can’t.”

  She snaked an arm around his neck. “Yes, we can.” She trailed her mouth along the edge of his jaw. “All you have to do is give in. Like I have.”

  “And you’ll regret even going this far in the morning.” It was a chore to even speak at this point. Only his fierce grip on the door kept him from sweeping her straight into his arms.

  “I won’t regret a thing because what I’m feeling is real.”

  “And was what you were feeling real when you came onto Drew?”

  She smiled. “You’re jealous.”

  “I’m just pointing out that you don’t care who you get naked with.”

  A wounded look filled her eyes before she moved quickly, reversing their positions to back him against the door. “My comment to Drew was nothing more than flirting, and he knew it or else he would have followed me home like the nympho we all know he is.”

  She pushed her hands under the edge of his shirt. “What I said to you before, what I’m saying to you now, may be coming out because of that lust demon, but I’m not sorry for it. Not when I’ve wondered what it would be like between us, wanted to have you exactly where I’ve got you now—knowing how bad you want to give in.”

  He swallowed hard, unable to fabricate a denial when she had every luscious inch tucked against him.

  Quinn reached up and brushed her mouth across his. Sweet softness and the slow silky glide of her tongue exploded across his senses.

  Common sense dictated he pry himself out of her arms and get the hell out of there. Although there might be a lot of truth to Quinn’s claim of wanting him as much as he wanted her, he knew she wouldn’t be kissing him senseless if not for the lust demon. But no amount of reasonable argument silenced the one part of him he couldn’t ignore. The part that demanded he take just a minute and appreciate this moment because it might never come back around. He’d be stupid not to take a full taste of her and put his wandering mind to rest about what it felt like to fall into a gut-wrenching kind of kiss with Quinn at the wheel. The kind that led to hours of tangled sheets and slick sweaty bodies.

  He groaned and swept inside her mouth, his hands moving from the door to grip her waist. Better than he imagined and worse that now he knew what he would be missing after this one kiss.

  One kiss that didn’t end as she fisted her hands in his shirt and pressed every enticing curve into him. When she nudged his impossible-to-hide erection, his muscles locked in sweet anticipation of her doing it again.

  That’s how he knew he was in trouble.

  Though it killed him, he drew back. “I’m going now.”

  “No.”

  “Quinn,” he began already knowing his denials were running out of fuel.

  “No. Tonight, right this second, that rule book is going in the garbage.” She tugged her shirt over her head.

  A better man would have closed his eyes, would have snatched her shirt up and pressed it against her chest. He might not be a rule breaker, but he was far from a saint and couldn’t have stopped his gaze from tracing every smooth plane and inviting curve even if a Scion appeared out of thin air next to them.

  Her nipples puckered against the soft cotton bra. His hand itched to slide the straps off her shoulder and find out what her skin felt like under his bare palm, what she would taste like when he scraped his teeth across the stiff tips, flicking his tongue over each nipple.

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the door, grappling for the strength to do the right thing.

  “Brax.” She lifted his hand and guided it to her breast. “Touch me. Learn me in all the ways I dream about when I’m at home alone.”

  She caught his mouth with hers. He let her explore his mouth, and in turn lost himself in the slick stroke of her tongue. The way her body fit so snugly against his. The way she arched against him as he worked her bra off and brushed his thumb down the side of her breast.

  One last burst of rational thought tried to squeeze through and kill the moment he selfishly wanted for himself. “You know you won’t remember this in the morning.”

  “I might,” she whispered against his mouth.

  “Probably not.”

  She shook her head. “I want you so badly that nothing is going to let me forget what it feels like to finally have your hands on me.”

  Nothing but the infection.

  She tipped her face up, her gaze far too perceptive for someone in the peak of a temporary pollution from the lust demon. “If I do forget, I know I can trust you to tell me.”

  “Which is why we should stop—” Why he should stop before what was left of his control disintegrated altogether.

  She silenced his objection with another kiss that jolted his system. “We’re not stopping. We both know I’m safe from pregnancy from the shots,” she added, squelching his last logical argument for pulling back, “and I’ll remember this. I will, Brax. Please tell me you’re not going to walk away now?”

  She didn’t even give him a second to answer before she caged his face in her hands and poured every inch of her into a kiss that knocked his last objection right out of the ballpark.

  Her hand dipped below his waist, her fingers closing around his cock and gripping him firmly. He grunted against her lips and pushed against her palm.

  Then she backed away.

  With the siren smile firmly in place, she stripped off her panties and headed for the bathroom. “I feel like a shower.”

  Appreciating the sweet curve of her ass as she vanished into the private bathroom, he yanked his shirt over his head and started after her. She didn’t even look over her shoulder to see if he followed.

  Because she already knew what he’d been slower to admit.

  He wanted her too damn much to walk away now.

  The last chance to change his mind evaporated the second he rounded the corner. And then she was there, her naked body grinding against him as she fastened her mouth over his.

  Propelled back, he hit the tile wall hard enough to knock the air from his lungs, but recovered as her tongue pushed past his lips. Like the demons she slayed, Quinn damn near brought him to his knees, making even the breath he struggled to draw well worth the price to taste her.

  She swiveled her hips, arching against his throbbing arousal. “Finally ready
to play, Boy Scout?” She reached between them, pushing his pants down until his erection sprang free, thick and hard. And wanting inside her.

  Braxton turned, flattening her to the wall. “More than you know.”

  Quinn dragged her tongue across her bottom lip. “About time.”

  The heat from her naked skin seeped into him, the rise and fall of her breasts—nipples hard and rubbing his chest—driving him mindless with lust. He crushed his mouth down on Quinn’s, drowning in the addictive flavor of her that ignited his senses.

  She moaned against his mouth, her teeth nipping his bottom lip before tugging it between hers. She cupped his erection, her thumb stroking the head of his cock with a slow swirl of friction that ran like lightning straight down his spine.

  Braxton dipped his head, curling his tongue around one dark nipple. Her back arched as he closed his mouth around it and tugged.

  “Foreplay will kill me,” she growled, scoring her nails across his shoulders.

  With her planted between him and the wall, Quinn was at his mercy, and for the first time he wanted her to know it. He flicked his tongue across the other swollen peak. “You wanted this, you won’t rush me.”

  “We both wanted it.” She closed her hand around him.

  He hissed out a breath, locking his jaw against the sweet slide of her hand pumping the length of his shaft. Slow and soft, then fast and urgent, releasing her hold on him the second he started to thrust against her hand.

  “I’m ready for you,” she murmured against his cheek. “Touch me and see.”

  His body clenched, nerve endings vibrating with a tension only she seemed capable of generating inside him. Braxton did as she bade, trailing his fingers down her belly to the soft curls between her legs. He parted her slick folds, slipping down to tease her opening. He bit down at the feel of satiny wetness. Quinn whimpered, and Braxton slammed his eyes shut, fighting to hold on a little longer.

  He circled her damp opening, wanting her as desperate as he was, and then pushed two fingers into her sex. The silky walls clamped greedily around his fingers. All it took was envisioning her sheathing him like that, and he hooked his hands around her thighs, lifting her off the floor.