She drew the little crossbow—her new favorite weapon—and crept closer to the edge, sacrificing the skin on her knees to lie flat and spy on the proceedings.
Quinn was down there. She heard him before she saw him, his deep growl sending shivers up her spine, reminding her body of sensual pleasures that had no place in this setting. She scooted the last few inches, bringing the players into view. There was Quinn, looking all badass and sexy, with his people spread out behind him. And facing him was—
Eve sucked in a harsh breath. She knew the vampire facing off with Quinn. She’d spent months looking for him, days following his every move. His name was fucking Barrie Meaney, and he’d been one of the vamps who had killed her brother. She stared. She’d waited so long for this moment, and now that it was here . . . a loud drumming filled her ears and her muscles seemed locked in place. She tried to breathe and realized the sound in her head was the racing of her heart, pounding against her ribs. She heard Quinn saying something in her ear and blinked in confusion before remembering the tiny earpiece he’d given her.
“ . . . take Barrie.”
What? Eve couldn’t make sense of the message, but she didn’t care. Heat flooded her muscles, ice filled her heart, and her thoughts were suddenly cool and calculated. She’d trained for this day. She’d spent five long years waiting for it. She raised the crossbow and fired.
QUINN HAD NO sooner given the order than the low whisper of a crossbow string sounded, and a thick bolt struck Barrie in the chest. The vamp staggered, but didn’t go down right away. He was too old and too strong. Quinn growled his anger over the comm. He knew exactly who’d fired that bolt, just as he knew it wouldn’t be enough. He sent a lance of power slicing into the vampire’s chest, melting the aluminum bolt and destroying Barrie’s heart, finishing what Eve had started. He’d demand an explanation for that later, but it would have to wait.
For the moment, Barrie’s abrupt dusting had shocked Sorley’s vamps into stillness, but that wouldn’t last. Quinn was of a mind to let his people fight it out. He had confidence in their abilities and knew they’d win, and the occasional battle served as a necessary relief valve when it came to vampires. Especially those strong enough to serve in a lord’s trusted inner circle. But he’d no sooner made that decision than he became aware of the humans working all around them on the docks, and of the many human minds suddenly turning their way.
“Too many eyes on us, lads,” he murmured over their Bluetooth comms. “Everyone back off a bit. You, too, Eve.” He heard a feminine splutter of outrage over the line, but sent a needle sharp shot of power at her position on top of a double stack of containers to his right. He sensed as much as heard her shrieked curse, but she’d deserved more than a tiny electrical jolt for shooting Barrie the way she had, for acting without notice and violating his orders. Quinn had reacted quickly enough to mitigate the fallout, but under other circumstances, with a more powerful vampire, for example, it could have spelled disaster.
He didn’t have time right now to lecture Eve, however. His vampires were pulling back as ordered, already heading for their vehicles. They knew what was coming, but Barrie’s followers didn’t seem to realize it. They were still watching the retreat with expressions of triumph when Quinn reached out with a sweep of destructive power and reduced all four of them to dust in an instant.
“Let’s go.” Only Garrick and Adorjan remained, waiting for him. The others were already in their vehicle and on their way to the port gate. He was about to start searching for Eve, when she raced up to the Range Rover and jumped into the backseat, slamming the door. Quinn slid in from his side and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her into a rough embrace as their vehicle caught up with the first, and the two of them zoomed through the jungle of containers and away from the port, slowing only long enough to zap the security cameras as they passed through the gate.
No one said a word until they’d left South Dublin and were on their way home. The rain had grown heavier, becoming a silvery curtain of concealment as they headed for the Ballsbridge house.
Quinn kissed the top of Eve’s head. He was still pissed as hell, and they were definitely going to have a talk before the night was over. But for now, he was glad she and the others were safe and sound. Because it wasn’t going to last. Quinn didn’t fool himself into thinking he could get away with killing one of Sorley’s enforcers without the vampire lord knowing who’d done it.
He hadn’t planned on killing Barrie. Hell, he hadn’t even known whom he’d be confronting on the dock that night. But once the conflict unfolded, there’d been no question of how it would end. It had been Eve’s crossbow that had started the killing, but he’d never intended for Barrie or any of his people to leave the port alive.
Quinn’s original plan might have involved more time, but it wasn’t going to work out that way. He’d probably been a fool ever to think otherwise. Sorley would already be gathering his forces, preparing for the challenge he knew was coming. It would be days yet, before they faced each other. But the final battle for Ireland had begun.
For tonight, however, he and his people were safe, and he had a warm woman he intended to spend the rest of the night making love to. Assuming she’d still be in his bed after he finished reading her the riot act for firing that damn crossbow, he amended. Or maybe the riot act could wait until tomorrow night.
“YOU’RE WITH ME,” Quinn told Eve, when they arrived at his place. He hooked his hand around her arm and walked her all the way through the house and out the back, heading for what looked like a completely separate wing. He was being pushy about it, and she was sure he was pissed because she’d shot that bastard Barrie. But she’d do the same thing all over again, given the chance, and once Quinn stopped dragging her around and listened, she was sure she could make him understand.
At the time, her brain had been so jumbled, so filled with noise, that only one thought had managed to make itself heard. Kill Barrie Meaney. She could no more have pulled her shot in that moment than turned the bow on herself. It simply didn’t compute.
But now, looking back, she saw details. Like when she’d first seen the gang of humans facing off against Sorley’s vampires, trapped between them and Quinn. She’d been sure the humans were done for, because she’d fully expected Quinn to side with his own kind. But Quinn had protected the humans, instead of killing them, especially the ones who’d been injured. He’d stood guard over their retreat and had been turning to confront Barrie when . . . She winced at the memory, knowing she’d rushed things when she’d killed the bastard, but she wasn’t sorry. She just wished the other killer, Cillian, had been there, too.
She hoped Quinn would understand. Needed him to understand how important this was to her. But underneath all of that emotion was something else—the thrill of victory. The excitement, the sense of vengeance fulfilled after all this time, of knowing one of her brother’s killers was dead, was thrumming in her veins like the best drug imaginable. She wanted to scream to the world, to shout at the heavens. She wanted to fuck. All she could think about was stripping off Quinn’s clothes and jumping onto his cock. She grimaced. Okay, that sounded painful. She’d slide slowly, deliciously onto his cock instead. She shivered in anticipation, riding her adrenaline high, as they reached the entrance to the separate house wing.
Quinn tugged her up a short set of stairs, keyed in the door code too fast for her to catch, then pulled her inside and shut the door. She looked around, curious despite her impatience. The décor was much the same as the main part of the house—moneyed elegance—but it was obvious that this wing had been built decades later. The door jambs were all straight, the floor was even, and there wasn’t that indefinable scent of age that pervaded even the best-maintained old homes. She knew, because every place she’d ever lived had been at least a hundred years old. From the small house she’d grown up in, and where her mam still lived, to her Dublin flat during
university, and now the tiny place she called home in Howth. The main part of Quinn’s house had that same feel, despite the money that had been spent to modernize it. But this place was newer. She could practically smell the new lumber, the fresh paint. Although, that might just be because Quinn and company had painted recently.
“Does this connect to the main house?” she asked, looking around and running her fingers over the too-smooth plaster walls. They were in a wide hallway, with three widely-spaced doors to the right, and two to the left.
He didn’t answer her question. “These are personal quarters. The rest of the house is for business.”
“You have a business?” she asked, half joking.
His response was perfectly serious. “I’ll soon be running a good part of Ireland, Eve. So, yes, I have a business. This way.” He gestured down the wide hall to the left, frustrating her curiosity.
She glimpsed a very modern bathroom through the first door. More evidence that this wing was newer. Quinn didn’t offer her the facilities, didn’t even slow, but simply propelled her to the door at the end of the hall. It opened without a key, which she found curious. Shouldn’t personal quarters be locked?
She had time to see that the room was a huge bedroom, saw the gleam of a gorgeous mahogany bed, and then Quinn was on her, one arm around her waist, the other hand twisted in her hair, dragging her head back to look up at him. “What’s it to be, darling Eve? Shall we talk, or. . . .” His eyes were shot through with shards of light, his mouth a sinful temptation as he bent to kiss her.
Eve didn’t even try to resist. He was an addiction, and she wanted more. Straining upward against his grip on her hair, she put her mouth to his and kissed him, her lips pressed hard against his, her tongue sweeping in to invite more. He pretended to hold back, letting her do all the work, despite the erection she could feel rubbing against her belly with every move she made. Her teeth closed over his lower lip and bit down hard.
He cursed and yanked back, but not fast enough. Blood flooded into her mouth, but she wasn’t worried. Vampirism wasn’t contagious. She knew that much. Creating a new vampire involved the complete exchange of blood.
But that wasn’t the only effect of a vampire’s blood.
QUINN SAW THE moment his blood hit Eve’s nervous system, the moment her brain reacted to its presence with an endorphin rush that piled onto her adrenaline high and shot her straight into an orgasmic bliss so intense, she collapsed in his arms, crying out in helpless pleasure. He scooped her up before she could hit the floor and laid her on the bed. He’d intended to have her there anyway, but not like this. Every encounter they’d had so far had involved tearing off each other’s clothes, and fucking hard and fast. He’d planned a slow seduction for tonight, his mouth on every inch of her delicious body, and her mouth on his cock . . . after which he’d spank her cute ass for shooting Barrie, and then fuck her again.
But then she’d bitten him and the die was cast. He couldn’t resist the sight and feel of her climaxing in his arms. Her body writhed against his, her breasts rubbing against his chest, her nipples so hard, he could feel them despite the layers of clothing. Wanting more—her breast in his mouth, her nipple against his tongue—he shoved up her sweater and pulled down the sheer cup of her bra. Her breast burst free and he took it, sucking half the warm globe into his mouth, his tongue rasping over her nipple, while he freed the other breast and kneaded it with his fingers, until he switched breasts and gave the other one the same treatment. Pulling back, he bracketed her slim torso in his hands and admired his handiwork—her full breasts shining wet in the golden light of the overhead, her nipples swollen and flushed with blood. He leaned forward again and took a delicious nipple between his teeth this time, hearing her cries, her fingernails scraping his scalp, as he bit down and tugged lightly. And then he did what he’d been dying to do all evening, ever since they’d been interrupted by Garrick and had to rush into battle.
His fangs slid out from his gums, and his hunger surged. Opening his mouth over the swell of her breast, he bit her again, harder this time, as he ever so slowly pulled away, letting his fangs scrape along her flesh, tasting the thin line of blood he left behind. Eve moaned and pressed the back of his head, asking for more. Quinn lapped up the droplets of blood and looked up, reading the desire in her dark eyes, as she thrust out her chest, angling her other breast into his mouth.
He growled and slid his fangs into her flesh, triggering the euphoric in his bite, savoring her screams when she was thrown into another climax hard on the first. Dropping his hand between their bodies, his fingers slid under her skirt, over the silky skin of her thigh, until he felt the wet heat of her pussy through her panties. He tore the thin fabric impatiently, ripping it away from her hip to shove two of his fingers inside her at once. She was already so slick with arousal that she took his intrusion easily, her sheath still trembling with orgasm as it stretched to accommodate him. He began pumping his fingers in and out, while she tore at his shirt, yanking it over his head, until he had to slide his hand out of her sweet body in order to get the rest of it off.
Eve took advantage of his distraction, rubbing his erection through the fabric of his jeans, sliding down the zipper and freeing him from the painfully tight confinement. Shoving him hard over, she switched their positions and tried to straddle him, but he was stronger and had other plans. Rolling her beneath him, her skirt around her waist, her sweater pushed up with her breasts bare over the cups of her bra, he shoved his hips between her thighs and slammed his cock into her pussy as deeply as he could go. One long, hard stroke and she was his, her sheath trembling around him, her legs gripping his hips as she lifted hungrily to meet his thrusts.
“Fuck,” he swore, taking her in a demanding embrace, crushing her lips beneath his, his tongue claiming every inch of her mouth. She met the demands of his kiss, just as she did his cock, vying for a control that he wouldn’t surrender, until her twisting tongue scraped his fang, and he groaned. Her blood was the sweetest confection, so unexpected from the fierce fighter she showed to the world. He sucked on that bit of blood, and his hunger roared. He wanted more. He could scent the warm seduction of her blood so close beneath her pale skin, could feel her veins plump and begging.
“Eve,” he breathed. His lips skimmed the curve of her jaw, dipping briefly to the elegant sweep of her clavicle, licking the slick saltiness of her skin, before kissing his way up to her neck and the swollen line of her jugular. He was hungry. He’d used a lot of power over the last few days, and while he’d had a taste of Eve’s blood from the vein, he hadn’t fed. “Eve,” he said again, her name coming out on a growl as his control fractured.
“Quinn,” she whispered, turning her head to one side and baring her neck in invitation. “It’s okay.”
It was everything he could do not to rip into her neck and feed. But he was a vampire lord. Discipline and control defined him. He waited until her arousal soared again, until she was once more on the verge of climax, with her pounding heart matching the thrust of her urgent rocking against him. And then, with his cock sliding in and out of the warm, wet cleft between her thighs and her whispers a constant, soft plea in his ear, he sliced through her skin, felt the slight pop as his fangs sank into her vein, and then groaned in pleasure as her blood poured down his throat.
Eve gave a low, moaning scream, her back arching against him, as the surge of chemicals hit her blood stream. Fangs still buried in her neck, Quinn clutched her to his chest, one hand on the back of her head and the other low on her hips, crushing her already sensitive clit against his groin every time he drove into her, going harder and deeper, until he felt her hot, slick channel clamp down, rippling along his length as she screamed his name. His own release surged, spilling into her body in a rush of heat, as he lifted his head and snarled, bloody fangs glistening. Only one word filled his head. Mine.
THE RAIN WAS STILL coming down ha
rd when Eve woke to Quinn’s voice telling her to sleep. Her bleary smile became a frown when she realized he was kissing her good-bye, tucking the blanket around her and climbing out of bed. She sat up, clutching the sheet over her naked breasts. “Where are you going? Did something happen?”
He turned back, his eyes alight with that eerie shattered ice glow as they skimmed over the sheet she was gripping so tightly. He didn’t move, simply smiled, slow and seductive. Eve’s body remembered that smile, remembered what came after. Her nipples hardened and warmth pooled between her thighs, which were already sticky with arousal.
Damn, she thought, not for the first time. No wonder women throw themselves at these guys. Hard on that thought was the image of women throwing themselves at Quinn. She didn’t like that one at all.
“Sunrise is near,” he murmured, right against her ear, having somehow crossed the room to sit next to her, while she’d been having murderous thoughts about other women.
She turned to study him, only inches away. Her body was urging her to grab him. To tumble him back to the bed and slide him into her body one more time. His words registered belatedly. She stared at the heavy drapes over the only window, then turned back to him with a frown. “What does that mean?”
His head tilted, and he gave her a puzzled look. “Are you awake, sweetheart?”
She scowled. “Of course. What does that have to do with—”
“I’m a vampire, and the sun is about to rise. I’m going to sleep, whether I want to or not.”
“Okay,” she said, still not understanding. “So, get back in bed!”
“My daytime sleep is taken elsewhere. Stay as long as you want. The daylight guards know you’re here, and they’ll help, if you need anything.” His eyes went blank for an instant, as if his thoughts were far away. When his eyes focused again, he said only, “Time is short. I’ll see you tonight.”
Quinn (Vampires in America: The Vampire Wars Book 12) Page 29
