Sunset Rivalry: The Caliendo Resort (By The Lake: The Caliendo Resort Book 2)

by Shannyn Leah

  Her head twisted in his direction as he stepped out of the shadows of the dining room, six feet away from her right.

  She straightened, her body inhaling a deep breath before turning on pot lights that only lit the living room to her left.

  They stood in silence staring at one another.

  Anya didn’t try to hide her anger, not that she would be good at it if she had.

  Nothing had really changed in the situation between them. He still needed his file, which meant he needed her to show him the exact location of the file room. She still needed him. Quinn had the key card, which he was aware she could easily obtain another one from her family, but he had one bargaining chip left. Quinn had access to the security system.

  Anya finally moved, but her eyes stayed on Quinn. She closed the distance between them, her step unwavering and her jaw clenched tight, tugging the delicate features of her face.

  She stopped in front of him and her open hand forcefully slapped him across the face.

  He didn’t move at the contact, but flinched at the stinging that lingered...and what was coming.

  “You did this. You son of a bitch,” she accused. “Who do you think you are? God? You had no right to run to my mother and tattle like a little child.”

  Tattle like a little child? Did she honestly think his intentions were so dense it was childlike? He was protecting her.

  And right now, crossing her arms so tightly across her chest he was surprised she could breathe, she was the one acting like the little child...maybe it was about time someone told her so.

  “Running your body on empty, living in a cabin that is ready to crumble to the ground and sneaking around instead of being up-front and talking to your family are juvenile acts. If you stop acting like a child people won’t treat you like a child.”

  Anya grunted.

  “You are one to talk. You’re here for the exact same reason as me. A file. I could have told them exactly what you were up to after that shit you pulled tonight.”

  But she hadn’t and it was because she needed him.

  Quinn cut into her ramble. “But the fact you’re hiding and lying to them, desperate to get a file, like a child, indentifies and sums up your maturity.”

  Her mouth fell open and she shook her head.

  “Do you even hear yourself Barker? You secretly dig up dirt on people for money. Money.” She said the word like it was a pathetic motive, but being a Caliendo she didn’t understand what it was like to be poor. Quinn’s actions had nothing to do with money, but it was his dad’s greed that had.

  Quinn hated going down the conflicting road of his father, Max’s actions, still loving a man who put Quinn’s siblings at risk. Quinn even understood his motives, but couldn’t relate to his idiocy at allowing money to sway Max onto Robert’s private payroll.

  Anya continued her angry rage against him with no idea that his memories were constricting his chest.

  “You unearth secrets about people that will destroy them. Sure, some information might be illegal and maybe those people deserve what they got, but who are you and my dad to decide the punishment for their actions? And what about all the innocent people whose path accidently cross my father’s? You screwed them.” She pointed a finger at him and stepped closer. “And trust me, every single person that you assisted my father with, he took that information and destroyed them, their families...their entire lives. That’s on you Quinn.”

  Quinn sucked in a deep breath of air, angry that he needed to do so in front of her. But damn this woman did not understand and he couldn’t tell her.

  When he’d been met with her tear-stained face, two years ago, accusing him of being just like her cruel father, Quinn had kept the truth about Robert’s involvement in the death of his sister from her.

  When Anya’s pleading eyes begged him to tell her that he was nothing like her heartless monster father, Quinn couldn’t reveal to her that he’d build a barrier around his emotions to keep the heartaches at bay.

  He also hadn’t told Anya that she was the only woman who had ever touched his soul and the only person he had ever wanted to talk to. Even before he’d begun working for Robert, Quinn had never felt a connection with a woman like he had with Anya.

  But how could he expose her father’s illegal activity, bringing justice to Quinn’s sister and all the other lives Robert had destroyed and maintain a relationship with Anya? Robert’s daughter? She might hate Robert’s actions, but he was still her father. Quinn knew better than anyone that loving a person and not loving their behaviour were two entirely different feelings. Quinn couldn’t put Anya in that situation two years ago and he wasn’t going to now. Not when he was so close to the truth.

  “I haven’t been a part of your father’s side-business in two years, or anyone else’s. I have been clean for two years. I came back to the resort when Marc called me about you.” The strength in his voice was swallowed by the guilt he carried.

  Yes, he’d given up on finding the file and bringing justice to his sister, but only to take the money he’d earned on Robert’s off-the-record payroll and put it toward monitoring the lives that Quinn was responsible for destroying. From a distance he helped to ease some of their hardships and some of his guilt. None of it had worked. All the mended fences wouldn’t replace the loss. But now he could get his sister justice and make the fences he’d broken have hope again and not loss.

  Anya’s eyes narrowed with a slight bit of softening as she caught his tone shift. She might be readable, but she was smart too. In all the time they’d spent together he hadn’t let her in other than sharing his father’s death. A death she’d been acutely aware of since Max worked in the resort until he died. Anya didn’t know his mother and sister were dead or that the accident that claimed the life of his father had also put a rift between Grayson and his brother. He kept it all to himself to protect her.

  “Well, aren’t you the saint.” He was sure she meant for it to come out angrier than it did.

  He grinned at her. “I wouldn’t go that far−”

  “I wasn’t. What are you even doing here? Get out of my suite.”

  “We aren’t finished talking.”

  He would rather talk about how he felt about her than finding the files, but that wasn’t an option right now. The sad part was that it would never be an option. Their parents had made it impossible for them to be together, even if she didn’t see that was what kept them apart.

  She groaned.

  “I would slap you again if it didn’t hurt me so much,” she snarled and walked past him into the kitchen.

  Quinn turned on his heels and watched her move around the kitchen pouring a glass of water.

  He wondered if she ate supper that evening. He knew it was almost three in the morning, but she looked like she skipped more meals than she ate nowadays.

  She downed the liquid in the glass, set it on the counter with a loud thump and was in front of him again.

  “Give me the key,” she demanded, holding her hand out.

  “Why? So you can get the file now and leave before morning?”

  That wasn’t happening.

  “I’m certainly not telling you my plan. You have an uncontrollable blabber mouth.”

  He crossed his arms across his chest and took a deep breath. “I will make a deal with you.”

  “We all know how well you can be trusted.”

  “We both still want our file−”

  Anya took a step toward him cutting him off again. “I’m not helping you get your file. You went behind my back like the lying, selfish jerk you’ve always been. You want your file? Get it yourself.”

  “You want the key? Go get one yourself.”

  He could find another way into that office and re-search it now that Anya had clarified that the files were somewhere in that office. If Anya had to resort in asking her family for help, then they might be able to do more than give her the file.

  Quinn thought the cherry red coloring rising up her n
eck and across her cheeks might cause a replay of another slap across his face.

  He was okay with that. He could handle a little stinging slap from this woman. Truthfully, he deserved it.

  What he hadn’t expected was for her to attack him. She was full of surprises.

  “Give me the key card!”

  Like a tiny, quick mouse, her fingers were everywhere in a matter of seconds. In his jacket pockets, unzipping his jacket while digging into his slacks pockets...everywhere.

  Quinn caught one hand only to find the next hand touching him somewhere else. And she was wiggly. From front to side, then back, she moved at the speed of lightning, grumbling angrily to herself about him like he wasn’t present and she wasn’t touching him all over like a crazy woman.

  “Anya!”

  He caught her wrist to stop her, but she didn’t stop. They could play this game forever. She wouldn’t find it. He wasn’t an amateur.

  Tired of this wrestling match−tired in general−he caught both her wrists and spun her around, pulling her backside against his front and trapping his arms around her front.

  He hated how frail she felt beneath him. Hated she didn’t know she was frail and hated more that he’d let himself believe she was okay.

  She objected, trying to wiggle and yank her body free. Frail but feisty.

  Quinn had her immobile and her stirring did no more than make his body fully aware of her hips driving against his waist, her derriere taunting his man-hood and her round, plump breasts rubbing against his arms.

  Finally, Anya stopped and he felt her body sigh in defeat. His body sighed too, but the relief was for entirely different reasons.

  Quinn grazed the side of her face taking in her sweet scent and feeling the pressure of her chest rising and falling with each breath. He pressed his cheek against her soft skin and whispered, “I will come back tomorrow when you’ve calmed down and we will talk about getting the files together like we discussed. Nothing changed because your mother knows you are on the premises. You still need the file and I still need my file. We need each other to get the files.” He was glad when she didn’t argue, but when she said nothing he asked, “Agreed?”

  Anya’s heavy panting began to slow. “Does it matter if I agree?”

  He supposed it didn’t.

  Quinn let her go, but she didn’t move. Her body pressed up against his as firm as when his arms had been wrapped around her.

  What was she doing? Why was she debating?

  Why was he not stepping back to break the contact?

  They didn’t need to produce more confusion to their already chaotic situation. This family was a perplexing mountain of mystification. Nothing was ever easy...for any of them. In the short time he’d worked for Robert he’d witnessed a lot of pain pass between this family. Obstacles most people didn’t have to attend to...unless you were on the other end of Roberts’s wrath.

  Anya turned to look at Quinn and he saw the bewilderment in those big blue eyes.

  She’d put distance between them, but not much.

  Quinn found himself staring past the uncertainty and found desire burning in her eyes. It chased away her fight...and his.

  What was it about this woman that made her so hard to resist?

  Yes, at first he’d used her as his access tool to Robert’s files−he wasn’t proud of it−but he’d been desperate after a year of coming up empty-handed in search of the file. He’d thought it wouldn’t matter if he used a Caliendo after the heartache that family had put Quinn’s family through.

  It hadn’t taken long before Quinn identified that Anya wasn’t the privileged and spoiled daughter filled with the same conceit as her father, as Quinn had originally pegged her. It was ironic since Robert hired him to read people and he couldn’t even read the man’s own daughter.

  He’d convinced himself that once he had the access he’d needed from her, he would walk away and not hurt her. Quinn had tried to walk away from her. He’d tried to set boundaries to divide his goal and his heart. But he’d been drawn to Anya then like he was now, in a way that kept him with her until the truth about him was revealed...breaking the very woman he vowed not to.

  “Quinn?” The question in her whisper emptied his thoughts and, like two years ago, it was just them. Only the two of them. That’s how he’d always felt with her and why it had been so difficult to leave her. He could have been having the crappiest day with a ton of remorse that his pursuits didn’t ease, but when Anya smiled at him, it had all been lost.

  Quinn didn’t answer now. Only because he felt her hands gently touch the front of his jacket, sending jolts of electricity through the material and into his blood that coursed its way through his entire body. Her touch was hot and it wasn’t even skin-on-skin...yet.

  Anya stepped forward, filling in the empty space between them and sending him a look of sheer desire.

  Quinn should have stepped away instead of allowing his hand to wrap around her waist. But he was lost in the world they’d always created and this time he didn’t notice how small she felt under his touch, just that he never wanted to let go of her again.

  Anya’s hands moved up his front and stopped at his face. Her warm fingers touched his unshaven cheeks and he watched her eyes follow the trail across the scar underneath. When her hands cupped under his ears, her eyes found his again.

  Quinn didn’t know who made the first move next, but their lips crashed together, roughly, making up for lost years.

  She was delicious, like a warm summer breeze, and soft like the sandy beach beneath your bare toes.

  His jacket hit the floor.

  He tore hers from her body considering where to take her. The dining room table was right behind him and the couch was across the room. Either would work to make love and they’d done so in the past on both. But, he wanted to take her to her bedroom and this time he didn’t want to leave.

  Anya had her own plans.

  She shoved him against the table with incredible force for such a frail thing, never parting her lips from his.

  His ass landed on the edge, bumping their teeth together and he enjoyed the giggle that came from her mouth. Her fingers worked at the buttons of his shirt, while his hands slid up and down her body before tugging her flannel plaid button-up out of her jeans. He ran his hands underneath and stroked the skin he’d been craving to touch. He was elated to find it just like he remembered: warm and silky smooth.

  Anya gasped and moaned in his mouth at the pleasure of his touch. Her fingers paused against another scar and her nails dug into his skin as her body arched at his touch.

  They ended up on the dining room table as he first thought. Anya climbed on top of him, pushing his shirt over his shoulders and tracing his skin down toward the buckle of his pants.

  Quinn pulled both of Anya’s shirts over her head in a swift motion that made her grin appreciatively at him. She pushed his chest until he was lying flat on his back and her passionate lips followed him all the way down. The scorching fire between their torsos followed his hands running across every inch of her bare back while his mouth couldn’t get enough of hers.

  He hadn’t forgotten how wonderful this felt, even dreamed about it...about her...every passing day they’d been apart, but it was nothing like actually touching her.

  What did this mean? What would they do after this?

  He wasn’t about to answer any of those questions, fearing the answer. The only person he wanted was Anya and she wanted him back so there was no way in hell he was confusing this with “what if” scenarios.

  Anya stopped suddenly and pulled away.

  Quinn stilled, his body going rigid, wondering what she was thinking. He was having a difficult time reading her like he’d once been able to do. She wasn’t as trusting as she’d been. He couldn’t blame her for being cautious with him and was proud that she was strong enough to stand up to him...until this point. He couldn’t blame her either for dipping into the lust pool they had created. He was as capa
ble of not being able to control himself with her as she was with him.

  Using her hands, Anya propped herself up on the table and stared down at him.

  “How long have you been looking for the file?” she asked.

  The file? The confusion that question sparked was indescribable. How was her mind even anywhere near the file in their current state?

  Quinn didn’t want to go there right now.

  He cupped her face and kissed her lips softly to remind her of what they were in the middle of doing.

  Anya’s long hair was pulled into a ponytail that fell loose over one bare shoulder covering her bra strap. She had rarely worn her hair up two years ago. The long blonde curls used to cascade down his arms when they were in this position. Either way was fine as long as she was with him.

  “Quinn, I asked you a question.”

  She was persistent. “Where have you been?” he asked instead.

  Her jaw tightened. “Don’t change the subject.”

  “You are changing the subject,” he pointed out, reaching up and kissing her again to remind her which subject he was referring to.

  He wanted to know the answer to his question, but he also knew she wasn’t going to readily offer it to him.

  She kissed him back. Hungrily welcoming his open mouth and meeting the warmth of his tongue.

  Against his mouth she repeated, “How long have you been looking for the file?”

  He groaned and dropped his head back against the table.

  What a position he was in: her almost naked body on top of him, her hungry kisses lingering in his mouth and her demanding answers filling the space between them.

  He knew it wouldn’t end with one question, but what was one answer if it satisfied whatever was bothering her and she came back to him.

  “Since my dad died,” he answered.

  She thought about that for a quick moment, then asked, “Since your dad died? Or my dad died?”

  Did it matter? “My dad,” he clarified.

  He watched her hunger for him turn off like a light switch.

  Damn it. What the hell had he said wrong? She had never been this difficult before.

  “I guess I don’t feel that bad for what I just did,” Anya said.