by Vonnie Davis
He exhaled a harsh bark of laughter. “Oh, angel, you don’t even want to see the darkness inside me.” He glanced away, closing off again.
She reached for his earlobes, applying gentle pressure. “I’m wise to you, buster. All these little tricks of avoidance, of transference, of acting like a sanctimonious victim.” She made a loose fist, pointing a thumb at her own chest. “I’ve done them all. Many times, in fact, and quite well. Wolf fought me every step of the way.”
She leaned in until their noses touched and her eyes bore into those mesmerizing blue-grey orbs of his. “And now I’m going to show you how a Wolford does combat against all that scared crap. Because that’s all it is, you know. At least, that’s all it was with me. I was too scared to open up and talk about it. Too afraid the people I loved would walk away. Love doesn’t work that way, big guy.” She lowered her head a couple of inches and bit his lower lip, pulling it out to run her tongue over and inside it.
He moaned as his hands swept up her back.
“Love stays. Through good and bad times, love stays. Especially for us. We can be damned determined. At least I can.” She slithered down his body and ran her tongue around the nipple with the piercing, taking it into her mouth before she tugged on the silver ring, giving him that blend of pleasure and pain he evidently needed.
He groaned her name and his cock rose as if to announce it was ready to party again.
“I can be ruthless too.” Her palm slid down his erection and wrapped around it for the return journey upward. Just to punish him some more, her hand made several long, slow strokes. “Think how good it’ll feel to open up and share some of the pain. When two people share, the agony lessens and they grow closer.”
“Christ, all I can think about is how damn good that feels.” He narrowed his eyes and glared at her. “You play damn dirty.”
“When the occasion calls for it, yes I do. When the person means everything to me, then hell to the yeah, I’ll do whatever it takes to reach them.” She smirked. “Hell, I’ve even been known to shave my hootchie for the cause.”
Furball took that moment to make a flying leap onto the bed. Quinn covered his cock with both hands to protect his most cherished possession. Cassie stroked the cat for a few seconds and laid him next to Quinn’s head.
He lifted the sheet and light blanket. “Come up here, angel. Lay on my shoulder.” Once she was in place and they lay on their sides facing each other, he covered them. “When a rowdy kitten’s in bed with you, it’s best to keep protected.” The cat wormed its way under the bedclothes between them and turned so just his grey and white face peeked out. He licked Quinn’s bicep.
Cassie fought a smile. “I think the cat’s spoiled.”
“I agree, and if I find out who the son of a bitch was who spoiled him like this, I’ll tan his hide. I hate a spoiled animal.”
“Well, the cat lives with you. Maybe it was you who spoiled him.”
Furball inched upward until he could rest his face on Quinn’s shoulder, his white paws laying next to his owner’s neck. Soon he started to purr and Quinn pretended to scowl.
She kissed Quinn’s collarbone and slipped her leg between his thick thighs. “It’s hard for you to admit you care for animals and other humans, isn’t it? Love isn’t a sign of weakness. It takes a strong man to love, to make himself vulnerable. Tell me, big guy. Tell me why you fight loving so much.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I care for you, angel. I know I can’t fight that anymore. Though God knows I’ve tried.” He kissed her forehead and face, enveloping her in his arms.
He cares for me. He used the word care, not love. Don’t get hung up, Cassie. Pay attention.
“I don’t know if I can share my past, even if I feel I should. I’ve carried this ugliness inside since the day I resigned from the State Department over four years ago.”
Quinn worked for the State Department? So Ryder’s suspicions about him were right. She’d have to be very careful how she reacted, or he’d close up again. She would not put pressure on him by being all nosy, though Lord knew her nosy gene was in full what-the-hell questioning mode.
She ran a hand up his chest. Firm and strong, with developed muscles she suspected were produced by frequent trips to the gym and long hours running to purge some of the pain in his heart rather than maintain a hot physique, though he was vain enough to give into the “my body is a temple” philosophy.
A gentle tug to his nipple piercing got his attention. “This will be hard for you then. Take your time. By the looks of Furball’s positioning, we’ve got all night.” She pressed her lips to the dip between his pecs.
He inhaled a deep breath and expelled it slowly. “I went to work at the State Department a week after I graduated from Harvard. My old man was a legend there.” His other hand settled in the small of her back as if he needed her securely in his arms. “At the State Department, Buck Gallagher heads the Bureau of International Intelligence and Research, so he carries a lot of clout. No doubt his influence helped get me the job.
“My admittance at Harvard, his alma-mater, was a cinch, too, although I’d rather have gone to MIT. But, even at Harvard, Buck was a damn hard act to follow. He’d been captain of the basketball team, a game I hated and refused to play. I was more into football and fencing, but never made captain of either team, which was why he never came to watch me participate in either sport. Buck graduated with a four-point-oh, while all I could manage was a three-point-nine-three.”
Buck. He called his father “Buck,” not dad or pops. She was beginning to understand the cause for the cold dynamics between the two and a defensive anger against good old Buck bubbled in her soul. “Well, it’s easy to get that four-point-oh when you’re taking ceramics and coloring inside the lines. What was your major, Quinn?”
“I took what Harvard calls a double concentration, similar to a double major at other universities. I studied Statistics as well as Engineering Sciences. Took extra classes in Spanish and Portuguese.”
“That’s a heavy load.”
“True that, but I always loved learning. What you put into your mind no one can take from you out of anger or if you didn’t measure up to their standards, which I never could. Knowledge is yours forever. But that can be a blessing and a curse. Sometimes bad experiences invade your mind and refuse to leave.”
She nodded into his chest. “Yes, I agree. I know exactly what you mean.” What things had his demanding father taken from him because he wasn’t a mini-Buck? The image of a younger Quinn having things he loved confiscated by his severe father hurt her deeply. She wanted to reach out and ease all his past hurts, to kiss and love them away.
His hold on her tightened and he kissed her with slow, seducing, sipping kisses. “If anyone would understand, it would be you.”
“Did you like working at the State Department?” Or had he gone to work there, like he’d gone to Harvard instead of MIT, because Buck demanded it? Frankly, she couldn’t imagine any one making Quinn do anything. Was he still that little boy trying to win his dad’s approval?
“A job is a job in today’s economy. Government positions like I had paid well. But with office politics being what they are, it didn’t take long for word to spread that I was big Buck’s only son and probably lacked both the brains and the work ethic to land and keep the job on my own merits.”
“Huh. Bet that stung.”
He entwined his fingers with hers and brought their joined hands to his lips to kiss her knuckles. “Oh yeah. Big time. So I worked harder. Put in more hours. Did whatever I could to get noticed for me, Quinn Hudson Gallagher, and not Buck’s boy.”
“I can so see you doing that. Wolf has always bragged about your strong work ethic.”
“Basically, I was doing anything to get ahead. To get a promotion. And the State Department used my ambition as a tool.”
“How so?”
“I was invited to take part in a planning meeting, which should have clued me in since I onl
y had a mid-level security clearance.” He stopped talking and leaned back to scowl at Furball who had crawled next to Quinn’s head to knead his hair, purring louder with each stroke. “Damn cat.” Even with the annoyed exclamation, he allowed Furball to continue the head massage.
Cassie petted the cat’s soft fur. “Then how were you allowed in this private meeting?”
“I’d been granted a temporary higher level security authorization for the project, but I was too flattered to think there were ulterior motives. My ego overrode my analytical skills. Details of the State Department joining forces with the DEA were revealed. The object was to curtail drug trafficking from Bolivia into Chile and up the coast to the United States. They wanted to plant an agent in Arica, a city near the Bolivian border, to observe Indian runners carrying drugs to members of the cartel, who had armed vehicles to transport the raw cocaine to southern Chile for refining. The biggest part of the job, though, was to find which parts of the country’s coastline were used to ship the product abroad.”
She tugged gently on his nipple ring. “And you volunteered?”
“You got it, angel. I saw it as a prime career opportunity to move into a supervisory position once the long-term assignment was over. I was given a team of four Americans and two Chileans to provide local intel. One of the Chileans was an exotic beauty named Renata.”
Cassie’s stomach dropped and she tensed. Hell, the last thing she wanted to hear tumble from his lips were compliments about another woman. Still, if it helped him, she’d tolerate it. Wasn’t there something in the Bible about love enduring all things?
“I’d spent so much of my earlier years studying and playing sports that my experience with the opposite sex was quick and shallow. Until I met her. In my limited knowledge of games women could play, I had no clue I was being set up and used. I was too into her fabulous body to suspect she was working for the cartel.”
God, this was killing her. “You…you loved her?”
“Like I’d never loved anything before in my whole life. That’s what caused my flashback earlier. You’re wearing fuchsia, aren’t you?”
“A little, yes.” No way was she telling him she’d lathered it on her labia to keep her skin from breaking out after shaving.”
“They were Renata’s favorite flower and I used to gather them for her bathwater.”
I don’t know if I can take hearing about this. Quinn’s never so much as picked me a dandelion or a palm frond but he picked fuchsias to scent her bathwater?
“I was careless with my passwords and text messages. To cut a long story short, she informed the cartel about a small pier we’d found in an inlet with a boat moored to it bound for America. We’d planned a raid, but she’d warned them and they were waiting. I lost four of my men. They were tortured before death mercifully claimed them. I found my fifth man hanging with a chain embedded in his swollen neck and his back whipped.”
She pressed her palm over Quinn’s heart. “Dear God, no. How awful.”
“So naturally I was frantic to find Renata. As soon as I was sure Chris, who we all called T-Bone, my team member I’d found hanging, was going to survive, I went looking for her. I nearly went insane during my desperate search. She meant everything to me.”
Some emotional ogre was shredding Cassie’s heart with a machete, laughing with maniacal glee at her foolishness while he carved away. After all, she was the ordinary girl-next-door while Renata was the experienced beauty with the exotic name and looks. “Yes, you would, loving her the way you did.” Spiderwebs of emotionlessness spread outward from her heart, their frigid fingers numbing everything they enclosed their steely tentacles around. He’d never love her to the depths he’d loved Renata.
“When I found her unharmed in her apartment and finally took a look at the furnishings beyond the big bed where we’d spent so much time, I began to put things together. I interrogated her until she confessed.”
“What did you do?” Could he have arrested her?
“I told her I loved her and then I put a bullet between her eyes.” He rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed, his head between his hands. “Because of my sexual bungling, four of my men were dead and one severely injured.”
Reaching out to him was more an act of humanity than love, for she doubted now he could ever love her to the degree he’d loved Renata—and she’d accept no less. Her palm rested on his back. “You’re not the first man to be taken in by a scheming woman. Granted your judgment may have been wrong, but your aim, your purpose, was true to your country and to your mission.”
“Four men died, Cassie. Four. Another was severely tortured. I resigned from my job, and my fa—Buck told me I could never call him father or dad again. That he’d disowned me.”
Which hurt him most? The betrayal of his lover, the loss of his men or the denial of his father’s love? Or was it the overwhelming combination that ate at his soul?
She rose to her knees and wrapped her arms around his, placing her hands on his pecs and her face against his back. “None of this was your fault. You hear me? None. Being careless with confidential information would have been no problem with an honest person, but Renata wasn’t honest. She used you for the position you held, for the way it would help her standing in the drug cartel.”
He jerked from her consoling embrace, reached for his boxers and stepped into them when he stood. The muscles of his back shifted and bunched under his tanned skin as he strode for the window. “I should have known. Been more committed to the mission. Love makes us weak. It’s a deceptive emotion.”
Pain, every bit as deep and destructive as when she’d lost her parents, fractured her soul. “Love makes us hope for things that can never be.” She rummaged around on the floor for her clothes. Finding her bra and thong, she slipped them on, a sarcastic laugh stumbling from her throat. “I mean, look at me. I’ve loved you for three years and all that time you’ve mourned the loss of the woman you loved more than anything.” She scooped her skirt off the floor and wiggled into it before snatching her blouse from the footboard of the bed.
His hands bracketed the wood trim around his window. “Renata, my dark-eyed, exotic beauty.” His chin reached his chest. “I loved her. I loved her with all my heart, yet to avenge my men, I put a bullet in her forehead.”
“I’m leaving now.” Cassie had to get out before she broke down and cried.
“Now I’ve got you to worry about.”
She exhaled a short burst of laughter. “Quinn Gallagher, the last person you have to worry about is me.” One by one, she felt the coldness and emptiness of her emotions shutting down. Hopes, dreams, plans were all over and done. Only emptiness remained.
Had he even heard her? He’d turned silent, lost to her again, vanished into the dark place where he could relive his time with perfect Renata. “God, how I adored that woman. She’d wake up every morning singing before she’d roll over on top of me and…Renata…”
If Cassie had to hear this woman’s name one more time, she would reach for the next razor blade she saw. God, how she needed to cut herself right now. She sat on the opposite edge of the bed and quickly put on the boots. Tears flooded her eyes when she removed her angel necklace and laid it on the nightstand. “None of what happened in Chile was your fault. You need to stop blaming yourself or you’ll never find happiness.”
Lord knew, she never would. Not without his love.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Someone pounding on Quinn’s door wrenched his mind from replaying the continual loop of the gruesome details from the disastrous night in Chile. Furball wove in and out between his feet, meowing to be fed. What time was it? The room had darkened. His forefinger depressed the Indiglo light on his wristwatch—eleven-twenty. He released his firm grasp on the wooden frame of the window and straightened, rotating his head and neck to work out the kinks from his previous tense posture.
“Cassie?” Except for the ceaseless racket at the door, the apartment seemed eerily quiet. How long had he v
anished into his own world?
The knocking continued, and Quinn scooped Furball into his arms. Had Cassie gone out for something to eat and couldn’t get back in? He turned on a few lights as he strode out of the hallway, flipped the lock and opened the door. “Sweetheart, did you—” The sight before him froze his thoughts before they had a chance to form into words.
Milt, his downstairs neighbor, in all his scrawny maleness, face creased into a scowl and fists cocked, bounced into Quinn’s foyer, weaving and bobbing, wearing purple shorts, white tube socks and black sandals. “Put ʼem up, you miserable lout.”
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Quinn set the cat down on the sofa and backed up, palms outstretched to show he wasn’t going to fight the old man. “What the hell’s got your drawers in a twist?”
“You destroyed that sweet woman. Sent her off without a care for her heart. Had sex with her and then bragged about how much you loved someone else, that you gathered flowers for her bathwater and how she woke you every morning with a song.” Milt swung a couple wild punches. “My God, man, where the hell did you learn how to treat a woman? Assholes-R-Us?”
Hell, had he said that stuff to Cassie? He’d shared working for the State Department and his assignment in Chile, but, beyond that, their conversation was a blur. “Where is she?” He started to charge around the combatant man.
Milt swung at him a couple of times, never making contact, but halting him in his steps nonetheless.
“Good thing Killer’s got excellent hearing. He heard Cassie crying in the vestibule and alerted me. When I opened the door, she all but collapsed into my arms. I took her in to try to calm her.” He shook his head. “Ain’t seen a woman bawl like that since my wife lost our first baby. Poor little thing cried her heart out until she asked to use the bathroom to freshen up.”
A chill skittered through Quinn’s body. Surely she hadn’t resorted to cutting. “How long was she in the bathroom?” He started to pass Milt. “Dammit, man, is she still in there?”
