Quinn Security

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Next, she unfastened one button on her shirt, then the next, slowly opening the garment and exposing her nude chest and he groaned, glanced around to be sure no other hikers were around, and brought his large hand to meet her supple breast.

  She made the most beautiful sound, softly moaning at the feel of his hand cupping her. As he grazed his thumb over her nipple, it hardened for him, and he felt the strain of his body stiffening beneath his jeans.

  “You could’ve taken me last night,” she told him. “I wouldn’t have stopped you.”

  “That’s information I’m going to act on,” he warned her.

  “I hope so.”

  He spread her open shirt aside and wrapped both of his large hands around her breasts, pressing his hips against hers.

  “You’re turning me on,” she whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  “Mm-hmm,” she breathed as he caressed one of his hands down the taut length of her toned stomach until he reached the fly of her short-shorts. “Do it,” she coaxed.

  He popped the top button of her jeans open and pulled her zipper down, and she moaned, draping her slender arms around his muscular shoulders.

  He growled out, “You look too good.”

  “What are you going to do about it?” she challenged flirtatiously.

  He slid his hand down the front of her panties, feeling her warm breath against his ear as he leaned in close and explored the velvety folds of her sex.

  Squeezing the soft, supple mound of her perky breast, he began to gently penetrate her and savored the feel of her body melting into his.

  “Maybe…” she began to tell him, but it was hard for her to think straight with his finger thrusting into the tight sheath of her sex. She tried again, “We should’ve gone straight to your cabin instead of…”

  She gasped and held him tighter when his thumb found the sensitive bud above her quivering core.

  “No, I think we’re perfect right here,” he disagreed and she laughed breathily.

  “Oh, so you like public places?” she teased.

  “This is private enough,” he said as he quickened his rhythm, rendering her unable to speak. He growled in her ear, “I want to feel your tight body clamp around my fingers. Are you going to be a good girl for me and come?”

  He felt her quivering in response and she whispered, “I like it when you call me a good girl.”

  “Then be really good for me and let me give you an orgasm.”

  She moaned as if his command was enough to make her climax as he’d ordered.

  Her entire body loosened in his arms as she flew towards the brink, but he held her up, pinning her against the wooden guardrail. A moment later, she let out a quiet cry and gently convulsed in the sexy throes of her sudden climax.

  As her body gradually calmed, he found her lips and pressed his mouth against hers, brushing and kissing and licking her.

  She laughed, elated to be so satisfied, and as she caressed her hands down the length of his muscular arms it seemed like she was squeezing and feeling him to see if Dean was real.

  He deepened their kiss, drawing his fingers out from her jeans, and began fondling her nude breast.

  “You’ve convinced me,” she said.

  “Of what?”

  “I like hiking.”

  He laughed and began zipping up her fly as she buttoned her shirt up.

  “Come on,” he urged. “There are more views to see higher up.”

  Chapter Eight

  ELIZABETH

  Elizabeth would have never guessed she would like hiking so much, and feeling that way wasn’t only because Dean had pleasured her at the lookout point atop the waterfall in Yellowstone, though he’d certainly been very good at that. She wasn’t sure her feet had touched the ground for the entire remainder of their hike.

  Was she crazy to think that Dean might actually accept her, flaws and all? She knew how she was. It wasn’t lost on her that she was privileged and that most people found her entitled attitude spoiled if not reprehensible. And yet, Dean had more or less overlooked the behavior. Sure, she had irritated the hell out of him, but he hadn’t run for the hills like he could have. When she had finally lowered her guard enough to admit that her late father’s passing had pitched her into what felt like a blind panic, he had related to her. She’d had no idea that Dean had lost his own father not too many years ago. Learning that, she felt closer to him than ever. He had told her that she wasn’t alone, and she believed him. And when she had admitted that she felt like she was scrambling to honor her father’s memory by building something he might have liked right here in Devil’s Fist, Dean hadn’t pointed out all the mistakes she had been making along the way. Instead, he seemed to respect her efforts and had promised to try not to stand in her way.

  They returned to his cabin as dusk settled over the Fist. Elizabeth was in desperate need of a shower and it wasn’t because she felt the need to pamper herself to the detriment of the town’s water supply. She had worked up a decent sweat hiking and couldn’t believe she’d gone hours without touching up her makeup or redoing her hair. She probably looked a wreck, but it felt nice for once to not have to worry about such things. There was something about Dean—maybe it was that he was able to see her for who she was and not what she looked like—that made her feel comfortable no matter how terrible she probably appeared.

  Nevertheless, when they entered his cabin, she grabbed a fresh outfit from her suitcase and slipped into the bathroom to freshen up.

  She partially hoped he might join her in the shower, but that would be quite forward of him. He was actually turning out to be more of a gentleman than she’d originally assumed him capable of being, though his bad boy charm was apparent as ever.

  As she stepped into the hot shower stream, he knocked on the door. “I need to step out for a minute,” he told her.

  “Ah, okay!” she called out.

  The shower was too loud for her to notice that Dean had crossed to the door of his cabin and literally stepped outside. When he fired his pickup truck up, she was only vaguely aware of the sound and thought nothing of it as she lathered up her hair and began washing herself.

  Soon she had rinsed her hair, shaved her legs, and nearly pruned her fingertips. She turned the water off and stepped out onto the cool tiles. But as she wrapped a fresh towel around herself and opened the bathroom door, letting steam billow out into the living room, her mind went strangely blank.

  It felt like her blood was turning to ice water in her veins, and she was struck with sudden panic that she couldn’t seem to form a thought.

  Though she’d stepped out of the bathroom and had edged into the living room, she realized she’d stopped moving. When she tried to put one bare foot in front of the next, she found that she couldn’t.

  Another lightning bolt of panic sliced through her.

  Why couldn’t she move?

  Why had her mind gone completely blank?

  She willed herself to walk, but couldn’t, and every time she tried to touch upon the reason for why that might be, it was as though all thoughts instantly snuffed out of her.

  She felt empty, paralyzed, like she’d been jerked out of space and time.

  Then a deep, smooth voice filled her head.

  Come outside, Elizabeth.

  She recognized that voice. She would know it anywhere. The silky, booming tone could only belong to Dante Alighieri, and yet it had definitely sounded from inside her mind.

  Don’t be alarmed, she heard him say within the confines of her skull. Go to the door and come outside.

  She had the urge to admit that she couldn’t move, but the next thing she knew, she was walking towards the cabin door, her towel wrapped tightly around her body, hair damp and spilling limply over her shoulders.

  It didn’t feel like she was walking, though. It felt like something outside of herself was making her walk. Testing the notion, she tried to turn towards the bedroom, take control of herself and make a run for it, but
she couldn’t.

  She opened the cabin door and stared out worriedly into the darkness.

  Come out back, Dante ordered her and she found that she couldn’t resist.

  Terror clawed up her throat as she edged out into the darkness and she was horrified to discover that Dean’s pickup truck wasn’t parked in the driveway. He had left her?

  What was happening to her?

  Why had Dean left? Why was Dante speaking directly into her mind?

  It was then that she understood who was forcing her to round the side of the cabin, her bare feet easing over cool grass.

  Dean had told her that Dante Alighieri was a werewolf and dangerous. But he’d never mentioned anything like this. Elizabeth didn’t know much about werewolves, but she’d never heard that they had the power to seep into a person’s mind and compel them to do things against their will.

  As she came to the rear of the cabin, the dark dome sky overhead twinkling with a magnificent constellation of stars that strangely illuminated the backyard, she saw the figure of man standing in silhouette in the distance, but something deep inside of her told her that it wasn’t Dante.

  She slowly crossed the yard and realized she knew who the man was. She recognized him from earlier that day. It was the detective who had thwarted her every effort to find out how to buy the burned down building.

  Eddie Friendly.

  Why would Eddie be standing out behind Dean’s cabin?

  Then she remembered, Dean had warned her that Detective Friendly was also a werewolf. He must be working in cahoots with Dante.

  As she neared the leering detective, she heard Dante speak to her again, directly into her mind.

  Go with him.

  She tried to refuse. She tried to scream out loud, but she couldn’t even scream out a single thought in her own head. Then, to her utter horror, as she drew closer and closer to Eddie Friendly, her vision tunneled down, blackening, and the next thing she knew, she was gone.

  Chapter Nine

  DEAN

  “I don’t want to be gone too long,” he told his oldest brother and werewolf king, Troy, the second he set foot in Quinn Security. “I left Elizabeth at my cabin.”

  “This shouldn’t take long,” said Troy, but Dean could tell by the tone of his brother’s voice and the way he had angled his dark eyes down at Professor Gaylord Geer III that something was up, something that might not be so easy to explain. “I’d like to keep Shane out of it for now.”

  “Okay…?” was Dean’s quizzical response.

  When he heard the door of Quinn Security open, he glanced over his shoulder to find Kaleb and Conor entering.

  “What’s going on?” Dean asked, figuring it must be big if Troy had summoned all of the brothers besides Shane.

  “Yeah, Troy,” Conor resonated Dean’s sentiment, “what couldn’t wait until tomorrow’s meeting? I was in the middle of… something with Rachel.”

  A wry smile came over Kaleb face as he asked, “In the middle of something?”

  “It’s private,” Conor informed him.

  “Sounds sexy,” Kaleb teased.

  Conor grinned, which was enough of an indication that Kaleb had hit the nail on the head.

  “This has to stay between us for the time being,” Troy warned, making a point to touch eyes with each of his brothers before he turned the floor over to the professor. “Go ahead.”

  Gaylord cleared his throat and offered each of them a worried smile. “I’m not sure what to make of it. I just thought Troy should know…”

  “It’s okay,” Troy prodded him. “Just tell them.”

  “Well, the sheriff came by the house earlier today and asked some questions that… concerned me.”

  “Questions?” Dean asked when the professor had fallen into a silent ball of hesitation.

  “Firstly,” he began, “the sheriff was sure to pull me aside so that Sasha and Nikita wouldn’t overhear.”

  “Okay…?” said Conor.

  “Rick wanted to know,” he went on, “the specific Latin chants I used on Lucy, the ones that we didn’t get a chance to cast over Dante.”

  Dean and Troy exchanged a glance as Kaleb’s demeanor darkened in an instant.

  Kaleb demanded, “Did you give them to Rick?”

  “No!” said Gaylord. “I didn’t. He wanted me to write them down for him, but again, I didn’t. I came right to Troy.”

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” Kaleb barked at Troy, deeply concerned for the safety of his one true mate. “No one possesses a greater threat to Dante than Lucy does. I knew we couldn’t trust Rick!”

  “We can trust Rick!” Troy insisted, but Dean wasn’t so sure.

  “Dante turned him,” Dean reminded his king. “He has a hold on Rick, and he’s obviously tasked him to do something to Lucy.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Troy.

  “I know,” Kaleb quickly returned, “that if Rick is trying to understand how to paralyze an Astral Goddess, he’s either going to use the information himself or pass it along to Dante. Either way, it could be fatal for Lucy and you know it.”

  “He’s right,” Dean told him. “Rick wouldn’t need that information for himself. He asked you to untie him from Dante’s dark hold and you didn’t.”

  “That was a strategic decision,” Troy hotly defended. “We need him positioned at Dante’s feet.”

  “Well keeping him there,” Dean argued, “means that he’s working under whatever threat Dante decides to make, and we can assume that Dante has made quite a threat if Rick is now trying to figure out how to kill Lucy.”

  Kaleb insisted, “I say we go to Rick right now. Get the truth out of him. Stop this thing before he puts it into motion.”

  “He can’t put it into motion,” Troy reminded him.

  Gaylord promised for the second time, “I didn’t tell him anything. All of the chants are here in the office. I never even brought the books home with me.”

  “So, what do we do?” Dean asked Troy.

  “That’s why I called you all here,” he said. “To figure that out.”

  “Without Shane?” Conor questioned.

  “Right now,” Troy explained, “we can only expect that Shane will react the same way he has been when it comes to Sheriff Rick Abernathy. Shane sees him as a father now. He’s only going to fiercely defend the guy. I respect Rick and I feel for him, but I can still be objective.”

  “I can’t,” Kaleb barked. “This is my one true mate we’re talking about and we all know that the chants work. All it takes is piercing her heart and once those chants are spoken, it’s all over.”

  “She’s stronger than that,” Dean assured him. “She had to try not to throw up a light shield to deflect Conor’s arrow, remember?”

  “You think I want to take any chances?” Kaleb challenged.

  “So let’s vote,” Troy suggested. “All in favor of confronting Rick tonight, now, raise your hand.”

  Even though Dean was eager to get back to Elizabeth—man, she was probably stepping out of her hot shower right now and he’d really like to catch her before she puts any clothes on—he couldn’t deny the urgency of the situation with Rick. Kaleb looked like he was coming apart at the seams and if it was Elizabeth whose life was at sudden risk, Dean was certain he would want all of his brothers to act and act fast before anything could happen to her.

  He raised his hand along with all of his brothers.

  “It’s decided,” Troy concluded. “We’ll go to Rick’s right now.”

  ***

  The Quinn brigade of pickup trucks pulled into the driveway of Sheriff Rick Abernathy’s mansion-sized cabin, one after the next, and he knew exactly what it meant—the professor had ratted him out.

  It had been the headlights sweeping through his windows that had alerted Rick to the incoming ambush. He’d crossed to the kitchen windows and had peered out through the curtains, his stomach lurching and heart sinking. He had been terrified that he might see Shane Q
uinn, or worse, Shane and Whitney pile out of one of the trucks, but for some reason it looked like Gaylord, or possibly Troy, had spared Rick that horror.

  As far as he knew, none of the Quinns knew that right next door to his cabin, Dante Alighieri was staying in the cabin where Whitney had lived for years and years. But what if they knew that now? Or, he swallowed down a sour lump of trepidation, what if they noticed Dante’s luxury Lexus parked in the driveway?

  Rick threw the door of his cabin open just as the men neared it and he didn’t hesitate to wave them all in. Troy, Kaleb, Conor, Dean, and the professor marched in, as Rick admitted, “I think I can guess why you’re all here.”

  The professor was very sheepish passing through. He kept his head down and seemed to be snugging himself right up against Conor as he made his way into the living room where Troy had stopped in the very center, waiting for everyone to circle in.

  “Why didn’t you come to me?” Troy asked. “Why did you go to Gaylord?”

  Rick couldn’t see a way out of this that wouldn’t involve the truth—the whole truth—and it caused his stomach to twist with sharp knots.

  “Just promise me you’ll keep Whitney safe,” he begged.

  Troy reminded him, “Whitney is with Shane. She’s also one of us, a werewolf. She has nothing to worry about.”

  “You don’t know that,” he said. “You don’t know what Dante is capable of.”

  Kaleb demanded, “Were you ordered to attack Lucy?”

  Rick sighed and ran his large hand down his face.

  “Were you?” Kaleb pushed.

  “Yes, but I wasn’t going to act on it. I went to Gaylord to buy time.”

  When he hesitated to say more, Troy nudged him, “Explain yourself.”

  “I asked you to free me from Dante like you did for Angel Mercer,” he reminded him. “I begged you. I don’t want to be in this position anymore.”

  “Explain yourself!” Kaleb insisted.

  “I feel like I’m being watched all the time. Dante wanted me to get Gaylord on board to dismantle Lucy’s powers. I wasn’t going to attempt doing that. Obviously, Gaylord wouldn’t agree and neither would I. But I went to the house to talk to him so that whoever was watching me would see that I was taking measures to carry out the order.”