Quinn Security

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Dean was confident they would get out of this, and it seemed to Elizabeth that his confidence had to be rooted in the fact that he was a werewolf.

  The gunfire had stopped. Had it been twenty seconds of silence? Thirty? Or only five?

  Her ears pricked up and she stopped breathing, her anticipation had her so poised. There had been breaks in the ceaseless firing sprays before, but never this long. Maybe Dean was right? Maybe the gunman had finally run out of ammo? Or maybe the police had apprehended the gunman and it really was all over.

  She locked eyes with Dean and asked, “Do you think the police got him?”

  “We wait here,” he told her. “We don’t move until the police come into the cabin.”

  She was itching to get to her suitcase, grab a pair of shorts, anything, to cover herself up, but she didn’t dare.

  “Yo!”

  Elizabeth and Dean locked eyes.

  Dean called out, “Shane?”

  As the sound of heavy-booted footfall trailed through the living room, Elizabeth motioned to stand, but Dean held her back.

  She hissed, “I’m not wearing enough clothes!”

  “We got him!” Shane called out and a second later the bedroom door opened.

  Elizabeth wasted no time skirting to her suitcase, finding a pair of yoga pants she usually slept in and pulling them on, having tucked herself into the partial privacy of the closet.

  “Who was it?” Dean asked his brother as he came to stand.

  Shane looked him up and down, registering the fact that his brother was wearing boxer-briefs and nothing else, and said, “Eddie Friendly.”

  “Dead or alive?” was Dean’s only question.

  “Alive,” he offered then clarified, “barely.”

  Elizabeth emerged from the closet and saw the bedroom for what it was. Completely trashed. The bed and floor had been torn up from the bullet sprays. Feathers had exploded all over. The wooden floors were terribly splintered. Shards of glass covered nearly every inch of the room. The window didn’t even exist anymore.

  They obviously couldn’t stay here any longer.

  “Was Dante out there?” Dean asked as Conor and Rachel Clancy entered the cabin.

  “Put something on,” Elizabeth suggested to Dean who was so focused on the update from his brother that he hardly seemed concerned with his profound state of undress.

  She handed him his jeans that had been lying tangled on the floor.

  As Shane waved Conor and Rachel into the bedroom, he passed the question back to them. “You didn’t find Dante out there, did you?”

  “No,” Rachel informed them as she eyed what had become of the bedroom. “Only Eddie. I think he snapped.”

  “I bet you anything,” Conor added, “Dante will be furious when he finds out.”

  “Where is Eddie now?” asked Dean.

  “Rick caged him,” Conor explained. “He’s locked up in a dog crate in the back of the Sheriff’s SUV.”

  “We obviously can’t bring him back to the station,” Rachel added before nearing Elizabeth and offering, “I’m sorry to be meeting again under these circumstances.”

  As Dean, Conor, and Shane broke off into a side conversation, trailing back into the living room once Dean had pulled his jeans on and had thrown a tee shirt over his head, Rachel asked her, “How are you doing? It would be understandable if you’re extremely shaken up.”

  “That would be putting it mildly,” she told the detective.

  “You both can stay with Conor and me next door,” she offered.

  Elizabeth worried, “Are we going to be attacked again?”

  “Honestly,” Rachel said, “I doubt it. Eddie went off the deep end this time. There’s no way that Dante authorized the ambush. It’s not Dante’s style. He prefers to lay traps, well organized traps. To my knowledge, he’s never come after anyone like this, and he won’t.”

  “What are you going to do with Eddie?” she asked. “Will he go directly to prison?”

  “I’m not sure prison will hold him,” Rachel said frankly. “For now, the sheriff is going to keep him caged. Come on,” she said, urging Elizabeth into the living room. When they joined the brothers, Rachel mentioned to Conor, “I offered that they could stay with us.”

  “Sure, man,” Conor told Dean. “Stay with us.”

  “Thanks,” he said, but to Elizabeth’s trained eye—she felt like she had gotten to know Dean well enough to read his expressions—he was preoccupied with what would become Eddie Friendly’s fate. “Who’s to say Dante won’t free Eddie?”

  “Shane is going to stay with the sheriff and keep watch on Eddie,” Conor explained. “Kaleb wants to have Lucy take a run at him, too. The one advantage to having captured Eddie alive is that we might be able to get information out of him. But we’ll see.”

  “Let’s get your things,” Rachel suggested to Elizabeth.

  Still shaken up, Elizabeth felt like she could barely think straight, but the detective guided her throughout the cabin, helping her collect her toothbrush and some clothes for the night. When she had packed a bag, stuffed fat with more than the essentials, Rachel told the Quinn brothers that she was going to take Elizabeth over to the neighboring cabin and get her settled.

  Next door, Elizabeth discovered that Conor’s cabin was nearly identical to Dean’s in terms of his floor plan and layout. Both brothers’ cabins were minimally decorated with masculine accents and no frills, though she picked up on the feminine touches that Rachel had peppered into the place.

  “The couch pulls out,” Rachel mentioned. “It’s not much, I know.”

  “Anything is better than the motel,” Elizabeth thanked her.

  Together, they pulled the couch out and once Rachel had gotten a stack of bedsheets and blankets from the linen closet, they made the bed.

  Elizabeth sat down in a slouching heap, finally feeling the exhaustion of all that she’d been through.

  “You’re married to Conor?”

  “We’re together,” Rachel allowed as she sat on the pull-out bed next to her. “We’re taking it slow, though it feels fast.”

  Elizabeth saw a strange glimmer of what looked like apprehension flash across the detective’s face.

  “Are you…?” she started to say. “Like them?”

  Rachel drew in a deep breath and sighed. “I’m not.”

  “You’re not?”

  “A werewolf?” Rachel questioned. “No, I’m not.”

  “But Conor is?” she asked. “All of the Quinn brothers are werewolves.”

  “Conor is,” she confirmed.

  “And you aren’t one?” Elizabeth asked, though the detective had already made her dynamic with Conor Quinn perfectly clear.

  Rachel leaned in a confided, “You don’t have to become a werewolf in order to be with one.”

  “That wasn’t my impression.”

  “Elizabeth,” she said in a kind tone. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready to do.”

  She thought about it for a long moment then asked, “He didn’t pressure you?”

  “Is Dean pressuring you?” she questioned, instantly concerned.

  “No,” Elizabeth quickly told her. “But, I feel like I should.”

  “Look, I know that you’re marked for Dean.”

  “You do?” she asked, feeling slightly embarrassed.

  “The Quinns don’t exactly keep secrets from one another,” she told her frankly. “So, yes, I heard you’ve been marked for Dean. You aren’t the first mortal who has been brought into this world marked to become the other half of one of the Quinns. Reece Gladstone, a librarian, was destined to become Troy’s one true mate. Lucy Cooper, a waitress, became Kaleb’s mate.”

  “I think I met Lucy at the diner.”

  “You probably did. We’re all carrying on with our lives,” she explained. “Whitney Abernathy, who is the sheriff’s daughter, is with Shane, and I’m with Conor. But so far, I’m the only one who hasn’t gone off the deep end. I�
�m not saying that because I judge what Reece, Lucy, and Whitney have done. I’m just telling you this so that you can understand your options.”

  “Troy made it seem like the only way I would be safe from Dante is if I let Dean turn me,” she explained.

  “Troy sees things how Troy sees things,” Rachel allowed. “And I’ll be honest, my situation with Conor is different.”

  “How so?”

  “From what I understand, Conor and I being together wasn’t written in the stars.”

  “You were never meant to be his one true mate?” she asked.

  Rachel shook her head, but maintained, “Even if I was, though, I’m not someone who rushes into huge, life-changing decisions. I’m not going to turn my whole world upside down just to be with a man. I can be with Conor on my terms and that’s what I’ve been doing. I’m certain that even if I’d been marked for him, that’s still what I would be doing. Look, all I’m saying is that you should do what’s right for you.”

  Elizabeth could have easily asked her a million more questions, but the front door of the cabin opened and Conor and Dean came into the living room.

  She almost wished they hadn’t. The conversation with Rachel had brought her more comfort than all the years of chats and talks with her Los Angeles girlfriends combined. And Elizabeth hoped she would have more time to talk with Rachel in the future.

  The talk had opened her eyes, however, and had given her a healthy dose of reality. Things didn’t have to be so black and white as either remaining human but ending the relationship or continuing it if only she becomes a werewolf like Dean.

  But Elizabeth still didn’t know what she would do.

  If only her father was alive to advise her.

  Rachel stood from the bed and joined Conor. “Let’s give them space,” she suggested. “I’m sure they’re exhausted.”

  “If you need anything,” Conor told Dean, “you know where to find me.”

  With that, Conor wrapped his arm around Rachel and they retired into their bedroom, leaving Dean and Elizabeth in the living room.

  “I pressed charges against Eddie Friendly and he came after me,” she summarized. “What’s next?”

  “I have no idea,” he said honestly as he sat on the pull-out bed beside her. “But we’re safe here. Eddie is secure. He won’t come after us again.”

  Dean wrapped his arms around Elizabeth, pulling her into a hug that softened the jagged edges of her shaken emotions. She melted into his embrace and felt for a moment that she could fall asleep right then and there in his arms.

  “I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had lost you,” he breathed as he stroked her hair.

  They eased back onto the bed and Dean held her in his arms, Elizabeth draped over the length of his body, her leg over his, her cheek resting on his sculpted chest.

  “Same,” she breathed.

  But now that the dust had settled, she questioned what had been her terrified position back there in his bedroom when they’d been under fire. In the moment, she had felt certain that she wanted to be united with him and turned, but now that she had spoken with Rachel, she wasn’t so sure.

  Her mother came to mind.

  Gretchen Halsey had been a far cry from a hands-on mother. If Elizabeth’s father had put his business dealings before raising his daughter, Gretchen had been just as guilty, though she had never been a hard worker. Far from it, in fact. If anything, Gretchen could only be described as a trophy wife, someone who enjoyed the lifestyle her husband had been able to provide. Her life was picture perfect and just as shallow. She had the perfect home, the perfect husband, and one beautiful daughter to complete the white-picket-fence image that had become her Los Angeles life.

  But even though Gretchen had hardly helped Elizabeth through any of the teen-aged or young adult milestones that she had struggled through, her mother was all she had left.

  If Elizabeth was going to make any critical determinations about her budding relationship with Dean Quinn, then she wanted her mother to weigh in on the options, and give her blessing if and when Elizabeth felt confident that she would like to spend the rest of her life with a werewolf.

  As she dozed off in Dean’s arms, she reasoned to give her mother a call and see if she might be able to convince Gretchen to come on out to Devil’s Fist…

  …and with that in mind, she gradually drifted off into sleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  DEAN

  The following morning, Dean woke with the warm sun on his face and Elizabeth in his arms.

  As he lifted out of sleep, he felt a sudden swell flare through his chest. The woman nuzzled in the crook of his neck was precious to him. Precious. He had never felt this way about anyone or anything in his life. Not only was Elizabeth the most important person in his life, but thanks to the events of last night, he understood that everything he held dear could be taken away from him in an instant. She wasn’t invincible. All that they had wasn’t guaranteed. With a single bullet, it could be ripped from his grasp, and the only thing he could do to prevent it—the one and only thing that made sense to him—was to convince Elizabeth Halsey to become his one true mate. Now. They had no time to waste. Eddie Friendly might have been apprehended. He might be furiously pacing a locked dog crate at this very moment, but that didn’t mean that Elizabeth’s life couldn’t be stolen in an instant. Dante was still out there. Eddie would be easily replaced. The war was far from over. As far as Dean was concerned, it had yet to begin.

  He drank in a deep breath, filling his lungs with air, his chest rising then falling, the movement of which caused Elizabeth to murmur and stir.

  It was a little after sunrise. The angle of sunlight streaming in through the seam in the curtained windows told him as much. He could smell crisp, fresh air as well, thanks to the drafty cabin. He felt strongly that he would like to go to bed tonight knowing that Elizabeth had become his, once and for all. Could he turn her by nightfall? That was the real question. He wanted nothing more.

  Stroking her hair down the soft side of her sleepy head, he whispered, “You up?”

  “Mm?” she moaned, barely awake.

  Somewhere in the night, she had slipped out of her yoga pants. The tee shirt she’d worn to bed, one of Dean’s that she’d been swimming in, had come off as well. He could feel her soft chest pressing against his torso. As he caressed his large hand down the length of her nude back, sliding under the covers, he relished the feel of her warmth, the thud of her gentle heartbeats, the rise and fall of her soft breathing.

  As she stirred, coming fully awake, he pulled her on top of him. Her long legs naturally spread apart, thighs draping over his hips, her cheek coming to rest against his sculpted pecs. He, too, had ditched his tee shirt and jeans. All that separated their heavy bodies were their underwear. Knowing that sent a hot wave of arousal rushing through him.

  He hooked his thumbs under the cotton edge of her panties and tugged them down her hips. He felt her breath out an airy laugh in response.

  “Your brother will hear us, Rachel, too.”

  “I doubt that,” he promised in a gruff, morning tone, his voice raspy with sleep. “Conor’s a heavy sleeper and given that Rachel was working into the wee hours of the night, I guarantee they’re going to want to sleep in.”

  “So do I,” she teased as she lifted up onto her elbows so that she could gaze down into his dark eyes. “Don’t you?”

  “I have a better idea,” he whispered as he pulled her panties down over the firm mound of her ass, exposing her spread sex. He began grazing his fingers lightly over her rear end, hoping to rouse in her the same desire he had woken up with. Of course, he was raging, hot-blooded, to tear his fangs into her inner wrist, mix their flowing blood as he penetrated the tight sheath of her body. Turning her was all he could think about, but he didn’t want to make the same mistake as his brother, Shane. When Shane had turned Whitney Abernathy against her will, it had been a dirty trick that she almost hadn’t been able to forg
ive him for. Dean needed Elizabeth’s consent. But he had his own ideas about how to best get it. “We were interrupted last night,” he reminded her.

  “We were,” she agreed with a sleepy smile.

  He brought his fingers in-between her spread legs from behind and loved the breathy sound of the soft moan that escaped her full lips.

  She felt slippery and wet already, and it caused him to stiffen further. Pressing his hips up and using her body weight to stimulate himself, he groaned, “You can be quiet, can’t you?”

  “I can be very quiet,” she promised, rising to his implied challenge.

  He helped her to lift her hips enough for him to push his boxer-briefs down his thighs, which exposed the hard length of his arousal. Her breathing quickened in anticipation and when next he guided her hips, lowering her down over him, she let out a sexy moan as soon as their skin made contact.

  She was dripping for him, he could feel it along the underside of his erection, as they stared into each other’s eyes.

  He tucked her blonde hair behind her ears, searching her big, green eyes, and then slowly guided her face to his in a gentle kiss.

  As they kissed, Dean cupping her pretty face and helping her head to tilt, she began moving her hips, rocking her body back and forth and using his shape to stimulate her arousal.

  She let out a little laugh and it took him a second to realize her legs were clamped too tightly together by her strained panties around her thighs. She lifted up and quickly corrected the problem, removing her underwear and coming back over him. When she did, the bedsheets fell away. She straddled him, planting her warm palms against the firm wall of his chest and looking down at him.

  She looked gorgeous seated on top of him, her wavy blonde hair spilling over her shoulders and nude breasts. Her hard nipples poked out through the blonde locks as she began to move, grinding against his hard dimensions that had gotten sandwiched against his lower abdomen.