Black Sheep Bounty Hunter: A Texas Bounty Novel

by Jackie Ashenden

  But for all her delicacy Lily Hammond wasn’t a victim, as she’d told him on a number of occasions. If there was one thing he’d learned about her, she was a lioness who protected her pride. Fiercely.

  He reached out and stroked the side of her face with the backs of his fingers. Her lashes trembled and she gave a little shiver at his touch, and then after a moment, her eyes opened. They were a deep, vivid blue in the dim light of the room, and they focused on him without hesitation.

  She smiled and it felt like she’d reached inside his chest, closed her fingers around his heart and squeezed.

  “Good morning, Mr Redmond.” Her voice was husky with sleep and warm with the memories of the night before. “You’d better have an excellent reason for waking me up so early.”

  Quinn ignored both the tightness in his chest and his groin. “There’s coffee on the nightstand.”

  “That’s something at least.” She turned over onto her back and stretched, her arms above her head, her spine arching and for a second Quinn’s brain blanked at the glorious sensuality of the movement. Another reminder — as if he needed one — that Lily Hammond was not in any way the ice queen that Duchess was.

  “Lily,” he said, not wanting to broach the topic, but knowing it couldn’t wait.

  She turned over, pillowing her head on one hand, the warm, sexy smile still playing around her mouth. “You’re sounding awfully portentous again.”

  Quinn didn’t smile back. “We’re going to have to tell your team about Mason.”

  NINE

  It wasn’t the first thing that Lily wanted to hear on waking to find Quinn sitting on the edge of the bed.

  It wasn’t what she wanted to hear at all.

  She sat up, bringing the sheet with her, the warm, sexy feelings that had been coursing through her on seeing him abruptly vanishing. She wanted to snap at him, tell him that couldn’t he wait until she’d had her coffee and maybe more sex at least? But then she’d already given him a little too much of herself the night before and she didn’t want to hand over anything more.

  “I don’t think we do,” she said coolly, leaning back against the headboard, the sheet draped protectively around her. “Why should they need to know?”

  He put his arm on the pillow next to her and since he wasn’t wearing a shirt, there was nothing but his warm skin in front of her and the black ink of his tattoos, the heavy, hard muscle of his chest. And even after last night, after she’d thought she’d completely sated her desire for him, need sunk its claws in deep.

  The zipper of his jeans was only halfway done up, the glory trail of black hair that led down his chiseled stomach and beneath it making her mouth water. And she could see he was hard. Perhaps she could distract him—

  “I’m up here,” Quinn said. “And no, you can’t distract me.”

  Lily’s fingers tightened on the soft cotton of the sheets, unfamiliar anxiety coiling inside her. God, why had she told him about Mason? Yes, in retrospect she’d been stupid to hide it from him, but one person was enough. There was no need to involve the others. “They don’t need to know, Quinn.”

  “Why not?” he asked bluntly.

  “Because the more people that know—”

  “No,” Quinn cut her off. “Don’t give me the same bullshit you gave me last night.” His hard features were implacable, the dark slashes of his brows drawn down. His beautiful mouth was hard too, as was his jaw, the sharp edge of it highlighted with morning beard. That beard had felt soft against her sensitive inner thighs the night before, when he’d put his head between them. “You’re constantly fighting me, woman, and I’m sick of it. You’re not leaving this bed until you give me what I want.”

  Lily resisted the urge to punch him. She had a feeling it would only hurt her hand, anyway. “Can I at least get dressed first before we have this discussion?”

  “No,” he repeated flatly. “I’m having this discussion with Lily, not Duchess.”

  “I am Duchess.”

  “You’re naked in my bed and that makes you Lily. Duchess is your armor, baby. And you don’t need armor with me.”

  You don’t.

  Her heart ached unexpectedly, a deep weariness she hadn’t been aware of before pulling at her. And perhaps the bastard saw it, because he lifted his hand suddenly and cupped her cheek. And when he spoke his voice was unexpectedly gentle. “You’re a strong woman, Lily Hammond. You don’t have to prove that to me.”

  “I’m not trying to prove anything,” she muttered, though there was no heat in the words. The gentle way he cupped her cheek seemed to have stolen the fight right out of her.

  Quinn stared at her, the look on his face unreadable. Then he moved, sliding into the bed next to her and pulling her down with him, settling the both of them so she was lying on her back and he was on top of her, his heavy weight pinning her to the mattress. He braced his hands on the pillow on either side of her head. Heat surrounded her and the familiar woodsy scent of him, the feel of his muscled body on hers was almost…reassuring. As if she could curl beneath him and be safe, knowing he would protect her.

  Normally, she would have shoved that feeling away hard, because she didn’t need protection. Yet now, for some reason, she couldn’t grasp hold of the anger she needed in order to do that. It kept slipping out of reach.

  “Let me tell you something,” Quinn said quietly. “I’ve killed before. Many times. And I remember each death. It takes a little piece of your soul every time and it doesn’t matter who or what the situation was, that’s how it should be. Taking a life isn’t easy. But that first time? It was a girl. A skip pick-up gone bad. I lost my temper, fired a shot I shouldn’t have, and she got in the way. It was my gun that killed her. My bullet.” His voice was flat, but she could hear the currents of a tightly leashed emotion running underneath it. “I’ve never forgotten that moment and I shouldn’t. And neither should you. And I’m telling you this because you need to know that I understand. I’ve been there and so has your team.” He paused, those intense green eyes of his searching her face. “I already told you I’m not going to judge you, baby. And neither will they.”

  Oh, yes. She understood. But it wasn’t judgment she was afraid of, not deep down. It was trusting people. People who should have been there for her, who should have kept her safe and didn’t. People like her dad.

  Except she didn’t want to think about him now. She wanted to hear more about Quinn.

  She knew all about the girl who’d accidentally gotten in front of his bullet. Charlie Jones, the sister of a bail skipper the Redmonds had been trying to pick up. There had been a fight, shots were fired, and the girl had died. Rush had gone to jail for manslaughter, though Duchess had found out from various sources that it hadn’t been Rush who’d done the deed. He’d been covering for his brother.

  She lifted a hand and brushed her fingers along Quinn’s jaw, his beard soft against her fingertips. “Why did Rush go to jail for that?”

  Instantly Quinn’s expression darkened. “We’re not talking about me.”

  “No. But I’m not into one-sided deals, Quinn. If you want something from me, you have to give me something first.”

  A muscle ticked in his cheek. Clearly he was not happy. Too bad, though. She was tired of him demanding things from her. It was time he got a taste of his own medicine.

  “Yeah, but I’m not the one being blackmailed.” He muttered something filthy. “Can you not stop fighting me for even one goddamn second?”

  Unfazed, Lily stared back. “Well, I would. If you stopped being such a high-handed, difficult bastard.”

  “You love me being a high-handed, difficult bastard.” He shifted, his hips settling more insistently against her, sending sharp electric shocks of pleasure rippling through her. “In fact, you might love it as much as you love being under me.”

  He wasn’t wrong. But if he was aiming to distract her with sex, he was wrong about that, too.

  Lily curled her fingers and pulled sharply on his whi
skers. “Tell me, Quinn,” she said, consciously mimicking his tone from the night before.

  He scowled. “Fine. Rush went to jail because Dad was going to take the fall for Charlie’s death. Rush knew Dad wouldn’t survive it, so he went instead. I think he was trying to impress the old man, but whatever, it was his decision. And I didn’t have time to stop him.”

  He said it all quite matter-of-factly. But again, under that flat tone she could hear other undercurrents. And no wonder. She knew how important his brothers were to him, though he might not show it. Rush taking the fall for something Quinn had done must have damn near killed him.

  “I’m sorry,” Lily said, because she was. “That’s very Rush.”

  Something flickered through Quinn’s gaze and then it was gone. “Yeah. And there’s no need for you to be sorry. He went through some hell, but he’s fine now.”

  “I’m not sorry for him.” She stroked Quinn’s beard again. “Well, maybe a little. I’m more sorry for you. That must have been hard.”

  A muscle flicked again in his jaw. “I wanted to kill the little shit, not going to lie.”

  “So, what happened after—

  “Uh huh.” Quinn’s hips shifted against hers, the rough denim of his jeans and the hard metal of his zipper scraping deliciously over her bare skin. “You wanted something from me and I gave it to you. Now it’s your turn to talk, baby.”

  Wonderful. So much for distraction.

  Why are you turning this into such a big deal?

  Good question. And hell, if she was going to trust anyone, she might as well trust Quinn. After all, he already knew about Mason.

  “All right,” she said reluctantly. “So, it’s not about the team. It’s more…” She stopped, meeting his fierce gaze. “Rose and I were on our own for a long time and I just got…wary. No one else was there to protect us. No one else was there to look after us. Just me. And I…had to be careful, because she was too important to risk.” Emotion clogged her throat, but she swallowed it down. “I made a mistake trusting our father to look after us. I made a mistake with Mason. And I didn’t tell the team about him because I don’t ever want to make that mistake again.”

  The intensity in Quinn’s eyes burned like a flame. He shifted all of a sudden, so he was lying on her, her face cradled between his palms. “I understand. The buck stops with you, so you can’t ever let your guard down. But, I have to know. What did your father do, baby? What did he do to you?”

  His hands were warm against her cheeks and the feel of him surrounding her was so unexpectedly reassuring. She didn’t want to give him pieces of herself, yet she wasn’t fighting him. She was giving up those pieces to him as if he had a right to them.

  “It was more what he didn’t do than anything else,” she said, more hoarsely than she’d meant to. “He was the king of looking after number one and didn’t much care about Rose and I. He didn’t want us to get in the way of his lifestyle, either, so his answer to that was to involve us in all the cons he ran. When I was a kid, I used to find it exciting but then….” She sighed. “I used to do a whole little girl lost thing, attracting concerned adults. And then Dad would turn up and complain about how he was so busy and tired and poor, no money to look after his motherless child. So people would give him some for clothes and food. School trips. Ballet tuition. Sports. Summer camp. Medical expenses. It was a good racket for him, not that he used any of that money on Rose and I. Then one day I was picked up by a couple who took me home before Dad managed to appear to do his schtick.” She still remembered that, the kindness of the couple. The concern in their eyes. “They were so nice. So kind. They looked after me until Dad arrived and it wasn’t until then that I realized I didn’t want leave. I wanted to stay with them, because up until then, I hadn’t known what it was like to have people care about me.” She gave a hollow laugh, trying to ignore the tightness in her throat. “Dad used to say that he took care of us by running cons, but that wasn’t the real reason he did it. He ran the cons because he liked it. Because it was exciting. Because he didn’t want to get a real job. And he didn’t care that he’d involved his daughters. Whether or not he was enjoying himself was the most important thing.” Anger sat inside her, a hot, burning feeling. An anger she’d thought she’d left behind years ago. “I didn’t want to go home, I wanted to stay with the nice people, but he dragged me back, giving them some shitty excuse about what a bad kid I was. I yelled at him in the car, but he just told me that if I wanted out, then I could go, he wouldn’t stop me. But of course, I was only sixteen and I had nowhere else to go. And I couldn’t leave Rose. So I stayed. But the next day, I was so goddamn mad. I was just…furious. And so I took Rose and dragged her down the street to a payphone and I called the cops on him.”

  Quinn was silent, but his concentration on her was complete, his green eyes burning with a fierce light.

  “They took him away,” Lily continued and this time she didn’t hide the bitterness in her voice. “But it wasn’t until he’d gone that I realized what I’d done. Rose and I were on our own, with no one to take care of us. And it was all my fault.” She couldn’t seem to shut herself up. “I called the cops on my father, because I was too angry to think of the consequences. All I was thinking about was myself, about how he didn’t take care of me. About how he didn’t love me.” She gritted her teeth against the acid bitterness that laced the words, forcing herself to say the last part. “I was selfish. Just like him.”

  There was a silence and she realized she was trembling a little.

  Quinn just stared down at her, his scorching gaze roving all over her face as if he’d never seen anything like her in his entire life. “That’s not selfish, baby. Nothing wrong with wanting to be cared about. Nothing wrong with wanting to be loved, either. And wanting those things doesn’t make you like him.”

  The anger inside her burned so hot it felt like she was burning up. “Of course it does. If I’d been thinking about Rose instead of myself, I wouldn’t have called the cops. And I sure as hell wouldn’t have pulled that trigger and shot Mason.”

  “No.” Quinn’s voice was absolute, his touch gentle. “If you hadn’t reported your father, Rose might have been drawn into that life, too. And hell, he even gave you a choice. You could have left, but you didn’t. Because of Rose. Same thing with that Mason asshole. If you hadn’t pulled that trigger, you might have ended up dead in that parking lot. And what would have happened to Rose then?”

  “But I—”

  “You’re not selfish, Lily,” Quinn said quietly. “And you’re nothing like him. You put everything you wanted to do on hold to take care of Rose, and that’s more than your father ever did from the sounds of it.”

  Somehow all the fight had gone out of her, all the tension, too. There was only Quinn and his heat, and those deep green eyes looking down at her, full of an understanding she hadn’t looked for or asked for, yet was there all the same. “I just wanted her to be safe,” she said hoarsely. “And to have a happy life.”

  “And she is safe.” Quinn’s thumbs moved gently over her skin, stroking her. “And I would say that she seems pretty goddamned happy with her life right now.”

  Lily swallowed, remembering her sister’s blinding joy after her quickie wedding to West. How Rose had glowed with it. “Yes,” she admitted. “Yes, I suppose she is. She’s not happy with me right now, though.”

  “No, but she’ll live. You had your reasons for not sharing this with her, and they’re not selfish ones, Lily.” The green light in his eyes burned bright and she was mesmerized by it and by the passion in his voice. Apparently there was fire blazing inside Quinn Redmond that he kept hidden and hidden very well. But she could see it right now. He was just as much a passionate man as she was a passionate woman. “All you want is to protect the people you care about and shit, I know exactly what that’s like.”

  Of course he would. He had brothers after all.

  She stared up into his handsome face. “Why do you care so much abou
t this? I’m just your rival. I’m not—”

  “Because you matter to me, woman. Why do you think you’re naked in my bed?” His gaze searched hers. “I haven’t had a lover here since I was seventeen. You’re the first in fifteen years.”

  She blinked. His palms were warm, his hold gentle. But there was nothing gentle about the ferocity in his gaze. And she didn’t know how she felt about that. Or about being the first woman he’d had here. She hadn’t expected that in the slightest and the thought that she mattered to him…

  You know how you feel about that.

  Yes, she did. She liked it. Liked it too much if she was honest with herself. She knew she mattered to people — her sister and her team at Duchess Bail Bonds. She had people who cared about her. But they only saw parts of her. Rose saw her sister, while the others saw their boss.

  Quinn saw her.

  Dangerous. So very, very dangerous. Because even though he wasn’t a threat to her physically, he could become a threat to her emotionally. He could become someone to lean on, depend on, trust.

  Someone to fall for.

  No. Never that. Her life was complicated enough without getting involved with someone. Especially someone like Quinn. He had his own baggage and apart from anything else, he liked to be in control too much.

  He would hold you so gently, though...

  “Don’t make this into anything more than it is, Quinn,” she said quickly, before her brain could take that thought and run with it.

  Something passed through his eyes, gone too fast for her to see. “Don’t worry. I’m not making this into anything more than me helping you. And maybe fucking you once or twice on the side.”

  She smiled and hoped it was natural. “I can handle that.”

  “You’d better be able to handle this as well.” His hips shifted, the ridge of his cock pressing insistently between her thighs, leaving her in no doubt as to what ‘this’ was. Then he jerked away the sheet protecting her, leaving her with nothing between his body and hers, but the rough denim of his jeans and the hot velvet of his skin.