Probably because every man who’d ever been in her life had lied to her at one point or another, starting with her father when she was just a kid and he told her he was going out for a pack of smokes, then he never came back. Dex had insisted he wasn’t cheating on her, too, even though his new fuck buddy had been kind enough to send Marina photographic evidence of their affair. But that was all beside the point…
The sirens were getting louder. They were about out of time. “Look,” she began, “I’m just going to be blunt. I owe you one for saving me, so I’m willing to not tell the police you were here, but I’ll never forgive myself if something bad happens to someone else just because I owe you one, you know? So, I need to know what you were in prison for.”
He opened his mouth, but she shushed him. “I don’t need or want details. I know that good people sometimes end up in prison, accused of terrible crimes. I just want to know if you did anything to hurt innocent people? Yes or no would be fine.”
His answering smirk did things to her libido that she’d rather not think about. It’d apparently been way too long since she’d had sex. (Dex and his tiny, barely there penis didn’t count.) “Well, who’s to say what really constitutes innocent these days?” he asked.
Marina raised a brow at him. He dared to sass her? Now? Well, we’ll just see about that… “So, is that Quinn spelled with one n or two? You know, for my police report? I hear accuracy is important in those things.”
This time when he grinned at her, the effect was nothing short of devastating. This guy should smile all the time. Anything that made him not smile should be punishable by, well, not death, but something really, really bad.
“Can you be more specific?” he prompted, taking a step closer to her, forcing her to crane her neck back to keep looking him in the eye. And for some reason, he suddenly didn’t look at all concerned that the sirens in the distance didn’t sound so…distance-y anymore.
She swallowed hard, willing herself not to take a step back in response to his nearness. She’d already been a victim once tonight. She’d be damned if she’d let him use his size to fluster her. “Did you cheat old people, beat women, abuse kids, or hurt animals?”
His expression softened. “No, love, I did not, nor would I, cheat oldsters or hurt children or women or animals. When I leave here, I’m going to go straight home to my bed. Alone.”
And I’m going to jack off while picturing you naked, his smile said. Take me, take me now, her body replied immediately.
She took a shaky breath, struggling to rein in her hormones, which apparently turned slutty in times of crisis. Who knew? “You give me your word?” she asked, extending her hand to him once again.
He leaned in even closer, towering over her, and took her hand in his. He didn’t shake it, though, just held on. His skin was so warm and rough, and felt so good against her own that she took a brief moment to wonder how it might feel to have those hands trail up her bare back, across her stomach, between her legs…
“You have it,” he said in his deep, sex-soaked baritone.
And still he didn’t let go of her hand.
The sirens cut out, letting Marina know the police had arrived and were in front of the studio. “They’re here,” she told him. “You have to go.”
His gaze dropped to her lips. “Yeah, about that,” he murmured. “I know you’ve been through a lot tonight, and I apologize in advance for what I’m about to do, but I’m sure I’ll never see you again, so I can’t not do it, you know? Feel free to kick me in the balls if you must. Sure as shit I deserve it for this.”
Before she could ask him what he was planning or why she’d want to kick him in the balls, he yanked her into his arms and kissed the ever-loving hell out of her.
Her initial surprised squeak morphed into an embarrassing moan/sigh combo that she really hoped he hadn’t heard. But if his answering groan was any indication, he’d heard, and he’d liked it.
His hands slid up into her hair and he tipped her head to the side to deepen the kiss. Marina’s heart pounded like a bass drum as Quinn took her mouth roughly, feral in a way that her body had never been taken, and it was drugging, addictive. She wanted more.
No, she needed more.
She wrapped her fists around handfuls of his T-shirt and yanked him even closer. His answering groan sent a wave of heat and lust crashing over her skin, making her shiver. If kissing him in a dark parking lot behind the television station felt like this, what would it feel like to have him naked, under her, in her bed?
This is insane, her brain screamed at her. You’re thinking about having sex with a complete stranger, a dhampyre, who you know nothing about (other than the fact that he has a prison record, can take out two vampires with minimal effort, and kisses like a freakin’ god). Put an end to this now!
But the problem, she decided, was the pleasure. There was just so, so much pleasure in the feel of the hard, sleek muscles under his shirt, the press of his erection (way bigger than average, if she wasn’t mistaken) against her, the slide of his hot tongue against hers…it was all overwhelming her better judgment, leaving her body in control.
And her body wanted more. Her body wanted all of him.
But like everything good Marina had ever had in her life, the pleasure was short lived. Because after what felt like hours but was only seconds of clashing teeth, dueling tongues, and kisses that tasted like whiskey and rough sex, Quinn pulled back and rested his forehead on hers as they both panted to catch their breath.
“It was lovely to meet you, Marina,” he whispered against her lips.
Then he was gone.
It wasn’t until later—much, much later, after the police had taken her statement and hauled her attackers off—that Marina realized Quinn had been right. She probably wasn’t ever going to see him again.
The thought was way more depressing than it should have been.
Chapter Four
So, a psychic, a halfer, an empath, two dhampyres, and a human walk into a job interview…
What sounded like the set-up to a really weird joke was now his life, Quinn realized.
After he’d met with the employment agency the previous day, he’d been sure he’d be waiting a good long time to hear anything about interviews. Who would want to hire a dhampyre with a prison record and no employment history other than stint as a slayer with the most hated organization in the world? But Lanie, his employment rep, assured him she’d take care of him.
“I once got a vampire with a history of theft a job at the blood bank,” she’d assured him with a kind of brash boldness and confidence you didn’t often find in someone who was five-foot-nothing and less than a hundred pounds.
Quinn had wanted to believe her, but he hadn’t. Nothing in his life had ever gone quite that smoothly. So, he’d used the time after their meeting to get blind, stinkin’ drunk and do some quality wallowing in self-pity. And a fine job of it he’d done, too, if his pounding, whiskey-induced headache was any indication.
But, as promised, the very next day, Lanie had called with directions to Harper Hall Investigations, where there was a job opening for a paranormal skip tracer. The job was about as simple as it got: run down bail-jumping shifters and vampires and bring them in, by force if necessary. Shit, it was a dream job for someone like him.
He should’ve known something was a little off when he’d asked Lanie to tell him more about Harper Hall.
The otherwise forthright Lanie had clammed up a bit, offering a tentative, “Well, Harper’s…unique. You have to meet her to understand. But she’s one of the best employer partners we have. She’s almost always willing to take in strays.”
Quinn tried hard not to take offense at being referred to as a stray. He supposed, in this instance, he should just be thankful he wasn’t being called unemployable and getting booted back to Midvale.
But he was only now beginning to realize how much Lanie had been keeping quiet about.
Harper ushered Quinn into a conferenc
e room, flanked by her entourage of paranormal folk (fellow strays?), and asked him to take a seat. She sat at the head of the reclaimed oak conference room table, so he took a seat on her right, leaving a chair in between them open.
She didn’t look like a business owner, he decided immediately. First of all, she was wearing a T-shirt that said, “I may be crazy, but at least I have each other.” And he’d never seen a business owner who conducted interviews in holey jeans and red Chucks, either.
But it wasn’t just her clothes that set her apart from what he’d consider to be normal employers. Harper had a way of looking at a man that made it seem like she could see right through him. Like she could peel away layers of skin and muscle and bone and peer directly into his soul.
She was a psychic. He’d seen enough of them at Sentry to be able to spot one on sight. Mostly because they creeped him out mightily. Made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
There was no hiding from a psychic. She’d probably seen every horrible thing he’d ever done in his life as soon as he walked through the door and she shook his hand.
Thanks for the heads-up, Lanie. Would’ve been good to know you were setting me up to interview with a psychic.
But in all honesty, Harper wasn’t the biggest concern he had in this interview.
An older woman whom Harper had introduced as Tina, her mother, took a seat next to her daughter on Quinn’s right. Now she looked like a business owner. In 1955, at least. Her platinum hair was teased so high it reminded Quinn of cotton candy at a carnival. And her business suit looked like something Rosalind Russell would have worn in His Girl Friday.
But Tina’s soft appearance did nothing to dampen the power that rolled off her in waves. She was an empath, and if Quinn hadn’t missed his guess—and he never, ever missed his guess—she was more powerful than any he’d ever encountered. He immediately threw up every emotional and mental shield he had. If he had any hope of making it through this interview and getting this job, he couldn’t let Tina figure out how screwed-up he was.
A halfer who said his name was Benny took a seat on Harper’s left, and a dhampyre named Nikolai sat across from Quinn. The tiny little human Harper had introduced as her cousin and temp receptionist, Selena, sauntered in and laid a hand on Quinn’s bicep. She leaned down and said in the voice of a two-pack-a-day smoker, “Are you sure I can’t get you anything, hon? Anything at all?”
The fact that her offer of anything wasn’t restricted to refreshments was as clear as the ass-grab she’d subjected him to in the lobby when he’d first met her. Quinn smiled up at her, trying to ignore the curved, blood-red nails clutching his arm like talons. The thought of those talons getting anywhere near sensitive parts of his anatomy was downright terrifying. “No, thank you,” he said, somehow managing to suppress a shudder.
Selena wandered back toward the door, leaned down, and stage-whispered in Harper’s ear, apparently forgetting—or not caring—that everyone in the room had supernatural hearing, “I bet every time he gets naked, an angel gets her wings. You know what I’m saying?”
Harper narrowed her eyes at her cousin. “Go back to the front desk, Selena. I’ve already talked to you about this. Sexual harassment isn’t ever okay.” Then in a lower tone, out of one side of her mouth, she added, “But yes, you’re probably right.”
Selena gave her cousin a subtle fist-bump before flouncing out of the conference room and easing the door shut behind her.
When she was gone, Nikolai crossed his arms over his chest and said, “If you’ve already warned her not to sexually harass your employees, we need to talk.”
Harper groaned and tucked a curl behind her ear. “Yeah, I know. She’s a menace. Why do you think Riddick won’t come into the office anymore? He said he’d be back when Leon comes back from his cruise next week to replace her. Lucas won’t go anywhere near here, either. When I asked him why he just said he didn’t want to talk about it. I think whatever Selena did to him gave him PTSD or something.”
Benny’s scowl looked dangerously close to a pout. “How come she ain’t never harassed me?”
“Do you want her to harass you?” Nikolai asked, incredulous.
“No,” Benny mumbled, “but it’s always nice to be included.”
Nikolai glanced down at his phone, then back up at Harper and said, “Can we get this over with? I need to pick up Violet for her doctor’s appointment in ten.”
“Sure, no problem.”
That’s when she turned her full focus on Quinn and he fought the urge to recoil. Fuck, he hated psychics.
He waited for her to ask him the standard where-do-you-see-yourself-in-five-years and what-would-you-say-your-biggest-strengths-are questions, but Harper just studied him silently for what felt like a fucking eternity before grinning and saying, “He’s absolutely perfect. I’m going to hire him.”
Quinn was trying to do the mental math on what the hell had just happened when Nikolai raised his hands in the universal what-the-fuck gesture. “If you were just going to take one look at him and hire him, then why am I here?”
Harper shot him an indignant look. “I wasn’t about to walk in here alone. Does Beyoncé show up to her concert and go on stage alone? No. She brings a crap-ton of backup dancers with her.”
Benny’s nose wrinkled up. “I don’t wanna be a backup dancer.”
“I didn’t say you were a backup dancer. You’re more like the…Kelly Rowland to my Beyoncé.”
“Oh.” Benny leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Well, in that case, cool.”
Tina smoothed an imaginary wrinkle out of her skirt. “I never know what the two of you are talking about,” she admitted. “But I’m no one’s backup dancer.”
Harper started to roll her eyes, but stopped at mid-roll when her mother shot her a sharp glare. She cleared her throat. “Sorry, Ma. Of course you’re not a backup dancer. I did want to get your thoughts on the job candidates I was interviewing today. So, what do you think?”
Quinn held his breath. If Tina didn’t like him, he was sunk and he’d have to go back to Lanie and tell her that not even the “unique” woman known for taking in strays wanted to hire him. That’d be fucking embarrassing.
Tina glanced over at him and frowned. “It’s hard to say. He’s a bit of an emotional train wreck. Emotions all over the place.”
She paused, waving her hands around like she was trying to clear the air of a stale fart. Quinn tried not to be offended that in that particular analogy, his emotions were the stale fart.
“But overall,” Tina eventually said, “I think he’s a decent boy.”
Quinn did his best to tamp down his shock. Maybe Tina wasn’t as powerful as he’d initially thought. If she thought he was decent, he’d hate to see anyone she considered to be a bad man.
Nikolai grabbed his phone off the table and was out the door without so much as a nice-to-meet-you. Quinn didn’t blame him. He wouldn’t want to be one of Beyoncé’s backup dancers, either.
Except…wait…now that he’d gotten the job, he kind of was one of Beyoncé’s backup dancers, wasn’t he?
Harper clapped her hands together, startling Quinn out of his pointless musings. “Well, then, it’s settled. Quinn, welcome to the team. You’ll start tomorrow.”
Tina left shortly thereafter, and after a few more minutes of salary and benefits talk, the interview was over and he was officially employed.
Jesus, Lanie was right. He guessed she really could get anyone a job.
Quinn stood up and leaned over to shake Harper’s hand. “Thank you for the opportunity,” he mumbled. “I won’t let you down.”
Her smirk made him decidedly uncomfortable. “Oh, I know you won’t. You’re perfect for the gig I have in mind.”
Okay, now she’d lost him again. “Skip tracing, right?”
“Oh, eventually. I have one teensy, tiny, almost insignificant job for you to do first.”
“Runforyourlife,” Benny said behind a cough. “Getoutwhileyouc
an.” Another cough.
Harper opened her mouth to say something to Benny, but was interrupted by her phone, which, if Quinn wasn’t mistaken, used Baby Got Back as a ringtone.
“Yeah, Seven, how was Haven’s dance class? Did she do okay?” Harper said when she answered the call.
The woman on the other line—Seven, Quinn supposed—spoke for a minute, and as he watched, every drop of color drained out of Harper’s face.
“What do you mean someone tried to grab her?” she choked out. “Did you call Riddick? Did you call the police? Did you call Hunter? Did you call the FBI?”
Seven spoke for another moment, and one of Harper’s hands flew to her throat. “Okay. I’m on my way. I’ll be there in five. Tell her I’m on my way!”
Quinn took one look at Harper’s shaky hands and knew he wasn’t about to let her drive anywhere. “I’m driving. Let’s go.”
She blinked up at him like she didn’t quite remember who he was for a second or two before she nodded. “Thank you. Benny, can you—”
“Call everyone we know? Fuck, yeah.”
And with that, he shot out the door at a speed that even impressed Quinn.
Chapter Five
Quinn wasn’t really sure what he’d expected to see when he pulled up in front of Tiny Dancers Ballet Academy, but he somehow knew this wasn’t it.
First of all, there were three unconscious vampires on the ground by the curb. They’d been stacked in a pile like a cord of firewood. And on the top of the pile, legs crossed daintily, sat a woman who was arguably the second most beautiful woman Quinn had ever seen in his life (Marina being the first, of course).
The woman’s long black hair gleamed under the light from the overhead streetlamp, and her head was bent down as she examined her fingernails. She looked completely nonchalant, as if sitting atop a pile of fallen vampires was something she did every day.
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