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“Peaches.” He waited until she looked at him to continue. “You have me at this shindig to ground you, correct?”
“More like to put your mass to use as a walking wall between me and the rest of the world.”
The edges of his mouth quirked up, but his blue eyes stayed serious. “Consider dinner a trial run. I’ll protect you from any mutants that might show up—of both the cannibal and reptile variety.”
“Zombies.”
He frowned. “What?”
“In big cities, it’s zombies.” When he just stared, she felt compelled to explain, no matter how stupid he would no doubt find it. “If the zombie outbreak were to happen in Devil’s Falls, I have a pretty decent chance of surviving, despite having next to no applicable skills outside of the internet. Y’all like your guns as much as you dislike outsiders, and so the chances of the town battening down the hatches until it all blows over, without so much as one casualty, is highly probable. Here in San Diego? We wouldn’t stand a chance.”
For a second, she was sure he’d rip her argument to shreds, but he finally just shook his head. “As crazy as that is, it kind of makes sense.”
“It’s not crazy. And having a zombie plan is just good business. The CDC even went so far as to put out ads about how to survive a zombie apocalypse a few years ago.” She made a face. “Though they technically did it so people would actually pay attention to their advice, it still holds.”
“In that case, I won’t let any of the walking dead near you if you’ll share a meal with me in an actual restaurant.” He looked so damn serious, not like he was making fun of her at all.
She bit her lip. “But there are so many…people…in restaurants.”
Quinn leaned in close enough for her to catch a whiff of his cologne. Her toes curled and her body went tight in anticipation. But he just whispered. “If you make it through dinner without bolting, we can come back here and I’ll fuck you on every single surface this hotel room has to offer.”
Her breath stalled in her lungs. “I thought you were already going to do that.”
“Nah, I was already going to fuck you until you couldn’t walk right. This is something else altogether.”
She wasn’t sure she followed the logic, but Quinn had already more than proven he was capable of driving her out of her mind with pleasure. She’d be an idiot not to take him up on what he was offering. Besides, he had a point. They needed some kind of trial run before the demo tomorrow. This would do as well as anything.
He’d be her anchor. She tried and failed to ignore the fluttering in her chest at the thought.Chapter NineQuinn held the door open for Aubry, taking a deep breath of the frigid air conditioning that El Diablo had to offer. The restaurant wasn’t particularly fancy, though it came highly recommended by the bellman at the hotel. From the smells filling the dining area, he had the right of it. Quinn kept his hand on Aubry’s back, as much to gauge her tension level as for the sheer enjoyment of touching her. And, yeah, she was about ready to flee for the hills from the way her eyes were darting around the room.
He caught the hostess’s eye. “Two, please.”
“This way.”
They followed her through the tables filled with people, Aubry’s shoulders hunching more with each step. Luckily their table was against a wall, nearly in the corner. He positioned her with her back to the wall, putting himself between her and the rest of the room. She didn’t notice, because she was too busy staring at her plate. In the last thirty seconds, her pale coloring had taken on a sickly hue and he could hear her breathing coming faster from across the table. “Peaches, look at me.”
She reluctantly lifted her gaze. “Why couldn’t we have ordered in?”
“Look at me,” he repeated. “Focus on me.” He gave her a cocky grin. “I’m the only one in this room who matters anyways.”
Like he’d suspected, that snapped her out of it, at least partially. “Narcissistic much?”
“Nah, I just call it like I see it.” And if she was focusing on him, she wasn’t worrying about all the other bodies in the room. He had to keep her talking, though, because the second she paused, that scarily impressive brain of hers would kick into high gear and then they’d have to start from scratch. “You know, Jules never told me what you do for a living.”
“You’ve been probing Jules for information about me?” Her tone gave nothing away, but some of the panic in her eyes retreated. “That’s stalkerish in the extreme.”
“I prefer the term self-preservation. I needed all the ammunition I could use to defend myself against your witty barbs.”
