“Promise to be quiet.” Standing back, he pulled the tie free, tossing it over the back of a chair. Ignored her quiet snarl and raised the dark arches of his eyebrows high as he waited.
“For what?”
“Promise me, Quinn, that you will be silent. This one is important.”
“I promise, just… come hold me.” Hating how pathetic she sounded, she still held out her arms in invitation. Made room for him after he shrugged out of his shirt and didn’t even complain when he tossed it aside in a rumpled mess.
Hum so low as to be near silent, she nestled against his side. Eyes drifting shut in pure bliss when his arm curled around her and she could feel warm and calm, even if just for a moment. Until the nagging itch returned and she began to let her hands wander.
The damned call better not take an hour. She wasn’t sure she could wait that long to mount him, to feel him sliding inside of her.
“Stop that.”
“I’m doing nothing.”
His cellphone rang, the blaring trill of it making Quinn wince and burrow under his arm to muffle it. She hated that phone, wanted to smash it to pieces, but bit her tongue as he answered.
Fingers smoothing over the taut lines of his stomach, listening to the rise and fall of his voice, she ignored his conversation. Quinn had become very good at that. Not hearing when he spoke of helpless women, destroyed families, men lying dead in gutters. Guns being handed out to tyrants, drugs to the hopeless. He never demanded she remain when he was working, even when she’d started a game to entice him to their bedroom. She only had the one chance to make up her mind and had to be quiet until he was finished speaking.
She’d made the mistake of speaking up once and only once. The rage in his green gaze had been nothing compared to the suffocating pull of the bond. Sending her to her knees, clawing at her throat for a breath that wouldn’t come. Sheer dumb luck it’d been Mr. Rey on the line, someone not so important or greedy to try something against him.
Moving in careful inches, she slung her leg over his thighs. Working in eager little twitches to rub against him. Hoping to hurry him along as the conversation dragged on. Just thinking about it would be enough to get her wet, but she made her thoughts divert. Refused to consider all the filthy things she wanted to do tonight before exhaustion claimed her. It’d distract him, and part of the game was not to use base instincts to guide him where she wanted him.
“Highwater? You’re absolutely certain?”
Quinn shoved away from Tobias as the words pierced the warm haze, rounded eyes jerking up to see the scowl that cast his eyes into shadow. Lips parting, she gaped as he ignored her rising panic.
“The bastard survived?”
Scrambling across the bed, Quinn slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the scream as a torrent of images that had nothing to do with the man beside her flooded her mind. Invaded her thoughts with cruel precision, jagged shards of icy terror lacerating her from the inside out. Her blood didn’t run cold, it was syrup thick with dread.
Warmth rushed through her chest, exploded through her middle as his hand caught her and pulled her back. Sprawled Quinn’s weight over his chest, legs clamping tight around her lower half to pin her there.
“If I see that ugly fuck, I’m killing him.” Tobias snorted at something the other person said, gripping the back of Quinn’s head tight to muffle her ragged breaths against his chest. “You tell him to keep to his side of the river and everything will be just fine. He’ll know there’s a problem when I come for him.”
Not waiting for a response, Tobias ended the call and tossed the phone away. A vile thing, the sleeping serpent to be purged. Shuffling Quinn up his body, he was already purring. Strong hands soothing, working at the knotted wreck of her back.
“Y-you said you killed him. You said he’s dead,” Quinn sobbed, too distraught for tears. Crushed against him as she was, she couldn’t even hit him. Could only lie there as he kept her restrained.
“Lee is dead, sweetness. He will never hurt you again. I saw the life go out of his eyes. My men told me the other one was dead, too. The reports from there didn’t mention him, just an Alpha taking over. I didn’t know it was the other one.” Tobias gripped her tighter, buried his nose against her shoulder and let loose a violent thunder of curses. Remembering he was supposed to be calming her, he dragged in a breath and began his purr again as he stroked her back. “I’ll kill him. I’ll do it with my own two hands and you’ll never have to think of him again.”
“You don’t understand, Tobias. He was the dangerous one.” Breath catching on a ragged cry, she tried to hide in his arms. Fear worked its way through her spine, shattering the delicate bone to ashy powder. “Ilya was always the dangerous one.”
“He’s not leaving Highwater, do you hear me,” Tobias snapped, rolling them to press her into the mattress. Settling his weight into her so he could cup her jaw in his hands and force Quinn to look at him. “He can’t leave. He doesn’t have the power to, he’d lose it all.”
“No, no, you don’t understand!”
“You think I can’t protect you?” Delivered on a snarl, baring his teeth as he got closer to her face. Infuriated breaths hot as they scattered over her cheeks, the bond sizzling with indignant rage.
“Ilya will find—”
“Don’t you dare utter his name again, little bird.” Sudden calm swallowed the inferno of his anger. The green of his gaze became crushing granite, frozen and still. Dangerous as an iceberg’s bulk lurking miles below in a frozen sea.
“Tobias, please, you don’t—”
“Enough,” he said, the single word sandpaper rough and grating over raw nerves. Fingers slipping into her hair, he fisted the length and tipped her face to meet him. Crushed her lips with a kiss that owned more than possessed, forcing her wide with tongue and teeth and disregarding her low whines of distress.
“You don’t get to think of them here, not in our nest.” Catching her wrists in one hand, the other shoved between them. Scraping over soft flesh as he tugged his belt free, the rasp of his zipper scoring her mound.
