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I handed the Horn over to a reverent Hux, with Kev looking on with a mix of envy and awe. “Woah.”
Hux and Kev sat down together and began to work seamlessly, as if someone had flipped a switch that removed all of their previous antagonism. I wasn’t going to complain. Two Horn eggheads were better than one.
It didn’t take long for both of them to start making disgruntled noises.
“Use words,” I said. The anticipation of what we were going to find on that device was making me pace irritably between the large kitchen island and the countertops on the opposite side of the room.
Hux glanced up from his laptop screen. “There’s definitely data here, but it’s encrypted. Give us a little while to get through it.”
“Define ‘a while.’”
Hux and Kev exchanged a glance. “Anywhere from an hour to a month?” Hux said, giving me a look I recognized. It was the one the team gave me when I was being a pushy bastard.
I bit out a curse. “Okay, so for now we stick with our original plan. Let Vince take the decoy from the farm after we’ve loaded some super-encrypted data on it.”
Kev frowned. “Data? What kind of data?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. Any kind. Doesn’t matter because I want it to be so encrypted that it takes them a decade to hack it. That’s the best we can do until we get the real stuff unencrypted.”
Kev looked at Hux. Hux looked at Kev. Then they broke out in identical smiles of unholy glee.
It was creepy as fuck, and I decided I was better off not knowing what could make Hux and his nemesis smile at one another like that.
Despite my advice for everyone to get some sleep, Hux and Kev stayed up working on the data encryption. I overheard them arguing about rainbow tables, Triple DES, bit keys, and weak encryption cyphers. I could only hope they’d get to the data before killing each other.
Quinn and I made our way upstairs to the guest room Carter had directed us to.
“Take a shower with me?” Quinn asked.
Nothing in the world sounded better.
I took my time running soapy hands all over his naked body. We didn’t speak for a long time until I finally remembered something that had been nagging at the back of my mind. “I’m sorry about the wedding.”
Quinn’s mouth was busy kissing and licking my wet shoulder. He lifted his head up and smiled a lazy smile. “Oh, all of this is for sure gonna come up in your annual performance review, silent partner.”
Despite the intense, draining day, I found myself smiling. “Just make sure you remember my flashes of brilliance too. Wedding piñatas full of glitter, for example. That was my idea.”
“Noted,” Quinn laughed, and then he sobered. “Seriously, though, it’s okay. When one door closes, another one opens. I already found a replacement couple to get married tomorrow, and they’ll take over much of the expense from the Drakes.”
I blinked at him. “Wait, what? Some random couple is going to use Marissa and Trey’s wedding day? How’s that going to work? Is it even safe—?”
Quinn sank to his knees and peered up at me through wet, spiky eyelashes. “Why don’t you let me handle that part of things? It was Riggs’s idea. I guess he wanted to make sure Vince didn’t catch wind of the wedding cancelation.”
Before I could argue with him, he ran his tongue along my shaft and engulfed my dick in his hot mouth.
And I ceased thinking about anyone or anything other than Quinn Taffet.
23
QUINN
If I could have stayed all day in Champ’s arms, I would have. But the sun had risen, and I had a wedding to put on.
I closed my eyes and inhaled the sleepy scent of him one last time before trying to extricate myself from his possessive hold.
His arms tightened around me. “No,” he grumbled.
“I have to go. I told the florist I’d come by first thing to make sure everything is packed right before they’re loaded up in her van. Then I have to supervise the delivery of the cake and arrange for—”
He cut me off with a kiss. The scrape of his beard abraded my chin and cheeks while he tried making a very compelling argument to stay in bed.
If you’d told me a few weeks ago that getting Percy Champion out of my bed in the morning was going to be a problem, I would have laughed at you heartily, and so would my constant companion—
“Hercules!” I said, sitting up in bed. “Holy shit! Where is he? Champ—”
Champ snorted. “I asked Riggs to have Mrs. Clayborn take care of him last night, and I texted to check on him after you fell asleep.” He grabbed his phone and tapped keys until he found a picture of Hercules sprawled on an enormous velvet blanket, munching a bone, like the pampered prince he deserved to be.
