Chapter 17

Quinn

 

I could practically feel his anger as I marched across the parking lot to my little Honda. If I had thought he would just leave me alone, I had been wrong. There was a first for everything, I guessed. Why Raider was even bothering, I had no idea, unless he was only looking out for me because of Colt.

Freaking Colt. Dammit. My phone was already blowing up with one call after another, followed by ten texts a minute. All of them were of him pissed off. But him being pissed, along with the practically seething biker hot on my heels, was not something I was up to dealing with. Not tonight, not ever if I could help it.

I couldn’t help it, however. Colt was my best friend. The one person in the world I knew I could depend on, the only person in the world who I could honestly say loved me unconditionally now that my mother was gone. I didn’t want to face him now that he so obviously knew.

Stupid MC brotherhood and their inability to keep their mouths shut for more than five damn minutes.

My best friend was going to hit the ceiling when I got home, especially since I hadn’t really changed clothes before walking out the back door of Paradise City. Arriving or leaving the club in anything other than normal street clothes was a big no-no and would normally have Bash or Spider laying down the law on the girls who worked for them. Right then, I wasn’t all that worried about either of those Godzilla-sized men. After I faced Colt, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to get to come back, anyway.

I opened the back door of my car and tossed in my gym bag before slamming it shut. I chanced a look over my shoulder and found Raider still following after me, making sure to keep a few feet between us. His face was so hard it could have been mistaken for stone. He didn’t dare try to speak to me.

Good. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with him again.

After throwing that last truth bomb at him about my sister Amanda, I had gotten the hell out of there. For one second—no, shorter than that, I tried to lie to myself—I had been about to melt against him. There had been a look on his sexy, scruffy face that had seemed to be begging me to give in and let him just hold me.

Good thing I was smarter than I had been four weeks ago. Otherwise, I might have done just that. Now I had seen the light, and I wasn’t going to let him pull me back into the shadows where my heart was just as blind as my head where that fucking biker was concerned.

Kelli jogged across the parking lot toward me, her own gym bag slung over her shoulder. Shooting Raider a nasty glare, she tossed the middle finger at him before continuing over to her own car parked beside mine.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Quinn? We can leave your car here and I’ll drive you home if you need me to.”

I shook my head as I opened the driver’s door of my Honda. “I’m okay,” I lied. I was far from being okay.

I wasn’t going to get to come back to the club. I wouldn’t get the chance to earn the last of the money I needed.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Raider get on his bike and start it, yet he didn’t move. Probably waiting to follow me home. Then he would go on his way, and I wouldn’t have to deal with him again.

That was fine with me. If I wasn’t going to get the last of the money I was determined to make, then I was going to pull up my stakes and make a break for it tomorrow.

I wasn’t running away like Flick had. She had been having an emotional meltdown after Jet had been thrown in prison and she had lost her precious baby. I was leaving because there just wasn’t anything left for me there.

And because I was sick and tired of being the ass-end of the joke when it came to how much I cared about Raider Fucking Hannigan. I wasn’t as blind as people thought I was. I knew they had always made fun of me for how I felt for a man who couldn’t have possibly cared about me. They still did it, especially my sisters.

It was time to find a new place to call home.

I climbed behind the wheel then smiled up at my roommate. “I’ll be okay, I promise.”

She didn’t look as if she believed me. “Colt is beyond pissed. I knew he would be mad, but not like this.”

I tried to make my smile brighter. “I can handle him. Honest.”

I was prepared for the yelling. Colt wouldn’t hurt me, even under fear of death, but that wouldn’t stop him from screaming and shouting my house down. It wouldn’t be the first time he threw a shitfit over something to do with me. Granted, the texts he was sending were a little more off the walls than I was used to from him, but I was still confident I could handle him.

As I pulled the door closed, Colt tried to call me again. I started the car and, after sucking in a calming breath, I hit connect on the Bluetooth.

“Hello?”

“It’s about damn time you picked up,” he snarled. “Matt and Tanner have both been texting me nonstop for the last twenty minutes. Tell me it’s not true, Quinnie. I have a dozen pictures here of some girl who looks like you, half-naked—”

I reversed and lifted my hand in a half-wave at Kelli before putting the car in gear and driving away.

“Quinn!”

“It was me.” There was no point in lying if someone had sent him pictures. Not that I would have lied to him, anyway. I didn’t do that with him. Omit the truth, sure. Flat out lie, never.

“Why?” he demanded, sounding both angry and oddly hurt. “Why would you even think about doing that?”

“I need the money,” I muttered.

The anger I could have dealt with no problem. The hurt I heard in his voice, that gutted me.

“If you needed money, all you had to do was say so. I have a damn fortune just sitting in my savings account, doing nothing but getting dusty.”

“It’s not your job to take care of me,” I snapped.

When I heard his sharp exhale, I bit my bottom lip.

“You are the only person who I want to take care of, Quinnie.” There was that old childhood nickname he had given me. That cutesy name that had been so endearing was now like a slap to the face, because I knew he only used it these days when he wasn’t thinking clearly. “My sister has Bash to take care of her. My brothers have their old ladies. And I have you.”

“You have Kelli,” I reminded him.

In my rearview mirror, a single headlight appeared. My fingers tightened around the steering wheel. Raider.

I couldn’t help remembering the way his hands had felt on my ass. How his heart had beat so hard against my breasts as he had held me against his chest, hiding me from all the leering eyes of the crowd.

“For how long, though?”

That caught me off guard, and I pulled my mind away from the man on the bike behind me. “What do you mean?”

“Come on; you must know she doesn’t belong here. Fuck, I don’t know where she belongs, but it’s not in Creswell Springs.” His tone was almost defeated, and I realized that, while I had been dealing with my own crap, he had been worrying about his own.

“Kelli belongs where she wants to belong. She’s a strong, independent woman who knows what she wants and definitely what she doesn’t,” I defended my roommate.

“Yeah, I guess …” He trailed off for a minute. I hoped he was going to drop the whole Paradise City thing.

Hope wasn’t a tangible entity, however, and mine was short-lived right then.

“There is no way in hell you will ever step foot back in that place, Quinn. None. Do you fucking hear me? I will blow it to hell and back if you even try.” His almost defeated tone was long gone, as if it had never been there. In its place was an anger just as explosive as he was promising to be should I dare to return to Paradise City.

By now, I was over halfway home. “You can’t stop me, Colt. I’m a grown woman. I can make up my own mind. And if I want to work at the club, I can and will.”

His laugh was cold and held zero amusement. “You wanna bet? Try me.”

“Why is it okay for your girlfriend to work there, but not me?” I demanded. I had tried to remain calm, to keep a level head, which was something anyone who had to deal with this man rationally needed. Rationality was quickly taking another road home apparently, leaving me all alone in my car.

“Because you are too good to be degrading your body like that. You’re sweet and precious, and just thinking of you working in that seedy joint is making me crazy.” I was sure he meant it to sound like a compliment, but really, it only sounded like I was a wimp. “Not to mention, innocent. Quinnie, those guys are only thinking about one thing, and you aren’t the kind of girl to give it to them. You—”

“I’m not a goddamn virgin, Colt!” I screamed.

The line went deceptively quiet for a long moment before it finally hit me what I had just admitted. Shit. This man knew everything about me, including the fact that I was a virgin.

Or, I had been.

Until I had fucked his brother.

“Fuck,” he groaned. I could picture him scrubbing his hands over his face. “We will talk about this when you get home.”

Before I could reply, he hung up on me.

“Shit,” I whispered to the empty car.

Leaving was looking better and better with each passing second.

It only took a few more minutes to get home. I debated driving past my house and taking off to parts unknown. Both Canada and Mexico sounded like good places to get lost in. Instead, I pulled into my driveway and killed the engine. With a groan, I pressed my forehead against my hands on the steering wheel.

Moments later, I heard Raider pull in behind me and turn off his bike.

I didn’t immediately raise my head. This night was the suckiest of all nights, and I just wanted to disappear. My energy level was draining by the nanosecond, and I just wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep for a month or two.

Someone tapped on my window, and I forced myself to lift my head. I had expected to see Colt, but it was Raider who opened the driver’s door.

“What do you want?” I demanded, taking a second to glance at my front door to make sure Colt wasn’t there.

Thankfully, he hadn’t come outside, but I saw his shadow in the living room window as he looked out at me.

Raider followed my gaze then crouched down, putting us on a more even eye level. He reached out with one of his huge hands and took one of mine, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles tenderly. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe due to the sudden lump that filled my throat.

“I told you we needed to talk.”

The lump dissipated instantly, and I jerked my hand out of his hold. “And I told you to go fuck yourself.” I got out of my car, bumping into him with my hip before he could stand up and nearly knocking him on his ass. I smirked as I grabbed my things out of the back seat then headed for the front door, hitting the lock on my key fob.

If I thought that would send Raider on his way, I was sorely mistaken.

He followed after me, and I had to bite back a curse as the door opened and Colt stood there, waiting on me. My best friend’s eyes widened when he saw his brother behind me.

“Something wrong?” he asked, concern darkening his face.

“Just making sure she gets home safely,” he muttered, and I saw something pass between the two of them before Colt nodded.

“Thanks, brother. I got this, though.” He grasped my arm, not roughly, but firmly enough to tell me that he meant business. He pulled me into the house, and I went willingly, glad to get as far away from the other man as quickly as possible. “Quinn and I need to talk.”

“Oh, she and I need to do a little of that ourselves.” Raider leaned against the doorframe, his eyes going over his brother’s shoulder and locking on to me. “Don’t we, Quinn?”

Oh, God. The way he said my name was almost like a physical caress. I felt it all the way down to my core. Clenching my legs together, I turned my face away from him, refusing to answer him.

Colt’s hand tightened on my arm. “About the dancing?”

“Among other things.”

I closed my eyes when my friend’s fingers contracted on my skin. I wished Raider back to wherever he had been the last four weeks.

This night just kept getting worse and worse.

“What other things?” Colt gritted out.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business, little brother.” Which, of course, was the exact wrong thing to say to Colt. And, was that a smirk I heard in Raider’s voice. I didn’t dare open my eyes to look, but it sounded like he was smug as hell.

The bastard.

I pulled my arm free of Colt’s grip before he could tighten his hold any harder and bruise me.

“Are you boys playing nice?”

Relief washed through me at the sound of Kelli’s voice. Her presence might not have dissolved the sudden new tension between the youngest two Hannigan brothers, but it made them put a little distance between each other before Colt could start demanding answers to the questions I could almost feel swirling around in his head.

“You!” Colt stepped forward, and my eyes opened in time to see him get in her face. “You were supposed to watch out for her, not let her start taking her fucking clothes off for the masses.”

Kelli didn’t even blink at his harsh tone, or that he was so pissed he was practically spitting with each word that came out of his mouth. She calmly crossed her arms over her chest, one hip popping out as she stood there in her sweats. Her dark hair was pulled up into a knot on top of her head and her gym bag was slung casually over one shoulder. She looked like she had just come from a workout.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was supposed to sit on her and not allow her to leave the damn house.” She rolled her eyes and pushed past him. “Chill the fuck out, asshole. Quinn is a big girl. She can decide for herself what she wants to do. If you didn’t have daddy issues with her, you would let her actually grow the hell up.”

While I was glad she had shown up to help with the tension between the two brothers, I wasn’t a fan of what she had just said to him. Colt wasn’t just my best friend. He was best fucking friend for life.

Daddy issues?

Okay, so I would admit he treated me more like his daughter than a friend sometimes, but he didn’t have daddy issues. He was just looking out for me.

Grow up?

That stung more than a little, but even as my shoulders stiffened, I could see where she was coming from. I was twenty-five years old, yet I didn’t have a lot of life experiences. Not with the real world. Colt had tried to sheltered me from the ugliness of reality … and I had let him.

But now I was seeing the world with new eyes. In the weeks he had been gone, I realized I had grown up a lot.

“Quinn.” Raider was still watching me. “Sweetheart, come for a ride with me.”

A zing of excitement raced through me at that offer.

Not an offer, a command. Whatever, I liked it, which was why I stayed right where I was. If he had said something like that to me four weeks ago, I would have jumped on the back of his bike and said to hell with everything and everyone else.

How many times had I dreamed of him saying just that to me? How many times had I daydreamed of the wind blowing my hair while I pressed my face into his back and held on tightly to his waist?

Now …

Turning away from him and the others, I flipped him off and went straight to my room.

Now I just wanted him to go away. I had too much going on to take a timeout and play whatever game it was he wanted to play right then. That was all it was with him.

It was one I couldn’t afford to play with him again.