Quinn

Hey, beautiful,” my cousin Makena says, her face lighting up on the screen when she answers my FaceTime call.

Her husband Shane, Wild Irish’s bass guitarist, is in the background sitting on the couch beside her, one arm wrapped around her shoulder and sporting a matching grin. The man is all charm and playful cockiness, and currently gracing the cover of Starz magazine wearing only his Fender guitar. But despite the way women fawn all over him, he only has eyes for Makena.

God, they’re so damn cute together, and it stirs a small tinge of jealousy in my gut. Because I want what they have.

Shane waves and asks in a deep, Irish brogue, “Hey Quinnie, staying out of trouble?”

“Trying not to,” I say, giving him my typical answer. Even though for the first time in years, I’m actually neck deep in it. Who am I kidding, I’m drowning in it.

Shane chuckles, but I see Makena frown.

“What’s wrong?” she asks when Shane goes back to whatever he was doing.

“I really wish you weren’t an ocean away right now.”

“Uh oh.” She frowns at me from the screen. “Guy troubles?”

“Zee St. James trouble.”

Her brows pull down further. “He’s back?”

“Yeah.” I chew on my bottom lip and glance away.

“Quinn?” There’s a note of warning, as well as worry in her voice. “Tell me everything.”

I pause, not sure where I should start.

“Quinn,” she says again, eyes widening as if reading my mind. “Please tell me you didn’t—”

“I slept with him.”

I hear Shane cough in the background.

But Makena just keeps frowning at me.

“Who’s Zee?” Shane asks, coming back into the frame and wiggling his brows.

Only the love of my life, but then Makena already knows that.

“ZZ James,” she mutters, lips curling slightly when she says his name.

Even Shane frowns then. “I know that name.”

“AutoCorrects’ guitarist,” I offer, knowing Makena will tell him anyways.

“Shit.” Shane rubs the back of his neck. “Those guys have a bad reputation.”

“So did you,” I remind him.

He chuckles and puts his arm back around Makena, then kisses her cheek, and says, “Reformed bad boy.”

Makena rolls her eyes, but a small grin tugs at her lips, and she says to her husband, “And you were never that bad. Zee St. James defines bad on a whole other level.”

Shane Hayes was the typical rock star playboy before Makena tamed him, but she’s right, Shane was a saint compared to Zee.

“If you want my opinion, you know what I’ll say,” Makena gives me a hard look.

“I don’t need anyone else telling me to to be careful. I just wanted to talk.”

She sighs. “Why don’t you come stay with us for a bit. I’ll pay for the flight, and—”

“I can’t. Not now. Not until...” He leaves.

The front door opens, and I hear Zee’s footsteps and a second later he’s in my room, just in time for him to hear Makena say, “Just be careful, Zee St. James is bad news.”

I wince, and mutter a quick excuse about having to go, then end the call.

Zee holds my gaze for a long moment, his expression unreadable, before saying, “She’s not wrong.”

“I know.” My stomach does that damn butterfly thing it always does when I see him.

His expression tightens momentarily, then he says, “I want to take you somewhere.”

“Why?”

He drags his fingers through his hair and breathes out roughly. “Do you want to go with me or not?”

“Depends on where we’re going.” I shift off the bed, and stand in front of him, arms crossed.

“You’re stubborn, you know that?” He leans down and places a palm on the side of my neck, his thumb stroking my jaw.

Despite wanting to stay mad at him, my heart rate speeds up at his touch.

And when his lips brush against mine, I’m lost.

Undone.

Unraveled.

His.

“Come with me,” he rasps against my lips.

I give a small nod, and he takes my hand, threading his fingers with mine, and leads me down to the parking lot. Taking a helmet from the storage container on his bike, he orders me to put it on.

When I sit on the back of the bike, my thighs straddling his hip, it’s so damn easy to melt into him. Too easy to feel a tightness in my soul as we pull out onto the gravel road and drive in the opposite direction of town.

We drive for a good twenty minutes, and I rest my cheek against his back, arms wrapped around his waist. I have no idea where we’re going, and honestly I don’t care. I’m just happy to be with him. To have this moment.

Pathetic Quinn.

Every self-preservation cell in my body warns me to guard my heart. To wrap it in bubble wrap and protect it from the fall I know is coming. But it’s too damn late for that.

Zee turns down a dirt road that looks like it hasn’t been used in years, then we cut along a path that runs horizontal to the lake. Eventually, he pulls the bike to the side of the road and turns off the ignition. A forest of pine trees is on one side of us, a small beach with whitecaps crashing against a sandy shore on the other. But there’s nothing else to pinpoint our location.

“Where are we?”

After he takes a blanket from the storage compartment on his bike, he takes my hand again, and we walk in silence down the small hill towards the water. There’s an outcropping of rocks on both sides of the beach that round towards each other, creating a cove. A ways down, there’s a small cave that’s half submerged in water, and in the distance, sailboats dot the horizon.

The beach is secluded, and even from the lake it would be difficult to find.

“I would have brought my bathing suit if I knew we were going to the beach,” I say lightly, testing his mood.

He lays a blanket on the sand, then sits down and grabs my hand, pulling me down into his lap, whispering against the shell of my ear, “We don’t need bathing suits here.”

“You want to go skinny dipping?” I wrap my arms around his neck.

“I want you naked for a whole other reason,” he says, trailing his mouth across my jaw, then down my neck.

I moan softly as his calloused hands rough across my bare legs, fingers skimming under my shorts, then cupping my ass.

“So is this one of the famous Zee St. James hook up spots I’ve heard about?”

He tenses around me and pulls back. “Hook up spots?”

I shrug. The thought of him being with other women makes my stomach queasy. But I’m not naive, I’ve heard the rumors of his exploits since before I even knew what a blow job meant.

“I’ve never brought anyone here before,” he replies, his voice hard.

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you meant. But I didn’t bring you here to hook up.” He drags his fingers through his hair, his mood changing, eyes clouding over with memory or regret. Maybe both.

I shift so that my back rests against his chest, and glance out at the lake.

We sit in silence.

“How did you find this place?” I ask.

“My mom brought Liam and I here once when we were younger. We had a picnic over there by the cave.” He raises his hand and points. “It was just the three of us.” He sucks in a deep, shaky breath, then exhales, before saying, “It was the last good day I can remember before...”

I try to not to move, to even breathe, knowing he’s giving me another small glimpse into his soul.

“Took me years to find it again.” His lips press against the back of my head, and his arms wrap around me, fingers lacing with mine.

“It reminds you of her?” I can’t imagine losing a parent that young, and the way he did.

“Reminds me of something I haven’t had in a long time.”

“What?”

“Happiness. Peace.” He sighs. “Hope.”

I twist in his arms, so that I can see his face.

His throat bobs when he swallows. “I feel the same way when I’m with you.”

Oh.

His forehead rests against mine and he gives a small shake of his head, and mutters, “There’s none of that inside me, Quinn.”

“None of what?’

“Goodness. Light. You think there is. But if I could open my chest, you’d find a black hole where my heart should be.”

It’s a warning. But I know he’s wrong. I see him. All of him. Past the murkiness, through the darkness, to the man whose heart I belong to. He still doesn’t understand that I’d take it. All of it. That there’s nothing he could say or do to make me not love him.

“You’re wrong,” I say softly, closing my eyes and reveling in the heat of his body, the small piece of himself he’s given me by bringing me here.

“Wish I was,” he sighs.

Waves crash around us, and seagulls squawk in the distance.

He shifts, moving so that my back is against the blanket, and he’s leaning beside me, his weight on one arm.

I brush my fingers across the dark scruff on his jaw. “I like it here.”

One calloused hand skates under my shirt, green eyes so damn intense as they study me. “I like you here.”

I whimper as the pad of his thumb brushes against my nipple through the thin fabric of my bra.

His lips twitch. “Your moans alone could make me come.”

He pinches my nipple and I gasp as the sensation goes straight to my core. My hips rise, needing friction. Needing him.

“I know what makes me come,” I say, reaching for his belt, and starting to loosen it.

He chuckles. “You may have a dirtier mind than me.”

“You have no idea,” I push him back and straddle him, so that he’s beneath me, and work the button and zipper down on his pants. “How private is this beach?” I ask, fingers curling in the waist of his jeans.

“Never seen a single soul here anytime I’ve come.” One hand is behind his head as he stares up at me, grinning.

“Do you come here a lot?” I tease, rolling his pants down his hips and over his already hard cock.

“I’m hoping to come here a lot more,” he chuckles, watching me as I take his cock in my hand, and stroke him. Desperate to taste him, I flick my tongue over the swollen head, and his cock throbs beneath my fingers.

“Damn, Quinn,” he groans. His muscles flex and tense beneath me, hips jerking as my lips stretch around the width of his cock.

His fingers tighten in my hair, his eyes blistering with heat, watching me with the same feverish hunger I feel. I suck and lick and tease, swirling my tongue around the tip of his head, finding intense satisfaction in his heavy breathing and rumbles from his chest.

“Quinn.” His voice breaks on my name, making my clit throb, feeling the power of my touch, the way his body responds to me.

His arms wrap around me, lifting me to him, taking control. And as he undresses me, the torment of insatiable pleasure rises inside me. I need more of him. All of him.

Just sex, Quinn, my brain reminds me. That’s all he can give. All he’s capable of giving.

But I want so much more.

“My God, Quinn, you’ve got to be the sexiest woman in the world,” Zee growls out, when I’m naked beneath him.

My cheeks warm, not just from the compliment, but from the lust that burns in his gaze.

My weakness.

My demise.

I know he is both.

His lips brush against mine, his hands rasp against my skin, the heat of his touch a contrast to the cool wind that licks at my skin. He’d taken me hard and desperate the first time, but there’s something different in the way he touches me now.

He moves above me, head lowering, his lips pressing against my collar bone, then down to my breast, tongue flicking out over the already hard bud. My clit throbs with need, and when his palm cups my pussy, and he slides a finger inside of me, pleasure lashes through my body.

“Zee,” I whimper as his lips trail down my stomach, and his palms spread my thighs. I thread my fingers in his hair, wanting to pull him back up to me, my body desperate to be filled with him. “I want you inside me.”

“Soon, sweetheart.” His tongue lashes out across my clit, and my hips jerk involuntarily. “Lay back and let me taste you.”

Waves of pleasure rock through me as his hot tongue strokes across my seam, caressing the sensitive nerve endings until I feel intoxicated by the overwhelming sensations of it.

It was too much, and not enough.

“Zee, Please,” I beg.

He chuckles, then slowly rises, pressing his lips to mine. “I like it when you beg for my cock.”

The thick head of his shaft presses against my wet pussy, teasing me.

For a split second, I see a flash of emotion in his eyes.

Just sex, I remind myself one last time as he buries himself inside me.

Except it isn’t.

At least not for me.