I could come up with a million excuses. But the truth is I want this precious time with Quinn. So I say nothing. And I nod.

He exhales.

And we wait for the manager to return with the keys.

He takes my hand as we’re escorted upstairs.

The room is charming, with flowery bedspreads and cute paintings of mountains I can’t imagine the Quinn I know now, loving. But as I look around at the rocking chair in the corner and the log fireplace, I realize it wasn’t the place that held meaning for him, it was the person he was here with.

I turn from the window and look at him.

He’s staring at the bed on the right, his gaze shadowed again. The manager retreats silently, and I go to stand next to him.

“Do you want to take that bed?” I murmur softly.

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’ll go and wash up.”

He catches my arm before I can leave. “It wasn’t you, Elyse. Earlier, when you tried to hug me. It was me. I don’t like to be hugged. The last person to hug me was my mother.”

My heart staggers with pain for him. “It’s okay. Really.”

He shakes his head. “No, it’s not. She knew she was going to die. It was her way of saying goodbye. I loved her, but I absolutely hate her for it.”

My insides shudder hard. “Oh, Quinn—”

He turns abruptly and shackles me with his arms. “Give it to me, Elyse. The relief. Please. I need it.”

The internal conflict that churns lasts all of five seconds. I know somewhere along the line, guilt and shame for not keeping my promise to Q will sting, but right in this moment, I can think of nothing I want more than to give myself to Quinn. So I don’t protest when he pulls me tighter into his hard, lean body.

Our kisses over the last week have grown progressively more frenzied, our mouths attempting to sate what our bodies need. This time, the kiss is pure, heavenly foreplay, tinged with the desperation and desolation raging through Quinn.

My hands slide up his neck. He picks me up and walks me to the bed. He lets go for a minute, and I lean back, stare at the god before me.

Without taking his eyes off me, he sinks down and tugs my boots off, then his own. Feverish eyes rake over me as he joins me on the bed, and takes my mouth again. We tumble back against the pillows. His tongue flicks against mine and I moan. He goes deeper, his caresses growing more intense with each passing second. Firm hands slide under my sweater, fingers stroke my skin. I’m furnace-hot, melting from the inside.

After an eternity of kissing, his mouth leaves mine, trails to my jaw, my earlobe, my pulse. I go on an exploration trip of my own. Quinn’s body is unbelievably honed. Tight muscles jump beneath my touch as I pull his shirt free of his pants and glide my hands up his back.

His weight on me feels solid, even a touch familiar. I realize that before Q, I never voluntarily explored a man’s body, so I wonder if all men who take care of their bodies feel the same.

I look up at him. He’s staring at me, his gaze probing in watchful, almost dreading silence. I shut out my conflicting thoughts against comparing the two men I’ve interacted with recently, and revel in the fact that I’m here, in this place and time, with Quinn Blackwood.

I smile.

He exhales. His hands trail up my midriff, then with impatient movements, he rears up and pulls my thick sweater over my head. His jaw drops at the sight of my braless breasts.

When he looks up, there’s a dangerous light in his eyes. “You always go out without a bra, Elyse?” he croaks.

I shake my head. “We…you looked like you needed to leave in a hurry.”

One finger trails from my collarbone to the top of one breast. My nipple puckers, the areola breaking out in goose bumps.

He cups one mound and groans. “So fucking soft. So responsive. Need to taste you.” His mouth closes over one peak, pulls it hard into his mouth before swirling his tongue around it.

Fireworks spark off in my brain. When I clutch his head, Quinn raises his gaze, gauges my pleasure with an avid intensity that makes me gasp. Without releasing me from the stare, he flicks his tongue over me, then kisses his way to the other peak.

“Oh God!”

“Tell me how you feel, Elyse,” comes his raw command. The coarse gravel of his voice is almost incoherent.

“Good. So, so good!”

 He lavishes attention on me for the longest time, and with each appreciative gleam of his beautiful eyes, I become wetter.

My nipples are bruised rose by the time he kisses his way down my body. Even then his gaze lingers on my breast. Quinn is clearly a breast man.

Like Q.

I frown.

Stop it.

The warning takes care of itself when Quinn opens the fastening of my jeans. His gaze captures mine as he slowly pulls down the zipper. He licks a path from my navel to the top of my panties, then rubs his stubble against my covered pussy.

“I can smell you, baby. Are you wet for me?”

“Yes,” I gasp.

The hands that rid me of my jeans are a little rough, a lot unsteady. He rises on his knees to toss them away, then stares down at my body.

“Breathtaking. So very beautiful.”

My panties follow the same path as my jeans. Then I’m bare to Quinn. And his ravenous eyes. Where his hands don’t touch, his eyes devour. And when he parts my thighs and delivers both conduits of attention, I’m a fucking goner.

“Need to taste,” he says again, before capturing each thigh in his big hands and spreading me wide open. His thumbs part my lips and he licks me from hole to clit.

My hips want to surge off the bed. He pins me down, repeats the action, but this time lingers on my clit. More fireworks explode. Liquid heat pours out of me.

“Fuck!” He laps me up with almost embarrassing enthusiasm.

That single-minded concentration and the borderline feral sounds from his throat are such a damn turn on, I know I’m going to go off in a second. I clutch my breasts and squeeze my eyes shut.

“Quinn…I’m coming.”

“Look at me when you come, Elyse. I want you to see me,” he rasps.

My head feels almost too heavy to lift, but I struggle onto one elbow, and spear my fingers into his hair. “Yes. Whatever you need, Quinn.”

His eyes darken and his eyelids flutter before he regains his purpose. He sucks my clit with a hard, merciless pull, and sends me over the edge.

“Oh, yes! Oh God…” My nails dig into his scalp and my gaze fuses with his as my release smashes through me.

The connection between us is soul-searing. He lets me see his pain, his fury, the desolation that has eaten away at him. I also see entreaty and regret.

As I come down from the most incredible high, I cup his face in my hand. “Quinn,” I murmur, dying to give him more. Dying to give him everything.

He rears up and rips his shirt over his head. “I need to be inside you, Elly. Need you.”

His motions are truncated, his eyes desperately clinging to mine as he removes his pants and briefs.

“You have me.”

His nod is almost sorrowful. My heart bleeds as I take him in my arms. Our kiss holds a mixture of desperation, lust and my flavors as he settles between my thighs. I feel the head of his cock at my core and a persistent thought intrudes. I attempt to break the kiss. He’s set on denying the disconnection.

“Quinn?” I mumble.

“Hmm?”

“Uh, do you…have a condom?”

He freezes. Eyes that have insisted on a connection breaks away from mine. He sucks in a huge breath, then shakes his head. “No,” he says.

The idea of stopping fills me with pain and dread. What I’m about to do may be right up there on the epic stupidity scale, but the thought of being denied is unbearable.

“I…can I trust you with my health, Quinn?”

He nods immediately. “I won’t force you if you don’t want you, but yes, you can.”

I suck in a breath. “Okay. I’m clean, by the way. And I’m on birth control.”

“So am I.”

“You’re on birth control?” I tease, desperate to allay any impending disappointment.

“I’m clean,” he says. “I won’t lie about something like that. I promise.”

My heart lifts. “I believe you.”

He smiles.

Quinn Blackwood smiles for the very first time since we met. And the sight of it is so fucking magnificent, my mouth drops open.

“Wow.”

“What?”

“That…your smile. Wow.”

It grows wider.

And just like that, my heart decides.

Once I give myself permission to, falling in love with Quinn Blackwood is as easy and as terrifying as falling off the edge of a cliff. The crash is inevitable but goddamn, I intend to enjoy the exhilarating descent.

So I return his smile. Slide my hands over his beautifully sculpted arms and lock my fingers at his nape. “Now that we’ve got that cleared up, what are you waiting for?”

His smile slowly fades away. I don’t mind, because it’s replaced by that feral hunger that electrifies my soul. Braced on his elbows, he spears one hand into my hair and the other beneath my ass. He tilts my hips upward and thrusts, hard and deep and gloriously into me.

Dear God. Either the men I was unfortunate to sleep with before were all woefully underendowed or I’ve lucked out and found two men with cocks designed to send a woman to heaven!

My mind veers once more to the similarities between the man who owns me and the one I want to belong to.

Once again, I’m not allowed to dwell on the thought.

Quinn slams into me. I scream, then pray there are no occupants around us. Then scream again as he fills me tight. His deep answering groans roll into one another.

Then the filthy words start.

“Love. Seeing. Those. Fucking. Tits. Bounce.

“Pussy so good. Fuck, you hold me so tight, Elly.

“Wanna feel you come all over my cock. Will you be a good girl and do that for me?

“That’s right, baby. Scream for me. Want everyone to know how fucking good this is.”

I’m way past the point of caring how raw and needy I sound as I scream some more, beg him to keep fucking me.

His eyes never leave mine as he pounds into me.

The connection is so sizzling and intense, much too soon, pressure builds again. My pussy clenches harder around him and he growls.

“Yes!”

I take that as permission and I fly.

Seconds later, Quinn lets out a primitive roar and shoots thick, hot semen inside me. He buries his face in my neck, his breathing hoarse and ragged as endless convulsions roll through him.

My arms come around him for a few seconds before I clock that I’m hugging him. I hold my breath, but he doesn’t push me away. Instead, he rolls us over and hugs me tight in return. We stay like that as we battle for air.

I kiss his skin. Breathe him in.

Beneath his fading sandalwood scent, his musk flares, wraps around me. Again it feels familiar. Again I hate myself for blurring one man into the other.

I push the thought aside and look up. He’s watching me. He leans down and presses his lips to mine.

“Thank you,” he rasps.

I fall harder. New words of love trip over my tongue. I barely manage to hold them back. “Tell me about your mom,” I say instead.

A wave of sadness rushes over his face. “She was beautiful. And funny. She loved me. She was my everything.” He doesn’t say more than that. The tight lid he keeps on his emotions won’t let him.

I have a million other questions, but I limit it to one. “You said she was saying goodbye…with that hug? Did she…?”

“Take her own life? No. That was Maxwell’s job.”

I gasp. “Your father killed her?”

He drags his gaze from mine, his face a frozen landscape once again. “She ended her life in the technical sense, but Maxwell took her life long before she died.”

“Oh, Quinn.”

His arms tighten painfully around me. After a few minutes, his gaze finds mine, digs feverishly into me. “Things are going to get intense over the next week, Elyse. You won’t like me very much when it’s all over. But I hope you’ll understand.”

Panic claws up my spine. “I—what—?”

He kisses me hard. “Don’t ask questions. I won’t answer them. And nothing you can say will change anything. The course is set. But I need what’s happening here, right now. I hope you want it too.” He stops and sucks in a breath. “If you don’t I’ll…try to understand.”

I have two options. Say no and destroy the finite time we have together. Say yes, endure the uncertainty of what’s coming…while loving and making love with Quinn in the time we have together. The choice is laughably easy. “I want what you want.”

The answer earns me another earth-shaking smile. The cock still buried inside me begins to harden. I gasp with the wonder of him filling me up. When I attempt to sit up, Quinn holds me down. He spreads my thighs with his, and with one hand on my lower back and one hand around my shoulders, he pistons inside me.

My eyes roll and I lunge for his mouth. We stay like that, kissing and fucking until another climax breaks over us.

Eventually, he lets me up so I can use the bathroom. I’m sticky and sweaty, so I hit the shower in the small en-suite. The need to return to the bedroom, to Quinn, makes me rush through washing.

When I’m done, I don’t bother to dry off. I wrap the towel around me and enter the bedroom.

Quinn’s not there. His wallet is on the bedside table, but his clothes are gone. I force down the tiny spurt of alarm and open the bedroom door. He’s not in the hallway or the landing. I shut the door again and look around for a note or a clue of where he is.

Nothing.

Okay…

I hurriedly dry myself off and tug on my clothes, minus panties, which are too embarrassingly damp to put back on. I snatch my phone from my purse, the keycard from the dresser, and leave the room. Besides the parlor, there are two more rooms—a small dining room and adjoining reading room. They’re both empty. I finger my phone, and am debating whether to call him, or go out and see if his car is still outside, when I hear a low, harsh curse.

I look through the dining room window. He’s outside. His phone is clamped to his ear and he’s pacing the lawn while frantically rubbing his temple.

“It’s been a goddamn week! You have everything you need. How fucking hard can it be? Never mind what I’m doing. Just do your goddamn job… Shit, I’m sorry…of course…I know that wasn’t part of the plan…no, everything is still going ahead…Wednesday is fine. Start with their email and phone contacts, as agreed. Send everything. Then as many networks as possible. Nothing has changed, you have my word. Just…I need this thing handled too.”

He stops and listens for a minute. My heart is racing like a wild mustang on crack and I don’t even know why. My whole body freezes when he lets out a blood-curdling laugh.

“My soul?” he seethes, before his shoulders hunch forward in abject, harrowing dejection. “Please don’t waste your time worrying about something you can’t change. Yeah…bye.”

He slides the phone onto his back pocket and balls his fists. He’s turned away from me so I can’t see his face, but his body language is chilling.

He must sense my regard, because he tenses and whirls. His gaze zeros in on where I’m standing at the window.

We stare at each other, the earth cracking beneath our feet, doom blasting its imminent arrival. Quinn slowly uncurls his fist and walks back inside. He finds me at the window, unmoving. Hands cup my shoulders and he slides his face next to mine.

“No questions. Please, Elyse.”

“It really is going to be a temporary thing for us, isn’t it?”

His breath locks, then he exhales in a rush. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

I nod calmly, even though my newly loved up heart is screaming. “Yeah. I’m sorry too.”

I let him lead me back upstairs. Undress me. Put me in bed and slide in next to me. This time our lovemaking is near silent, our only communication with our eyes. Afterward, he pulls me into his arms. And we sleep. I don’t dream. I don’t know if he does.

We end up staying two more days. When Quinn goes out to get toothbrushes and a few supplies, I text Fionnella. She comes back with a pass to live my life. The worry that Q may be done with me grows, but not enough to derail my time with Quinn.

For a hefty extra, the manager, Cindy, makes our meals and brings them up to the room. In between eating and sleeping, Quinn Blackwood fucks me like he’s a raging addict and I’m his last ever line of coke.

When we eventually leave the memorable B&B, my heart weeps all through the drive back to Manhattan. At one point, the pain gets so bad that I dig the hand I placed on Quinn’s thigh into his skin without conscious thought. That earns me a detour to a deserted lay-by and a quick, rabid fuck over the hood of the Mercedes with my jeans wrapped around my knees.

Worry and the afterglow of sex eventually lulls me into sleep. I wake up from a murky dream with my heart hammering. We’re a few blocks from the loft in Hell’s Kitchen.

A few blocks from possibly not seeing Quinn again.

I glance at him. His jaw is rigid, the hand over my own on his thigh gripping me tight. When we arrive, he turns the ignition off. I release my seatbelt and open the door, but he doesn’t let me go. He stays put, his hand still trapping my own. My searching glance meets turbulent silver blue eyes.

He opens his mouth. “Elly, I need to tell you—”

Something’s coming. Something bad. This might be the only chance I get, so I pre-empt him.

“Quinn.”

“Hmm?”

“I love you.”

His eyes flare wide. Wider than I’ve ever seen. His face loses all color and he starts to shake his head. “Elyse…Jesus—”

The mobile in the console blares through the car. We both look at it and freeze. Three rings. Four. He looks at me and shakes his head. But he picks up the phone.

The voice is female. And it’s agitated. Quinn’s eyes dart to mine and I read his icy trepidation. He throws his door open, then freezes.

“What are you talking about?” he fires. His eyes search the rearview mirror frantically before his head swivels round. The glance he throws at me is filled with dread and black fury. “No, dammit. Where are the damn bodyguards? I don’t see them. I don’t see anything. Are you sure?”

A different sort of fear grips me. Whereas I feared for my emotions a few seconds ago, now my terror is expanding. Sinister forces are looming large and unstoppable. What terrifies me more than anything is that all my senses are screaming that my already deeply precarious situation is about to get a whole lot worse. And that somehow Quinn is involved. I don’t want to believe it.

But…karma. And the look in his eyes leaves little room for ambivalence.

The voice on the phone is getting even more agitated. But I force myself to speak his name. “Quinn.”

He’s still searching the surroundings. For something. Something that shouldn’t be here. Something dangerous. And he’s firing more questions into his phone.

“Quinn!”

As he’s turning back around, his thumb hits the speaker button. A female voice floods the car.

“Yes! I’m telling you, Quinn. You need to get Lucky the hell out of there. Now!”

Fionnella’s voice.

Fionnella!

For a few seconds, my mind freezes in blessed self-preservation. Then shock sucker punches me, along with the wrecking ball that is my own epic stupidity.

Quinn stares at me, the regret, dread and alarm finally beginning to make sense. The hand I have on his thigh turns to ice, along with the rest of my body. I want to move it, but I can’t. His grip is locked tight on me as we stare at each other.

My mouth drops open. “No…”

His eyes flare with a desperate, pleading light. “Elly, I can explain…”

“No! God…no.”

“Please…hear me out—”

Of course, fate decides not to give me time to process it. I’m still locked in the shock vault when rough hands grab my shoulders and yank me right out of the car. Quinn lunges for me, but his seatbelt prevents him from gaining any traction. His filthy curse rips the air as I hit the sidewalk sideways and pain ricochets through my bruised hipbone.

Quinn surges out of the car with a furious roar and vaults over the hood of the Mercedes as I’m dragged backward and tossed over someone’s shoulder.

“Elyse!”

The otherworldly sensation of what’s happening forces a scream from my throat. But it emerges as a gargled croak.

Quinn’s heavy footsteps charge after me and my captor.

“Put her the fuck down, right fucking now, asshole!”

“Or what?” I hear a taunt from the voice that has given me nightmares for the better part of seven years.

I twist my head to see several men rushing alongside those of my captor. My heart sinks.

“She belongs to me. You get to take her over my fucking dead body!”

Everyone freezes. “I can make that happen, friend.” The very distinct sound of a gun being cocked cracks through the air. “Just say the word.”

I hear a garbled shout, probably from Fionnella. My brain is spinning. From shock. From fear.

“You shoot me, right here right now, and you won’t get down the block before my security take you down. Your best outcome is to leave Elyse. Take me instead. I’m certain I can make it worth your while.”

Quinn’s voice is devoid of emotion, eerily calm and sourced from the very depths of hell. Whereas my brain is desperately twisting itself free of the shock so I can do something other than stare at the sidewalk from my upside down position. Another scream bubbles up. This time it makes it and rips free.

Unfortunately the sound galvanizes my captors. “I’d love to stay and negotiate, but I simply don’t have the time. I came for Lucky. I have her. I promise you, if you take another step I will shoot. Take her to the van,” Clay instructs the man holding me.

“No! Elyse! Jesus. Let go of her. I swear to God, if you hurt her—”

“Dammit. Earl, take care of him, please?”

No…no…no…

I don’t know what or who I’m pleading for. I turn my head in time to see Quinn jerk sideways and launch himself after me. Earl steps in his way and takes a swing at him. He ducks and jabs a blow to Earl’s gut. Before he can regain his step, Gordon connects a right hook to his jaw. There’s a sickening crunch as Quinn’s head swivels to the side, and it strangles another scream inside me.

Quinn staggers for a nanosecond before his gaze zeroes in on me, his face set with deathly intent as he attempts to shake off his attackers. He barrels into Gordon with deadly, streamlined force, and even though the man is built like a Sherman tank, he’s propelled backward into the concrete wall that forms the outer perimeter of the loft.

My vision is beginning to blur, and for a second, I wish for unconsciousness. I need a moment’s respite from the tsunami of hell raining on me.

The distant screech of tires pierces my dazed senses before I can pass out.

“Shit, we’ve got company. Earl, leave him. Let’s go!”

I jerk myself upright, attempt to twist myself free. Beefy hands and iron-like arms grip me tighter.

I’m tossed into the back of a van. My head cracks against the side and my tailbone wails in pain as it connects with the bare metal floor.

The driver’s door opens and shuts. “Gordon, Let’s go now!”

The last thing I see before the door slams shut is Quinn rising up off the ground and flying toward the van. I hear the slam of his fists against the moving van. His roar as the vehicle accelerates away is unlike any sound I’ve ever heard in my life.

I stare into the blackness. I want to scream again.

But I’m locked in deeper shock.

Quinn is Q.

Q is Quinn.

This has been one twisted game for both all along.

Fuck.

My.

Life.

QUINN

I pry my eyes open. Faces are swimming above me. Some hold concern, others rabid curiosity. Pain radiates from the side of my head, from my wrist and ribs. I know the metallic taste in my mouth is blood before I swallow. Someone mentions an ambulance. Someone takes a picture.

Cars screech to a halt beside me. Pounding feet rush at me. A voice I recognize asks if I’m all right.

I struggle to sit up. Look around.

Memory returns in a blinding flash of cold fire.