Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Bryan
T he vehicle weaves along the narrow country road as Kieran drives us back to the area of the Sentinel farmhouse. The dusky sky is almost to full dark, the moon making periodic appearances from behind the cover of clouds above.
In just a few more minutes, we’ll park and send the drone up to get our answers.
I’m coming for you, bitch.
I cast a sideways glance and wish we had everything we need to end this tonight. “When will your guy have the firepower we need to take this place down?”
“He said tomorrow afternoon at the latest.”
Good. Then we’ll be back here doing the same thing tomorrow night. That means spending another day in the hotel waiting for nightfall.
Not that spending a day in the hotel was a hardship…
“Jesus Christ, man. Wipe that stupid grin off your face and lock in. That girl is distracting you.”
I scowl. “Fuck you. Siobhan killed Da, betrayed Tag and Aiden, and plans to fuck over my entire family. Don’t question my focus. I want that bitch dead. The need for it burns like bile at the back of my throat.”
“Aye, I don’t question your commitment to the task—it’s your attention I’m talking about. That girl’s got you all spun up. You’re going to get one of us killed.”
“That’s fucking ridiculous.”
He scoffs and pulls to the side, parking where the one lane road offers a spot to pass. “Not two minutes ago, you were grinning like a teenaged eejit that just got his rocks polished for the first time.”
“And is there a fucking law against being in a good mood? Brendon has an idiotic grin on his face more often than not—and since Nora, it’s constant.”
Kieran shuts off the SUV and pushes his door open. “Aye, that’s true enough, but that’s normal for your twin, is it not?”
I roll my eyes. “Och, I see how it is. You don’t want me to step outside the little box you’ve put me in. Well, tough tits, Kieran, I’m a fucking person.”
“Fuck you. What I want is for you to be on your game, so I don’t end up bleeding out in a field in the fucking Yorkshire countryside.” The driver’s door slams shut as he stomps to the back of the truck and opens the back hatch.
I stare up at the ceiling, my head dropping back to the leather headrest.
Who the fuck pissed in his porridge?
I close my eyes and sit tight for a minute. Images from this afternoon replay in my head and I hold back the smile that tugs at my mouth: playing naked with Harper, then taking a shared shower to wash away the sweat and sin, and then leaving her sleeping with a contented smile as I went out to meet Kieran to leave.
Kieran says Harper has me all spun up and is a distraction—he’s wrong.
It’s true that I feel ‘present’ in a way I haven’t in a long time. Mam died when I was a kid and I barely remember that loss, but Yasmine’s death…
It hollowed me out.
Every goddamn bit of that agony and loss has haunted me for four years.
The suffering. The loneliness. The guilt of living.
They say time heals all wounds, but that’s a fucking lie. All time does is numb the pain and kill the one who survives in small measures every day after.
You’d think he could be happy that an afternoon with Harper made me smile. We had a good time—that’s all.
She piques my interest because she’s fearless, resourceful, and determined. She’s got this fire inside of her and it warms my cold, dark heart.
That’s all it is—it’s all it can be.
There’s no world where a Canadian journalist and an Irish made man build something beyond the heat of a moment. She’s a temporary distraction.
Och, my bad.
So maybe Harper has been a bit of a distraction. That doesn’t mean I’m not wholly focused on our mission.
Except, I’m lying back in the truck, my mind spinning with thoughts of Harper—her feminine moans when I lapped at her pussy, the tangy taste of her pleasure on my tongue, and the sight of her as her body arched with each release I gave her.
She asked for many orgasms and I’m proud to say I delivered on my promise to give them to her.
But now, I should be standing in the farmer’s field helping Kieran get his new toy up into the night sky so we can kill the bitch set on destroying my family.
As much as I hate to admit it, the pissed-off energy Kieran was radiating from the driver’s seat a moment ago holds some merit.
He might be right, but he’s also wrong because I’m all-in on ending Siobhan Daley.
I pull the handle of the door and swing my long legs out of the truck, spilling out into the night. Straightening, I adjust the fall of my leather jacket where it’s caught on the holster of my gun.
The night is black as pitch, the October chill settling deep into my bones. I tend to burn hot, not bothered by the cold. Not that I wouldn’t rather be toasty warm under the covers back in the hotel.
I shove that thought to the back of my mind and keep my focus on the here and now.
Kieran has his head down at the back of the vehicle, so I stride back to check on things. “How you getting on?”
He gestures to the screen of the laptop open in the back hatch of the SUV. It shows an aerial view of the landscape as the drone closes the distance to our target.
His thumbs manipulate the joy sticks to position our eyes in the night sky. “I’m almost over the Sentinel farmhouse now.”
A muscle ticks in Kieran’s jaw, but he doesn’t say anything more about Harper.
Good. Smart man.
He may be Sean’s Sergeant at Arms for the Devils MC, and a loyal mate, but when you come down to it, I’m a Quinn and he works for me.
I leave him to his navigating and keep my eyes locked on the farmhouse on the screen.
Everything seems the same as earlier today: the foot patrols walking the perimeter, the armed guards on the front and back porches, and the single person upstairs with a guard stationed at the top of the stairs.
If that is Siobhan up there, what’s their plan?
It can take ages between the time a task force makes a case and brings things to trial. So, is she supposed to hide up there for the next year or two?
“How long can your toy stay in the air?”
Kieran points to his set up in the back hatch. “It can stay in the air twenty to thirty minutes, then I’ll bring it back to switch the battery. I’ve got five extended life batteries, and the charger, so we should be good for the night.”
“Other than the travel time you’re flying it back and forth. Then we’re running blind.”
“Aye, other than that.” Kieran keeps his focus on the controls for the drone, the wee machine a country lane over, feeding us clean, precise images.
I’m impressed. I didn’t expect this level of clarity—the thermal vision, the bird’s-eye view mapping every movement on the ground and inside the house.
“We need to get a look at that lone heat signature upstairs. If Siobhan is in there, that will be her.”
Kieran nods. “All right. I’ll do a pass by the window. Maybe I can angle the camera in.”
Kieran maneuvers the drone, sending it drifting toward the farmhouse. A second later, he curses under his breath. “The curtains are all closed.”
I clench my jaw. It’s a good thing Kieran’s munitions guy hasn’t gotten back to us yet about the rocket launchers, or I might be tempted to blow the place to hell and use dental records to sort things out later.
But I didn’t expect this to be easy. This ain’t my first stake out and I know it can take days, even weeks.
And so, I open the door to the back seat to check on what snacks we brought, ready to settle in for the night.
* * *
Harper
Morning light sifts into the room, sneaking through the split between the closed curtains. There’s a moment of panic when I don’t remember where I am—or why the room smells like leather and the remnants of an expensive man’s cologne. But then my eyes adjust to the low light, and I see him.
Bryan is asleep on top of the duvet beside me. He’s on his side, facing me, one tattooed arm folded under his head, the other curled in front of his broad chest.
He looks exhausted—delish, but exhausted.
I study the way his worn U2 concert T-shirt stretches across the sculpted perfection of his chest and how the gray track pants he’s wearing have pulled down his hip a bit when he rolled over, exposing the muscled ‘V of glory’. Oh, baby, this man…
How crazy is it that he’s been sleeping here, and I didn’t even realize it? Normally, I’m hyper aware of my surroundings, especially when I’m asleep.
Vaguely, I wonder when he came in during the night. Is he here because Kieran won’t share a king bed or because after this afternoon, he’s more interested in sharing a bed with me?
The funny thing is, he didn’t get into the bed—he’s on it. He’s mere inches from the spot where I’m curled under the covers, and yet he didn’t presume to slide in with me—not even after yesterday.
The honor of the Dublin Beast.
After the third or maybe the fourth time he shattered me with pleasure, I curled up naked in his arms and relaxed—truly relaxed—for the first time since I got the news about Macie and Chantal.
We’ll figure out what happened to them, I have no doubt. Eddie Mason kidnapping me locked Bryan in on bringing down the sex trafficking ring that claimed my friends. I’m not alone in this.
I’m not alone at all.
And I can’t stop staring at him.
Asleep, he’s different. Softer. The anger and hostility he shields himself in has melted from his features. That perpetual crease between his brows is gone, the sharp cut of hostility around his emerald eyes relaxed into something younger. Gentler.
He looks almost innocent—though I’m not na?ve enough to believe a man like him could ever be that.
But this is a version of him the world doesn’t get to see—at least, not anymore. I think about the screensaver picture of him with his girlfriend. That’s the closest version of Bryan I’ve seen to the man sleeping before me.
I shift on the mattress without meaning to, the duvet rustling beneath me. His lashes flicker. A moment later, those piercing green eyes blink open and land right on me staring at him.
Busted.
A lazy smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Are ye watchin’ me sleep, trouble?”
Heat rises to my cheeks, but I don’t look away. “You’re not so scary when you’re unconscious. You’re really rather pretty, actually.”
He huffs out a soft chuckle, low and gravelly. “Pretty. That’s a new one.”
We fall into a beat of silence. It’s not heavy or awkward—it’s just still. Like there’s a wall around us, keeping the outside world out.
I shift again, this time inching forward to close the distance between us. I adjust my pillow to bump against his and lie nose-to-nose. “How did tonight go?”
His eyes darken a little, the smirk slipping into something more serious. “We managed to get a couple of cameras up in the trees facing the farmhouse. Nothing major, but they’ll allow us to record the comings and goings and check things from the hotel. We’ll go back tomorrow night, see if anything new turns up.”
“Any trouble?”
He stretches out his legs and lets his head fall back onto the pillow. “Nah, just the opposite. It was too quiet, if anything.”
“Poor baby. You didn’t get to pommel anyone?”
“Not a single person.” He watches me for a moment before his voice drops even lower. “It’s late. You should try to go back to sleep.”
I lift a brow. “I’ve slept more in the past thirty-six hours than in the weeks before. I’m many things, but tired isn’t one of them.”
He rubs a hand down his face. “Can’t say the same. I haven’t slept much the past week. Not with everything riding on me finding Siobhan.”
I lift the duvet a few inches before it’s trapped by his weight. “Why don’t you come under the covers and get some sleep now?”
His eyes flick to mine, something unreadable moving behind them. “And do ye think me gaining access to yer body will make me more likely to sleep or less?”
I chuckle. “I’m sure we can control ourselves. We’re friends, after all.”
“Friends who fuck,” he says. “Although, technically, we’ve only been friends who fool around.”
“Seeing as how the fooling around was mostly about you pleasuring me, I have no complaints.”
“Me either. Except maybe one.” His gaze locks with mine, and for once, there’s no armor. No walls. Just Bryan. Raw and real. “That when this is over, ye’ll go home to yer polar bears and maple syrup, and I’ll go back to Dublin.”
“To your shamrocks and leprechauns?”
He chuckles. “Aye, something like that.”
My heart stumbles over itself. I need to pull myself together or this is going to hurt like hell when it ends.
“Well, then I suppose we’ll have to make it memorable while it lasts.”
Before he has a chance to respond, I run my hand over the swollen line of his cock, filling out the front of those sweatpants. “Close your eyes, big guy. Get some rest. I’ll take care of everything.”
Rolling out from under the duvet, I rise onto my knees, push his shirt up, and kiss his navel. I trail kisses across the sculpted ridges of his abs, nipping and licking the toned muscles of his tummy.
Bryan Quinn doesn’t have a regular old six pack. No, no, the Dublin Beast has a freaking eight pack.
I move lower, following the dusting of hair leading to the promised land.
He hisses a breath, and goosebumps break free across his skin. “Ye don’t have to?—”
“Shut up and let me suck you off, big boy. It’s lady’s choice this morning and this is what I’m aching for. I told you I love sucking cock. I wasn’t kidding.”
I go back to exploring his skin with my mouth and his fingers thread into my hair. When he relaxes, I tug at the waistband of his sweatpants, and he lifts his hips.
The fabric slides down his thick, muscled thighs, and I make a delicious discovery—he’s commando.
No boxers to contend with. Even better.
Now, I have all the access I need to have my fun.
I rub my palm over his thick shaft. His cock is hard, but twitches and grows even harder beneath my touch.
His fingers tighten in my hair, and I wrap my fingers around the base of his erection. His body shudders and precum beads on the slit of his crown.
Darting my tongue out, I capture the glistening pearl of cum, and the salty-sweet tang fills my mouth. “You taste good, Mr. Quinn. I’m going to need more than just a taste though.”
I wrap my lips around the glistening head of his cock and take him to the back of my throat.
“Fecking hell!”
I smile, swirling my tongue along the silky veins as I move up his shaft to the crown, and then back down to the base. Another rush of salty-sweet cum meets my tongue and I swallow it down.
It takes a few long, sensual strokes before his grip tightens in my hair and I know he’s fighting the urge to fuck my mouth. I don’t mind the idea, but he’s supposed to be on the receiving end of things.
Reaching between his thighs, I grip the tender flesh of his sack and have some fun.
With an Irish curse I don’t understand, he releases my hair and raises his arms to grip the headboard. His breathing is coming in pants and grunts, and I close my teeth around his cock, giving him a little nip.
His hips buck when I twist his sac, digging my nails into the sensitive flesh while being careful not to hurt his balls. “So fucking good.”
For me, too.
My pussy is throbbing, my folds wet with heat. Giving a great blowjob really does wind me up. I love the power of bringing a man to the edge.
Especially a man like Bryan.
I lift my head up, grip the slick length of his shaft, and stroke him off. As my hand rides him up and down, I swirl my tongue through the slit, sucking with all I have.
And when he curses again and grunts my name, I take him deep into my mouth. He loses his hold, thrusting deep into the back of my throat, coming hard.
Eyes watering, I swallow him down, devouring every hot stream of cum he gives me. Every last drop of his release is mine.
And when he’s spent and falls limp against the mattress, I crawl up his body and wipe my face with my palm. Leaning over him, I kiss him, slipping my tongue into his mouth, so he gets a taste.
“Good boy. Now, go back to sleep. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”