20. Quinn
20
QUINN
I ’m stunned by how quickly Lance can move. And he moves with lethal force. I’ve never seen anyone fight with such precision. Hell, I’ve never actually seen grown men fight in person before. But the speed with which Lance makes one of Lucian’s men take his ally’s life is shocking, to say the least.
And my ears start to ring as I watch him throat punch a second man. He’s so quick, it doesn’t look like a hard hit. But based on the choking sound emitting from the man’s red-turning-purple face, I think Lance might have broken the guy’s windpipe.
Watching Lance protect me is so much more terrifying now that our relationship has reached new heights. I’m more scared for his life than my own safety. But what can I do about it?
That’s when I recall his directions. Get to the car.
Clutching the keys in my palm, I make a run for it. Because even if Natasha taught me some self-defense, I’m clearly out of my league here. I press the unlock button repeatedly, watching the headlights flash to let me know the doors are open. And still I keep on clicking as I all-out sprint toward the Escalade.
My stomach plummets as another man steps from behind a concrete pillar—directly into my path. Gasping, I skid to a stop far too close to him for comfort.
“Going somewhere?” he asks playfully, his eyebrow quirking.
And just like the man who asked if Lance was fucking me, this one gives me a slow, appreciative once-over. Eyes raking from my feet to my face, I can tell that he won’t be holding back if he gets his hands on me. My stomach quivers, and I swallow convulsively as my mouth goes dry.
“Don’t touch me,” I warn, my heart hammering against my ribcage as I settle into the defensive stance Natasha taught me.
He snorts, clearly unimpressed by my attempt at self-defense. And I can’t say that I blame him. I’m trembling so violently, I doubt anyone would take me seriously. But I’m not about to just roll over and hand myself to the enemy.
Springing forward, the man snatches me with a grip far stronger than his lean form would suggest. And I cry out despite myself as I realize this hold is definitely going to be trickier to get out of.
But I’m not about to give up.
I repeat Natasha’s steps in my head, spinning my arms so he can’t get a firm grip. Then I bring my elbows down with as much force as I possess. He looks almost as surprised as I feel to realize it worked. But as much as I would like to take a moment to celebrate, there’s no time for that.
While he’s reaching for me again, I step into his arms and drive my knee up into his groin as hard as I can manage.
“Huuuuh!” The wind leaves him in a rush, and he pales visibly as his hips bend.
Taking advantage of the opening, I turn my shoulder to him and drive my elbow up into his nose. Then I make a break for it, jerking free of his limp grip and sprinting the rest of the way to the car.
Fingers on the handle, I’m ready to climb in when three ear-shattering gunshots echo through the enclosure. Lance doesn’t have his gun on him.
Horror grips my stomach, and I think I just might vomit as I whirl to see what happened. Blood seeps through the left side of Lance’s torn shirt, and he keeps his left hand pressed to the opening.
But to my intense relief, he’s not riddled with bullets. He’s standing over the bodies of the men he was fighting. And with a blood-chilling calm, he turns, sees the man I incapacitated, raises the gun, and pulls the trigger once more.
The shot rings through my ears like cannon fire, jarring my teeth.
And the silence that follows is deafening.
“Are you alright?” Lance asks, his voice gruff.
“I’m fine,” I breathe. “But you’re hurt.” I stride purposefully back across the parking garage to check how bad it is. “We need to get you inside.”
“No, we need to get you home,” he counters, scanning the parking structure to ensure that was the last of them.
“Lance,” I object, pulling the torn edges of fabric away from his skin to see the cut. It’s shorter and looks shallower than the last one but will probably still need stitches. “The hospital is right there, and you’re bleeding.”
“Quinn.” He waits until I end my assessment to look up into his eyes. “Four men are dead. I’m putting them in the trunk of the car, and I’m taking you home where you’re safe. You can stitch me up there.”
I swallow hard as I see his point. He just killed four men in cold blood. Of course we can’t go waltzing back into the hospital—unless he’s ready to face the law for his actions. And while we would have a pretty strong self-defense, I know that with Lance’s rap sheet, he won’t get off that easy.
“Okay,” I murmur.
He gives a curt nod and stoops to hoist the first man over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. “Get the door?”
I do, racing to the trunk of the Escalade and releasing the hatch. He has four bodies stashed there in no time, and while the ground is stained with crimson, we’ve left no other clear evidence behind.
Scrambling into the passenger seat as Lance starts the car, I open the glove compartment and dig through it to find some gauze.
“Here,” I insist, leaning over the console to slip the absorbent fabric between his shirt and ribs. “Put pressure on that until we get home. Should I drive?”
Lance casts me a look that says I must be joking, and I fall silent. But I worry the whole way home, wondering if he might not be losing too much blood.
We pull into Killian’s driveway twenty minutes later, and as I climb quickly out of the car, Lance tosses the car keys to Scott.
“I made a mess of the trunk. Mind taking the car to get it detailed?” Lance asks.
And suddenly, I’m wondering how many dead bodies Lance has brought home like this, because Scott slips into the driver’s seat without questions or a second’s hesitation.
“I’ll stitch you up in my room,” I say as we climb the steps into the house.
Lance nods, seeming perfectly at ease, though he’s bled through the gauze and is now staining the crisp sky blue of his ruined shirt.
“What happened?” Natasha’s stunned question comes from the stairs leading up to Killian’s wing of the house.
I glance up at my sister-in-law, catching her tight expression of genuine concern.
“Lucian sent men for me again. Lance stopped them.” I probably should explain more, but I really want to get a better look at that cut—and clean and dress it. I don’t like how long Lance has been bleeding. So I drag him upstairs to my room without further hesitation.
“Shirt off,” I command as I pull my sewing kit out of its drawer.
He does as I say, heading into the bathroom to avoid making a mess on my bedroom floor. And as I sanitize a needle, then my hands, Lance rests his hips against my counter, planting his bloody palms on the white quartz edge.
Taking a deep breath, I will my hands to stop shaking. The danger’s over, and now I have a job to do. Turning to Lance, I get to work cleaning the cut with fresh gauze soaked in antiseptic. I dab at the cut, and he doesn’t so much as flinch from the burn I know he must feel.
“Good news,” I say after a moment. “It looks like you’ll only need about fifteen stitches this time.”
“Goodie,” he jokes back, and he watches as I thread the needle and get to work.
He’s always watched this part, and I don’t understand how he can do it. It’s one thing to sew someone else’s skin up, but to watch his own get pulled back together? And to feel every time the needle goes in? His nerves must be made of steel. Most people would lose their stomach just from getting stitches without a numbing agent.
Thankfully, the familiar task of cleaning and sewing his wound helps calm my nerves, so my hands regain their steadiness as I tie the first knot closed. “Watching to make sure I’m doing it right?” I tease.
He chuckles. “I trust you. You’ve got good hands,” he says.
Heat pools in my cheeks at the compliment, and my heart warms. I chance a glance up at his handsome face as I smile. “Good hands?”
“You just got threatened and nearly abducted and they’re already steady,” he points out. “For most people, the adrenaline takes longer to fade.”
“Hmm.” I turn my eyes back to the task at hand, looping several precise sutures as I consider that. “I find this kind of task calming. I guess I don’t really have time to think about anything else when I’m focused on patching you up. And considering how often you hurt yourself, I’m starting to think I could do it in my sleep.”
“You make it sound like this was my fault,” he teases.
My eyes snap up to his dancing blue gaze. I love when Lance jokes with me. It doesn’t happen often, but it sets giddy butterflies loose in my belly.
“I guess I can’t blame you for this one,” I admit, my lips quirking as I get back to work. “I just hate seeing you hurt.” The confession comes out on a breath, and I hadn’t anticipated saying it out loud. But it’s true. Watching Lance bleed is awful. It always makes me wonder if, one day, I won’t be able to fix what’s wrong. And if that day ever comes, I’m not sure I could survive it.
“I don’t mind it,” he says, his tone light enough he must be joking, and it pulls me from my dark thoughts.
I glance up to scowl at him, letting him know I don’t think he’s funny. But that beautiful smile steals the air from my lungs.
“No really,” he teases. “It’s my best excuse for letting you touch me.”
My heart flutters at the sweet statement. Because, as much as I know Lance wants me, he’s never given any indication that he might have felt something for me in the past. And a tingling relief sweeps through my body at the thought.
That combined with the fact that he’s going to be okay after his daring rescue tonight makes me feel almost giddy. Finishing off his last stitch, I snip the thread and straighten. “You don’t need an excuse for me to touch you,” I breathe, stepping closer.
And as I peer up into his deep-sea eyes, Lance cradles my face and leans in to kiss me softly.