Chapter 27 Gray
We were parked up from the house, in a black sedan that Jett had borrowed from one of our teammates. We’d put fake plates on the back of it, more paranoid than ever that we were going to fuck up.
When he had grilled us all at the house after the fighting and the craziness, Dad had quite vehemently demanded we stop looking into the agency.
I wanted to say that our fathers knew better than to expect us to listen.
Because not only did they have us to parent, but Onyx was also now involved, too.
Despite Jett trying to break his head open earlier and me having punched him several times, again, our older brother was still as committed to finding the bastards as we were.
Dad had asked Onyx what he had done with Harry. Onyx had merely drunk his whisky and returned Dad’s glare. He was twenty-five, he had his trust fund, and more importantly, he didn’t need it. Onyx had his own money. There was little my dad could actually threaten Onyx with to make him stay in line.
For which I was very grateful.
When my brother left later that night, he had asked me to walk out with him. Surprised by the request, since my fist was the reason that his jaw was bruised and his eye was black, I had gone with him as he waited for his car.
“I got as much as I could out of your doctor,” he told me quietly as he lit up his smoke in the dark of the night.
“I’m making enquiries.” He took a drag as he held his hand up to shut me up.
“I really don’t like your little queen, but you all seem to love her.
You genuinely seem to be besotted with her, and it annoys me. ”
“Why?”
“I thought once you had her, you would move on. If anything, it’s made you worse.”
“Because I love her,” I told him.
“Yes, seems to be. Pity.” Onyx blew a smoke circle. “Anyway, the people I handed your good doctor over to were a tad careless with his well-being.”
I had snorted in disgust at the word good, but my breath faltered. “Dead?”
“Yeah, as I said, careless really.” Onyx shrugged.
“What he gave me, I’m looking into. Anything I find, I’ll share, but, Gray,” my brother’s dark gaze met mine as his car approached, illuminating his face, “you do nothing more. I will keep you informed. Dad and Kage will try to do it legally, but that’s too much red tape for me.
You do nothing, my little brothers, my football stars, who have their whole future ahead of them, you do nothing. Do you understand?”
I wet my lips as I assessed my older brother. I nodded once to say I understood what he was saying. Satisfied, Onyx hugged me briefly, and then his car took him back to Nashville.
When I turned, Jett was in the shadows. “You understood, but you didn’t agree.”
“Glad you understand the importance of technicalities, brother.” I fist bumped him as we headed back into the house.
Now we were back at house number three. The guy who liked to sleep around with men in his wife’s absence. Unfortunately for us, she was at home. We weren’t sure if he was.
“You sure it was him in the basement?” Ash asked as he sat in the back seat.
“Yeah, would recognize him anywhere.”
“What else is there to find?” Ash asked quietly. “We can’t jump him. His wife is there. We can’t kidnap him; we already have one on our hands. We have the memory stick.”
Jett and I exchanged a look. “We’re not looking for more on Quinn, we’re looking for more on him,” Jett explained. “We need to know who the guy in the bed was. He may be another one of them.”
“Or he’s some John who gets paid to be fucked in the ass,” Ash said crudely.
“He didn’t sound like a professional,” Jett murmured. “He sounded like they had a relationship.”
“Yeah.” I nodded in agreement.
“We’re not breaking in,” Jett reminded him. “Just watching.”
“I know,” Ash grumbled from his position. “The Mrs. is in. It’s unlikely we see anything tonight.”
“That’s true,” I said, turning to Jett. “What do you want to do?”
“I want to be clever enough to know how to track people’s cars.” Jett turned to look at Ash. “How do you know all your geek stuff but don’t know this?”
“I do know, I just don’t want to go to prison,” he snapped back.
“Bet Onyx knows,” I said wistfully.
“Your brother is probably glued to the underside of the car like a stuntman in a Mission Impossible film as we speak,” Ash joked, and Jett grinned.
“You’re right, this is pointless, and we look suspicious.
Let’s go.” He started the car, and we drove off.
As we left, I noticed the car coming toward us, and I instinctively pulled my bandana up.
“Cover now,” I demanded as the car approaching slowed down.
I kept my face averted so they couldn’t see me, but as they passed, I yelled at Ash to take the plate.
“Speed up, slowly,” I demanded of Jett. “Don’t make it look suspicious.”
Jett did as he was told until we were back on the interstate, and I told him to floor it. “You get the plate?” I asked Ash, and he held up his phone to show me.
“Who was it?” Jett asked me as he drove.
“I’m not sure. It just felt wrong.”
He glanced at me before he turned to face the road again. “Okay, we’ll check it out.”
The drive home was quiet, and we cleaned the car, changed the plate back, and climbed the stairs to our rooms all in silence. Jamie, the team’s defensive end, opened his door.
“Where you been?” he asked as he leaned casually against it.
“Out,” Jett told him curtly.
“Mayhem?”
Ash and I exchanged a look but said nothing. We hadn’t done Mayhem in a while; were people now requesting it?
“Maybe,” Jett answered as he measured Jamie. “Why?”
“I’m a footballer, I’ve got your back, and when you cause mayhem, you pull extra guys in with you.” Jamie stared at us.
“You want to be a Devil?” Ash asked him, and I knew his tone mirrored my own shock.
“Yeah, why not?”
“Because you’re . . . you,” I blurted. “You’re so . . . straightlaced.”
“Nothing you do is illegal, though,” Jamie countered.
If he had seen what we’d been doing earlier, he wouldn’t be so quick to think that.
“You just cause mischief,” he added lamely.
“Is he quoting the wizard prick?” Ash asked in a low voice.
“Dude, did you just compare us to Potter?” Jett asked with a wide grin. “Think we got a chocolate frog for you?”
“You guys are dicks.” Jamie shut his door in our faces as we headed up the stairs to our rooms, our moods considerably lighter.
We gathered in Jett’s room because it was always the cleanest. He was obsessive. I had a tidy room, but not like Jett’s, and Ash . . . well, if you were looking for cups or plates, they’d be in Ash’s room.
“He’s right,” Ash mused as he flopped onto Jett’s made bed. “We haven’t done real Mayhem for months.”
“True,” I agreed as I kicked off my boots. “Two parties and the parking lot was dull. We need to juice it up.”
“What do you suggest?” Jett asked as he sat on his couch, his phone already in his hand, no doubt texting Ava.
“Lift and drop.”
I looked appreciatively at Ash, who was propped up on his elbows. “Cars?”
“Yeah.” Ash grinned. “At least six.”
“Six needs more than us,” Jett reminded him.
“We have Queeny.”
“Not on a lift and drop,” I said firmly.
“We’ll get her to tag the library.” I smiled at the thought of earlier this week when she had asked me if she could touch herself.
I’d never been so hard so quick. The disabled bathroom wouldn’t have been my choice, but we did seem to have a thing for explosive sex in bathrooms.
When she whispered her need to me, I had almost unloaded in my pants. I looked at my cousin. She wouldn’t have been like this with him. It really fucking bothered me sometimes that he had been her first, taking that from me. But I had to remind myself that I was her forever.
Her newfound confidence in dirty talk may be my undoing, but I was willing to power through for her.
“Ben?” Jett suggested.
“Yeah, he’s handy.” I nodded in agreement. “We need something else. Something . . . memorable.”
Ash grinned at me, and I shook my head in rejection. “Dude, really? In November?”
“It’s my favorite time of year,” he said as he lay back down again. “All those databases wiped clean . . . I’m channeling my favorite film.”
Jett threw his head back and laughed as he bounced to his feet. “I know whose car I’m doing, you?”
I didn’t like the way a certain professor was so “friendly” to my girl. “Yeah, I have mine.”
Quickly, we made a list of the professors’ cars we would take.
It was simple. You lifted the car from where they had parked it and dropped it off somewhere else.
It was an inconvenience to them; our classmates got free classes, and no harm was done.
Ash was going to wipe the school records for the semester.
That was perhaps more harmful, but it was Mayhem.
He’d been wanting to do it since high school, and we had told him to save it.
Now it seemed like sophomore year was the year to let him loose.
He would back the records up, and after the initial hysteria had settled, he would re-wipe everything and put it back the way it was .
. . with some alterations, but they would be so minute, they wouldn’t be detected.
“I’m going to bed,” Ash told us after we had hatched our plan.
“I’m going to call Ava,” Jett said as he stood with a yawn.
I said goodnight and headed to bed myself. Staring at the empty bed, I hesitated. I wanted my girl.
After a light tap on my brother’s door, he opened it, in his boxers, and the phone to his ear. He merely grunted when he saw me still dressed, and I headed down the stairs and out of the house as I made my way to Quinn’s.
She was still up — her light was still on, and I texted her to let her know I was outside.
She answered the door with her hair in a pile on her head, looking like a bird’s nest. Her tank top was tight and displayed her braless breasts.
Her PJ bottoms were a soft gray and hung loose.
The strip of skin between her tank and her PJ bottoms had my entire focus while she backed into her living room as I closed and locked the door behind me.
“You look good.”
“I look like I’ve been studying all night and haven’t showered since this morning,” Quinn objected as she resumed her position on the couch, her textbooks around her.
“How long you need?” I asked, looking at her books.
“Ten, maybe fifteen?” she answered as she looked up at me. “You staying?”
“Yeah, I thought I would.” I leaned over and kissed her upturned face. “That okay?”
Quinn smiled against my lips. “Yeah, but you need to let me finish.”
“I always let you finish,” I said as I pushed off her.
“That’s such a dick thing to say,” she laughed as she turned her attention back to her books. “And don’t even make a dick joke,” she warned.
“I never joke about my dick,” I replied as I headed to her bedroom. “I’ll be in here.”
After a minute, I heard her groan in frustration. “I can’t concentrate knowing you’re in my bed, naked!” she called through to me.
“Okay, pretend I’m fully clothed,” I called back as I got into bed.
“Are you naked?”
“No.”
“Honest?”
“Never.”
“Gray!”
“Quinn!”
“I hate you,” she mumbled grumpily.
“Liar,” I teased back and heard her happy chuckle as she went back to studying.
Closing my eyes, I smiled to myself as I listened to her make her notes and then pack her stuff away.
She climbed into bed beside me after she’d been to the bathroom and done her nightly routine. “Don’t freak out,” she said as she tucked herself under my arm.
“Okay.” I opened one eye and looked at her, waiting.
“I bought you a toothbrush.” Quinn looked nervous. “It’s not that big a deal.”
“Why are you being defensive?” I said as I moved my head to look at her. “It’s a toothbrush, thanks. I was fed up using yours.”
“You can’t use mine!” Quinn pushed off my chest in shock. “Were you using mine?”
“Why is this a big deal?” I asked her with a laugh.
“Because it’s gross,” she protested.
“Quinn, I’ve had my mouth on every part of your body, and I’ve swapped enough body fluids with you until you’ve practically dehydrated me. I’ve had worse in my mouth than your toothbrush.”
“Eeew, no.” Quinn sat up and glared at me. “No, you cannot say that . . . just no.” She shook her head in denial.
“We shared a spoon last night when we ate the frozen yogurt.”
“It’s different.”
“You sucked my lollipop last week.”
Quinn squinted at me. “Is that a euphemism?”
I barked out a laugh. “No, babe, an actual lollipop. Tilly gave it to me, remember?”
Quinn’s sad smile at the mention of Tilly had me cursing myself until she looked up at me with a frown. “It’s not the same.”
“How?” I asked her.
“Because the bristles are dislodging plaque and things. And mouths are disgusting.”
“Uh-huh, and when I kiss you? Is that disgusting?”
“It’s not the same,” Quinn insisted as she folded her arms stubbornly. “Use the toothbrush I bought you.”
“Okay.” I couldn’t hide my grin.
“I mean it.”
“Why would I use yours when there’s now one for me?” I reasoned.
She went to lie back down again but stopped to shoot me another warning glare, and I suppressed the urge to laugh out loud. As I shook with laughter, her punch in my ribs only caused me to laugh more.
“It’s not funny!” she hissed at me.
“Okay.” I forced myself to stop laughing, and she swatted me again. “Okay, I’m stopping.”
She asked me to switch the light off as she curled into my side, and I closed my eyes, my grin still wide in the dark.
“Did we just have our first domestic?” Quinn whispered in the dark.
“I dunno, I got hit several times and bullied . . . maybe?” I baited her as my hand cupped her ass.
“Not domestic abuse, you moron,” she whispered fiercely. “I meant domestic dispute.”
“You have to stop watching reality TV.” I pulled her closer to me. “But if you’re asking if we just had a fight, no, baby, we didn’t.”
“I could take your ass in a fight,” she mumbled as she stretched her arm across my waist.
“Probably.”
“Don’t be patronizing.”
“Okay.”
“Gray!”
“Quinn!” I echoed back and heard her huff. “Shut up and go to sleep.”
“Bossy.”
“You want me to shut you up?” I teased her as I pulled her hand over the front of my boxers. Her fingers automatically flexed around me before she groaned. With a wiggle and a shuffle, she was under the blanket, her hands reaching inside my boxers.
“I was joking,” I said half-heartedly as she licked along my dick. I felt her teeth graze me in warning, and I grinned as she set about shutting us both up.