CHAPTER 41
Luna
I scream at the sky.
Again.
Tink is annoyed with me.
I barely slept. There were more explosions in the night. It sounded like a war. I can only imagine what Quinn’s front gates look like now…the house…the kennel…
Just keep moving.
Except there’s not a single damn thing out here. I found a clear-ish stream and had one tiny sip of water with who knows what in it. It’s not enough but I can go back for one more tiny sip if I have to.
I’m so freaking confused.
Quinn made peace with the Russians.
Then they attacked.
There’s a Remnant of the Irish, whoever they are and whatever that means, did they attack him?
Why? Every Irishman—and woman—that I’ve met is loyal to their bones.
They look at Quinn like he’s Superman. And Quinn senior lives at the house and is hand fed by his loving son every day. So why the animosity?
Why send me to a shack?
How long should I stay here and wait?
I haven’t heard any explosions today. After twenty-four hours, maybe forty-eight, surely everyone is dead or captured.
And!
If I was advising someone else I’d tell them to nut up and go back. Listen, watch, see what you can learn.
But he asked me to stay here. His voice…his eyes.
“Guess we’re stuck here for a—” Bark! I run to the big, black dog. “Tink? What is it, girl?”
Bark! Bark!
She moves and I follow her.
It’s him.
“Quinn!” I scream his name.
He’s holding one arm, bloody, dirty, lines down his face, ripped shirt, gun in one hand and…Marlon.
I sob.
He looks huge and broken, and unbroken, and beautiful and angry and he…he saved my dog.
I run into him and he exhales, wrapping himself around me like a human shield. And blanket. And home. Marlon is shaking between us. Or I am. Maybe Quinn is too. His cheek rests on the top of my head and we stand, frozen, for I don’t know how long.
I pull back eventually to look at him and ask, “How bad?”
“I’m fine,” he sets my tiny dog down, to Tink’s delight, and puts his hands on my face.
His rough thumbs wipe under my eyes. “You? Were you hurt?” I shake my head but I can’t say no because he’s kissing me.
Same as before. Commanding. Total. Like a man starved but also not in a hurry. I start crying again.
He reaches down to put his hands on my thighs and I gladly hop up to wrap myself around him. He groans and starts walking us to the shack. I hope I feel like a blanket to him too. I try to kiss him back with as much desperation. If he’d died…
Our kisses turn different. More. Looser. Needier.
He stops at the front door, seeming almost delirious with need. I’m shoved against the wood. It’s hard and cold on my back. While Quinn is all bulging heat at my front. He thrusts up into me with another gritty, animalistic sound I fucking love.
“Yes, please,” I say as he kisses my neck. “Quinn.” I pull at his buckle. He lets me. He moves his hands into my pants, grabbing an ass cheek in each hand.
I let go with one arm and push everything he’s wearing down far enough that his dick springs free. I grip it but he quickly pushes into me again, rubbing against my center through my jeans.
“Please,” I beg again. I pull my jeans down too.
He moves again. His smooth length runs along my clit. It’s the most electric, amazing, brutal sensation.
“Quinn,” I whimper his name, “how many times do I have to beg you?”
He kisses me, hard, long, deliberate.
He pulls away and locks eyes with me to ask. I brace myself. Finally, he says, “Lasa, baby, tell me you’re in love with me too.”
I hesitate, my heart stuttering in my chest. He loves me. I…I… I smirk and say the usual sarcastic, “Sure.”
Quinn breathes, pants really, through flared nostrils. Debating, or maybe just torturing me.
“Fuck it.”
He moves a hand to position himself right at my entrance and then—
“Quinn!”
Hollllyyyyyy—
“I…it’s too much,” I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Breathe, Luna,” he says, studying me. “Open your eyes, baby.” I do.
His eyes are…worried. Warm. Hopeful. Heartbroken.
We inhale together and exhale together, like we’ve done at the range.
He inches in further with a hiss. It burns but it also feels…
right. Like he’s filling the empty ache I’ve had for weeks. Months. Years.
He looks down to where we’re joined and his mouth parts. I can’t help it. I need his lips like I need air. I crane my neck to kiss him and he reciprocates. His moan is guttural as he pulls out and then back in. Slow but punishing.
“Yes,” he hisses. “Perfect. You’re perfect.” He pulls out and in again. “Keep breathing.”
“More,” I say, needing it.
He smirks and pulls out and then smashes up into me so hard I see stars. He does it again and again and again and I can’t…he…there’s cursing and skin slapping and I’m so wet I can hear it.
His moves get almost frantic so he shifts to move one hand down to my center. He presses my clit and—
“QUINN!”
Our own explosion. Blinding pleasure. White. Total. Heat fills me. He fills me.
“Luna! Fuck!” Our screams fill the forest.
More and more the waves wash over me. He keeps moving too. It goes on forever, bliss and agony and peace and war and everything, everywhere all at once.
Eventually, we start to breathe again. To think.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” Quinn whispers. I frown so he quickly adds, “No, fuck, no I’m not sorry. I just should’ve waited. Your first time shouldn’t be up against a door covered in filth. Damn it.”
“It was amazing,” I pant, shaking my head. He kisses my forehead and pulls up my pants, then his. I chuckle, “But now we’re going to be really filthy. There’s not even a damn water bottle in there.”
Quinn doesn’t respond. He leads me in. I can tell in the way he moves that his left side is aching. He puts both hands on the worktable and hangs his head, exhausted.
“Shit, and you’re hurt.” I put a hand on his back, “Quinn? Can we go back to the house?”
“The house is gone,” he says.
“Gone?” I gasp.
“All but. Bombed, burned, riddled with bullet holes.”
I put a hand on his arm, “Mac? Collin? Sheila?”
“Wounded but alive. We lost Seamus, though, so even though most of the men got out, they’re holed up in safe houses with fucking bandaids. And,” he pauses, pain flashing in his irises, his voice trembles, “We lost Shae.”
He curses. I do too.
In just a few weeks she became the closest thing to a maternal figure I’ve ever had. And I know Quinn loved her deeply.
“Was it the Russians?”
“Hired guns in masks. A fuckton of them.”
“Well, you’re hurt, we can’t stay here,” I start, still confused. Quinn straightens, somehow seeming taller than ever, and looks at me in a way I can’t decipher. He whistles for Tink and she bounds in. Marlon follows. Quinn scoops up my dog, hands him to me and turns and pulls on the work table.
“What are you—”
The whole thing comes up on hinges. The flooring underneath the table comes up with it. And there’s a hole in the ground? No, not a hole. A staircase. Quinn studies me for a beat, concerned, then moves. He doesn’t say a word, just starts down the concrete staircase.
Marlon squeaks and a shiver runs through me.
This is it.
This is it!
Quinn has a secret bunker and he’s about to show it to me.
I walk down the cold, dark, staircase for a few steps and then lights come on.
Lights! On motion sensors. So there is power here.
We go forever and ever. Three stories down, from what I counted. Finally, he stops. Another light comes on above us. We’re on the landing, the bottom of the steps but in front of a metal door. It opens.
An elevator?
Again, Quinn says nothing. He just watches me watch all his secrets unravel like a dug up scroll. I’m sure he’s wondering if I feel triumphant. I…I don’t know what to feel. The elevator only has one button. Quinn presses it.
“How deep are we going, exactly?” I say, my mouth dry.
“Deep enough that even a satellite can’t see the power usage.”
Oh.
My ears pop. The temperature shifts. So. Pretty damn deep.
Finally the box stops plummeting to the freaking center of the earth and Quinn sighs, like he’s bracing himself. Marlon and Tink both whine at the pressure change. It’s not painful or unpleasant, just noticeable.
After Quinn touches the button again, the door opens and
Oh.
My.
Fucking.
Fuck.
This is.
Not a bunker.
It’s…huge.
Like a gleaming underground factory or parking garage or damn shopping mall! Polished stone floors, tons of lighting, screens, vehicles. He’s…I married freaking Bruce Wayne. I look around, half expecting Morgan Freeman to pop out to show us some tankers.
I look at Quinn, he watches me, his face unreadable, then walks out. We only take a few steps and meet a wall of screens on the left. A workspace with laptops and mounted TVs. So many of them.
They display…everything.
His house, the woods, even the shack. Boston streets, Manhattan, maps, dash cams, back alleys, traffic cameras, it looks like. I look back at his house. It’s in ruins.
Wait.
“Wait. You have no cameras, anywhere. How?” He taps a button and the images zoom out. Way out. Further still. “Satellites?” I inhale. All the blood leaves my face. I have to put a hand on the metal desktop beside me. So…he’s a fed? Skulls Quinn is a nark?
WHAT?
“Quinn? Who….” My voice is trembling so badly I can barely speak. “Who are you?”
“I am Quinn. But not Skulls, not really. Brian was my twin brother’s name. Sully was the first name I remember. Short for my real first name, Sullivan.” He shifts to face me fully. “But now the only people who matter call me Van.”