CHAPTER SIX
NOAH
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Goddamn, she looks fine. Quinn is still the sexiest woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. But she’s more to me than just a beautiful woman. She’s mine.
I thought I was prepared to see her again after six months, but I was wrong. As I walked up behind her, that high pony showed off her lean, creamy neck, and I almost reached out and wound my hand around it. Then tugged her against my chest, kissing her so hard she’d need oxygen afterward.
Yeah, that didn’t happen.
When she turned, I steeled my expression, using the same control I’ve needed with Quinn Parker since the day we met. Giving nothing away.
Word spread quickly throughout the base that she didn’t date men in uniform. It didn’t matter; I didn’t like seeing her with anyone. Perhaps that’s why I went to the bar that first night and sat at the end of the bar.
I was protecting her, is what I told myself, as if I was some kind of saint.
Fucking hardly.
I watched as she drank and danced and quickly wobbled on her lightweight feet. Quinn never saw me that first night, probably because they’d all been doing tequila shots.
She surprised me by sneaking out the door without saying goodbye. I tossed back my warm-as-fuck beer after sitting on it for hours, and intercepted her out the front of the bar, then dragged her drunken sexy ass onto my bike and drove her home.
Every Friday, for months, this went on.
She’d seek me out at the bar, pretending she didn’t see me, occasionally spying on me over her glass of water.
“Pro tip, sweetheart; water won’t keep you sober if you shoot back five shots of tequila,” I said one night when I slid her helmet on.
“It might,” she giggled, holding on to my bicep as I steadied her on the seat.
It became our thing for a while.
Every Friday night, I’d wait for her to grab her phone and sneak toward the entrance, giving me the barest glance. Then she’d wait for me on the corner. All pretense of calling an Uber was gone.
No one ever saw us.
I’d hand her the helmet, and she’d climb on the back, wrapping her lithe body around mine.
I fucking loved it.
“McDonald’s?” I asked one night, clamping her hand to my buckle. Her other hand palmed the muscles of my back through my T-shirt and slid down slowly.
“You’re so warm,” she purred.
Clearing my throat, I warned, “Quinn.”
“I bet you’re so nice to snuggle up with after—”
“Okay, that’s enough.” I revved the bike, not willing to hear the next words out of her mouth. I was her CO, and nothing could change that.
One night, halfway home, she banged her fist on the side of my body. I pulled over, and she scrambled off, tearing the helmet off.
“The hell is wrong?” I cried.
“I feel sick. Ugh.” Quinn breathed in and out, turning around and fanning herself. “You ride too fast.”
“I was doing thirty.”
“Thirty thousand.” She glared.
“Sit.” I pulled a bottle of water out of the storage on the bike and cracked it open. Then I tugged her down on the grass. “Sip it slowly.”
“What if I barf?”
“Then you barf. Gargle after.” I sat down on my ass next to her and leaned my elbows on my knees.
“My dad was talking about you last week,” Quinn said, surprising me. “Says you were a hero or something in the Middle East. At least I think it was you.”
I glanced out at the traffic.
“Were you?”
“I’m not a hero, Quinn.”
Case in point, I should be out with a woman my age, not sitting on the side of the road with a drunk twenty-four-year-old who reports to me and whom I want to fuck.
“It sounded like he thinks you are an excellent captain to be under.” Quinn sniggered. “Which sounds rude, and I’m going to be honest with you, right now my mind went straight—”
“Drink,” I snapped and stood up.
In complete rebellion, she lay down on the grass, facing up at the stars while I glared at her top, which grazed the bottom of her breasts.
She wore no bra. Motherfucker.
“Quinn, come on,” I urged, very aware that I had the Colonel’s daughter lying drunk on the highway.
“Can’t. Still sick. Come lie with me.”
“Lying down isn’t going to make you feel less sick. Sit up and drink.”
“Come on, Captain. You waited all night for me.” Quinn ran a hand over her breast. “You know you want to.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Without thinking, I reached down, lifted her fireman style into my arms and strode to my bike. She threw her head back, laughing as her arms looped around my neck. By the time we reached the bike, our faces were inches apart, and we were both breathing heavily.
“Thank God you won’t remember this,” I muttered.
“I will if you kiss me,” she replied, her voice husky.
“You don’t date men in uniform, remember, and I’m your commanding officer.”
“Then why do you look like you want to eat me up, Noah Jenkins?” Quinn licked her lips.
Because I do.
“Two options: kiss me, or I will suck your cock.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
“That’s it, I’m taking you home,” I growled, dropping her on the back of the bike as she laughed like a vixen.
I put the water away and climbed on, turning to see if she had her helmet on. Instead, warm, soft lips slammed onto mine as she climbed up my back.
I was paralyzed, knowing she’d hate herself for this once sober. But my body took over completely as fire blazed right through my body to my cock. I tossed the helmet out of her hands and pulled her around to sit over my knee and kissed her as if our lives depended on it.
Deep.
Starving.
Claiming.
Her hands explored my chest, sliding over my neck and into my hair as I tugged her firmly against my denim jeans. Against my thick and throbbing cock.
Cars sped past, but I didn’t care. The only thing I focused on was the sweet taste of Quinn and how my fingers were threaded through her long dark hair, and I never wanted to let her go. She was tiny in my arms, but the passion burning between us could have set the world on fire.
The need for oxygen was the only thing that stopped us. Desire blazed in her blue eyes as I locked onto them.
“I will remember that,” she whispered, cupping my face. “Forever.”
Reality crashed down on me like a skyscraper. I was sober, and Quinn was drunk. I was her commanding officer; she was my charge.
“We need to forget it happened,” I rasped and watched flickers of hurt appear in her globes.
“God.” She scrambled off my knee and dropped to the ground. “Fuck, shit. I’m sorry. Jesus. Captain, I shouldn’t have done that.”
Running a hand through my hair, I let out a curse. “Quinn, get back on. It’s fine. We both let that happen, and we won’t do it again.”
It took her a whole fucking minute to grab the helmet and get behind me.
By the time I walked her to her room and she closed the door, she was exhausted. I leaned against it as I always did, waiting until I heard her crash into bed, but that night all I heard was silence. Until...
“Go home, Noah.”
She knew.
She knew I always stood there.
Something about that dug into my heart and stayed there. This unspoken thing between us that meant so much but was so little.
What the hell was this thing between us? It was far more than sexual attraction. I was protective of her in a way I never was with other women and lived for our Friday nights together.
The following Friday we rode home in silence, but then she and Tyrell had an altercation. In my office, after he left, Quinn said those fateful words that forced me to face reality. I was tempting fate.
You touch me more when I’m on the back of your bike.
I stopped going to the bar.
She was right. I was beginning to believe she belonged to me. Feeling her against my body was becoming addictive.
The kiss.
If I hadn’t stopped, it would have escalated.
So, I did.
But it didn’t change anything.
Quinn’s little slip told me a lot more than she was letting on: that she desired me just as much. I knew how important her career and reputation were, but she’d risked it all on that public highway.
From that point on, our lives continued to intertwine, and I fell in love.
The question is, does Quinn love me?
Or rather, does she love me enough to risk everything else?