Into the phone, I say, “Never mind, I’ll try you later. And you’d better be back at the hotel with Mamma right now, apologizing for leaving her alone overnight.”
I disconnect and hand the phone back to Quinn. As soon as he’s stashed it inside his shirt pocket, he drags me across the seat and pulls me onto his lap. He looks at my mouth. His eyes start burning.
I sigh. “Not in front of Kieran, please.”
From the front seat, Kieran says, “Don’t mind me, lass. I’m blind as a bat up here. Deaf, too, if it makes ye feel any better.’”
Ignoring him because Quinn’s sliding his hand up my thigh, I warn, “Don’t you dare.”
He whispers, “You defended me. In front of all those wankers, you introduced me as your husband and called me honey.”
“Those ‘wankers’ are my family.”
“You said we were your family, too,” he breathes, eyes alight. Sinking his fingers into my flesh, he touches his lips to mine.
Pleased by how satisfied he is, I smile at him. “Don’t let it go to your head. That’s big enough already.”
He takes his hand from my leg and clasps it around my jaw. He kisses me again, this time more firmly, but still with no tongue. A thrill in his voice, he says, “You said we were on our honeymoon.”
“I was trying to distract everyone from the mess you made. Remember the dead guy on the floor? Brains, blood, sound familiar? Also, back up a second. What the hell was your problem this morning? Were you concerned about this meeting you neglected to tell me anything about?”
His jaw works. He caresses my face for a moment in pensive silence, then shakes his head.
When he doesn’t offer any explanation, I say crossly, “I see you’ve hit the mute button again. I wish I had access to that when you won’t shut the hell up.”
“Let me have this moment of happiness before you destroy my will to live, please.”
When I blink, taken aback, he says, “That was a joke.”
I chew my lip and play with a button on his shirt. “Don’t joke about your will to live. You’ve said some things in that regard that worry me.”
He exhales, pulls me against his chest, and tucks my head under his chin. Holding me tightly, he says gruffly, “Tell you what. You’re the only one in this marriage who’s allowed to kill me. How’s that?”
Snuggled in his big strong arms, I whisper, “I don’t want to kill you. I mean I do, but not right now.”
He chuckles, nuzzling my ear.
I close my eyes and breathe him in. “Quinn?”
“Aye?”
“You shot a man because he disrespected me.”
“Aye. And you didn’t even flinch.”
“Is it bad that I found it erotic?”
“The dead guy?”
I know he’s only hunting for praise, but I still sigh in exasperation. “The psychotic machismo. Watching you blow out someone’s brains because you didn’t like the way he talked about me was a real turn-on.”
A smile in his voice, he murmurs, “Careful, viper. Another compliment like that and you’ll have a hundred bodies laid out at your feet by the end of the day.”
I shiver with happiness, burying my face into the crook of his neck. Then, because I know my reaction is all sorts of wrong, I say sternly, “That’s awful.”
He laughs, squeezing me harder. “Christ, we’re a pair, aren’t we?”
Over his shoulder, Kieran says, “Look at it this way, lad: yer savin’ two other people by bein’ together!”
I say, “I thought you couldn’t hear anything!”
“Oh. Right. Sorry, lass.”
Settling back against Quinn’s chest, I say to him, “I have a question for you.”
“And I have an answer. Whether I’ll admit it or not remains to be seen.”
What I wouldn’t give for a Taser right now. “You said yesterday, you didn’t have a condom because you weren’t planning on having sex.”
“So?”
“So why weren’t you planning on having sex on your wedding night?”
Kieran chuckles. “Because he doesn’t fancy little girls, that’s why.”
At the same time, Quinn and I say, “Kieran!”
He waves a hand apologetically. “Sorry. Mum’s the word.”
After a pause to glare at the back of Kieran’s head, Quinn says, “Lili didn’t want it. I didn’t want it. There was no need for protection from something that wasn’t going to happen.”
I’m so confused, my eyes almost cross.
Then, abruptly, I’m angry.
“Let me get this straight. You were going to marry Lili with no expectation of consummating the marriage, but you demanded our marriage include sex and then made me propose to you?”
He makes a face as if I’m being silly, then brushes me off with, “Let’s talk about Aldo. Why don’t you trust him?”
I reply with a pointed stare. “Because he’s moody, arrogant, and incomprehensible.”
“Ah. Then we’ll get along just fine.”
Kieran tries to stifle a laugh by coughing.
Positioning me more comfortably between his legs, Quinn says, “So where should I take you shopping first?”
“The Neptune Society.”
“What’s that?”
My smile is acidic. “A cremation company. Did you know they’ll pick up a dead body from anywhere in the world?
“You’re being funny again.”
“Yes, but you often mistake threats for humor, so there’s really no telling.”
Dismissing that, he changes the subject. “Speaking of sex—”
“We were talking about where to go shopping!”
“—what kind of birth control are you using?”
Blindsided by that, I stare at him blankly.
He stares back at me with a patient, curious look, waiting for my answer.
My answer which will make not one damn ounce of sense, so I take a page from his playbook and change the subject. “Why do you think Alessandro was so interested in what happened at the house last week? That was strange, wasn’t it?”
“Aye. What’s even stranger is why you’re trying to get out of answering my question about birth control.”
“Rewind to the part in the conversation where you said you’d have an answer for me, but might not admit it, and we’ll go from there.”
He furrows his brows, gazing at me with growing concern, then murmurs, “Oh.”
“What do you mean, ‘Oh’?”
He glances out the window and gives me a squeeze, saying softly, “It’s all right. We don’t have to talk about it.”
“I can tell you’re formulating some kind of bizarre and utterly incorrect hypothesis in that lump of coal you call a brain, Quinn. Stop thinking so hard. It doesn’t suit you.”
He glances back at me, his look wary. “So there’s not a big reason you don’t want to tell me?”
I sigh. The man is hopeless. “Just tell me what the big reason is that you’ve manufactured, and I’ll tell you if it’s right.”
Hesitating, he licks his lips. “Are you…?”
I lift my brows. “Breathless with anticipation? Yes. Spit it out before I faint.”
He sends a furtive glance to my lap, then looks at my face again. When he winces, I know what he’s thinking.
“No, I’m not infertile.”
His pause is so loud, I need earplugs. “Did you have your tubes tied?”
“No.”
“So everything is in good working order. Down there.”
I say drily, “I’ll have my gynecologist send you the records, Doctor. You can pore over them yourself.”
Looking relieved and also a little sheepish, he admits, “I just didn’t know if you…if Enzo did something…fuck.” He looks out the window again, his cheeks ruddy.
Horrified to realize his meaning, I say softly, “Oh God, Quinn, no. Nothing like that. I was on the pill the whole time I was married.”
He exhales, nodding. “Okay. Sorry, I’m just...” He stops short, then looks me in the eye. “So you’re saying you’re still on the pill?”
I feel heat creeping up my neck, but there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. “No. That’s not what I’m saying.”
His gaze turns intense. “Then what kind of birth control are you on, woman?”
Looking at the roof of the car, I crinkle my nose and say, “Um…”
With the speed of two fingers snapping, he devolves from an adult human male with a fully functioning frontal lobe to a cave-dwelling primate composed of ninety-nine percent penis.
A growl rises from deep in his throat. His arms tighten around me. His intensity level ratchets up a few thousand notches, and his eyes turn black. His energy crackling hot, he stares at me as if I’m about to be devoured.
In a guttural voice that raises all the hairs on the back of my neck, he says, “You’re not using anything.”
I nervously lick my lips. “Don’t go all George of the Jungle on me. I simply didn’t know I’d be needing anything because I didn’t know I’d be getting married.”
His savage grin is reminiscent of how an animal bares its teeth. His eyes gleam with a disturbing light. And his erection is now the fourth passenger in the car, quickly sucking out all the oxygen.
“You never mentioned that, viper. You let me fuck you and—”
“Keep your voice down!”