Chapter Ten
“Are you coming in to work tomorrow?”
Lark opened her eyes and looked at her bedside clock, her cell phone mashed to her ear. Ten thirty. She didn’t usually go to bed this early. And she didn’t usually get calls this late. “How did you get this number?”
“It’s on your file.”
Lark rolled to her side and pushed herself into a sitting position. “Oh, really?”
“Yes, really. Don’t act so surprised by the fact that your boss has your number. You’re too smart for that.”
Well, the thing was that Quinn seemed like something other than her boss. Something other than a client. He seemed like something else altogether. He was, after all, the only man to ever put his tongue in her mouth.
Among other places.
Her whole head got hot just thinking about it.
“I’m not very smart, as evidenced by my behavior over the past few days.”
“Such as?” he asked.
“Such as getting in compromising positions with a man I barely know.”
“I know you a lot better than the women I usually position myself compromisingly with.”
She blinked rapidly. “Case in point of why we shouldn’t be doing any of that kind of stuff. To me, you’re a stranger. Essentially.”
“I feel like I know you pretty well,” he said, his voice dipping to a lower register, getting huskier. Sexier.
He sucked the words right out of her brain, and she found herself completely unable to come up with a response to that. Because she was back in that moment. Fire burning through her, pleasure like she’d never imagined existed . . .
She tipped over, pressing her face against her pillow, and made a noise that was halfway between a whimper and a snarl.
“That good, huh, baby?”
Mortification coiled in her belly and curdled like sour milk. She couldn’t believe she’d actually betrayed that much. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said, her voice muffled by the pillow.
“I don’t need to. Your reaction did that for me.”
She lifted her head. “Oh, my running away screaming into the night flattered you? You really do have ego issues, my friend.”
“I’m your friend now? That means I’m not a stranger.”
“Quinn,” she growled.
He laughed. “Sorry, Lark.”
A silence fell between them, and it wasn’t awkward, which was weird. It felt companionable. Comfortable. So strange, because things between them were never comfortable. They were always lightning-charged and combustible.
“Apology accepted.”
“So, can I come and pick you up tomorrow?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And do you promise not to pepper spray me?”
“Do you promise not to kiss me?”
“That depends,” he said. She heard fabric rustle in the background, and she wondered if he was in bed too. The idea made her feel even warmer than she already was, and she kicked her blankets down to her toes. “What will you be wearing?”
“Nothing exciting,” she said. “Jeans and a t-shirt.”
“No buttons?”
“No,” she said, teeth gritted. Why didn’t she hang up? Why didn’t she tell him to leave her alone?
You don’t want him to.
She ignored the voice in her head that wanted to tell the truth and clung to the misty illusion of Who knows?
“Damn,” he said, his voice a rough whisper that vibrated through her. “All right, that begs the question . . . what are you wearing right now?”
The question made her feel like she was standing near the fire again. She was unclear about whether it was the heat of arousal or the flames of hell, coming after her for her betrayal. She shouldn’t answer. She should hang up.
But she was too curious. Held captive by the possibilities of what might happen next. Of what he might say or do. And with the phone between them, at least he couldn’t touch her. It couldn’t go further than she was ready for it to go.
And anyway, it might not even go anywhere.
She looked down at her bare legs, then at the upside-down, to her, image of two dinosaurs talking. “A brown t-shirt. With a Stegosaurus and a Tyrannosaurus. And it says, ‘Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal.’” She was really sucky at this dirty talk thing when she wasn’t typing it and getting a chance to screen her words. She really should have lied and gone with lace. She’d lied with Aaron. She’d said she was way hotter than she was. And she’d claimed to own a thong. And claimed to be wearing said thong. She didn’t own a thong.
He chuckled. “Sounds like a warning.”
“Do you need the warning?”
“I might.”
Her stomach tightened. “At least you’re honest.”
“As insightful and entertaining as your t-shirt is, what else have you got on?”
“Um . . . uh . . .”
“I’ll tell you what I’m wearing.”
“Okay. Go.”
“Black boxers.”
Her throat dried. “Is that all?”
“Yes.”
The silence worked its way under her skin, made her pulse throb. Her entire body throb. “Oh.”
“I’m in bed,” he said.
“Me too,” she said, her throat so dry it felt like it was lined with sandpaper.
“So now I shared what I was wearing, or mainly not.”
“You know about my t-shirt.”
“But the rest?”
“Just . . .” What was the sexy thing to call underwear? What was she doing? “Panties.”
A throaty purr shivered down the line and reverberated down to her toes. “What kind?”
“They aren’t . . .” Lie, damn you, Lark! Tell him it’s a thong. Crotchless. Something. “They’re just cotton. With a superman S on the front.”
He chuckled. “I like this.”
“Why?”
“Because I know you’re telling me the truth. If you’d said something lacy and see-through I would have called you a liar. But I can picture this.”
“Are you picturing it?” she asked.
“Hell yeah.”
Her heart was thundering. Her breasts felt heavy, and an ache was centered between her thighs, growing deeper and deeper. “And do you . . . like what you’re picturing?”
“I remember how you look naked.”
“It was dark.”
“Doesn’t matter. Your breasts are so perfect. You have the prettiest nipples I’ve ever seen. So perfect I had to taste them. And your legs . . . long and shapely. That’s what I like about you—you’re shaped like a woman. Curves in all the right places. Hips a man can grab onto.”
“Are you saying my hips are big?” she asked, her throat so tight she could barely force the words out.
“Perfect. I’m saying they’re perfect. And do you want me to tell you how sweet you taste?”
“Quinn—”
“It makes me hard just thinking about it.”
She moved her hands over the top of her thighs, restless, hot. She should be so mad at him for saying that. “Remember how things got left between us last time?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You were mad at me. I was mad at you.”
“That’s about right.”
“I said your touch disgusted me.”
“Yeah, but you’re a liar.”
She was a liar. “Even so, I said it.”
“I’m not touching you now, am I, baby?” But it felt like he was, his words almost as potent as the sweep of his tongue over her flesh had been.
“No.”
“So do you want me to hang up, or do you want to hear more about how hot I am for you?”
That was the question. But she could end the call at any time. It wasn’t like being with him in person. She had more control here. More distance.
“I’m listening.”
“If I were there right now, do you know what I’d do?”
“What?”
“I’d lift your shirt up, not all the way, just enough so I could see your panties. And I’d trace the S with my finger.”
Unconsciously, she found herself doing exactly what he described, a hiss escaping her teeth as her fingertip drifted over her *oris.
“Did you just do it, Lark?” he asked, his voice low.
“No,” she lied, heat flooding her face.
“Don’t lie to me again. Did you?”
“Yes.” The word came out a rushed whisper.
“Good. Keep doing that. Do what I would do if I were there.” She could tell him no. She should tell him where to stick it. She didn’t.
“Okay.”
“After I did that, I would push your shirt up the rest of the way so I could see your breasts.” He paused. “Did you do it?”
“Not yet.”
“Do it,” he bit out. “Now.”
She put her hands just beneath the hem of her t-shirt and pushed it up over her breasts. “I did it,” she said.
“Good. Are your nipples hard?”
“Quinn. Jeez.”
“Are they?”
“Yes,” she said, flexing her toes, trying to excise some of her restless energy, some of her nerves and arousal.
“Touch them,” he said.
“Quinn . . .”
“I would if I were there. I’d tease them. Suck them. Since you can’t do that . . . I’ll let you off just touching them.”
“Generous of you,” she said, sliding the tip of one finger over a hardened bud.
“You have no idea how generous I’d be if I were there. I wouldn’t just touch you there. I’d put my hands between your legs. Feel how wet you were for me. You’re wet, aren’t you?”
Arousal pounded through her, an insistent beat. She felt so hungry, for him, for more. And because she knew he would ask her to, she moved her hand from her breast, down beneath the waistband of her underwear.
“Yes,” she said, an answer to his question, a confirmation of how good it felt to be touched, even if it was just by herself.
“Remember what I did last night?”
She bit her lip and nodded, then realized he couldn’t see her. “Yes.”
“Touch yourself like that. In that same rhythm. We both know you like it.”
She nodded again, sliding her fingers over her *, a sharp cry escaping her lips. She wasn’t unfamiliar with this act, but having Quinn give the orders, knowing he knew what she was doing, amped it up to a whole new level.
“Do you know what that does to me?” he asked.
“Tell me,” she said, her voice shaky. “You touch yourself, Quinn. And tell me about it.”
She could hear him moving, could hear the shifting of fabric. “I’m hard for you,” he said.
“I wish I knew how you looked,” she said, her fingers still working over her own body. “It’s not fair. You can picture me, but I can’t picture you.”
“I’m sure you can use your imagination.”
Yes, she could. She knew what naked men looked like. But the thing was, she didn’t know what one felt like. So while she could close her eyes and imagine what Quinn might look like naked, she couldn’t get a good idea for how it would feel to touch him.
Would he be hot? Smooth? She knew he’d be hard. She’d felt the outline of him through his jeans, but she wanted to know more. She was almost desperate to know more.
But she didn’t want to admit the extent of her inexperience. “Of course,” she said.
“This is torture,” he said, his voice a low growl. “It’s not my hand I want.”
“You can’t come here.”
“Why not?”
Her hand stilled. “You know why.”
So did she, but she was still turned on, high on her need for release, and it didn’t seem to matter very much.
“Because I’m bad for you,” he said, the growl in his voice exaggerated.
“Yes,” she said, resuming her movements, pleasure streaking through her like flames.
“Oh . . . baby, you have no idea how much I want you.”
It was that statement that pushed her over the edge. She cried out, her internal muscles clenching tight, her eyes squeezed shut as Quinn’s face, his chest, his abs, flashed through her mind.
A second later, she heard a low grunt on the other end of the phone, and she could only assume that Quinn had gone over the edge with her.
She lay there after that, her arm straight out, away from her head, the phone loose in her fingers, her heart pounding hard, shame, her newfound semi-constant companion, trying to crowd her post-orgasmic bliss.
She put the phone back to her ear and heard Quinn breathing hard on the other end. “So,” he said, finally. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“See you at nine.”
The line went quiet and Lark threw her arm over her head. “You suck,” she said into the empty room.
She really did suck. She was the worst. But right now she felt sleepy. And satisfied. And she didn’t want to run from Quinn. The trouble was, he wasn’t here.
She rolled over onto her side, pulling her covers up over her shoulders and holding them tight. She wished Quinn were behind her, his strong arms holding her close. She would worry about why she shouldn’t want that later.
Right now she just did. Right now she ached for closeness. She buried her face in her pillow and pulled the blankets tighter.
Things would be so much simpler if she could hate Quinn. But she didn’t. She couldn’t.
She felt like she was being torn in two. And the only way to stop it was to release her hold on one of the things she was clinging to.
Right now, she didn’t think she could do that.
***
“Good mornin’.”
“Stuff it, Parker.” Lark got in the truck and slammed the door behind her, and Quinn gave her a sideways look. She had her head down, her focus on her hands in her lap. She was angry at him. Again. After he’d given her an orgasm. Again. It took a lot to satisfy this woman.
He opened his mouth to tell her she was starting to seem ungrateful, but something stopped him. Maybe it was the color in her cheeks, the fact that she refused to look at him at all.
The fact that he could almost feel her shame and embarrassment radiating from her. And that had never been a part of the plan in his mind. He hadn’t wanted to hurt Cade by shaming Lark, but it seemed like that’s what was happening.
He’d imagined her just growing an attachment to him, and him being able to use that, but while she was definitely drawn to him, she didn’t appreciate anything about it. She was being dragged kicking and screaming into an attraction she didn’t want.
In fairness, he hadn’t meant for last night’s phone call to go as it had. That had been off script. Then again, so had their time in his pickup. A kiss, maybe, but he hadn’t planned on taking things as far as they’d gone.
And last night all he’d wanted to do was call and try to patch things up. Try to get her sweet again.
Good job, a*shole.
He hadn’t made her like him any more after that. He’d made her come though, and in his experience that didn’t usually make a woman so damn mad.
“What do you think you’ll work on today?” he asked, turning the truck around and pulling out of the driveway.
“Don’t ask me that.”
“Why not?”
“Do you care? Does it mean anything to you at all?”
“Are we talking computers?”
“Yes, we’re talking computers. I know the other stuff doesn’t mean anything to you.”
“Do you?” he asked.
“Yes. Yes, I do. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then why did you?”
“I thought maybe you were talking about it, so I had to say something,” she said.
“Well, I wasn’t. I don’t have anything to say on the subject, in fact.”
“Well. Fine. I don’t either. I have work to do.”
He spared her another quick glance before looking back at the narrow two-lane road. “Which was what I was asking you about.”
“I know. I just don’t think you care about the work I do as long as it gets done.”
“I actually do care, since I’m paying you.”
“Fine. The firewall is operational, and I’m making sure everything is good with the LAN connections. I’m moving on to the office computers now, and I’m going to set up an intranet for your employees—not for the kids—something that will allow them to share information, send email, et cetera.”
“I don’t know what most of those words meant.”
“I didn’t figure you did.”
“I feel like I’ve missed the digital age. I do most of my work outside, and that’s how I like it. I think if I would have stayed at home I would have had all that touch screen shit. Would have worn a tie and worked at a desk.”
Just thinking about it made him feel like he couldn’t breathe. The idea of being trapped behind a desk all day, four walls of an office closing in around him.
“I’m not sure whether I would have been a brilliant businessman or a terrible one.”
“Why is that?” she asked.
“Because I didn’t know the value of hard work, I felt like I could have whatever I wanted and I didn’t really care who I hurt so long as I got what I wanted. The law was also something I wasn’t overly concerned with.”
“You would have made millions.”
“Not worth it.”
He looked at her again and caught her peeking at him sideways through the curtain of her dark hair. “Oh, really?”
“Yes. Really. Anyway, I inherited a lot of my dad’s money when he kicked it, so why do something I hate when I don’t need to do it to get money?”
“You’re such a charmer, Quinn.”
“Nah, I’m not.”
“Nope,” she shook her head. “I was being facetious.”
“I actually got that. Although, for all that you say you don’t like me, you don’t seem to back it up.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of movement and he turned, treated to a full view of Lark’s middle finger held high. “How’s that?” she asked.
“You know what that means, right?”
She curled her lip and shot him a snotty look. “Duh.”
“Not exactly a threat, baby, since part of me just wants to say, ‘Go right ahead.’”
She lowered her hand slowly. “You’re so inappropriate.”
“No more so than you.”
“Lies. And anyway, I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”
He turned the truck into the driveway that led up to Longhorn. “Hard not to talk about it when it’s all I can think about.”
“See, that doesn’t make any sense to me, Quinn.”
“Why not?”
“As we’ve established, you’re a buckle bunny magnet. And those women are . . . you know . . . uh . . . accomplished in the coital arts.”
A laugh burst out of his mouth. “Right.”
“So I’m not exactly sure why I, a total nerd who is not, am occupying any portion of your thoughts except the ones that say, ‘Dear Lord, that is one awkward hot mess.’ I’m naturally suspicious of it.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I told you I was wearing Superman underwear and you still gave me a heavy breathing call, so forgive me if I’m a little confused.”
He put the truck in park in front of the main house, but left the engine running. What she was saying . . . all of those thoughts had passed through his mind. Sure, he’d started out wanting to seduce her to screw with Cade, but it had changed. Grown. Until, without any pre-planning, he’d ended up talking dirty to a woman who was wearing a t-shirt with dinosaurs on it. She was right—it didn’t really make sense.
But damned if he could do anything to change it.
“Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with what you’re wearing or how skilled you are,” he said, hesitating a little bit, because he wasn’t sure where these words, these sincere and gentle words, were coming from. “Maybe it’s just you.”
Was this part of his plan, or was this real? Was it coming from some deep part of him he hadn’t known about? That seemed impossible. He was thirty-four years old; he didn’t think he had parts of himself left to discover.
He was a simple bastard. He wanted sex, food, drink, in that order. And he wanted to do the one thing in life he was good at, and God help anyone who stood in his way. He didn’t say romantic, sensitive shit. Ever.
He said things like, “Take your panties off, darlin’.” And women did. So he’d never had to say anything deeper, because with those simple, crude words he was able to scratch number one off his list. And if after leaving the hotel he could hit a twenty-four hour drive-through for a cheeseburger and a Coke, he could hit them all in one straight shot.
So what the hell these words were doing coming out of his mouth, and whatever this ache was—in his chest, not just in his balls—he didn’t know.
But they had. And they felt a lot like the truth.
He looked at her fully now, her head down, her hair concealing most of her face. “Lark.” He reached out and brushed his fingertips against her hair, tucking it behind her ear.
She jerked back. “Don’t.” He lowered his hand, and a tear slid down her pale cheek, dropping onto his knuckles, the impact of it hard as a metal rod across his bones. “Please, Quinn, just stop this. Please. I have . . . I have Cole and Cade. They’re my family. They raised me. I know I complained about it. About feeling smothered sometimes. And I do. It’s true. But in the end . . . in the end, they’re the only family I have. If I lose them because Cade finds out that . . . that I did this with you . . . Be honest with me . . . what do you want from me?”
His stomach felt like lead, a massive chunk of it sitting on top of other vital organs. And when he spoke his next words, he picked them carefully. Made sure they were honest, unvarnished, and cold. Because he realized right then what he had to do.
“I want to f*ck you.”
She closed her eyes. “Is that all?”
“Yeah.”
She shook her head. “Then . . . then please don’t touch me again. Because that . . . that isn’t worth losing my family. I’m sorry.”
Another tear followed the trail of the first one, leaving glimmering tracks on her skin. And he felt like the lowest creature on earth.
It was one thing to go after Cade, but he’d been . . . he didn’t know what he’d been to involve Lark. She didn’t deserve it.
And if he was any kind of man, he had to step back. He had to cut her out of this.
“Tell me you don’t want it,” he said, his voice rough.
“I don’t want it,” she whispered. “I can’t want it.”
“Okay. Then I’m not going to touch you again. I don’t want you afraid I’m going to harass you or anything, or stop you from doing your job. And I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Possibly it’s too late.”
“I’ve also given you . . . what, two orgasms? Can we call it even?”
She laughed, a shaky, watery sound. “Oh my gosh. You’re so inappropriate.” She looked at him, dark eyes glittering. “You can’t be inappropriate like that anymore. You can’t say things like that. It has to be like nothing happened between us. Please. I need it to be like nothing happened.”
“Whatever you need, darlin’.”
“I need you to not say that. No darlin’. No baby. No honey.”
“Whatever you need, Lark.”
“Why are you being so damn decent?”
“Because it’s not fun to see you cry. And whatever I have to do to keep it from happening again . . . I’ll do it. I didn’t want to hurt you.” That was the honest truth. He didn’t want to hurt her, even if it was already too late. At least he wouldn’t continue hurting her.
“You . . . I mean, it’s not a bad hurt.”
“No?”
She forced a smile. “Just a flesh wound.”
She looked so young right then, with her long hair down around her face and tears in her eyes. And he was struck then by just what a massive son of a bitch he was. She was a nice girl. And he was not a nice man.
She was twelve years younger than him. And that hadn’t snacked him in the face until just this moment. The gulf between them was so much bigger than he’d let himself acknowledge. And he was a way bigger ass for all this than he’d let himself realize too.
“Glad to hear it’s not more serious than that.”
She lifted one shoulder and took a deep, unsteady breath. “Nah. It’s fine. It’s . . . an aborted love affair. Lust affair, really. Happens.”
She was trying a little too hard to be casual. It was adorable. And it made him want to touch her. But he wasn’t allowed to touch her anymore.
“Yeah, it does.”
“So, I’m gonna work. And it’s fine. I’m fine. You’re fine. We’re all”—she waved her hand—“fine.”
“Obviously.”
She pulled the handle on the truck door and pushed it open, stumbling out, muttering something about being fine. So fine. Super fine. Then she headed straight back toward the computer lab.
He let out a long, slow breath, then go out of the truck cab, his boot kicking up a cloud of dust when it hit the driveway. He headed up the path to the main house, and the door opened for him before he got up to it.
Sam was standing there.
“What the hell, man?” Quinn asked, without much growl because he felt a little deflated after all of his personal realizations.
“We’re here checking out Longhorn Ranch. We heard it was nice. We might want to invest in it,” Sam said.
“Oh, right.” Quinn stepped inside and Sam closed the door behind him. “I like how you worked up a story in advance since you knew I might strangle you to death if you let Lark see you.”
Sam shrugged. “She wouldn’t necessarily think we were spying on Cade. Maybe we were just taking advantage of vacation time”—he gave his wife, who was standing in the corner of the living room giving Quinn the steely eye, a sidelong glance—“to rekindle our flame.”
Jill blushed. Blushed. A forty-whatever-year-old woman, blushing when looking at her husband of twenty-whatever years. It just pissed Quinn off because he was clearly looking at some well-laid people, and he wasn’t getting any at all.
Good for Sam and Jill. Really.
Except now he did want to growl.
“Yeah, except she’s not stupid, and she’d probably think something was up.”
“And does it matter?” Jill asked, crossing her arms, the intensity of her death stare growing by the second.
“Yes, Jill, it does. You see, I’m attached to my balls and I like them where they are.”
“What did you do?” she asked, her eyes scalding him now.
“Nothing. And I’m not going to do anything.”
“Are you going to say you never touched her?” Jill asked.
Quinn looked down at his hands. “Sure. I never touched her. I’m lying, but it’s kind of a nice lie. One I wish was true.”
For the first time in their years of knowing each other, Quinn thought Sam was going to punch him in the face. “What. The. Hell. Did you do to her?” he asked, teeth gritted.
Quinn didn’t especially want to bar brawl with the only person he called a friend, but if Sam was going to start throwing punches, Quinn was going to have to defend himself, because while Sam was more than ten years Quinn’s senior, he had no doubt the older man could kick the ever-loving shit out of him.
“I didn’t sleep with her,” Quinn said. “Calm the hell down.”
“She liked you, Quinn,” Jill said, her voice low.
“Yeah, and that’s why I’m not going to touch her, so you don’t have to worry. I don’t need you guys to play the part of shoulder angel. I’m an a*shole, but even I know when to rethink something.”
“But you were going to do something,” Sam said.
“But I’m not now.”
“I knew you were a dick.” This from Jill.
“Yeah, you know, thank you, Jill, I never, not once, said I wasn’t a dick. That’s common knowledge, in fact. Why do you think it was so easy for Cade Mitchell to paint me as the bad guy? I’m the easiest guy to cast in the role. I get that. But I had a moment of conscience, and I’m not going to do anything with Lark. I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Are you going to stop going after Cade?” Sam asked.
“Hell no. I still want to hurt him.”
“To what end?” Jill asked.
“Honestly, hurting him is the last thing on my agenda. I’d rather figure out a way to get reinstated at the circuit.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then I’m going to screw him over. Like he did me. I own up to being a dick when I’m a dick. Cade Mitchell needs to own up to it, or I’m going to burn him. And don’t ask me to feel sorry for him because he walks with a limp now.”
“Heaven forbid you act like a human being,” Jill said.
“I am acting like a human being. Selfish and angry. What’s not human about that? I just want back what he took from me.”
“And barring that?”
“I’m going to start screwing with his contracts.”
“What contracts?” Sam asked.
“They still make most of their money with livestock that goes to the Rodeo Association. I’m not above making sure no one will touch him with a ten-foot pole. He can’t ride, but he still makes a damn decent living off the circuit.”
“By ‘he,’ you mean his whole family.”
“Collateral damage.”
“Lark too?” Jill said softly.
“She’ll be fine. She’s a smart girl.”
“Girl being the key word there,” Sam said.
“Girl being the wrong choice of words,” Quinn said. “She’s a woman. She’s not a child, in spite of what you and her brothers might think. In spite of what she might think. She’ll be fine.”
“She’ll want to kill you.”
He shrugged. “Fine. Her personal feelings for me don’t matter. All that matters is getting back in the circuit.”
“There are other things than that, Quinn,” Sam said.
“Not for me. That was my life. And it was taken from me by some jackass having a tantrum. I’ll be damned if I let it stand. And I’ll be damned if I stand here and justify it to you.”
Quinn turned and walked out of the house, inhaling a deep breath of the fresh morning air. It was crisp, an edge of cold clinging to the air even though the sun was shining. It cut through the chill in places, direct sunbeams providing shafts of warmth.
Too bad he was cold all the way through. And he didn’t care.
Fine for Sam, standing there with his wife, to say there was more to life. Everything in Quinn’s life had been bad. Until ranch work. Until the rodeo.
It had given him purpose, and now that purpose was gone.
Idle hands had been a problem in Quinn’s early years, and Cade Mitchell was going to find out that Quinn’s idle hands were most definitely the devil’s workshop.