Under the Moon (38 page)

“Fuck.” Nick grabbed her shoulders, pulled her up, and flipped her onto her back. “I knew you were going to have your way.” But he didn’t sound angry about it anymore.

Quinn bent her legs and lifted her hips. Nick ripped open a packet with his teeth, used one hand to cover himself, and then dropped his head into her neck and thrust deep with a long, low groan. She let out half a scream, her joy and ecstasy overwhelming her.

Nick’s mouth moved against her neck, his breath hot, as he pulled out and sank deep again. Pleasure sizzled, white-cold and red-hot, all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes. Quinn squeezed him as hard as she could, and he gasped.

“Jesus, Quinn.” With his arm under her back, that hand gripping her neck again, and his other hand clutching her hip, he began thrusting. She held on to his sides with her knees and his back with her arms and sobbed into his shoulder while her vision went black and she lost herself in him, in the tension he built inside her.

“Oh god, Nick.” She pressed upward against him and he moved faster, thrusting harder, more frantically. “Please, Nick, now.”

With a shout he threw his head back, his hips hard against her. Everything tightened into a point, then burst out to the edges of her existence. Pure white light, moonlight, filled her body and her vision. She couldn’t breathe, the pleasure and the beauty were so exquisite. They lay, still holding each other tightly, still tensed against each other’s bodies, as their world expanded again.

Nick sighed and rolled to his side without letting go of her. He tucked her against his chest, but said nothing.

“We should go,” she murmured, “before Anson leaves Boston again.”

“John said he was hurt. You need some more sleep. We’ll go in a couple of hours.”

Quinn tried not to sink, but it was a losing battle. This time, when the darkness overtook her, she healed.

…

She woke a few minutes after dawn, snuggled in blankets and laying across the backseat of Nick’s car. She stretched, pleased to find her body fully recovered from the battle. Her outlook, too, was a full one-eighty from where it had been the night before. She’d been ready to leave, to try to face Anson alone so no one else would be hurt, but now she realized how backward her thinking had been. Her safety wasn’t more important than anyone else’s, but she wasn’t the only one with a stake in stopping Anson.

Marley and her friends had fought hard last night, and Quinn could no longer question her motives. They’d all worked well as a team, and that was the only way they were going to win this. It was time to go on a full offensive.

She sat up, catching Nick’s attention. “Morning,” he said.

“Apparently.” She freed herself from the tangle of blankets and climbed over the seat. “Where are we?”

“Halfway to Boston.” He handed her a large cup of coffee. She sniffed it and smiled. French vanilla. It was still hot.

“How did you get me into the car without waking me?”

Nick snorted. “You were out deeper than Sam. Who’s fine, by the way.”

She perked up. “He’s awake?”

“Just. Marley says he’s still a little fuzzy, but she’s feeding him energy drinks and as soon as he can walk without toppling over, they’ll come down to meet us.”

“Good.” She sighed and settled more comfortably on the seat, watching the woods they sped past and wondering what, if anything, she should say about last night. Nick would probably tell her he knew she needed to recharge and he was the only one available, but there had been an intensity he couldn’t deny, an intimacy that terrified her. Everything had changed between them, but nothing had changed in the outside world, not yet. She couldn’t face Nick rebuilding the wall.

“How do we know Anson is still in Boston?” she asked.

“We don’t. But even if he’s on his way to Maine, we won’t be there.” He glanced at her. “We should go to the Society.”

Her first reaction was refusal. “You really think they’d help us?”

“Not necessarily, but they may have information we don’t. It could help us find him.”

“I doubt we’ll have any trouble with that.” When Nick cocked an eyebrow at her, she said, “He’ll find me.”

Nick scowled, but he seemed to have accepted the inevitable. “Then it could help us battle him. It’s worth trying.”

“Okay.” She looked down at herself and grimaced. “I look horrendous.”

“Sorry. I just put on you what was available.”

She blushed, remembering why he’d had to dress her. The jeans held grass stains from when she fell to the ground during the battle, and her green T-shirt, while cleaner, was faded and thin in spots.

“We can stop for you to change,” Nick offered.

“I don’t have anything to change into,” she said. “It’s all at Chloe’s.”

“Marley sent some stuff. Nothing fancy, but clean, at least.” He pulled into the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. “This okay?”

“I’ll make it work.” She leaned into the back for the bag behind his seat.

“You want anything?”

“No, thanks.” She couldn’t handle food right now.

The bathroom wasn’t the cleanest one she’d ever been in, but it wasn’t horrifying, either. She found a pair of khakis and a yellow button-down shirt and cleaned up as best she could at the sink. Marley had included a brush, but Quinn wished she had a little makeup to combat how washed out she looked.

Especially when she emerged from the restroom. Nick had changed into clean jeans and a white collared shirt, and his hair was damp. He leaned against the wall only a foot away from her and smelled marvelous, like bay rum.

Quinn squinted at his face. “Did you shave?”

He tilted his head a little, sheepish. “I was getting pretty scruffy. Thought if we were going in to convince the Society to help us, I’d better not look like the rogue they claim I am.”

“Good thinking.” She rose up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. His eyes bore into hers with an emotion she couldn’t define if she tried. After last night, she had no remaining moon lust to battle, but the magnetism between them had nothing to do with goddess/protector and everything to do with woman/man. It took effort to break eye contact and back away.

Traffic into Boston moved smoothly, and soon Nick parked across the street from the Society building. He stayed at her side through the lobby, up the elevator, and into the Society’s offices, a solid strength that kept Quinn calm as she walked into the reception area.

Alana sat at the reception desk. Worry lines creased her forehead and held tension around her mouth, but when she looked up to greet them, shock smoothed her features. “Wha-what are you doing here?”

“I’d like to talk to Barbara.”

Alana looked ready to argue but then seemed to change her mind. She hurried down the hallway without another word and returned less than a minute later, motioning them back.

Barbara Valiant rose behind her desk as they walked in. She was an imposing woman, tall and straight, her lightly lined skin not betraying her advanced age. She didn’t invite them to sit, nor did she bother with polite greetings.

“I’ve been apprised of the events of last evening,” she said without preamble.

“She was incredible,” Nick responded immediately. He stood with his feet braced, his hands at his sides, a battle position.

“So I hear.” She focused on Quinn. “Why do you think he has targeted you with such intensity?”

She and Nick had talked about this on the drive, and she knew it would be easier to get what she needed if she gave a little first. “We think he might have marked me from the beginning.” She briefly explained Sam’s college connection and the things Marley had told them, but her resentment grew as she spoke. “You know, if you hadn’t been so determined to keep me sidelined, maybe we could have put all the pieces together weeks ago.”

Barbara sighed and sat, finally motioning for them to do the same. Quinn accepted the invitation, but Nick stood at her shoulder.

“We were trying to protect the Society. Your relationship to a goddess with ties to a suspected leech—the most heinous of all criminals associated with our world—put us in danger.”

Part of Quinn, the rational board member, understood that. The rest of her was still angry. “Why couldn’t you just tell me that? I didn’t even know I
had
a sister. When this started, all I knew was that goddesses were in danger, and I wanted to help stop it. But you ignored me.”

“Much to our regret, I assure you.” Suddenly, she looked closer to her age than Quinn had ever seen her. “Why are you here?”

Quinn cleared her throat. “If Anson wants me, he’ll be coming after me soon. The moon is at its peak. We want to be ready for him. To stop him. But we don’t have enough information.”

Barbara didn’t hesitate. She picked up a folder from her desk and handed it over. “This is all the information we have on Anson Tournado. The security team—”

“No, thank you.” Quinn took the folder but didn’t let Barbara complete the offer Quinn knew she was about to make. She didn’t have any reason to trust the security team or time to become comfortable with working with them. “We’ll handle it.”

Barbara nodded, and then her face went tight and slightly cold. “Please understand that you’re not being given license to act outside the regulations of the Society. Should you be deemed to have caused harm or broken any other edicts, you shall be punished. Regardless of the final result of your actions.”

Her jaw tense, Quinn said, “Understood.” She wasn’t promising to place a priority on Society regulations, only acknowledging what she’d been told. She’d deal with any consequences later.

“Your sister is another matter we should discuss.”

Quinn tensed again. “In what regard?”

“She will have to answer for her role in the leech’s creation.”

“I understand that, but I need her. She knows Anson better than any of us, and we’ll need her help taking him down.”

Barbara nodded. “No sanctions will be made until this is over, but at that time, we must take into consideration the contributions of all involved in the leech’s creation.”

Quinn went cold. She might mean Sam, too, since Anson was his old college roommate. “Including the Society? Because we all believed leeches to be legends. The Society of Goddess Education and Defense failed in both halves of its mission. Marley may have made a terrible error in judgment, but she’s not evil, and the Society is as complicit in all of this as she is.”

Since Barbara didn’t seem inclined to respond to that, Quinn stood and indicated the folder. “Thank you for this.”

“Good luck.”

As they headed back to the elevator, Quinn took a deep, slow breath to dissipate her tension. “That was both harder and easier than I expected.”

“Hopefully there’s something in there that will help.” Nick’s phone beeped, and he checked the text message. “They’re here. Parking.”

Quinn willed the elevator to go faster and then hurried outside, looking both ways. She smiled when she saw Sam striding up the sidewalk, looking whole and healthy, Marley walking beside him.

“How are you?” Sam and Quinn asked at the same time, and laughed.

“I’m fine,” Sam said. “Everyone is. Or will be.” He looked down at Marley. “She fed me, like, six energy drinks since I woke up. I’m ready to go.” He took Quinn’s elbow and steered her a few feet away from the others, lowering his voice. “How are you really doing?” he asked.

“I’m fine. I’m more worried about you. I was so scared.” She skimmed a hand over his head and checked, using a small stream of energy. No trauma that she could find. When she dropped her hand to his chest to examine his body, he caught her fingers and wrapped his hand around hers.

“I told Nick before, I’m back to normal. But you tapped into a lot of power last night. I can’t believe you’re still standing.”

“Oh.” She understood where he was going and tried hard not to look at Nick. “I’m fine, really. I got a good night’s sleep.” If he thought she was evading, he didn’t pursue it, either, simply pulled her into a tight hug, her head against his chest. His heartbeat was slow and steady under her ear. He pressed his lips to her head and murmured something she couldn’t hear, then let her go, shifting to bring the other two back into the conversation.

Quinn passed him the file folder. “This is everything the Society has on Anson. See if there’s anything that can help us.”