Page 17 of Biker's Enemy

Quin’s repetitiveness gets under my skin. I have to remind myself that I’m the one who drugged her and fight the impatient urge to spank her ass awake.

“Listen, Quin. All you need to know is that if you help me, we keep Juliette and Hunter out of trouble while I solve my problems and you get paid… plus safety. Unconditional safety. I will protect you from… anything and everything.”

“Everything?”

I grit my teeth.

“Yes.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I don’t. But I need her to believe that I know exactly what I’m talking about.

“You’re in big trouble. You wouldn’t have come so far from home on such short notice if it weren’t big. And it’s big.”

I stare at her until the fear hits her. Shit, maybe I’m not too far off.

“I don’t want to get Hunter and Juliette in trouble,” she says. “But you drugged me. Why should I trust you?”

“I drugged you for your own safety. That way no one can say you ran away from the trouble you got yourself into…”

Her fear is so intense that she doesn’t notice how goddamn vague I am about “what she did”. I feel bad for scaring her. A little.

“Listen,” I say, softening my voice. “I have a problem and you have a problem. Work for me and we can help each other out. You’re a grown woman. You don’t need Hunter Sinclair to tell you what to do.”

She considers it.

“I don’t understand what you need,” Quin says. I can tell she still doesn’t trust me, but she really must be in ungodly amounts of trouble to give me a chance so quickly.

I stare at her until she breaks eye contact. These little moments of exerting control over her will make it easier to handle her later on. Quin appears unaware of my strategy as she looks at the floor.

“Before I drove to Santa Fe to visit Hunter, someone dropped a baby on my doorstep. I don’t know who it is, or why, but they claim this baby is mine. While I investigate the situation, I have her here…”

“They claim the baby is yours?”

I wouldn’t mind her skepticism if I didn’t find the mystery behind the baby on my doorstep equally confusing and frustrating. I would much prefer having answers to this.

“Yes. I am conducting a thorough investigation. Until then, she needs a nanny.”

Quin raises her eyebrows and then drops them slightly.

“I can barely take after myself.”

“Nonsense. You have clearly been through some serious shit, Quin. But I can tell you’re a good woman.”

Truthfully, she could be a terrible person. But when I look at her face, I can’t help but notice my immediate attraction to the soft roundness of her cheeks or the way her full figure affects the rest of her features.

I want to trust her without any reason stronger than my initial powerful attraction to her. I have always preferred the body type of a plus-sized woman on the larger end of that spectrum… but it’s more than Quin’s body.

Maybe it’s the darkness behind her eyes.

Maybe it’s that goddamn trouble she’s running from, somehow pulling me in.

“I don’t think I’m qualified.”

“Neither am I,” I tell her. “I’m not a father.”

“Technically, you are.”