Page 16 of Quentin
He grinned as he rolled onto his side to face her. Looking at her was a joy in and of itself, but looking at her this way, with her face still flushed, her lips still swollen from his kisses, that was something special. “You know I did. And you missed me. Don’t bother trying to deny it.”
She turned her head to stare up at the ceiling. “I wouldn’t. For better or worse, Quentin, no one makes me feel the way you do.”
Quentin’s grin faded slightly as he took in her profile. There was still a sadness in her, and he had to wonder if it wouldn’t be there forever. Lowey had struggled her whole life. She was still struggling. At least he had his siblings, even if they did drive him crazy sometimes. She was alone in the world, and he had to live with the fact that he’d exploited that to his advantage. He’d used that to worm his way into her life with every intention of just leaving her behind when he was done.
Coming face-to-face with his own ugliness was a hard thing to do, but it was time to own it. It was time to stop hiding behind everything that he’d pretended to be, everything he’d tried to be, and just accept what he was.
“We’re going to try for better. I can’t promise we’ll succeed,” he said softly, “But I can promise to try.”
“What is this, Quentin? This isn’t you.”
“It is,” he protested. “No more walls. No more hiding. I want you, and not just for sex…amazing as it is. I want all of it. Body and soul.”
She looked at him directly then, those dark eyes of hers peering right through him. He couldn’t have hidden anything from her in that moment even if he wanted to.
“If I give that to you,” she replied in a low, steady tone. “You have to give it back. I’m tired of this being a one-way street.”
“Whatever I have, baby, and whatever I am, it’s yours.”
Eleven
Ciaran walked into the small, ugly brick building that housed Fontaine’s Sheriff’s Office. He’d been asking questions, and he had the idea that while Silas Barnes would be perfectly willing to overlook Joey busting up Lowey’s place, he had serious doubts the man would be willing to overlook the massive influx of a dangerous drug into his tiny little town.
“Silas Barnes?” he asked, stepping into the office.
The ancient, bespectacled woman behind the counter jerked her head toward the closed door to her left. Her hair, teased and shellacked into a style popular in 1967, didn’t move a millimeter.
Ciaran nodded his thanks and crossed the small room. He knocked on the door as he opened it, not allowing the man to send him away. He’d spent the better part of his morning running in circles trying to track down Harlow Tate’s piece of shit ex-husband, and he was done. It was time to use the resources available to him.
“We need to talk,” he said.
The sheriff put down his cell phone mid text and glared at him. “Well, now that you’ve let yourself into my office like it’s your goddamn right, who am I to say no?”
Ciaran smiled. It really didn’t matter to him whether or not Silas Barnes hated his guts. “Your cousin made some interesting friends while he was at Blackburn,” Ciaran began. “The kind of friends you’d probably like to keep out of your pretty little town.”
Silas sat back in his chair and propped his feet on his desk. “You’re a Darcy. It took me a minute to place you. The accent threw me. I’d heard there was another one of your lot running around.”
There was no love lost there, Ciaran thought grimly. Clearly the man’s association with Samuel hadn’t endeared the rest of the Darcy clan to him. “Some of us are a bit more palatable than others.”
“Say what you need to say about Joey, then get the hell out of my office,” Silas demanded.
Ciaran made it a point to sit down in the chair across from the desk, even though he hadn’t been invited to do so. “Your cousin was cellmates with a nice Russian fellow by the name of Sergei. Sergei, who has since shuffled off this mortal coil, put Joey in touch with some associates of his who are looking to move a very nasty drug into your charming little area…ever heard of Krokodile?”
Silas’s expression hardened, his already thin lips disappearing behind his mustache. “I’ve heard of it. And the little shit knows better.”
“He knows better than to handle a firearm as a felon on parole, too,” Ciaran reminded him gently.
“I’ll talk to him,” Silas said. “I don’t think Joey would be that stupid, but I’ll make damned certain of it.”
Ciaran nodded. “While you’re at it, make certain that he leaves Harlow Tate in peace. Now that I’ve been accepted into the clan, I’m feeling very protective.”
“What the hell is Harlow Tate to the Darcys?” Barnes demanded.
“Apparently, she’s now with Quentin…seems her taste in men has improved significantly. It’d be a shame to have some hot-headed idiot ruin your long-standing relationship with the Darcys, now wouldn’t it? Now that Samuel is no longer running the show, the people of Fontaine might not be as forgiving when you turn a blind eye to things.”
Ciaran closed the door, but he could hear Barnes cursing him from behind the closed door.
Silas waited half a heartbeat after the newest Darcy left his office before picking up his cell phone again. Discardingthe half-written text to the very married hairdresser he’d been fucking for the last few months, he pulled up Joey’s number and called him. When the little shit answered, Silas didn’t hesitate before chewing him a new asshole.
