Page 19 of Never Again

“That sounds ominous,” Bailey said as he watched her shift to get more comfortable on the bed.

“It certainly put things into perspective,” Quinn said, thinking about that first night when he got his first dose of reality.

“Meaning?”

“That I had no idea what I was really getting myself into,” he said as he watched Bailey move to sit up, only to mutter to herself, grumble, and then, finally, fell onto her side with another grumble.

“Do you regret going?” she asked as she reached over and grabbed a pillow and hugged it against her chest.

“Not even a little bit,” Quinn said as he folded an arm behind his head and shifted his focus back to the ceiling. “It was the best thing for me.”

“Why did you leave?”

“It was time to move on,” Quinn murmured absently.

He’d thought it was time for a change, but since he’d left the corps…

He’d been bored out of his fucking mind.

It was one job after another, protecting politicians, actors, tech giants, and CEOs that thought that his job was to keep a lookout for their wives while they bent their secretaries over their desks. He had no idea what he wanted, and until he did, he was going to keep taking jobs that bored him out of his fucking mind and-

“I love this pillow,” came the announcement seconds before Bailey rolled off the bed with a pained grunt and a sadly mumbled, “Why doesn’t the bed love me?”

-resigning himself to protecting the little pain in the ass from herself.

CHAPTER10

“You’re being unreasonable,” Bailey said, tightening her grip around the iPad that she’d helped herself to from the coffee table, wondering why he couldn’t just take pity on her and let her use it.

“We talked about this,” the large man who hadn’t changed at all said, taking the only thing that was going to save her sanity away from her.

“Oh, God, no…” Bailey mumbled hollowly as she watched Quinn lock the iPad in the footlocker by the bathroom, slowly destroying her will to live as he sent her a warning glare that she had no choice but to ignore.

“No screen time,” he said absently as her gaze shifted back to that footlocker.

“But-”

“It’s for your own good,” Quinn said as she sat there, imagining just how good the iPad would feel in her hands.

God, the things she could do with that internet connection, Bailey thought with a heartfelt sigh as she looked up and found herself wondering why Quinn was taking off his shirt. That quickly led to the decision that Pam could swing a baseball bat at her head anytime she wanted as she watched the muscles in his abs do things that made it very difficult to think at the moment.

Definitely willing to take another hit, Bailey decided, following that up with a nod of agreement when she saw the Celtic tribal tattoo on the right side of his chest. That was definitely new, she thought as she slowly ran her gaze over him, taking in all the golden muscles that had changed over the years until she came to his navel and followed the dark trail of hair down that led to his jeans and shifted her focus to the perfectly sculptured “V.”

“What was for my own good?” Bailey absently murmured as she grabbed her juice and took a sip, unable to help but notice that the years had been very good to him.

“No screen time,” Quinn said, tossing his shirt on the couch as he headed for the door, leaving her sitting there following his progress through the windows as he made his way around the house and headed for the pile of logs by the shed.

She watched as he grabbed the ax off the tree stump, placed a log on the stump and swung the ax, making all the muscles in his torso shift in very interesting ways. Pam was definitely getting a raise, Bailey decided, allowing herself to watch Quinn for another minute before she reluctantly put her juice down with a shuddering sigh and decided that it was time to find out what else they were keeping from her.

With that in mind, Bailey took one more sip, moved to climb off the bed, took a moment to appreciate the sight of Quinn bending over, and with a heavy sigh, she forced herself to look away and made her way to the coffee table and helped herself to the paperclips from the file that she read last night when Quinn took a shower and made her way to the footlocker.

After a quick glance at the door to make sure that it was still closed, Bailey put the skills that she’d picked up over the years from her time in foster care to good use and picked the lock. In a matter of seconds, she removed the padlock, opened the footlocker, and-

“God bless him,” Bailey mumbled with a sniffle when she saw the six-pack of Coke that he’d hidden in the footlocker, probably thinking that it would be enough to keep it out of her greedy little hands and grabbed the iPad along with a Coke to help her get through this ordeal before closing the lid and returning the lock.

Once that was done, Bailey raised her head just enough so that she could look out the window and make sure that Quinn was still outside before dropping back down and quickly making her way to the bathroom. When he didn’t barge in the house and demand his iPad back, she closed the bathroom door behind her with a satisfied sigh, grabbed a towel off the counter and settled in the tub. After she shoved the towel behind her head, Bailey cracked open a Coke, took a sip and then focused her attention on the iPad.

Ignoring the throbbing pain behind her right eye, Bailey took another sip, broke through Quinn’s password and decided to have a look at the emails and text messages that her brother had been sending him over the past three days. Normally, she hated doing this sort of thing, but since he’d refused to tell her anything, she felt that she really didn’t have any choice in the matter.

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