Reed drags me upstairs and into one of the guest rooms.
“What are you doing? Let go of me!”
He doesn’t let go. Instead, he wraps both arms around me from behind. Pinning me against his body. His long, hard body that I enjoy being up against. I sink into him slightly.
“What are you doing here, Quinn? And with a gun?” He squeezes my midriff tightly, taking my breath away.
“None of your business.” I try to turn in his arms to get myself free, but he’s holding me too tight. A minute ago this squeezing was cute, now not so much.
“Stop moving, Quinn.”
“No!” I wriggle more, then stomp on his foot with my heel.
“Fuck!”
I feel a little bad for hurting him. But Daria said that I was not to tell anyone my true reason for being here under any circumstances. And that it was imperative I make my storyline convincing. Regardless, he didn’t let me go.
“Look,” Reed says. “I won’t ask again. This is your last chance. What are you doing here with a gun?”
“None. Of. Your. Business.”
“The hell it’s not my business. You had a gun pointed at my best friend. At his fucking engagement party. Are you crazy?” He grabs me by the upper arm and throws me toward the bed. I land in an ungraceful heap, my dress bouncing up around my thighs.
His gaze heats as it lowers to my bared legs—the top of the slit in my dress barely covering my lady bits. Making me want to spread them slightly. Until I remember he just asked if I was crazy.
“No, I’m not crazy. Don’t be a jerk.” I try to sit up, adjusting my dress as I go.
“Can you just sit there, please? For a minute, while I wrap my head around this?”
I nod once so that my actions aren’t a total lie. I mean, I will sit here for a minute, but not too much longer.
“What’s really going on Quinn?” He walks toward me; his voice is low and gravelly. I’m digging this deep, sexy tenor he’s got going on, it makes my nether regions all atwitter—but it doesn’t mean I will answer his questions honestly.
“It upset me.” I try to act nonchalant, casually standing as I answer. I need to get out of here before I do something stupid like tell him the truth.
“What did?” He pushes lightly at my chest and I bounce back onto the bed. Damn high heels make me unsteady on my feet.
“His engagement.”
He laughs. “So, you thought you’d shoot him?”
“Why not?” I raise my chin as I open my eyes to look at him.
“Do you expect me to believe that?” His eyes squint and he cocks his head.
“It’s the truth.”
“Okay, so after months and months of no contact at all, you suddenly decide that you’re upset enough about his engagement to shoot him at his own party?”
“That’s what I said.”
“You guys went on, what? Three dates?”
I shrug. I don’t really want to talk any longer.
“So, not like the relationship of the year or anything. Why not just, I don’t know, slap him in the face? Crank call him in the middle of the night? Post shit about him on social media? Like what normal jilted girls do?” He snaps his fingers to get my attention.
“Sounds like the girls you’ve jilted are boring, Reed.”
He grins sardonically. “I guess so if the alternative is getting shot.”
Okay, enough of this. I need to get the hell out of here. I’m distracted, I’m turned on, I don’t know what’s happening downstairs. I try to stand again and scoot around him, but he grabs my upper arm stopping me. I try to yank it from his grasp and spin away but end up with my back flattened to his front.
Again.
He wraps his arms around me, grasping his wrists to lock me in his embrace. I lean back against him, liking how our bodies align when I’m wearing heels, then wriggle my bottom against what I’m hoping is his dick.
“Don’t play with me, Quinn. I’m not in the mood.”
Which gives me an idea.
I twist my head to face him. “What are you in the mood for?” I soften my voice as I ask, hoping I sound alluring. I’d brush his hair out of his eyes with my fingertips, but he has my arms pinned to my sides.
He cocks his head and squints his eyes. “What are you getting at?”
I look up at him from under my lashes, giving my best come hither look. “I enjoy being in your arms.”
He blinks once. Twice. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Do you ever think about kissing me, Reed?”
“This is not the time, Quinn.”
“I think about kissing you.” I arch my head back to run my nose along his neck, breathing in his scent as I go. “I think about it a lot.”
God, he smells good.
He clears his throat but says nothing. His hold on me loosens and I turn in his embrace, then run my tongue along the same path, up his neck to just behind his ear, my heart races and my breath gets heavy. I think becoming a hired assassin has given me super seductive powers, because no way would I have the balls to do this ordinarily.
I take the lobe of his ear between my teeth and bite gently. He groans.
Which I take as a good sign. One that means I should continue, so I kiss my way along his jawline and up to the corner of his mouth. His lips twitch ever so slightly as I run my tongue along their seam.
“Quinn,” he breathes. “You need to stop this.” His hold on me loosens further as he moves his hands closer to my ass, enough for me to get one arm free which I wrap around his neck.
“Why?” I nibble on his bottom lip and he groans again. Or maybe that was me. “Kiss me, Reed.”
His face inches closer to mine until our lips are mere centimeters apart. I close my eyes and strain my face forward, just as our mouths are about to meet, he shakes his head and snaps out of whatever trance I’d put him in, waking me up with him.
“Don’t play games with me.”
“I’m not.”
“Are you kidding? This is the oldest trick in the book. You try to seduce me, then sneak away when you have me all distracted and wound up.”
“Are you wound up?” It would be nice to know if my techniques were effective.
“Can you just . . .” He steps away from me and turns, running his palm over his face. “Are you still hung up on him, is that it?” His eyes search out mine. If I’m not mistaken, I see hurt reflecting from his. I close my eyes to steel myself against him. If I were Superman, Reed Roberts would be my kryptonite. I can’t lie to him about having feelings for David. If he thinks I have feelings for David, he’ll never want to be with me. And being here with him like this, having just felt his body against mine, confirms that I most definitely want to be with him.
“I’m just upset.” I breathe heavily.
“Upset about his engagement?”
I nod.
“It’s been over a year, Quinn.”
I turn my head down and to the side. If he sees the look in my eyes, he’ll know I’m lying.
“Just tell me, are you in love with him?” His voice is soft. Almost pained. I glance up quickly.
“No,” I tell him honestly, looking him in the eye.
“Then what’s going on?” He uses his free hand to push some of my loosened hair behind my ear. “What snapped in that beautiful head of yours to make you want to shoot him?”
He thinks my head is beautiful?
My heart soars. He must like me. “I didn’t want to shoot him,” I say, softly. “I just wanted to scare him a bit.”
“Why?”
“So he would behave with his new wife.” Okay, that’s not what I thought I would say, but I think it can still work as a rationale for my actions. If he believes me.
Reed looks at me, questioningly. “What do you mean by behave? Like be faithful? Are you talking about the apps?”
I look at him. “The apps? Noooo.” I draw the word out and try to make the answer on my face as plain as day. I don’t want to outright lie and say that David is a cheater, I wouldn’t know. For one, we weren’t together long enough, or even exclusive; and two, I don’t know if David has ever cheated on a girl or if he uses apps to do it. But if Reed were to jump to his own conclusions about what I’m implying, I have no control over that.
He looks at me and nods as if understanding. “You know I have to bring you in, right?”
“For what? Nothing even happened.”
Shit!
Daria never said what to do if I get arrested. “Uh, can I make my phone call first?”
“I’m not arresting you, Quinn. At least not yet. I just need some questions answered. Why, who do you want to call?”
“A friend,” I hedge. If I tell him I want to call Daria, he may wonder why. Though, she is my best friend and would be the most logical choice to bail me out of jail. Not that they have arrested me, but he added not yet. Maybe I can make this work. “I want to call Daria. She’s my person to bail me out of jail.”
“You aren’t in jail.”
“Could’ve fooled me. This is looking like a Reed Roberts jail if I’ve ever seen one.”
He raises a brow. “You’re free to go.”
I try to step around him, only to have him put his arm out to stop me. “Quinn, I can’t just let it go that you were planning to fire a loaded weapon in a crowded party.”
“What if I said I would never do it again?” I blink innocently at him.
“I don’t believe you.” He sighs.
I’m torn between wanting to convince him I won’t do it again and feeling pride over him thinking I’m bad ass enough to bring a gun to a party again.
“Come on.” He grabs my upper arm in a loose hold. “If you won‘t talk to me here, then I have to bring you in for questioning.”
“But—”
“I don’t want to do this, Quinn. But you leave me no choice.”
I chew on my bottom lip slightly, forgetting for a moment about my no-smudge lipstick, trying to decide if I should come clean, call Daria, or make a run for it. But as soon as I open my mouth to tell him everything, my phone rings. I look down at the caller ID.
Daria.
Thank god.
I hold the phone up to show Reed, and shrug as though it’s not my fault I can’t answer his questions, then I press the answer button.