It took every ounce of strength in my body to resist Quinn when she tried to kiss me. We were alone in a room with a bed, and she was rubbing on me and kissing me and all I wanted to do was throw her down and fuck her until neither of us could see straight. But I stopped myself. I know she’s keeping something from me. And I don’t believe that she wanted to shoot David because their break-up upset her.
I look at her now, sitting in the passenger seat next to me as we head out to meet Mack and Daria. The slit in her dress is open to her thigh, making me want to slip my hand through it, spread her legs, and touch her through her panties. I don’t know what it is about her tonight, whether it’s the dress or the gun, maybe her attitude, but I am hot for her. I usually run at a slow burn for her anyway, but this is something else altogether.
I exit the highway and take surface streets to the back road that will lead us to the safe house. She shivers next to me.
“Cold?”
“A little.”
I reach in the back seat and grab my jacket, handing it to her. She brings it up to her nose and sniffs it before slipping it on. The bottom of the coat covers a decent part of her exposed thigh. Which is disappointing, but for the best.
“Why didn’t you kiss me?” Quinn turns to look at me. “Back there, when I tried. I know you wanted to.”
I’m not sure what to say to that, so I stay silent.
“Well?” she goads.
“I won’t let you manipulate me like that,” I tell her.
“Why assume I was trying to manipulate you? That’s not nice.”
“Weren’t you?” I watch her from the corner of my eye, waiting to see what she’ll do. Instead of responding verbally, she waves her hand dismissively and looks back out the window. “Quinn, I have a job to do. You were at a party with a loaded gun and by your own admission, intending to shoot someone. That’s not something I can just ignore whether or not I want to kiss you.”
“You’re admitting you want to kiss me?”
“Of course, I want to kiss you! Look at you, you’re gorgeous.”
“You think I’m gorgeous?” Her lips spread from cheek to cheek. A complete one-hundred-and-eighty-degree flip from her attitude thirty seconds ago. “You like me, don’t you?”
“Yes, I like you.”
“Okay, you like me? Or you like me?”
“What’s the difference?”
“If you like me, then you’ll have no problem kissing me. But if it’s just that you like me, then you say hi when you see me, and maybe you smile, but that’s it.”
I try to wrap my head around what she’s saying. Part of me understands the difference and part of me thinks she’s a bit of a wack job.
“I don’t think this is the time to talk about it.”
“Well, then when is?”
“After this case.”
“What case?”
“This sex trafficking case.”
“You’re working on the case too?”
“What do you mean ‘too’? It’s my case.”
“I thought . . .”
I wait for her to continue, but she bites on her fingernail. A small fleck of polish comes off and sticks to her lip. I reach over to brush it away.
“What?”
“You had nail polish.”
“On my lip?” She looks down at her nails. “Oh no, I chipped a nail.”
“That’s what happens when you chew on it.”
“You know this because you paint your nails so often?”
I shrug in response. I don’t paint my nails. But when you adhere a synthetic product to something growing and living, at some point it’s going to breakdown and weaken. If it’s polish and nails and you add teeth to that equation, it will chip. But I don’t tell Quinn that. Instead, I say, “I have sisters.”
“I didn’t know that. How many?”
“Two.”
“Are you close with them?”
“Yes.”
“I love that. I’m an only child. Do you have any other siblings?”
“Nope, just the three of us.”
“Are you the oldest?”
“I’m the youngest.”
“Hmm, you seem like you’d be the oldest.”
“Based on what, exactly?”
“How you act, your maturity level.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Okay, you don’t have to get snippy.”
“I wasn’t . . .” I start to defend myself but realize I don’t want to have this argument with her. It’s stupid and pointless. “What were you going to stay earlier?”
“When?”
“When you stopped to bite your nails. You were saying something about my case?”
“I said nothing about your case. You said you had a trafficking case.”
“You said ‘too.’”
“Well, yeah, isn’t that what Mack is working on?”
“How would you know that?”
“You guys are partners, duh.”
Once again, something is not jiving with Quinn and what she’s telling me. But I let it go and wait until we reach Mack and Daria. Mack said he’d explain everything once we meet in person and that it would all make sense. I’m hoping that is the case. I make the turn from the back road to the dirt road that acts as a long driveway to the safe house.
Trees conceal the house, almost entirely. Which is a coincidence, not all our safe houses are so well hidden. One is in the middle of suburbia, one in an apartment complex, and another in the middle of downtown. The benefit of tree concealment being the concealment part. The downfall being the trees interfere with most wireless or cellular communication devices.
I pull around to the back side of the house and park near Mack’s standard issue SUV. The surrounding air is still as I step out of the car. Eerily so. I wait for Quinn to join me and guide her into the house, following behind with my hand at the small of her back.
“Ohmigod!” Quinn stops short in the doorway, then spins around to face me. “You don’t want to go in there.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”