Forever

Chapter 4

Blue Champagne

Quinn never knew how close he’d come to death. I didn’t need a gun to kill. I was lethal with anything from a paperclip to a doctored cigarette to my bare hands.

Although he and I had been lovers for a number of months—and I’d spent any number of nights at his town house in Alexandria—I was still getting used to having someone sleeping in my bed.

This was a bad night. I’d never known Quinn to be so restless. Usually, when we slept together, he curled in on himself, with me securely wrapped around him, but this night, he tossed and turned and flailed around….

So when a hand lashed out and smashed me in the face, waking me out of a sound sleep, my training kicked in, and I reacted unconsciously. I curled my fingers and stiffened the heel of my hand, ready to crush my adversary’s windpipe…

…only to realize it was no adversary, no foreign agent, no enemy. It was the man I…respected above all others.

I couldn’t stop the forward momentum of my attack, there was too much power behind it, but I could divert it.

My hand shot past his Adam’s apple harmlessly, and I went with it, flying past him to land on the floor on the right side of the bed, half the bedclothes tangled around me.

“Goddammit, Mann…” I sat there, rubbing my sore shoulder, and looked up, half expecting him to lean over the edge of the bed and raise a bemused eyebrow at me.

He didn’t—he was still asleep, still tossing restlessly. I untangled myself from the sheet wrapped around my lower body and sat beside him.

“Quinn.”

Hazel eyes opened and stared up into mine, but Quinn wasn’t seeing me. “Non!” His voice was hoarse, filled with pain. “Non! Il ne peut pas être mort! Qu’avez-vous fait?”

Automatically, I translated the words. No! He can’t be dead! What have you done?

His accent was flawless. Of course. His first male lover had been French, and what better way to learn a language than in bed? Although knowing Mann, he was probably pretty damned fluent even before that bozo.

I brushed the hair off his forehead, which was cool and clammy with sweat, then pulled him up against me. “I’m here, Quinn; I’ve got you.”

His body stiffened, but I just held on, absorbing the tremors that rippled through him.

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” What nightmare world was he trapped in?

“Mark?” My name whispered past his lips. He stopped struggling and sagged against me.

“You were expecting someone else?”

“No.” He brought his arms around me and dug his fingers into my back.

“Good thing. I’d have had to kill him then.”

“I was having another nightmare.” Not a question. “Goddammit.” But there was defeat in the word.

I lay down—so the f**k what if it wasn’t my side of the bed?—drew him against me, and smoothed my hands over his bare back, thinking back to the first time he’d woken me, shortly before midnight.

“I’m sorry I woke you.” So f*****g polite.

“You could always make it up to me.” I stripped off his shorts and undershirt and covered his mouth with mine. As I’d hoped, all the tension left his body. Well, except where I needed him to be tense. I curled my fingers around his c**k and squeezed. Like steel wrapped in hot velvet.

I began to make my way down his body, pausing to lick and nip his very sensitive n*****s.

“I th-I thought…” He couldn’t prevent a small groan. “…I was supposed to make it up to you.”

“Yeah.”

“It…it seems to me that…that I’m getting the better of this…” He moaned as I nibbled my way around the crown of his c**k. “…this bargain…”

“Are you complaining, baby?”

“Why am I the…the only one who’s be…becoming incoherent?”

He was the one who needed to be incoherent.

“It’s my call, right?”

“Oh…. Ye…yes….” He was panting, and his hips shifted as he tried to prevent them from rocking up.

“Then shut up.” I closed my hands around his hips and held him still. He made a soft sound as I took him in my mouth, relaxed my throat, and swallowed him down.

I knew I could make this last, but I wanted him relaxed and able to fall back to sleep, the nightmare completely forgotten. I kept him distracted—tickled his balls, slid a finger into his mouth to tease his tongue, then eased that spit-slicked finger into his ass in search of his prostate, hummed—I had a feeling it was the three in combination that finished him off.

He gave a surprised gasp and poured himself down my throat. As I was licking him clean, he whispered, “Thanks….”

“You’re welcome.” I smoothed back his hair and leaned in to kiss him.

“You…you didn’t come….”

“You can make it up to me later.”

His palm cradled my cheek. “Know…‘m…good for it.”

“Damn straight you are.”

He didn’t answer. His hand dropped to the pillow beside his head, and he slipped back into slumber.

“What time is it?”

The digital numbers of my bedside clock were big and red. “Just after four.” Almost an hour since the last nightmare.

“How many times has it been tonight?”

“Beats me.” This made three, but who was counting? How long had it been since he’d had a decent night’s sleep? “Want to talk about it?”

“No!” He sighed and reached over to turn on the bedside lamp, then settled himself in my arms. “It always starts the same,” he began. “I’m in that warehouse in Paris. Gaston and Etienne come to get me. Gaston tells me you’re here, and he describes what you’re going to do to me, r**e me until I’m torn and bleeding, then f**k my mouth. In that order.”