He was panting for breath by the time he had all his clothes on. Aaron looked hesitant for a small moment, before another mask fell over his features. Hurt. Quinn could understand that and didn’t blame Aaron at all.
As he turned to go, he threw a glance at Aaron’s form. He looked good. The prosthetic took nothing away from how gorgeous he was as a man. He’d been a cute twinky boy, but this man on the mattress in the corner of the small room pressed all Quinn’s buttons, even those he didn’t know he’d had.
“I hate you for being so fucking hot still,” Quinn blurted out, so he wouldn’t say what was in his heart. Nobody needed that mess right now.
He left the house before he could fuck up even more.
* * * *
Quinn went home. He let the cat in when it appeared from the darkness, and took another shower to wash the sex off his skin. He felt jittery, like he needed a little something, but instead, he forced himself to eat some cereal and fed the cat with fancy cat food, and went to bed.
The next morning, Shadow looked at him with clear feline worry, and Quinn patted her.
“It’s okay. Thanks for the purrs.” They had helped, those little sounds. Quinn had never really known how relaxing a cat purring next to your pillow could be.
He went through his morning routines and tried to figure out what to do. He needed to talk to Charlie, for one. There were things he needed to tell her, and he needed to make sure she and Lennox would be fine no matter what happened with the situation brewing on the horizon.
Just as he was ready to go, he heard a faint buzzing. His burner phone he’d taped behind the end table was making noise.
He had forgotten to turn off the fucking vibrations, which was annoying in itself, but a call to that phone couldn’t be anything good.
He got to it before the call disconnected. The number was unknown, but he wouldn’t have expected anything else anyway.
“Yeah?” he answered, his whole body tensing up already.
“Hey, so here’s a thing,” the ever-familiar voice of his friend Day rumbled. “Did you know that Burned Skulls are making a move soon?”
Quinn’s eyes widened. “Wait, what?”
“Yeah. Why would they want anything to do with your neck of the woods?”
“Where did you get this info?”
“Can’t say,” Day said predictably. “I’m not sure if it’s anything yet, but we both know those guys like to raze things to the ground when they move in.”
“Okay, thanks.” Quinn wiped his mouth with his palm, his mind going way too fast for his liking.
Day hummed. “How’s your uncle?”
“Dying. Slowly. Which is why this makes no sense.”
“I’ll keep my ear on the ground. Just…you know.”
“Yeah. You too. Talk to you later.”
“Uh-huh.”
Quinn turned off the vibrate function and re-taped the cell to the hiding place.
Shit.He really needed to go see Uncle Ian and Arthur. Without Jimmy there.
He let the cat out, made sure he had his Glock, and locked the door.
* * * *
He didn’t drive to the house, because that wasn’t where Uncle Ian and Arthur would be at this hour. No, they’d be at the Saloon in town, sitting in the corner booth like some dudes out of the Goodfellas or Godfather or some other mob film.
He parked in the front by Ian’s huge SUV and went inside like he owned the place. The Saloon was crappy and small, but it was the main hub of anything MacGregor-related in town. This was where Robert had sat and listened to the people like a fucking asshole king on a throne. Ian was less pretentious and more approachable, but the town had gotten a lot smaller too, so Quinn assumed the morning hours they sat there these days were spent by gossiping more than anything.
