Page 41 of Brutal Vows

Quinn glares at me.

I glare right back.

Then he stalks off through the field of undulating carousel ponies while I shout curses in Italian that the brassy calliope music does nothing to drown out.

I kick off my heels and follow him.

It’s a Herculean task. He appears to have zero problem navigating a crowd of people riding moving fiberglass animals on a spinning disc, while I’m slipping and sliding all over the place, bumping into everyone and starting to feel sick.

When I finally catch up to him, he’s lifting Lili onto a purple-and-gold pony, holding her carefully, but managing her weight easily, as if she’s a doll.

She sits astride the pony, grasps the gold pole coming out of its neck, and looks at Quinn with wide eyes.

I’m about to drive a fist into his kidney when she smiles.

Thank God. She’s not afraid.

I stand one pony away, watching them in relief, until he turns his gaze to me and it sharpens.

When he steps toward me, I know exactly what he has in mind.

“Don’t you dare,” I warn as he approaches. “I mean it, Quinn! I amnotgetting up on this thing!”

But of course I am.

Because he wants me to.

He picks me up by the waist and lifts me onto the horse so I’m sitting on it sidesaddle, clinging to his broad shoulders, my bare legs and feet dangling helplessly as I stare down at him.

He gazes up at me, his hands still gripped tightly around my waist.

The horse drifts down on its pole. Quinn’s hands drift up from my waist to my rib cage.

Another inch and those huge hands will be cupped around my breasts.

I suck in a breath. My nipples tighten. My entire body erupts into flames. Our eyes lock, and suddenly, the carousel, the music, and everything around us disappears. It’s as if nobody else in the world exists but the two of us.

The two of us and my aching vagina, which just now arose from the dead to start howling with need.

Forhim.

This awful, arrogant Irishman.

Who’s betrothed to my beloved niece.

Who’s madly in love with the pool boy.

I understand with chilling clarity in that moment that none of this is going to end well.

NINE

SPIDER

The viper stares at me with her red lips parted and her mermaid eyes wide, her dark hair falling around her face and her lush tits straining for release from the deep V neckline of her dress as she clings to my shoulders.

The hem of her dress has ridden up, exposing her bare thighs.

Thighs I want to kiss, bite, and bury my face between.