Page 19

Quinn tilted his head. “But you’re worried it’ll change things between you two?” When Max nodded, Quinn smiled. “Max, he claimed you. Not even the Order is taking you from him.”

“You mean the bite mark?” he asked, dragging his finger over the faint scar on his neck. Caius was obsessed with it, constantly touching or licking or kissing it. “I thought it was some territorial shifter thing.”

“Well yeah, it’s that too.”

Max shook his head. “It can’t be a claiming. I’m not a shifter.”

“ A mhuirnín , this isn’t the Middle Ages. We can have a claiming with non-shifters.” Quinn grinned and waggled his eyebrows. “Sometimes we even share.”

“Really?” he asked, not sure he believed that.

“Don’t believe the movies. Sure, some shifters are territorial fuckwads, but it’s the twenty-first century. Cap wouldn’t have let us bind you if he wasn’t willing to share.”

“Have you two…? ”

“Had sex?” Quinn chuckled and shook his head. “No. He had a thing with a general a few years ago, but it didn’t last long. He’s not really my type anyway.”

Unable to help himself, Max asked, “Lukas more your type?” He grinned when Quinn looked away, but not before Max saw the wistful smile. “If you’re pining for him, why would you want to settle for me?”

“First off, I’m not settling.” Quinn narrowed his eyes at him, and Max heard the distinct rumble of a growl. “Second, I’m open to a poly arrangement. I can handle a relationship with more than one person. The question is, do you want that too?”

Did he? Barely two weeks ago, Jake had betrayed him in every way possible and ended up dead because of it.

He may not have thought Jake was forever, but he at least had trusted the bastard.

The last thing he ever thought possible was that he’d Spark and then be bound to three shifters.

Or have the Order after him, along with probably every corrupt person with any significant power in the damn city.

“I’ve never even had a serious relationship before,” he said, tearing pieces off his sandwich and feeding some to Aradia.

“We don’t have to be serious. Cap is serious enough for all of us.”

“Maybe,” he said, watching Quinn from the corner of his eye, unable to believe he was really interested. He could barely believe Caius was, and he had the mark to prove it.

When they finished eating, he took the plates to the sink, his heart skipping in surprise when he turned to find Quinn behind him. He took the offered hand and let Quinn lead him downstairs, into what looked like an entirely different house.

Where the upstairs was dark wood floors and walls alternating between rich greens and off-white, Quinn’s lair was light wood floors, with the back wall painted in a brilliant mural of the woods overlooking a lake at sunset.

The walls on either side continued the motif with dense trees.

The closer he looked, the more details he found—a deer grazing, a fox caught in a midair pounce, birds perched in the trees.

“Wow. Who painted all this?”

Quinn chuckled. “It was an expensive spell, but the scene came from me. This is where I grew up.”

Max turned in surprise. “It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah, this part was. ”

When Max stepped farther into the room, he spotted a nook with a large L-shaped desk filled with six monitors and three towers under it. “Are you a hacker?”

“Something like that.”

“Right.” He didn’t buy that at all. Not that it mattered. Hacking was usually one of the tamer crimes.

Quinn dropped onto a large leather sofa and propped a foot on the coffee table. “So, game? Movie?”

Max sank onto a knee next to Quinn and balanced with a hand on his shoulder, struggling to keep his breathing steady as nerves twisted in his gut. “It’s… not cheating if he agreed to it. Right?”

Quinn’s smile softened as he tugged Max closer, easily manhandling him until he was sitting across the shifter’s lap. He held Max steady with one arm around his waist and pulled his phone out with the other hand.

Max made a sound embarrassingly close to a squeak when he saw Cap flash on the outgoing call. “What are you doing?”

“Shh.” Quinn pulled the phone out of reach when Max grabbed for it, chuckling when Caius answered.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, except I’m trying to seduce Max and he’s worried about cheating on you.”

Max groaned and buried his face in his hands. And now Caius was going to think Max thought they were in a committed relationship when Caius had certainly not said anything remotely like that. For all Max knew, this was just a fling or a multi-night-stand.

“Max,” Caius said.

He jumped at how close that sounded, lifting his head to find Quinn holding the phone near his ear. “Yeah?”

“Whether you sleep with Quinn or not, it won’t change anything between us. It’s your choice.”

Max wanted to ask if Caius was sure, but he settled for an “Okay” instead.

“We’ll be back in a couple of hours. Anything else?”

“Sushi for dinner,” Quinn said. “Thanks, Cap.” Then he hung up, cutting off Caius’ exasperated sigh and tossing the phone aside as he turned his full attention to Max. “Satisfied? ”

Max shivered, his eyes flicking to Quinn’s lips. He’d wanted to kiss them almost from the beginning. “Fuck it,” he muttered, ignoring Quinn’s delighted laugh as he leaned in and kissed him.

He expected Quinn to take things slower than Caius did, but he was pleasantly surprised when Quinn gripped his hair in a tight fist and pressed his tongue past Max’s lips.

Quinn kissed like Caius, like he expected to be in control, and Max was fine with that.

With a moan, he gripped Quinn’s shoulder and hair and shifted to straddle his lap, grinding their hips together until Quinn finally broke away with a low growl.

His hazel eyes seemed to glow, but when he blinked, they were back to normal. “Bed,” he ordered, not waiting for Max to get up. Instead, he gripped Max’s ass and stood.

Max couldn’t help the needy moan as his stomach swooped with desire. “Hot,” he murmured, attacking Quinn’s lips again.

Quinn laughed into the kiss, carrying him across the room and kicking a door open before tossing Max onto the bed. He wasted no time in stripping Max of his pants and underwear, tossing them across the room like he was personally offended by their existence.

Max was struck motionless by the intensity of Quinn’s focus, unresisting as Quinn rolled him to his stomach.

He shivered from the cool air on his back as his sweater was pushed up and over his head.

Then his arms were tugged behind his back, trapped there by the sweater.

It took a moment for his brain to catch up, the brief flare of panic at being restrained fizzling out beneath the kisses traveling down his spine.

“I bet even Caius hasn’t done this for you yet,” Quinn said, sounding smug as he gave a firm tug on Max’s hips, dragging him to the edge of the bed before sinking to his knees.

Max squirmed, digging his toes against the floor as Quinn’s hands settled on his ass, and then his brain turned to white noise as a hot, wet tongue licked him from his balls to his hole.

“Oh my fuck,” he gasped, his eyes rolling back when Quinn licked him again.

Then that tongue teased past his entrance and he couldn’t do anything more than make a desperate gurgling sound as his groans stuck in his chest.

Zings and sparks of ecstasy ignited through his body, lighting up all his nerves as if each and every one connected to his ass.

He couldn’t speak. Could hardly even remember to breathe beyond the intense pleasure coursing through him.

At least until countless minutes later when his toes started to ache .

Finally, Quinn pulled back, leaving Max a gasping, shaking mess of too hot flesh teetering on the edge.

His legs were shaking when Quinn maneuvered him back onto the bed, where he sprawled bonelessly on his stomach, his arms still trapped behind him.

He might have minded, but he was far more interested in watching Quinn strip and the slow reveal of toned muscles covered in smooth, pale flesh.

Quinn grinned and winked before grabbing the lube from the nightstand. “You good?”

Max tried twice before he got his tongue to work. “Hurry up and fuck me.”

Quinn chuckled, crawling onto the bed and settling between Max’s legs. “Did I make you impatient?” He ignored Max’s ass grinding against him in an attempt to urge him on, taking his sweet time with the lube, much to Max’s annoyance.

“Quinn,” he growled, two seconds away from setting his sweater on fire and taking care of things himself.

With a tsk, Quinn gripped Max’s hips and finally pressed into him.

“Fuck, please,” Max whined, tossing his head and arching in pleasure. “Please, please, please.”

“Fuck, you feel so good,” Quinn groaned, his fingers digging into Max’s hips and ass as he sank in, inch by slow inch.

It wasn’t enough. The restless itch plaguing him all day grew worse, and being trapped, unable to sink his fingers into hair or flesh, bordered on unbearable. “ Quinn .”

Quinn leaned over him, pinning him to the bed and pressing his face against Max’s neck, burying himself completely with a quick, hard thrust. Hot breath washed across his throat before Quinn nuzzled against the mark Caius had left, dragging his tongue across it.

“Can I mark you?” When he pulled back to look at Max, his eyes glowed, the faint light unique to shifters shining in their depths.

It was the same glow he’d seen in Caius’ eyes most nights, especially when the alpha was focused on the claiming mark.

“Uh-huh,” he said, hardly processing the words, but anything Quinn asked for right then was fine. “Only if you move.”

Quinn snorted, but he got moving, driving into Max with deep, steady thrusts that blanked Max’s mind with pleasure again.