QUINN
I’m shoving the last of my clothes into a drawer when I hear a knock, glancing in the direction of the open door of the room in the squad dorms where I’m getting settled in. Brooke’s there leaning against the doorframe, dressed in ripped up jeans and a Journey t-shirt, a bright smile on her face.
“Hey, stranger,” she greets when I turn to look at her, adjusting her black framed glasses on the bridge of her nose. “How are you settling in?”
“Good,” I breathe, closing the open dresser drawer with my hip. I’ve already filled the dresser with all of the clothes I brought along. I straighten, waving Brooke inside with a hand. “Come on in!”
She does, crossing the room and sinking down onto the edge of the bed, looking around. “This used to be my room, you know,” she says fondly.
“Really?” I stride over to join her on the bed, perching on the edge beside her. I’ve still got my leggings and sports
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JAX Okay, so here’s the thing. I know Quinn’s off limits. I know I royally fucked up by hooking up with her once, and I can never do it again. But there’s no harm in just looking at her, right? I mean, it’s still my job to train her with the other recruits, and the least I can do is honor my promise to Theo to watch over her for the next few weeks. I’ve gotta look at her to do those things, so looking can’t be off limits. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself all morning, because I couldn’t keep my fucking eyes off of Quinn if I tried. She’s wearing a little pair of black workout shorts and a red sports bra, and the red bra immediately conjures up the image of that lacy red lingerie she was wearing the night we hooked up. I’m a creep- a total fucking creep- because I just kept watching her tits bounce in her sports bra as she was doing warmup laps around the track, and I was popping a semi by the time warmups
QUINN“How much farther?” Kyla groans, tossing her head back exaggeratedly.“Oh, c’mon,” Fallon urges, coming up beside Kyla and linking arms with her. “We’re almost there.”“She’s just being dramatic,” I laugh, following behind the two of them.“If I’d known we had to hike to get to this bar, I would’ve thought twice about wearing sky-high heels!” Kyla laments. “Carry me, Quinn?”I wrinkle my nose, shaking my head. “Nuh uh, you aren’t the only one in heels!”“It’s harder for us short girls,” Vienna says as she comes up on the other side of Kyla, giving her a little smile in solidarity. “We’ve gotta take two steps for every one of yours!”I just met Vienna tonight, but I already like her. She’s a spunky little Latina who seems to have a
JAX“I’m just sayin’, if you two didn’t already have mates, you’d be all for it,” I say, pointing my beer bottle between Gray and Theo.“I never said I wasn’t for it,” Gray clarifies. “I just think the full moon runs are primarily for pack bonding. And besides, one of the cornerstones of the alliance is that the packs remain separate and autonomous, so wouldn’t doing a run with all of the packs would blur those lines?”“Or would it make the six-pack alliance stronger?” I challenge.“It’s a nice idea Jax,” Reid sighs, leaning back on his barstool and raising his beer to his lips. “But I don’t think it’s gonna happen.”“Especially not if we’d have to get Anders, Damian, and Vaughn on board,” Brock adds.Reid grunts in agreement. Now that Brock has stepped into hi
QUINN “Hey, there she is,” Brooke calls as she looks up to see me standing in the doorway of the IT hub on Monday afternoon. She smiles warmly, striding over to the door to greet me. “I was beginning to wonder if you were standing us up!” “Had to catch a shower,” I say apologetically, smoothing my damp hair over a shoulder. “Training was a doozy this morning.” “No worries,” she chirps, taking my hand and tugging me further into the hub. “C’mon, I want you to meet everyone!” Brooke spends the next ten minutes taking me around and introducing me to the rest of the IT staff. There are thirteen of them in total- apparently there were nine originally, and I’m one of five newbies. Theo’s hanging around, too, even though the girl he was replacing just returned from her maternity leave. Everyone I meet seems really nice, with the exception of some lanky girl named Carly who appears to have beef with me for no reason. I
JAX Those eyes get me every time. They always seem to be seeking mine, and mine, them. I quickly catch myself and look away, back to Brock seated across from me, but I don’t hear much of what he’s saying now that Quinn’s in my proximity. I get all mixed up when she’s around- I don’t know if it’s because I suck at keeping secrets and the two of us are harboring a big fucking secret, or if it’s something about just being in her presence that throws me off kilter. Today has been all sorts of fucked up- Gray came and pulled me out of training this afternoon, called in Brock and Reid, and he and Theo held a meeting to catch us up on what IT discovered through Brooke’s program. Though everything is up in the air at this point as far as whether an attack is actually imminent or not, we spent a couple of hours discussing options and strategy for handling the shadow pack threat. Afterwards, Theo went back to IT for his girl while the r
QUINNEverything. That one word, spoken in that deep, gravelly voice, has sent my entire world into a tailspin. It was all fun and games when I was just trying to get a rise out of Jax, making him suffer a little bit for saying he regretted our night together. Now that I know it was special to him, too, all bets are off.It doesn’t seem fair that he’s suddenly the Romeo to my Juliet, the two of us tragically star-crossed and unable to explore this connection we seem to have, neither of us willing to sacrifice our relationship with Theo to see what this thing between us could be. It’s probably for the best- relationships only lead to heartache, after all- but that forbidden fruit is looking awfully appealing right now. I totally get why Adam and Eve gave in and ate the apple.A little flirting never hurt anybody, though… right? Is it so wrong that I want to keep flirting with Jax even if it
JAXI wake up in a cold sweat, panting as my eyes adjust to the darkness of my room. All the talk lately about the shadow pack and strategizing how to align our defenses with Denver has been seeping into my nightmares, robbing me of sleep. I’m lucky in that I don’t have any personal experience with the shadow pack thus far, but in my nightmares Alpha Xavier is this larger-than-life villain, his followers these soulless, twisted monsters who kill without remorse. Then again, from what I’ve heard about the shadow pack, the version of them in my dreams may not be too far off.I’m wide awake, my heart still racing from the nightmare that so rudely interrupted my sleep. Tossing the sheets off of my body, I climb out of bed, crossing my room to retrieve a bottle of water out of my mini fridge. I twist off the cap, downing the whole thing in a few gulps, tossing the bottle into the wastebasket.There&rsquo
QUINN“So he just got up and walked away?” Kyla asks incredulously as she lathers shampoo into her hair.“Shhh!” I dart my eyes around the locker room- Kyla and I are the only ones in the showers right now, but there’s no telling who’s at the sinks or toilets on the other side of the wall and I don’t need anybody eavesdropping on this conversation.Kyla mouths the word ‘sorry’, still sudsing up the shampoo on her head.I smile and roll my eyes, turning around under the hot stream of water to rinse the soap off of my chest.“My bad,” Kyla whispers beside me. I can barely hear her over the sound of splashing water from the showers. “I forget sometimes that it’s a secret. And that there are always people around at this place.”I flash her anther smile, knowing she didn’t mean anything by it. I keep my own voice low,