Burn (5 page)

I put my hands on my hips and cock my head at him; “What, the kind of boxing that has you stabbed and beaten to a bloody pulp lying in my elevator at three o’clock in the morning?”

He grins and looks away, shaking his head.

“What?”

“Well,
my
elevator, technically speaking.”

I freeze; “
What
.”

“Yeah, I bought that building a few years ago and just use a management company to rent it out. I’m redoing my Penthouse uptown right now, so I just decided to crash there during construction ” He chuckles, and as he looks up I think we both suddenly get it at the same time; “Hey,
shit
, I guess that mean’s I’m technically your landlord!”

I pinch the bridge of my nose with my fingers and try and count backwards from ten; I get to about seven before I decide a very tall drink would work a whole lot better right now.

“So anyways, no gabbing about the fighting, OK?”

I finally lift my head up and stare at him, “So wait, Bryce and Hudson don't even know?”

Logan raises an eyebrow and makes a face; “What do you think. I’m the responsible one, remember?”

“Yeah, a regular pillar of reason and society,
Logan
.” I’m tapping my foot on the ground, anxious about how, well,
anxious
he makes me; “So, I’m guessing you want me to keep this a secret or something?”

“No ‘or something’, just the first part.”

“What’s in it for me?” Instantly I have no idea why I said it.

Logan smirks; “Well well, there’s that famous Archer hustle and negotiating I’ve heard so much about. But I don't think you want my counter offer, Quinn.”

I roll my eyes; “Oh
please
, what could possibly be your-”

“That a bit more went on that night than just me getting the shit kicked out of me in a fight?”

Oh you’ve got to be shitting me
.
Is he seriously about to use that as leverage?

“You’re kidding, right?” I glare fire at him; “You're
seriously
going to hold that over my head?”

He smirks that irritating, cocky smile of his; “Well you sure seem like you want it to be this big dirty secret.”

“So do you.”

“Do I?” He winks at me, looking cocky and arrogant and -
goddamnit
- unnervingly good looking.

“
Fine
.”

His grin widens, as if gloating over winning some kind of board room debate or something; “Fine
what
, Quinn?” He’s messing with me, and it’s making my blood boil.

“I mean
fine
, secret for secret.”

Logan flashes that grin at me again and holds out his hand; “Deal!”

I ignore his hand as I roll my eyes as I turn away from him; “Oh and just so we’re clear,
Logan
,” I shoot back over my shoulder; “That is
never
happening again.”

“Which part?” He calls out after me, chuckling; “Agreeing with me or fucking me?”

My face goes five shades of red as I whirl and flip his grinning, cocky face off with both hands before storming off; “Both!” I hurl back, hearing him laugh as I storm off.

Great, more secrets; just what I need. Pretty soon they’re going to bury me under all the secrets.

The fighting; fuck, I mean, I know why I do it. I also know why I don’t
tell
anyone about it; not even Hudson and Bryce, the two men who are my brothers in every sense of the word but who we were born to. That might actually be the worst part of all of it; that with everything I’ve seen and been through with these brothers of mine, I still can’t tell them. I mean part of it is to protect them, but I know the other part of it is because of who I am. I’m a fighter, and when you’re on the ropes, you don’t cower and call your friends.

You fucking hit back.

*****

“You’re not my father.”

His eyes narrow into slits, and he gets that wicked looking smile on his face. I’ve seen that smile before, and it’s usually the prelude to a storm.

“Dammit, boy!” My mother’s words are slurred as she staggers out from the kitchen, holding the coffee mug that hasn’t held anything but vodka and orange juice in it for as long as I can remember; “You treat your daddy with respect, you hear?”

I whirl towards her, my face contorted in as much rage as an eleven year old can possibly muster; “He’s NOT my dadd-“

It only takes half a second for me to realize what a fucking terrible mistake it was to turn my back on Rich like that; a mistake he only too readily hammers home with a sharp cuff to the back of my head that sends me sprawling across the floor.

And she laughs.

My goddamn mother is laughing, like seeing her son get slapped across the room by her drunk piece of shit boyfriend of the month is the funniest fucking thing she’s ever seen. Rich wheezes out a chuckle too, his gravel-tinged nicotine laugh ragged and joyless. Tears sting my eyes as I grab at the threadbare carpet, but I’m grinding my teeth together, just sitting there on my hands and knees listening to them just laugh their drunk ass off at me, and something inside me just snaps.

I’m yelling as I surge up from the floor and throw myself bodily, head-first into Rich. I’m windmilling my fists as hard as I can at his stomach and his balls, just trying to HURT him in any way someone my size can to someone that size. I’d like to think I get a good few licks in, but then he’s got me by the shirt collar and hauling me back at arm’s length.

“By God, you’re gonna learn to respect me, boy!” He roars at me, the scent of beer wafting over my face.

“No!” I yell, willing myself not to cry; don’t cry.

My mother is shrieking in the background; “Boy, you respect your daddy now, ya hea-”

“He’s NOT my daddy!” I scream, and then I do the only other thing I know how to do in that moment.

I haul back and spit right in Rich’s face.

And it’s the last thing I recall before he hauls back with his fist and sends it crashing into my face, and then it all goes black.

It was later that we went through hell, spit in the devil’s eye, and somehow came back from that. None of it makes sense, because in a just and fair world, we’d have been dead a long time ago. But somehow, we’ve gone from the dark hole on the outskirts of basic humanity to the men we are today; and I don’t know if I believe in any sort of higher power, but that shit just
doesn’t
make sense.

When we came back from all that - when the Old Man rescued us that is - we were all broken; broken in every sense of the word. Three years of running will do that; three years after running off from the duties and orders none of us could bring ourselves to execute ever again. I can look back on that and wonder about what-ifs all I want, but I know in my heart that none of us could have kept going; not after the shit we saw back in Afghanistan. There were three years of forcibly losing every sense of who we were as men, working as mercenaries to the highest bidder in the combat zones of Africa, and losing ourselves in drink, drugs, and women, probably in that order. Hudson always liked to say that Bryce was the worst of us back then, but his demons were just the most visible; needles will do that. Me, I like to drink as much as the next guy, but it’s in Ghana that I learned to
fight
. Sure, I’d hit people before, but in that mercenary camp, I learned how to fucking
fight
; and
that
became my drug.
 

And that’s how he found us; washed out, beaten up, drunk, and clawing at the last shreds of what made us men, and
somehow
, he saw promise in us. Don’t ask
me
how.

So now that we’re whole new men, worth more than we’d ever even
dreamed
we’d be and running William’s company after his death, why the underground fights? Goddamn
secrets
, that’s why. Because something followed us back from that hell. Some
one
, I should say, with a knowledge of a truth that I thought we’d buried back in the jungle; someone with a knowledge about who we
really
are.

But you don’t stop fighting, ever.
 

You never stop fighting.

*****

“Earth to Logan?”

Bryce’s words shake me from my thoughts, and I frown at him; “This is a bad idea.”

“Yeah, uh, probably the worst thing you could say at a wedding, bud,” He says, rolling his eyes.

“Funny. You know what I mean though; Quinn on the team for the medical program. It just seems- I dunno, it seems like a conflict of interests is all.”

“What are you
talking
about?” Bryce shakes his head as he straightens his bowtie in the mirror; “It’s a healthcare outreach program through Archer Holdings; she’s a
doctor
, and her
last name is Archer.
I mean how much more perfect for the job can she get, man? You want her to be physically on-site, project managing the hospital constructions? Cause I bet she can do that too, she
is
the Old Man’s daughter, after all.”

Yeah, like I need to be reminded.

“Look I just don’t think it’s a good idea, that’s all.”

“Why on Earth not?”

Uh, because I know how she tastes riding my tongue? Because I know how she feels when comes?
Yeah, no fucking way can I say that to Bryce or Hudson; they’d kill me. Shit,
I’d
kill me.

“I just- I don’t think we’d get along personally.”

He glances at his watch; “Well, get personal, because in half an hour she’s going to be part of the family.”

I wince at that word, but then Hudson pokes his head into the room; “Hey, assholes, I’m getting married in twenty fucking minutes; think you could finish putting those ties on and get up to the alter with me?” He frowns and shakes his head at me; “Have I mentioned your face looks like shit by the way?” Bryce snorts from the other side of the room, and I glare at the both of them. “Oh and thanks for having a fight right before the wedding, buddy. Reagan’s going to
love
looking at your Goddamn black eye in the pictures later.” Hudson shakes his head, looking more amused than actually pissed at me; “I mean I thought you guys wore fucking
masks
at the gym.”

“Uh, yeah-“ I can’t exactly tell them about the fights; not these ones, which are most certainly
not
held at the gym.
 

The ones where there aren’t any gloves.

The ones where I bleed to forget.

“Yeah I guess I caught a bad hook or something.” I mumble out, trying to deflect the subject.

“
You
got hit?” Bryce grins at me from his spot by the window of the room; “Wish I’d been there to see that.”
 

Hudson snorts out a laugh; “You know, you could let
me
hit you, for once,” He says, referring to our sparring bouts where I basically wipe the floor with him every time; “It’d be a hell of a wedding gift you know.” He steps towards me and brings his hands up to straighten my bowtie; “So, what do you think about Quinn on the new-“

“Bad idea.”

Bryce growls at me from the other side of the room; “Logan,
what
is your fucking problem with it, man?”

My problem is I can’t stop thinking of that night. My
problem
is that I can’t stop picturing her naked body as she rides on top of me, her breasts swaying with her breathing, her lips trembling, and her fingertips raking my shoulders and my back as she explodes around me. Hell, I couldn’t stop thinking about that whole night
before
I knew who she was, but now its like pouring gasoline on a fire, and it’s about to blow up in my face. On top of that, the fact that she’s
William’s
daughter - my brother’s new sister-in-law, or whatever -
 
and the fact that she’s so off limits isn't turning me off like it
should be
.