Brutal Vows (Queens & Monsters #4)(23)

With four of Gianni’s armed guards following in a car behind us, we pass the guard gate in silence.

We drive through the wooded area surrounding the house in silence.

Miles of country lanes pass in the same stiff, uncomfortable silence.

It isn’t until we pass the lake and enter the highway that I break it.

“Mr. Quinn?”

Gazing straight out the windshield, he grunts at me.

“Where are we going?”

He shakes his head as if I’m annoying him. I certainly hope I am.

And what the hell is his problem today?

I glance behind us to make sure Gianni’s guards are still in sight. I have no idea what this crazy fucking Irishman is up to, but when I see the black Mercedes following us, I feel better knowing we’re not alone with him.

We speed down the highway as Lili clings to the handle on her door.

I’m so angry that he’s frightened her, I want to take off one of my heels and stab him in the ear with it.

After another few miles, he takes an exit off the highway and turns left. He steers the car toward the country carnival off in the distance.

Wait…when he said ride, did he actually mean a PONY ride?

Does he think she’s six years old?

We park in a dirt lot. Quinn exits the car and helps Lili from the passenger seat. Then he leads her away by the hand. He doesn’t look back.

When the guards pull up, I’ve already jumped out and slammed the door behind me.

Luigi, the driver, rolls down his window. He makes a questioning gesture with his hand.

“Who fucking knows?” I say, aggravated. “Maybe the idiot wants a cotton candy.”

I hurry to follow the receding figures of Lili and Quinn as they head toward the ticket booth. I catch up with them just as they’re going through the main gate.

“Ma’am! Ma’am, you need a ticket!”

Ignoring the pimply young man calling out to me from the booth, I follow behind Quinn and Lili as he leads her through the small crowd. She glances over her shoulder in a panic, looking for me. When she sees me marching behind her with my executioner’s face on, she looks relieved.

I almost break an ankle trying to keep up with them. He’s got long legs and is making good use of them, striding through the crowd with purpose as he drags Lili along. I’m starting to think he’s going to march us around in circles until one of us drops from exhaustion when he suddenly veers left, toward the carousel.

What on earth…?

There are about twenty people standing in line. Quinn pushes past all of them, shoves a ticket to the gawking girl at the gate, and walks straight over to the slowly spinning carousel.

He picks Lili up by the waist and hoists her onto the platform.

She spins away from him, looking utterly confused.

I gasp and lunge forward, pushing past people until I reach the gate. The ticket girl is about to ask me for my ticket, but takes one look at my face and shrinks back.

Quinn turns just as I reach him.

I shout, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

He grabs me around the waist with one arm and yanks me roughly against his body.

His big, hard, unyieldingly masculine body.

For a long, breathless beat, he stares down at my face. His brows are knit. His eyes are dark. His full lips are pressed into a narrow, angry line. When his gaze drops to my mouth, a muscle in his jaw clenches.

Then he meets my eyes again and growls, “Whatever the fuck I want, viper.”

He leaps onto the moving platform, taking me with him.

A scream catches in my throat.

He grabs a bar on the edge of the platform, swings me around, and sets me on my feet, then releases me abruptly. Off balance in my heels on the uneven, moving metal platform, I stagger, flailing for the nearest stupid colorful carousel horse moving lazily up and down on its pole.

I throw my arms around its neck and hang on.

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 if 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 am not getting 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.