The Mighty Quinns: Danny (12 page)

“We don't need one,” Jordan replied, pulling him into another kiss.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. She'd always been careful about birth control, never leaving it to the moment when it was needed. And she was glad that there would be no barriers between them this time. He pulled her thighs against his hips and entered her in one smooth motion, taking her breath away.

He buried himself so completely that Jordan wasn't sure she could take anymore. Danny gazed down into her eyes, smoothing the rain from her face with his hands and kissing her softly. The air around them was
alive with electricity, the leaves of the trees rustling overhead.

Slowly, he began to move above her, his gaze still fixed on hers. Jordan could see every moment of pleasure etched across his handsome face, every surge of desire and every determined denial. He drove himself close, then retreated and waited for her, moving against her until he felt her release coming.

Here, in this spot, there was nothing but her desire. The outside world didn't exist, the problems of the day had disappeared, everything in her life had been reduced to this perfect joining. He withdrew and slid against her, teasing at the damp folds until Jordan cried out beneath him.

And then he was inside her again, taking her over the edge, the spasms enveloping her body until she couldn't think any longer. Everything had become sensation: pure, powerful pleasure that raced through her body like a current.

A moment later, he dissolved into his own orgasm, his body driving into hers one last time before he lost control. She whispered his name, urging him on until he was completely sated.

With a sigh, Danny pulled her on top of him, their bodies still joined. He stared up into the sky, the rain splattering in his face. “We have to be gone in the head to be out here in this rain.”

“I love it,” Jordan said. “I'm not even cold.”

“I'm freezing,” he said. “And I have grass in places I won't even mention.”

A low rumble sounded in the distance. At first,
Jordan thought it was thunder, then realized it sounded more like a car. “Someone's coming.”

Danny shook his head. “It's just a car passing by on the road. They won't come out in the rain.”

Jordan got to her feet and raked her hands through her hair, letting the deluge wash all the dirt from her naked body. Danny watched her, an appreciative smile on her face. “You are a mysterious creature,” he said.

She began to dance, swaying slowly from side to side and—

“Don't worry, Mildred, it's supposed to be here somewhere. A little rain won't hurt ya. Come along now. Step lively.”

Jordan spun around to see an elderly couple, decked out in rain gear, stepping into the grove. A tiny scream slipped from her lips and she looked down at Danny. He was already leaping to his feet.

He grabbed her hand and they ran for the car, but not before the couple caught sight of them. Jordan slipped once and Danny steadied her before racing on.

“Look, Mildred, I told you we'd see fairies. Didn't I tell you?”

“Freddie, those are no more fairies than you and I are. Fairies don't drive around the countryside in a Volvo.”

Laughing, Jordan and Danny jumped in the car and quickly made their escape. As they swerved down the narrow lane, the car spitting up mud as it gained speed, Jordan pressed her hand to her heart, the laughter making her breathless and dizzy.

They'd made love in a warm, soft bed, on the sofa in the library, on the worktable in the kitchen. But it all seemed so ordinary, so controlled, compared to what
they'd just done. Never in her life had she completely surrendered to her desires—until now.

“Are we going to drive all the way home stark naked?” Danny asked. “Or would you like to stop and get dressed?”

She glanced over at him. “Oh, let's have some fun. Forget the clothes.”

“You're a woman after my own heart, Jordan Kennally. You know that, don't you?”

I hope so,
Jordan said to herself. Because she wouldn't be satisfied with anything less.

 

“I'
M LOSING MY MIND
!”

Danny heard Jordan's shout from the breakfast nook, where he was replacing the hinges on the old wooden door. He frowned, then decided to see what had set her off. No doubt she'd just finished her daily report to her father.

There were times when Danny was ready to hop on a plane, fly across the ocean and beat the shite out of the man who made Jordan's life so miserable. How hard would it be to convince him to let Jordan go? Right now, it seemed as if her father kept her employed simply to torture her.

Parents were supposed to support their children, not torment them. He'd always taken his parents for granted, but after hearing about Jordan's dysfunctional family, it was clear that he needed to be much more appreciative of what he had.

Danny found her standing in front of the bookshelves, staring at the neatly arranged shelves of books. She'd spent most of the previous day unpacking the
crates and arranging the volumes in the library. But now, she stood in front of her work, shaking her head.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It's gone,” she said. “It was here yesterday and it's gone today. I counted out each of these books, matched them up with the packing lists. The Shakespeare plays have thirty-seven volumes. And now there are thirty-six. There's a spot empty right here, where
A Midsummer Night's Dream
belongs.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure. I'm not imagining this. It was here yesterday and now it's gone. The set isn't worth anything if it's incomplete.” She turned away from the bookcase and began to pace the room. “We have to get rid of these brownies,” she said. “We—we need an exterminator.” She reached for the phone book on her desk. “Like those ghostbuster guys in the movie. You have to have someone in Ireland who takes care of these things.”

“Of course we do,” Danny said. “And they're all scoundrels and cheats. They'll take your money, sprinkle a few herbs around the room and laugh all the way to the bank.”

“What am I supposed to do? I didn't mind it at first, but this set cost five hundred pounds. I'm going to have to replace it.”

“Unless we found the person who stole it.”

“I thought you said brownies stole it.”

He closed the phone book and grabbed her hand, leading her along to the leather sofa. “I don't believe in brownies any more than you do. We need to figure out how this person—and I do believe it's a person—is
getting into the house. Remember Kellan told us about the secret passage? We need to find it before anything else goes missing.” Danny sat down, then pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her.

“Okay. So how do we do this?”

“We start by checking out the exterior and the cellars. See if we can find any entrances there. They have to come in from the outside in some way. And it can only happen from the exterior walls or the cellar.”

“Contractors have been over every inch of this place,” she said. “The cellars are solid stone so that can't be it.”

“The pool,” Danny said. “What better place to hide an entrance?”

“No. You'd be able to see an entrance down there. The walls are tiled.”

“Maybe Kellan is wrong,” he murmured.

“No, he has to be right. My question is, who is coming in and why? They really haven't stolen anything of value. They're just causing mischief.”

“Maybe it's a kid,” Danny said, smoothing a strand of hair from her temple. “Before you started working on this house, it was open for years. Maybe one of the kids who hung out here found the secret entrance and is just coming in out of curiosity.”

“That makes sense,” Jordan said.

“We need to let the dogs sleep in the house,” Danny said. “If someone comes in, they'll bark.”

Jordan thought about his suggestion for a moment. She hadn't allowed Finny and Mogue into the house since that very first night, when she'd thought someone was in her room. Danny understood her reluctance, con
sidering all the work that had been done on the wooden floors. But the best defense against a troublemaker was a four-legged offense.

“All right. But I'm going to make them wear those little booties that I make the contractors wear.”

“They're not going to like that,” Danny said. “Besides, they won't stay on. I'll trim their nails. They'll be fine.”

Jordan drew a deep breath. “All right. I feel better. Now that we have a plan, we're going to figure this out.”

Danny forced a smile. If only the rest of their troubles were so easy to solve.

He wanted to talk about what was going to happen between them when the job was over. He needed to know where he stood. All the guessing was wearing on him and he'd grown sick of trying to interpret every little thing she said to him.

When they were together, intimately entangled, Danny knew there was something there, something much deeper than just lust. When he moved inside her, it wasn't about his pleasure, it had become all about her, as if the beauty and power of their physical relationship might somehow prove to her they belonged together.

Every day that passed, he saw proof of the end. The painters were gone, the roofers were finished. Books now filled the shelves in the library, utensils and pots and pans hung from the racks in the kitchen, and furniture and rugs would arrive in a few days. After that, the house would be transformed from a construction site to a home and it would all be over.

It was a day that Jordan was anxiously awaiting and one he could only dread. Why was he so afraid to
broach the subject with her? Danny suspected that he wasn't ready to hear her answer.

If she was planning to walk away without a second thought, then he didn't want to know until the very last moment of their time together. She had bewitched him, and like the other victims of the
leanan sidhe,
he would pay for his desire when she let him go. Though it wouldn't be death, he might feel like it for a time.

“Why don't we just take a little break?” he suggested, nuzzling her neck. “We could go down and take a swim. Or we could go out and get an early supper.”

“We're always taking little breaks from work,” Jordan said.

“I don't mean that kind of break,” he said, referring to their sexual trysts. “Let's just get out of the house and do something. Take a drive, take a walk. It's a beautiful autumn day and you've been cooped up inside for too long. And I want to spend some time with you. Nothing more.”

“I can't leave,” she said. “I have all this work to do and I—”

“I'm not asking you to take an ocean voyage for feck's sake,” Danny teased.

She shrugged. “I know. But I sort of have something important to do this afternoon and I really wouldn't be very good company. And I need some time to work up my courage.”

“Are you planning to go cliff diving? Or will you be jumping out of a plane?”

Jordan giggled. “No, nothing so simple. I'm going to call my father and give him an ultimatum. Either he gives me the hotel job or I'm going to quit.”

A gasp slipped from Danny's throat, her statement taking him by surprise. If she wasn't working for her family then she wouldn't be tied to New York anymore. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

“Yes,” Jordan said, nodding. “Absolutely. And I have you to thank for that.”

“Me?”

“I've always been so careful about everything I've done in my life. Until I met you. Then I just threw caution to wind. I had sex in the middle of a fairy circle yesterday. I was naked, running around in the rain. If I can do that, I can certainly be honest with my father. It's time I stood up to him.”

“And what will you do if he gives you the job?” Danny asked.

Jordan opened her mouth to reply, then paused, frowning. “I'll do the job,” she murmured. “I'll do a really good job and prove that I'm just as good as any of my brothers.”

“And if he refuses?”

She thought about the question for a long moment. “I don't know. I suppose I should figure that out, too.” Jordan drew a ragged breath. “I guess I'll…quit.”

Danny grabbed her hand and laced his fingers through hers. “Are you really ready to do that?”

“It's always been an option,” she said. “I've almost done it a few times in the past, but then talked myself out of it. I can't continue like this, Danny. I should be worth something to him, as a daughter
and
an employee. Maybe it's time to find out where I stand.”

“Why do you care what your father thinks? You're an adult. You don't need his approval.”

Jordan laughed. “Yeah, right. Don't even try to analyze me. I've spent a lifetime trying to figure out why I seek my father's approval. It's just something I do. My brothers do it also. But I'm just willing to suffer more to get what I want.”

“You're suffering?” Danny asked.

“Well, not at the moment.”

“I bet your brothers never had sex with one of their employees,” he said. “That's wicked suffering there.”

“You're not my employee and I'm not your boss, remember?”

He grabbed her waist and set her on her feet, then stood beside her. “Give me a half hour.”

“For what?”

“A swim. We could get naked, play in the water, have a little fun and have you back at work before anyone knows you're missing.”

“You just want to get my clothes off,” she said.

“Yes, I do. That is pretty much my goal from the time we get up in the morning until the time we crawl into bed at night.”

“Oh, so now I get the real story. You're not interested in making gates and medallions and hinges anymore. This is all about me and you.”

“Now you're starting to understand. Finally. It's about bloody time.” He reached for the hem of her shirt. “I'll race you. First one naked and in the water wins.”