All It Takes Read online

  “Do you want me to pay you in advance?” London asks, but I shake my head.

  “Consider it an engagement present.”

  London’s eyes fill with tears, and Quinn lifts my hand to his lips.

  “I like her,” London says, dabbing at her eyes. “She’s a keeper.”

  “I like her too,” Quinn replies, watching me with those brown eyes. “Thank you.”

  “You might hate it,” I reply, trying to lighten the mood again.

  “I’ll love it,” she says with a sniff, then smiles brightly. “Now, let’s toast to new beginnings and new friends.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  The waitress returns to ask us if we’d like to order food.

  “Should we order something?” Finn asks, but Quinn is already shaking his head no.

  “We have to go to work,” he says and winks at me.

  “Thanks for the drinks, and congratulations again,” I say as London comes around the table to give me a hug. “Let’s do this again.”

  “I’m holding you to that,” she says. “And when you’re ready to head to the beach, Quinn and Finn will arrange it.”

  “Thank you.”

  We walk out of the bar and down the block to Quinn’s office building, then down to the parking garage.

  “Are you sure you want to drive into the Bronx at this time?” I ask him, checking my watch. “That’ll put you home really late.”

  “I hate to lose another day of work, but what I really want to do is take you home, get you naked, and make you scream.”

  My whole body tenses, and my panties flood. Jesus, he can take me from pleasantly content to raging horniness in the span of seven words.

  “Um, well, that sounds like fun too.”

  He laughs, kisses my hand again, and drives smoothly through Manhattan traffic to his building.

  “Of course, you’re going to have to feed me.”

  “Sex and food, in that order.”

  Chapter Eleven

  ~Quinn~

  “Now that we’ve wrapped that up,” Bruce House says and shifts his papers on my conference table, “let’s talk about the property in the Bronx. How is the case going?”

  This is how I spend every Friday morning, with Bruce in the conference room, going over the several cases that I’m working on for him at any given time.

  The man owns half of Manhattan.

  “It’s progressing,” I reply. “Ms. Hendricks, the family’s attorney, has found two receipts of payments on the original loan, showing payment of fifty percent.”

  His eyebrows climb and he sits back in his chair, thinking.

  “Interesting. So it’s conceivable that the loan was paid in full after all.”

  It’s probable. “Agreed.”

  “The city attorney’s name is Hendricks?”

  I narrow my eyes, watching as he rubs his fingertips over his lips.

  “You know it is, you met her.”

  “I honestly didn’t remember her name at the time, but it occurs to me that the last name of the person who sent me the letter was Hendricks.”

  Every hair on my body stands on end.

  “And you’re realizing that now?”

  He shrugs a shoulder. “It didn’t seem important at the time.”

  “It’s called Hendricks Park, the attorney’s name is Hendricks, and you didn’t connect the dots that the person who gave you this letter is also Hendricks?”

  He stares at me for a moment, not answering, and I want to throw something.

  “Bruce.”

  “Okay, I didn’t say anything,” he says and holds his hands up in surrender. “I am now.”

  “I can’t represent you if you withhold information.”

  He holds my gaze steadily. “You have the information.”

  “What was the first name?”

  “Patrick,” he says, and my blood is officially boiling. “Is he a relative of hers?”

  “I don’t know,” I reply, lying easily. I’m not giving Bruce personal information on Sienna. “I’ll keep you posted on any changes in the case.”

  “I know.”

  He gathers his things, and just as he is every Friday, he’s out the door by ten.

  And I immediately walk into Finn’s office, pleased to see that Carter’s already here.

  “I need to talk to you two.”

  I shut the door and lock it, earning intrigued looks from both of them.

  “What’s up?” Carter asks and takes a sip of coffee.

  “Bruce House is a pain in my ass, and I don’t know why I work for him.”

  “Because he brings millions of dollars into our practice every year,” Finn replies reasonably. “What did he do now?”

  “He withheld important information on the Bronx case. He just told me it was Patrick Hendricks who gave him the original letter of sale.”

  “Who’s Patrick Hendricks?” Finn asks.

  “Sienna’s uncle.”

  They exchange looks of surprise, and I want to punch something all over again.

  “Why didn’t he tell you that weeks ago?”

  “Why does Bruce do anything he does?” I respond and pace to the windows. “But now I know that Sienna’s fucking uncle is trying to sabotage ownership of the park. She’s going to be so hurt. She’s close to him.”

  “Quinn, you can’t tell her.” I turn at Carter’s comment and shove my hands in my pockets, dread settling heavy in my belly. “Attorney-client privilege. You can’t tell her.”

  “I’m fucked,” I reply and sit in the leather chair next to Carter, then hang my head in my hands. “How am I supposed to look her in the eye and keep this from her?”

  “What’s really going on between you two?” Carter asks. “Surely it’s not more than sex.”

  “I’m head over heels in love with her,” I reply immediately, surprising all three of us. I stare at each of them, my mouth opening and closing, and then I swallow hard and rub my hand down my face. “Yeah, I am.”

  “Jesus,” Finn whispers. “I knew it. I’ve never seen you look at anyone like that.”

  “So, I know that her uncle is fucking her over, and I can’t tell her.”

  “No,” Carter replies. “You can’t.”

  “What do you have so far?” Finn asks, and I repeat what I told Bruce, that we’ve found 50 percent of the money.

  “But we’ve only gone through a quarter of the boxes, and we have two weeks left.”

  “We have to step up the pace with that,” Finn says. “We have law clerks that can go through the paperwork.”

  “You’re right,” I reply, nodding. “We have to find the proof that the money was paid back. I’ll just have all the boxes brought here, and we can have the clerks do it.”

  “Good luck with that,” Carter says with a smirk. “Like Sienna’s just going to hand all of her family’s paperwork from the past hundred years to the opposing counsel.”

  “I’ll talk her into it,” I reply. “She’ll see reason.”

  “Like I said, good luck with that.”

  I immediately hurry back to my own office, lock the door, and call Sienna.

  “This is Sienna.”

  “It’s me. Listen, I was looking at the calendar, and the stack of boxes we still have to go through, and it occurs to me that time is working against us.”

  “I already know this,” she says with a sigh.

  “Well, I was thinking, why don’t I have all the remaining boxes moved to my offices, and I can assign several law clerks to start helping.”

  She’s quiet for a minute, and just when I think I’ve dropped the call, my phone starts to ring with a FaceTime.

  “Are you nuts?” she asks when I pick up.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Quinn, I’m not going to just hand over all my family’s information to your office. The fact that I’ve invited you to help me was a huge step for me.”

  Okay, so Carter was right.

  “Sienna, the
re’s no way we’ll finish on time at this pace. We need more man power. Even with you working full-time, and me helping part-time, it’s not enough.”

  She blows out a breath and closes her eyes, and I wish I was there to hold her hand, or wrap her in my arms. But she doesn’t need that. She needs to figure this out on her own.

  Watching the emotions play over her beautiful face is fascinating. Finally, she sighs again and shakes her head, as if she doesn’t believe what she’s about to say. “Quinn, there are going to be rules.”

  “Understood and agreed. I’ll arrange to have everything moved over on Monday morning.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you later.”

  And then she’s gone, and I set the plan into motion, hire the moving company, and assign the duties, using only senior clerks.

  For all our sakes, I don’t want anyone to fuck this up.

  “Jesus, my eyes are blurry,” Sienna says the next afternoon. She pushes her fingers against her eyes and sighs. We’ve been sitting at this table since the sun came up this morning, poring through boxes.

  Still nothing.

  I stand, stretch my legs, and walk to her, kneading her shoulders and neck.

  “Oh, that’s good.” She sighs, leaning into my touch. “I know we should stay longer, but my brain is mush.”

  “It’ll still be here tomorrow,” I reply, leaning in to kiss the top of her head. “And we’ll have plenty of help at the office starting on Monday.”

  “Are you sure it’s a good idea?” she asks and leans back to look up at me. “It makes me nervous.”

  “What, you don’t trust me?”

  “You? Yes, without hesitation. But I don’t know your clerks.”

  I fucking hate having this secret between us. Something tells me that once trust is broken with Sienna, repairing it is almost impossible.

  But I don’t have a choice.

  “We’ll lay the ground rules. Dave has given you the slack to work this case exclusively until it’s done, so you’ll be there every day. We’re going to make it work.”

  “Okay,” she says with a sigh. “We do need the help, that’s for sure.”

  She stands and turns to hug me, tipping her face up for a kiss. Her lips are soft and smooth, and confident under mine.

  She intoxicates me.

  “I think it’s my turn to take you somewhere special,” she says with a smile.

  “Do I need a safety harness? A helmet?” I turn her words back at her and she giggles, making my stomach—and my cock—clench.

  “Not this time,” she replies as she gathers her things and leads me out of the house, locking up, and joining me at my car. She moves to the passenger side, but I stop her.

  “Why don’t you drive?”

  She stops and turns those big blue eyes to mine. “Me?”

  “You.” I grin and open the driver’s-side door for her. “You know where we’re going.”

  She looks longingly at the car, then smiles widely and hurries over to slide in behind the wheel.

  “You don’t have to tell me twice,” she says as I sit in the passenger side and buckle my seat belt. “I won’t speed too badly.”

  “I’m not worried,” I reply with a laugh.

  “Have you ever been pulled over?”

  I look at her, then start to laugh from deep in my gut.

  “More times than I can count.” I grin as she gets the seat situated just so, adjusts the mirrors, then pushes the start button and eases onto the road.

  Then she guns it, and we’re off, speeding through the residential streets of the Bronx.

  “You do love to go fast,” I say, watching her bite her lip in excitement.

  “This car is just . . . so good.”

  “You can drive it whenever we’re together, if you want.”

  She giggles, glances over at me, then giggles again. The next thing I know, we’re parked at her house.

  “We’re here,” she announces, taking her belt off and climbing out of the car.

  “We drove less than a mile,” I say in surprise.

  “Yep. This is where I wanted to go.”

  Before she can walk into the house, I catch her wrist and pull her against me, thrilled at the way her body molds against mine, as if she was made just for me.

  “You’re incredible. You know that, right?”

  “I’m pretty okay,” she agrees with a grin, gazing up at me with happy eyes. “Let’s go inside.”

  I follow her into the house. She drops her bag and keys in their usual places. The rest of her house is in order. It’s not perfect, the way it would be if she were a crazy neat freak, but most everything has a place.

  “Do you need to pick something up?” I ask, but she shakes her head, leading me down to her bedroom. “Or did you just want to get naked?”

  “Neither,” she says with a laugh. “I want to take you to my studio. I need to change my clothes. Do you care if those that you’re wearing get messy?”

  I glance down at my usual weekend attire of cargo shorts and a T-shirt and shake my head. “No, I have a million of these.”

  “Excellent.” She slips into her closet, and less than a minute later, she returns in a tiny pair of cutoffs and a white tank, both with paint spatter on them. “This is my painting outfit.”

  “Jesus, Sienna, I’ll have you naked before we get to the top of the stairs.”

  She grins and shakes her head, and I can’t stop staring at her.

  Her feet are bare, her strawberry-blond hair is twisted up in its usual casual knot, and she’s wearing her glasses, which immediately makes my dick hard.

  Add in the paint outfit, and I’m ready to fucking explode.

  “I want to do this with you,” she says as she takes my hand and leads me up the stairs and to the studio. Natural light is flooding the space. She has tarps thrown on the floor, protecting it from paint.

  And she has two brand-new canvases set up on easels in the middle of the room.

  “Did you plan this?”

  “Maybe,” she says with a grin. She has two clean paint palettes set on a table and begins to load them with the same colors of paints. “We’re going to work on the same painting today. I’d like to teach you, if you want to learn.”

  “I’m all yours,” I reply. Jesus, she’s gorgeous, confident in every move she makes. Her motions are swift and precise, and before long, she has both palettes ready.

  “Okay, here are your paints. I have brushes and water already set up at the easels.”

  “You’re quite prepared.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to paint much lately, and I was hoping we’d wrap it up early today. Besides, you’ve taken me several times to share what you enjoy, and I realized that I haven’t done the same for you.”

  “I enjoy just being with you.” She stops and turns to me, a happy smile spreading over her lips.

  “That’s a sweet thing to say.”

  “It’s true. If I can race, or zip-line, or paint, or just breathe with you, well, it’s all bonus.”

  “You’re charming,” she says as she preps both of our canvases.

  “No, I’m not. I don’t spew bullshit. I don’t say what I don’t mean.”

  “That’s not what I was saying,” she replies calmly. “I just meant that you’re kind, and sweet, and it’s quite attractive.”

  I blink, staring down at her as she pushes her glasses up the bridge of her little nose.

  “Seems you don’t spew bullshit either.”

  “Nope. Ain’t nobody got time for that.”

  My lips twitch as I mimic what she’s doing with her paints on my own canvas. “Am I doing this right?”

  “Perfectly.”

  She starts to explain why she’s preparing the canvases in a certain way. Why she chose these particular paints, and what she has in mind for us to paint today.

  “I’d like to paint a skyline,” she says. “It sounds simple, but it’s not.”

  “None of this is simple,” I repl
y, already frustrated and feeling like I have two left thumbs. “Who says it’s simple?”

  “I’ve found that many people brush the arts off as being easy. ‘Oh, you write? I have an idea for a book.’ ‘Oh, you paint? I thought about doing that.’”

  “Maybe they just wish they had the same talent that you do.”

  She tilts her head, thinking it over. “Maybe. It’s a shame that we mock what we wish we had, isn’t it?”

  “Human beings do a lot of things that are shameful.”

  Like lie to their girlfriend about her asshole of an uncle.

  She wipes her hand on her thigh, just under the hem of her shorts, and leaves a white streak of paint on her skin.

  I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything so sexy in all my life.

  For the next thirty minutes, we paint in silence. Sienna with sure strokes, confident lines, and me just trying to do my best.

  The third time she wipes paint on her skin, this time on her chest just under her collarbone, I can’t stand it anymore.

  I set my paints on the table next to my easel, turn to her, and run my brush from the ball of her shoulder to her elbow.

  Rather than gasp and freak out, which is exactly what I’m expecting her to do, she cocks an eyebrow, and stares down at the paint, then up at me through those black-rimmed glasses.

  “Did you just paint me?”

  “You’re much more intriguing than the canvas.”

  She bites her lip, turns to me, and paints a blue line down my jaw. “You’re right.”

  I load my brush with red paint this time, and make a heart in her cleavage, and then it’s on.

  I’ve forgotten all about the canvas, and I’m focused completely on the amazing woman before me.

  “Take your shirt off,” I command, not leaving room for argument. She complies immediately, and I swirl the paint over her puckered nipples, making them stand tall. Her skin breaks out into goose bumps.

  “That’s cold,” she whispers. “But it feels . . . good.”

  Her body is magical. She smells like vanilla and spice, and her skin is smooth and soft. She’s curvy in all the right places, and firm in others. She’s every fantasy I’ve ever had, and exactly what I didn’t know I was looking for.