Under the Boardwalk (Costas Sisters 1)

The waitress stopped by to pour their coffee and take their orders.

“Is Ari giving you trouble?” Connor asked when she’d left.

“You could say that,” Quinn replied, staring into his cup. Though Connor had asked a valid question, he wasn’t going to get an accurate answer. “Or you could say I’m giving trouble to myself.” But Quinn wasn’t about to mention his disastrous trip with Ari to the safe house. Not even to his best friend.

“Have you ever considered giving up undercover work?” Quinn asked, opting for a subject change guaranteed to take Connor’s mind off women. A subject that Quinn had been mulling in the back of his mind for some time now, but one he hadn’t been ready to express out loud.

He expected Connor to look shocked, but instead he received silence that only seemed to grow.

Finally Connor nodded slowly. “Sometimes I lie in bed at night and wonder what it would be like to wake up and not have to run through my cover and the lies that keep me alive,” he admitted.

“Yeah,” Quinn agreed. “A nice transfer to Detective Division might work.”

“Mmm,” Connor said.

They mulled over their thoughts in private. Both Quinn and Connor had been undercover since graduation from the Academy. Other than each other, the two men had no family. Too often they were so deep undercover, their real lives were barely recognizable. The FBI had had no trouble putting them on special assignment for the Bureau. They’d already done the groundwork to establish their cover within Damon’s operation. And thank God it was almost over, which meant Quinn could begin to focus on the future.

Right now he knew Ari’s crazy family had served as the catalyst for facing the thoughts he’d buried for so long. He’d never had a family, and never thought he’d want to. But watching Sam settle in so easily, and seeing how even he could enjoy the normal type of things he’d missed out on growing up, showed him that maybe he was ready to give it a try.

Quinn missed having a life. But he also wondered what kind of life awaited him if he gave up undercover work. And what kind of role the woman he loved would play in that life, when odds were she wouldn’t be around to reap the benefits of his decision.

Chapter Sixteen

Quinn stood alone in Damon’s office with a bank of screens in front of him. It was almost over. He’d turned over a week’s worth of tapes from the counting room, and government men were working around the clock to find the discrepancies that would lead to Damon’s arrest and a warrant to search further. His head buzzed with the anticipation of a job almost completed. So much so that when his cell phone rang, he almost didn’t hear it.

He picked up just in time. “Donovan.”

“Quinn, I can’t find Sam, and Dee said Spank’s gone, too,” Elena said, in an obvious panic.

His stomach churned. “You’re kidding?” he asked, but he knew she wasn’t. “Okay, sit tight. I’ll find her.” He hung up and groaned, then called down to the bar and asked Connor to send Ari to see him.

Five minutes later, she burst into the room. “What’s wrong?” she asked, out of breath, concern on her beautiful face.

“Sam and Spank have gone AWOL.”

She narrowed her gaze. “Missing?”

He nodded. “And it’s not like I can put out an APB on a blonde teenager and her sidekick monkey. Hell, it’s not even like I can leave here.”

She walked over and pulled him into an embrace. “I’ll handle it,” she promised him.

He inhaled deep, the scent of her fragrant hair and her bodily warmth reassuring him. “I know you will.”

“Does she know where you live?” Ari asked.

“Yeah, so that’s one place you can check. The rec center’s another.” Beyond that, he didn’t want to think of the places a young girl could get lost. The only saving grace in this situation was that a teenager traveling with a monkey as a companion couldn’t get far without being noticed.

“I’ll call you as soon as I know something,” Ari promised, and started to dig through her bag, which she’d placed on a countertop. “Yep. I have my cell.” As she turned, the bag fell to the floor, contents spilling all over. “Darn it.”

She knelt and he helped her pile everything back inside. “It’s because you’re nervous. Try to remain calm while you’re looking, okay?” he said as they rose to their feet.

Her gaze met his and quickly, almost as if she didn’t want to give herself time to think, she leaned close and covered his lips with hers. Knowing he had mere seconds, he laced his arms around her waist, deepened the kiss, and pulled her close. He intended to take advantage of what she’d offered.

Tipping her head backwards, she let her tongue slip effortlessly into his mouth and tangle with his. Her body went slack, molding against him, and as her nipples puckered beneath her T-shirt, his body tensed with desire and longing.