This place suffocated Cade. He wanted to run and hide away from this huge, granite-jawed man who seemed to swallow up the space. The second Quinn had stepped into the room, Cade knew he was a Daddy. He had that same presence Eric did. And that made him dangerous. Cade didn’t need another Daddy. That part of his life was behind him. He’d been a boy, but his Daddy had abused him. No more boy. He’d locked that side of his life away and vowed to be in control of his life, a fucking adult. He was going to tell Dominic to get rid of Quinn and just find him a suit. Quinn was the wrong person to take care of him.
Then Quinn had sat down and ordered everyone out of the room, fixed his hard brown eyes on him and, like a kid confessing everything, like a fucking boy, Cade had spilled out the toxic hurt of what Eric had done to him, and Quinn had just accepted it calmly. No judgement in his eyes. Cade wanted to sit on Quinn’s lap, bury his face in his neck and howl because he knew Quinn could take it and make it better.
But Quinn wasn’t his Daddy, and he wasn’t a boy. And no one could make it better.
Cade tuned out Standish, who worried incessantly about details Cade wasn’t interested in. Dominic answered him with a patience borne of long experience. Quinn said nothing but he didn’t take his hand off Cade’s shoulder. It grounded him. Once, he started jiggling his leg and Quinn gently squeezed his shoulder until he stopped. And then Cade hated himself for giving in and obeying the unspoken order.
“I want to get Cade home,” Quinn said, cutting through yet another discussion by Standish. The man was dear to Cade, but right now he would have gladly strangled him.
“Uh, yes,” Standish said.
Quinn turned to Dominic. “Do you have a vehicle?”
Cade sat up straighter. “My Harley’s in the parking lot.”
“No,” Quinn said flatly.
Cade did not just hear that. He tilted his head. “No?” he said icily. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“You’re not riding solo until I’ve thoroughly assessed the situation. Beyond this folder I have no idea how dangerous Strada is.”
Cade wrenched away from Quinn’s hold, leapt to his feet, and glared at him. “You’re not stopping me riding my bike. You ride. You’re supposed to ride with me.”
“Not yet.”
“This isn’t what we agreed,” Standish said.
Quinn folded his arms across his massive chest and stared them all down. Cade despised himself a little more for finding that dominance a turn-on. Of course Quinn was dominant; he was a Daddy. Cade could never let himself forget that.
“Quinn—” Dominic started.
“I’m taking Cade home in one of the SUVs. You have to get our bikes back somehow. Once I’ve assessed the danger, Cade will be able to resume riding if he has two escorts.”
“No fucking way!” Cade was not a fucking prisoner.
“It’s only in the short-term, Cade,” Standish said, trying to be soothing. “You can’t afford for anything to go wrong for this show. You’re the main attraction. You’ve got a lot of money riding on this.”
Cade glared at his attorney. He was right. Cade couldn’t afford to fuck this up. The abuse Strada had been throwing his way had already made some of the show’s investors edgy. They didn’t want to be associated with bad publicity and there had been talk of replacing him. It had taken fast talking by his management team and threats of lawsuits from his attorney to get them to back off. They were the ones who’d insisted he had full-time security until the show was over. CDR was the best, and the only way he could afford to pay for it was to keep working.
“I’ve got my own car,” he snapped finally.
To his surprise, Dominic nodded. “His driver is good. Trained by us.”
“Okay, get him here,” Quinn said, once again giving the orders. “We need to get moving.”
Cade curled his lip as his thousand-dollar-an-hour attorney jumped to the orders of a low-level muscle-man and made the call.
“Cade.”
He turned to look at Dominic. “Yeah?”
“I know this is scary but believe me, this is our job, and Quinn is one of the best. By the time you go to London we’ll have this resolved.”
“I’m not scared,” he insisted.
“It’s okay to admit you are. It doesn’t make you weak.”
Cade shook his head. “I lived with him. Then I was scared. Now I’m angry that he won’t stay the hell out of my life.”
“I understand,” Quinn rumbled, “but the fact he won’t stay away needs to be handled. Once guys like him get an obsession they don’t back down.”
“Guys like you?” Cade challenged.
“Cade!” Standish spluttered, but Quinn held up his hand and the lawyer subsided.
“Some dominants without a focus or control can be obsessive, yes. Not all. I’m lucky, my work keeps me focused.”
Right now, that laser focus on Cade was too much to handle.
“Eric doesn’t need to work. He’s got a trust fund.”
Quinn didn’t sneer at the information like a lot of people did, but neither did he look impressed. Cade filed that piece of information away. Was he impressed by wealth or had he seen so much of it in his work it was irrelevant?
“Strada has a focus and that’s you,” Quinn said. “We use that to draw him in.”
“You’re making me the bait?” Cade didn’t like that idea.
“I don’t want Cade in danger,” Standish said.
Cade reached over and patted Standish’s hand. His attorney was like a father figure to him.
“He won’t be,” Quinn assured him. “I’m going to be the bait, not Cade. Strada will want to get me out of the picture.”
“So you’ll pose as my boyfriend, and he’ll go after you?” Cade wasn’t sure he liked that idea any better. The thought of the vibrant man opposite him being injured or worse made him want to hurl.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Quinn assured him.
Cade nodded uncertainly. He wrapped his arms around himself, needing the reassurance of a hug even if it was just from himself. He jumped when Quinn laid a hand on his shoulder and fixed him with a steady gaze.
“It’ll be okay, Cade, I promise.”
Cade wanted to ask Quinn to hold him. If Quinn had been his real Daddy, Cade would have begged him to wrap his muscular arms around him and ground him. He needed it so much. Eric hadn’t comforted him. He’d held him down and hurt him. A sob erupted from his throat before he could stop it.
He wrenched away from Quinn before he did something stupid like beg for his embrace. Quinn frowned, but he stepped back and gave Cade some space. Cade forced air into his lungs. “I need to get out of here,” he muttered.
“Your car is here,” Dominic said. “It’s in the underground parking lot. I’ll arrange for your bikes to be delivered later today.”
There was nothing Cade wanted more than to run to his Hog and ride away from Standish, and Dominic, and the thought of Strada, but mostly he wanted to run away from Quinn Ryder who was making him want things he’d put behind him.
Chapter 2