Hold Firm (Biker Daddy Bodyguards #1) - Sue Brown Page 0,3

just needed to get away from Seattle for a while, which was why they’d scheduled London. One more event here, then Cade could breathe for a few weeks. Strada avoided flying. He wouldn’t follow Cade to London, which was why they’d booked it.

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