An M/M Romantic Suspense
Multi-Author Series
Quinn and Carson’s relationship is hanging by a thread.
Years of love and trust aren’t enough to overcome the growing distance between them. Between Quinn’s demanding career as a U.S. Marshal and Carson’s responsibilities as Head of Anesthesiology at San Francisco’s only trauma center, time together has become a rare luxury. And Quinn’s refusal to talk about what’s really bothering him isn’t helping.
Carson knows their relationship is in trouble.
What he doesn’t know is that their problems are about to become the least of his worries.
As riots erupt, corruption spreads, and a missing woman sparks a dangerous investigation, Quinn finds himself caught in the middle of escalating violence. While law enforcement races to uncover the truth, Carson is forced to confront the possibility of losing the man he loves.
Can Quinn and Carson repair the cracks in their relationship before it’s too late, or will the chaos surrounding them destroy everything they’ve built together?
Are you ready to find out what all the buzz is about? We’ve set the stage, created the characters, and fashioned a world full of twists and turns. Now it’s your turn to sit back and immerse yourself in this incredible series. Each episode weaves the characters and storylines of our standalone novels together to give you an epic crossover series. No one is safe as corrupt politicians and dirty cops rule the streets. A child’s death puts targets on the backs of those in law enforcement and sets two cities ablaze with riots. When the police chief’s daughter is kidnapped amid the chaos, will the Collective solve the case and rescue her in time?
Perfect for readers who love Tal Bauer, Charlie Cochet, and Annabeth Albert, this MM romantic suspense delivers an established couple fighting for their relationship, dangerous investigations, and high-stakes action.
Chapter 1
“I swear, Nick, I’m almost to the point of putting some Diprivan into his bottle of Jack Daniels, and then, when he passes out, I’ll tie him to the bed until he freaking tells me what the hell’s going on.”
If anyone knew how frustrated Carson Matthews was, it would be his friend Nick Sawyer, a retired Navy SEAL. The two of them had hit it off after meeting at a club one night in San Diego, with their significant others, a little over eighteen months ago. Since then, Nick and Jake Donovan had moved to Tampa, Florida, after Nick opted out of the Navy, and Carson and Quinn Alexander had relocated to San Francisco, but they’d all stayed in touch. Nick and Jake had gone through a rocky start to their relationship, and much of it had been because Jake had been holding in a lot of his past, refusing to talk about it. But once he’d learned to let it out and go, their love for each other had bloomed.
“What’s that?”
Carson switched his cell phone to the other ear, so he could pull his key ring from the front pocket of his surf shorts. “Diprivan? It’s another name for Propofol—the anesthetic drug Michael Jackson overdosed on.”
“Ah. Well, dude, the only thing wrong with that scenario, besides the fact it’s probably illegal—even though you’re an anesthesiologist—is that I’m pretty sure drugging and shackling your Dom to a bed is frowned upon in the lifestyle.”
Snorting, he unlocked his and Quinn’s assigned mailbox amongst the row of them by the curb outside their condo. “Pretty sure, nothing. I’m certain it is, but I’m running out of ideas. Something’s bothering him. I know he’s under a lot of stress lately, and being a US Marshal isn’t like it is in the movies—although Tommie Lee Jones did make being a bad-ass marshal look like fun. Anyway, between the move and one of his witnesses being killed on his watch, Quinn’s just not himself lately.”
“Wait, what? The one from a few weeks ago? I thought that was an accident.”
After pulling out a bunch of envelopes, Carson locked the box again and strolled back up the walkway to his unit. “It was an accident—a head-on collision. The old guy in the other car had a fatal heart attack at the wheel and crossed the double yellow line. His wife survived but was critical for a few days. Quinn’s witness was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it’d been only a week after he’d moved her. He’s going through the ‘what if’ guilts. You know, ‘what if I’d chosen a different town or city for her to live in, then she wouldn’t have been driving down that road at that exact moment.’”
“Yeah, I know that ‘what if’ game all too well—it sucks.”
Carson stopped in his tracks, his phone sandwiched between his ear and shoulder. While they’d been talking, he’d been shuffling through the mail when a red envelope caught his eye. In typed lettering, it was addressed to Mr. Quinn Alexander and carson matthews. Anyone else looking at it would have assumed the lack of capital first letters in his name had been a typo or something, but that, combined with the return address he recognized, had his heart rate picking up and his dick twitching in his shorts. “Hey, Nick, hang on a second. I think I’ve got an answer to my problem.”
Carson tore open the envelope, pulled out the contents, and scanned the letterhead and text. A smile spread across his face as he grabbed the phone again. “Hey, we just got an acceptance letter to The Cellars! We’re invited to a meet and greet on Friday, if we can make it, but regardless, we’re officially members. Freakin’ awesome! Thank your cousin for helping to get our application fast-tracked. Some club play is exactly what I need to get into Quinn’s head.”
The Cellars was an exclusive BDSM club in Napa Valley that had a waiting list to get in. Nick’s older brothers, Devon and Ian, and their cousin, Mitch, owned a similar club in Tampa. When the Sawyers had opened The Covenant several years ago, they’d started a network for BDSM club owners and managers throughout the United States for sharing information on banned members, new types of play, and other stuff. Mitch had met Damien Stackhouse and Derek LeMark at a lifestyle convention a while back and had called in a favor to the Dominants. Quinn and Carson still needed to be fully vetted, but their names had been moved to the top of the list.
“That’s great. I’ll tell Mitch you said thanks. Listen, I’ve got to get going, but the reason I called you in the first place is to tell you Jake and I are getting married a week from Saturday. It’ll just be a small ceremony and reception on a party boat in the Gulf off Clearwater Beach. I know it’s last-minute, but in the private security business, we can’t plan too far ahead. In fact, we’ve got our fingers crossed that nothing critical pops up between now and then. Anyway, we want to invite you both, but we’ll understand if you can’t make it.”
“Congratulations!” he said before groaning. “Yeah, I honestly don’t think we can swing it, Nick, but if we can manage it, somehow, we’ll be there. I’ll check my schedule at the hospital tomorrow and see if Quinn can take some time off. I’ll get back to you in the next few days.”
“Sounds good. And good luck with Quinn. Just remember, drugging and shackling is not exactly a bright idea—but I can give you some pointers on the shackling if you run out of alternatives.”
Letting himself back into the condo, Carson chuckled. “Great. Talk to you soon.”
“Ciao, buddy.”
Several hours later, staring at the ceiling in the darkened bedroom he shared with Quinn, Carson tried to force his body to relax and his mind to go blank, so he could get some sleep. It was just after midnight, Quinn wasn’t home yet, and Carson was due at the hospital at 6:00 a.m. Three months after taking the position of Chief of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care at San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, he was finally starting to get comfortable among his colleagues and staff. However, he knew there were a few people he’d never win over. He hadn’t been the only one surprised when the board of directors went outside the hospital to find their new chief when the former one had passed away suddenly of a heart attack. After eight years on the staff at UC San Diego Health-UC San Diego Medical Center, Carson had mailed in his resume, with no expectations of being chosen. While his record was spotless and his credentials exceptional, he’d assumed the board would promote from within the hospital’s ranks. But lo and behold, he’d gotten the call… and then the job.
The first problem he’d faced was telling Quinn, because Carson had never even told him he’d applied for the position. That’d been a difficult conversation since Carson wasn’t supposed to keep anything from his Dom. A huge part of their relationship was about openness and honesty, and he’d skirted around both. That wasn’t the only reason Quinn had been pissed when he’d heard the news. The other was that in order for Carson to take the position, Quinn had needed to request a transfer with the US Marshals, where he worked in their Witness Security Program—the public commonly called it the Witness Protection Program, thanks to movies and television. It hadn’t been an easy thing to do since Quinn oversaw making sure dozens of people, who’d needed to start their lives over under assumed identities, were safe from their pasts.
In fact, that was what Quinn was doing out so late tonight—taking someone into protective custody and shipping him or her out of the area for safekeeping. At least, that’s what Carson thought Quinn was doing. A sliver of worry that his Dom had lied and was cheating on him fluttered into Carson’s brain, but he shoved it back out again. Just because he’d been in relationships before that had failed because his other half had cheated on him didn’t mean it was happening again with Quinn. His lover had never given him a reason to doubt anything he said or did, but once burned, twice shy, and in Carson’s case, it was times two—twice burned, four times shy.
In the silent condo, Carson heard the front door open then close, followed by the heavy footsteps he’d come to recognize as Quinn’s. He breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t always easy being in love with someone in law enforcement. In fact, one needed the patience of a saint, understanding, a thick skin, and an ego that wasn’t the size of an elephant. Carson had to remind himself that, although Quinn loved him, there were many times the marshal’s work had to come first in their relationship. Lives were at stake. The same could be said for Carson’s career. There’d been days when their plans had to be canceled because of mass-casualty incidents that had the hospital’s OR hopping with surgical patients lining the halls and filling the emergency room.
Quinn slowly made his way through the condo, stopping in the kitchen, the living room, the spare bedroom that had been turned into a shared office, and then finally the master bedroom. Using the sliver of moonlight coming through the blinds, Carson watched as his lover kicked off his shoes, then stripped down to his boxer briefs. Carson’s breath hitched when Quinn strode into the attached bath. He’d never get tired of seeing the man’s sculpted body. From his strong arms, carved shoulders and back, tight ass, and lean, muscular legs, the man was freaking sin on two feet. And his front was just as magnificent as his rear.
The toilet flushed, followed by water briefly running in the sink, before Quinn returned to the bedroom. From the far side of the bed, Carson pulled the covers down for his Dom.
“Thanks,” Quinn said, his usually strong, rumbling voice sounding tired, as he climbed into bed and got comfortable on his back.
“Everything go okay tonight?”
Lifting his arm, Quinn silently ordered Carson to scoot closer to his side. There was no way Carson was going to refuse his Dom—this was the first time in several days they were in bed and awake at the same time. Sometimes it sucked that they both had careers with whacky hours. It wasn’t uncommon for Carson and his staff of anesthesiologists to be called in for multiple emergency surgeries in the middle of the night. He lay his head on Quinn’s shoulder, wrapping an arm across his chest. Inhaling deeply, he was still able to detect a faint trace of the Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue aftershave his lover had put on hours earlier. Carson had given it to him on his last birthday, along with the matching cologne.
“Yeah,” Quinn finally responded. “Things got delayed with the local cops, though. Apparently, they jumped the gun and called us in, then decided they weren’t done interviewing the witness.” He turned his head and yawned loudly. “Sorry. By the time they were done, we got stuck in rush-hour traffic on the way to the safe-house.”
The deputy never referred to a witness by gender, nor would he ever give any hint of where he and his partner had transported them. It’d taken Quinn a few months of dating Carson before fessing up that he didn’t just have a desk job with the federal agency, as he’d initially told him, which Carson had suspected had been a half-truth. Quinn had said he’d learned to keep that intel to himself until he was certain a relationship had staying power. Even now, though, there was very little he could or would talk about, and it was always in generalizations. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Carson to tell him anything to do with his job, but his witnesses’ lives were in his hands. Having his lover kidnapped and tortured by someone desperate enough to do it to find the person who was supposed to testify against them wasn’t a chance Quinn could take, no matter how slim. And Carson fully understood it. He had relatives in law enforcement, so it wasn’t a foreign subject to him.
A few moments of silence passed before Carson spoke again. There were several things he wanted to tell Quinn before the man fell asleep. “Nick called me today. He and Jake are getting married on a yacht in the Gulf near Clearwater, a week from this coming Saturday—just family and close friends. They’re hoping we can make it, but understand if it’s too short notice.”
“I doubt I can get enough time off to fly out and back.”
“That’s what I told him. Maybe in a few months we can take a trip and meet them in Key West.” Carson and Quinn had gone there two years ago and loved it. They’d talked about going back again someday, but now that Carson thought about it, neither had mentioned it in a long while.
“Yeah, maybe.”
Carson bit his bottom lip at the indifference he heard in those two words. He counted to ten in his head before bringing up the next bit of news. “We got a letter in the mail today.”
“Hmm? From who?”
“The Cellars—our application was approved. We’re invited to a meet and greet on Friday.”
His heart sank when Quinn let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know if I’m up to going on Friday. It’s not required, is it?”
“No, it’s not.” Swallowing hard, he added, “But, Sir, I need this… You need this… We need this.” He lifted his gaze to Quinn’s face. “Please.” Carson hated the desperation in his voice, but he was running out of options. If they didn’t fix whatever was wrong in their relationship, things were going to go downhill. The last thing he wanted was to lose Quinn. He was madly in love with his Dom and couldn’t imagine a life without him.
After a moment’s hesitation, Quinn turned his head and kissed Carson’s forehead. “If it means that much to you, babe, then we’ll go.”
Carson knew it was only a partial victory, but it was a start. Now he just had to figure out how to win the gold.
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