“Same. I don’t think I could stop even if I wanted to… and I’m so tired of running, of being afraid of everything. And I’m tired of looking at all the ways it could go wrong instead of looking at the ways it might go right.”
“Are you saying I should tell Damien Sizemore not to fix Farnsworth’s fuck up?”
I shrug. “Maybe we just tell him to take his time with it while we figure some things out… if that’s what you want.”
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted, Cec.”
“Then come to bed with me. I liked waking up in your arms this morning.”
“You’ll never have to ask twice.”
He takes my hand, pulling me with him down the hall toward my room. Then he spins me around and unzips the dress Lizzie insisted I wear. Now, listening to the zipper sliding down, the rasp of it loud in the silent room, and feeling his hands skimming over me, I’m glad I let her talk me into it.
The fabric slithers down, puddling on the floor at my feet. Then his hands are roaming up my back, freeing the clasp of my bra and sliding the straps down my arms until it joins the dress. It’s just me standing there in a pair of black panties that are more functional than sexy, but based on the way his breath hisses out, he doesn’t seem to mind.
“Fuck, Cecily… You’re so damn beautiful.”
With him, I feel it. I believe it. And that’s what has always made Quinn my greatest weakness and my greatest strength. Heshores me up when I’m weak and pushes me when I falter. And if I let him, he’ll catch me if I fall.
“I want you so much that it terrifies me… because I’m not strong. I know you think I am, but I’m not,” I whisper into the darkness of my bedroom. “If I’d been strong, I never would have let you go. I never would have pushed you away because…”
“Because your dad thought I wasn’t good enough?”
“No. Because until you came along, I’d never defied him. I’d never questioned him. When I met you, he couldn’t control me anymore and that scared him to death.” It took me a long time to figure that out, to really put my finger on why it was he had detested Quinn so much. “The thing is, he manipulated and pushed me into the annulment. But I hated him for it. I haven’t spoken to my father in years… and that wasn’t my choice. It was his. Because I couldn’t go back to letting him dictate everything and he couldn’t live with that.”
He stops, pulling his hands back, and instantly I regret telling him.
“I’m so sorry, Cecily. I didn’t know.”
“Do you know that I don’t care in the least? When he told me he didn’t want to see me or speak to me ever again, that I was dead to him, it hurt… but buried in all of that was relief. Because that meant I was free. And now, I’m right where I want to be. With who I want to be with. I could have gone with you. I could have lived on base and gone to school there. There were ways and you tried to tell me and I was too stubborn to listen because I wanted to stay here and make my dad happy more than I wanted to fight for my own happiness.”
“You were a kid, baby. We were both kids, goddammit.”
“We’re not kids now.”
His gaze rakes over me in the darkness, pale silvery light snaking through the blinds. “I can see that. A blind man could see that.”
“Then don’t you think we’ve waited long enough?”
He doesn’t answer with words. Just grabs me and pulls me in close, his lips finding mine with ease. Like that’s where they belong. And they do belong there. We belong together. Even if it took a decade and some apart to make us both realize it.
Quinn is walking me backwards toward the bed, until the backs of my knees hit the railing and I sink down. He’s coming down on top of me and I’m eager for the weight of him, to feel surrounded by him again. But then his phone beeps and he lets out a curse.
“Not fucking now,” he says on a heavy breath.
“What is it?”
“An alert. From Troy. At ten o’clock on a Friday night… whatever it is, it ain’t good,” he replies, whipping his phone out of his pocket.
I don’t have to ask if it’s bad. I can see his jaw harden, his expression turning grim. “Just tell me what it is.”
He looks up, his eyes narrowed and hard. “Evan Salyers has escaped… well, escaped is a strong word for it. He basically just walked away from Blackburn today. Four hours ago. And there’s no clue where he is.”
“Oh, there’s a clue. He’s with Jenna. Wherever she is, he is,” I tell him. “Their relationship is toxic as fuck, but they are on one another like glue.”
“Right. You have a gun?”
I swallow hard at that. I do have one. I have it and I know how to use it. I just don’t know if I can use it. “I do… you don’t think he’d come here?”
