Chapter 13

Quinn

 

The scent of baby oil was strong as I tried to breathe. It wasn’t just nerves restricting my airways. Topaz had gotten a kick out of dressing me up, and honestly, the outfit we had finally agreed on was the tamer of them all. Still, she’d had a little too much fun playing dress-up stripper, with me as her Barbie doll.

The older chick had shown an excitement that had been slightly contagious as she had put the veil over my face, and then done-up my hair. Then she had taken me out to the main stage and taught me how to use the pole. My muscles were already screaming after working some that had never been used a day in all my twenty-five years. Regardless, Topaz was a natural teacher, and I had caught on fairly quick.

After the stripper pole crash course, she had proceeded to show me how to work the crowd. As I followed her directions, the bartenders and even one of the bouncers had stopped what they were doing to watch. Watching them watch me had given me a new confidence I had never had before, and I found myself liking the attention, when any other time I would have run and hid from it.

I was pumped up and ready to hit the stage for an actual show.

Kelli, however, was trying to drag me out the nearest door.

“Do you understand what you’re doing?” she whispered fiercely to me as she continued to tug on my arm. “If Colt finds out about this, I’m dead. You realize that, right?”

I crossed my arms over my breasts; a hard feat now that they were practically in my throat with the contraption Topaz had lubed me up with baby oil to get me into. “Why would he kill you?” I demanded, keeping my voice low so none of the other girls rushing around to get ready could hear us.

“Because he told me to take care of you while he is gone, and if he finds out I let you do something this crazy, he will totally lose his shit.”

I rolled my eyes at how dramatic she was being about my best friend. I knew good and well Colt would flip out if he ever found out about my second job, but the way she was talking, it was like she expected him to beat her or something. Colt Hannigan would never lay a finger on a woman in anger. He might scare the hell out of them by shouting, and once he had even gotten in my sister Whitney’s face, but even then, there had been no fear that he would hurt her. He might have been dangerous, but he was a good man.

The best, in my eyes.

“I’m pretty sure we can handle him if he finds out about this,” I assured her.

He was probably going to drag me out of there, kicking and screaming. Until that happened, I was going to save as much money as possible.

Kelli finally dropped my arm, stepping closer, dropping her voice even lower than it had been. “What the hell is going on, Quinn? You have to talk to me, babe. Tell me what’s brought on this desperate need for money. Are you in trouble? Do you owe someone?” Her eyes were full of concern, and something else. Something dark that told me, if I was in trouble with someone, she would handle the problem for me.

I wished I knew more about her, but again, something told me that I wasn’t going to like what I found out. Therefore, I kept my mouth shut, because I loved her and didn’t want or need to know her secrets.

“No,” I told her in as reassuring of a tone as I could muster while still keeping my voice at whisper level. “I told you, I’m leaving.”

“But why?” she exclaimed, losing patience with me. “I don’t understand any of this shit.”

I shrugged, drawing Kelli’s eyes to my boobs as they threatened to pop out of my top. “It’s something I have been thinking about for a while now. Actually, it has been years in the making. Ever since Flick got up the courage to leave, I’ve been thinking about doing the same.”

Kelli narrowed her eyes. “You’re going to just run away? Without telling anyone where you’re going or staying in touch?” She shook her head and backed up a step. “No, you can’t do that to Colt. I won’t let you do that to him.”

I blew out a frustrated sigh. “I’m not going to pull a Flick, I promise. I just want to find a place where I can start all over. Away from … everything.” The last word came out barely above a whisper, and I started to turn away, not wanting to revisit my sudden urge to put as much distance between me and the place I had called home my entire life.

However, Kelli wasn’t about to let it go. She caught my elbow and jerked me around to face her with surprising strength. “Away from everything … or everyone?” She had that dark, dangerous look in her eyes again. “You’re not telling me everything, babe.”

I glanced around to see if anyone was watching us, but the others were still busy getting themselves ready to go on stage. Still, I didn’t want to chance them overhearing us, so I nodded my head toward her vanity station.

Her face darkened even more, if that was possible, but she released me, and we moved farther away from the other girls in the room.

Kelli backed me into the corner behind her station, blocking me in and lowering her head. Despite the killer heels I was in, and the added height they offered me, she was still an inch or so taller in just her sneakers.

“Quinn,” she practically growled at me when I didn’t immediately start talking.

I clasped my hands together, trying my best to keep from twisting my fingers. I had been trying so hard not to think about what had happened with Raider, and now that I was about to actually speak it aloud, it would make it even more real.

Dammit, I didn’t want it to be real. I wanted it to just have been a dream. One that had started out so hot, but had ended with me feeling ice-cold.

“Oh, dear Lord, Quinn, what the fuck did you do?” She dipped her head lower. “More importantly, who did you do it with?”

I opened my mouth, but the words refused to come out. Then I saw the realization enter her eyes.

“No.” She was shaking her head, in just as much denial as I was. “No. You wouldn’t be that stupid. You couldn’t have possibly …” She trailed off. We both knew that it was completely possible.

And true.

“Okay,” she muttered, sucking in a long, harsh breath. “Tell me everything.”

My fingers began to twist together without me even realizing it while I gave her a rundown of everything that had happened the night before. The make-out session with Boomer that had led to us going into the wrong bedroom, followed by everything that had transpired with Raider. By the time I was finished, Kelli’s nostrils were flaring with a temper that was burning hot.

“He took advantage of you.”

It wasn’t a question, but a statement that came out in a voice that promised pain and death.

I found myself shaking my head. “No, it was consensual.”

“You were drunk, Quinn.” Her hands balled into fists at her sides. “He had no right to touch you.”

“No. It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t that drunk, I swear.”

I didn’t know why I was defending him, but I didn’t want her to think he was some kind of sleazeball who took advantage of drunken girls. It hadn’t been like that. I had wanted everything that had happened with Raider. And even when it had hurt, I had still wanted it. It had only been afterward that I had felt used and unwanted all over again. He had turned something that should have been magical for me into something that I felt ashamed of.

He hadn’t even kissed me, something that still continued to bruise my heart over and over again whenever I remembered.

“Not that drunk? Even a little drunk is too much. He took advantage of you.” She caught ahold of my shoulders and pushed her face close, her eyes drilling into mine. “That’s not right, Quinn.” Right before my eyes, her face went ghostly pale. “Oh, my God, Quinn, did he at least use protection?”

I felt the blood drain from my face as a new realization hit me right between the eyes. I had been so hung up on the fact that he hadn’t even tried to kiss me that I hadn’t even thought of the fact that he hadn’t used a condom. It was my first time, dammit; it wasn’t like protection had been front and center in my mind when I had been getting everything I had always thought I wanted from a man who I had stupidly loved for too many wasted years.

“Kelli …” I breathed her name as a cold sweat broke out all over my body and I felt oddly dizzy.

She moved her hands from my shoulders to my waist, pulling me against her side and helping me to the chair in front of her vanity. When I shakily sat down, she crouched in front of me, holding onto my now ice-cold fingers with her warm ones.

“Shit, babe. Shit, shit, shit.” She was glancing frantically around, as if looking for something to make the sudden reality of what kind of trouble I had gotten myself into go away.

But there was nothing that could make this go away.

I had fucked up.

What if I caught something from that manwhore biker?

What if I was pregnant?

I couldn’t be connected to him for the rest of my life. I just couldn’t. Not when it had been so forcefully shoved down my throat that Raider Fucking Hannigan wasn’t the guy I had built up in my head for so long.

This was a disaster, and I had no way of cleaning it up.

What the hell was I going to do if I was pregnant?

I wasn’t worried about what Raider would do. He was too happy fucking his way through life to possibly even care that he had gotten one random hookup pregnant. It probably happened to him all the time. Who knew how many of the club mommas had produced little Raiders? I was just one of many, as I was sure the possible baby that was growing inside of me right then would be.

No, it was me I was worried about. For once, it was myself I was thinking of, while the rest of the world could rot for all I cared right then.