TEN
Quinn doesn’t care about anyone.
At least, that was my thought as I left Joe’s house, still reeling, livid that I hadn’t given him much of a fight. Outside my small apartment, the early November wind moves the small planter hanging from my balcony against the sliding door and I watch the ivy leaves tangle and break in the wrought iron light fixture above the door frame. It’s a mesmerizing sight and it takes my mind from the tangle of emotions that keep me from moving off my sofa. I haven’t even bothered to take off my coat or drop my purse on the coffee table.
I am numb. Still.
Part of me understands the reaction. That vapid, young girl part was transfixed by Quinn’s temper, by the sliver of idea that he was capable of real emotion; that the façade he forces on the world is just a mantel he wears. He is a scared little boy broken down by tragedy and loss.
But he is still an asshat.
That ivy limb continues to move and I give fleeting thoughts to the speed of the wind and the storm that approaches. There are lawn chairs in the back that need moving. Mrs. Walters in 2C has a cat that likes to go hunting mice in the wooded area behind our complex. There are newspapers stacked up in the recycle bin right outside my door that I haven’t found time to get rid of… all these thoughts compete for attention right alongside the memory of Quinn’s mouth and the steely strength of his hands. It’s those hands, that mouth, that flicker in and out of my recall when I realize someone is pounding on my door.
It takes two loud bangs to get me up and off the sofa and when I open the door, I don’t think of anything—not how I’m still wearing my coat, how my purse is still over my shoulder or why my keys are still in my hand. I can only stare stupidly at Quinn on the other side of that door.
“Are you off then?” When I frown at him, confused, Quinn nods at my keys threaded between my fingers.
“Uh, no. I just…” I exhale, standing straighter, bothered with myself that I thought to answer him. “What are you doing here?”
Once again Quinn’s features tighten and those bright, clear eyes become hard. “You’ve something of mine.”
“No,” I say, stepping away from the door, not bothering to close it. I know that wouldn’t keep him out. “I don’t have anything of yours.” When he steps inside I pull the sketch from my purse, smoothing it out on top of the coffee table. “You gave it to me.”
“That’s not what I’d call it.”
“You’re right, Quinn.” I wave the sketch between my fingers. “You threw it at me swearing it didn’t mean a damn thing.”
“It still doesn’t.” He moves to stand the table from me, eyes still burning fire as though he wants to lash out, to scream and yell. “But it’s a good piece and I want it back.”
“That’s not why you’re here.” One slip of my gaze down his body and I catch the tight fist he makes and his whitened knuckles.
He’s holding back, shooting for patience, something I’ve never seen from him in the few brief months I’ve known him. “Say what you need to and get out.” Finally, I slip off my coat, throwing it across the sofa. The day, the weariness, hits me at once and all I crave is a dreamless night and my comfortable bed.
He moves around the room like a fighter preparing for a match, hands massaging the back of his neck, jaw working behind whatever he tries to keep from speaking. It would be funny if he wasn’t so angry.
“Quinn…”
“Tell me why you were in my room.” It isn’t a request. Quinn demands and though I know I should feel guilt, at least a little shame for snooping, his attitude has me wanting to lash out.
“Oh now you want to know?” I drop the sketch on the table and walk around it, needing to see his expression close up. “Before you didn’t give me time to explain.”
“Well I am now.”
My temper loosens, I block out what he says, too amped up to make him feel as shitty as I have since I left Joe’s. “All you could do is scream at me like a crazy man.”
“I’m a bit calmer now, am I not?”
He steps closer and the heavy scent of hard liquor and male skin permeates in the room. “And then you made lewd offers to me like I’m some common…”
Quinn stands right in front of me, the twitch across his lips stilling. “There isn’t a bleeding common thing about you, you mad woman.”
Rare moments come, like this one, where I’m not certain of my next step. Warring thoughts still consume me, taking up space along with the shape of Quinn’s mouth and the small pulse that moves the pale skin along his neck. “I…” He’s rendered me speechless and if I’m not careful, my inability to form coherent sentences will give him the upper hand. “I… I’m not crazy, I just…”
“Sayo,” he says coming so close that his fingers graze my wrist and the scent of liquor moistens my face as he watches me. “Why were you in my room?” When I only stare back at him, Quinn’s shoulders lower and any softness that made him look less livid, disappears. “Why the hell am I here?”
“I… I…” My throat tightens when he glares at me and once again I retreat within myself, frustrated that plausible excuses won’t leave my mouth. Quinn is the only person I know that has me reverting back to the emotional range of a teenager. “I didn’t ask you to come here.”
“No,” he says, following me when I return to the table to grab the sketch, “but you damn well invaded my space. You stuck your buggering nose where it doesn’t belong.” He ignores the sketch when I offer it to him. “Fecking ridiculous. You really are mad, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not.” The sketch falls to the floor when I drop it, coming back again to him, wanting nothing more than to yank him out of my apartment. The next ridiculous thought I have involves him and those lips and the disturbing things I wish he’d do with them. “Nothing hurts you, does it? Right, Quinn?” I move my head, gaze following him when he stares at the floor, out the window, anywhere but at me. “You are unaffected, unable to feel any damn thing, right? That’s what you want everyone to see.”
Quinn’s gaze jerks to mine. When he speaks, his voice is deep, bordering on threatening. “You don’t know me.”
“No? And you think you do?”
“I don’t want to know you.”
“That’s not what I mean.” He starts to retreat, but I follow. He wanted a fight, I’ll give him one if only to avoid apologizing. Yes, I snooped. Yes, I had no right, and I do feel guilty, but my need for answers is just as important. “You don’t know yourself. All you know is what feels good, right? All you know is indulgence. You only know pleasure, whatever gets you off. What a pathetic life that is never understanding anything more than what feels good. Never seeing anything beyond the surface.”
Quinn grabs the sketch from the floor, waving it at me like a threat. “This? This proves that I see beyond the surface otherwise you wouldn’t have sat there staring at it for ages, would you?”
Some of my anger eases, dips down in the pit of my stomach as I watch him. He’d just revealed more of himself, unintentionally, than he ever had before, and there was no way I’d let that bit of information go without comment. “How do you know how long I looked at it?” He walks away, stepping backward, like he’s only just realized what a slip he made, but I follow, edging him toward the door. “Is that what you’re always going to do, Quinn?” He is almost gone. “Run away because you’re scared?”
“I’m not scared of anything.” He takes a step, shoulders back, ready for a fight. “Not a fecking thing.”
“Yeah? Then why are you leaving? Because I upset you?” I grab his arm when he turns, making him face me. “Because I made you admit how empty your life is?”
Quinn won’t look at me, seems to prefer to keep as much distance between us as possible and I almost let him leave, figuring that he’ll argue with me all night if I allow it. But the emptiness, the need to seek out what is missing in his life from my little cousin, is a warning sign, a flag of caution that tells me he is hurting, far more than he lets on. It’s not unusual, something that everyone else on the planet is going through, but Quinn is the one around Rhea. Quinn is the one that has opened a chasm in our lives just by being here.
When I step forward, he retreats further until he is against the door. His swagger is gone. His attitude missing. Standing before me is a scared boy, one who swallows thickly, who blinks as though he isn’t sure what’s about to happen. I’ve never seen Quinn like this. I’ve never seen him as open, as raw as when I reach for him, extending my fingers so that they hoover next to his cheek.
“What are you doing?” He grabs my wrist, but his grip, his defense is weak.
“Seeing how scared I can make you.”
He doesn’t move when I touch him. Quinn holds his breath when I move my fingers across his face. His cheeks are arched, the bones long and supple and he shakes, the tips of his hair moving the closer I get to him. He doesn’t resist me, but his back stiffens when I kiss him, barely putting any pressure at all against his mouth. It’s only when I move his face, when I slip the slightest hint of tongue against his mouth that Quinn makes a sound at all. And then, he responds, like someone has turned a switch in his brain, given him permission to respond. Quinn moves his hands up my back, threading his fingers in my hair, yanking so that my head comes back, but our mouths stay connected. He towers over me, his body moving, grazing against mine.
We become motion, heat. I sink further and further into the abyss, forgetting who I am, what I’m supposed to be. There is only Quinn’s mouth against mine and those low, primal sounds that lift from his throat. His breath coats my neck, his fingers dip, they spread against my skin, down the slope of my back, up to tweak and cup my breast.
Against my hip, I feel the thick outline of his dick and shudder against him, tightening my fingers into his shirt as Quinn grinds, pushes himself into me harder and harder. He doesn’t stop, isn’t cautious or kind and pushes me up, holding my ass against his squeezing fingers, our bodies coming together, needy, gripping like something desperate, something inevitable.
“Feck,” he mutters so low that I barely make out the curse. He is breathless, desperate and I feel it in every swipe of his mouth, his tongue along my skin and the gripping possession of his hands pulling my leg up to his hip, settling me so close that our centers meet over and over, teasing, promising.
My thoughts are clearer now. There is only sensation and that drive to complete, to finish, a will older than any of us and it is this Quinn who matches me. Quinn who helps me loosen the tight hold I have on everything weighing me down. There is no logic to this. There is only need and that ancient inclination to fill it.
It’s only then, right at that moment, that I realize the past few hours, fighting with him, insulting each other, was the first time in two years Rhea didn’t consume my thoughts and the smallest hint of suggestion flirts in my mind. Quinn had done that, his words, his anger, then his touch, had all numbed me to the sense of loss, to the one thing I prayed every day I could avoid.
I break the kiss, pushing on his chest to catch my breath. “You… you let me forget,” I tell him, a little out of my mind with lust, then stoned completely when Quinn moves his tongue across my neck, biting gently against my collarbone.
“I can make you forget, Sayo… we can forget together.”
But I can’t forget, not completely. Quinn is a bully, a liar unwilling to share who he is with anyone but a dying girl. This thing between us, whatever it is, is a Band Aid, not a fix and no matter how good he feels, no matter how strong that drive is, it will not answer my questions or keep the nightmare that approaches at bay. But maybe, just maybe, it will be enough.
“Tell me,” I say, holding him back when he presses forward, needy for my mouth, anxious to taste my skin again. “Why did you draw that?”
Quinn stops, staring down at me, watching my face closely for something he doesn’t mention. “Why does it matter?”
“I need to know.”
Nodding once, Quinn drops my legs, pushes off from the door, and moves away from my body with a only a brief touch of his fingertips on my face before he jerks his hand away and moves me aside to open the door. “Get used to disappointment.” And then, he slams the door behind him as he leaves, taking the warmth of his body and the promise of what he could give me.