Zee

I don’t know what possessed me to tell Kade I was staying at our old apartment. Maybe I really do have a death wish. Funny thing was, he didn’t seem to care. If anything, he made it sound like it was a good idea.

Doubt he’d feel that way if he had any clue how my cock turns to granite every time Quinn is near me. Hell, even when she’s not, I can’t stop thinking about her.

Which is why I should have taken Liam up on his offer to use his pull-out couch, and not gambled with the devil in a bikini by sharing a damn apartment with her. But I’ve never claimed to be the smartest man. Or a fucking saint. Despite what my last name might claim.

And then there’s a nagging part of my brain — or maybe it’s my cock — that wants to claim her in every way possible.

She already thinks I’m an asshole. Maybe it’s time I actually prove her right.

I stay under the water, letting the cold envelope me, and close my eyes. My demons are usually there — in the quiet — but it’s only Quinn’s face I see now.

Then the voices start.

You’ll destroy her.

She’s too good for you.

Wait until she finds out who you really are.

And I know each one is right.

My lungs begin to ache from being under too long, and I kick my legs coming up for breath. The second I surface, I know something’s wrong.

I hear Kade’s scream. A warning. But it’s not for me. A dozen feet from me, Quinn’s head pops out of the water, right in front of an oncoming watercraft, and despite her brother’s warning she doesn’t move.

She doesn’t see it.

Terror strikes my chest. There’s no thoughts. Just action.

I dive.

Deep.

Adrenaline pushes my muscles to cut through the water, as I pray that I get to her on time.

The water is murky, and it isn’t until I’m a couple feet away that I see her. I grab hold of her waist and pull her down.

But I’m not fast enough.

Her body jerks in my arms as the jet ski passes above our heads, then her body goes limp, weightless in my arms.

I see her face. Eyes closed. A small gash on her forehead that goes into her hairline colors the water red. And fear consumes me. I didn’t get to her on time.

Kicking to the surface, every second that passes feels like a minute, an hour, a lifetime.

As soon as I break through the water, Quinn in my arms, Damon is there.

“I don’t think she’s breathing,” I scream.

Damon somehow remains calm, taking her from me, keeping her head tilted back. “Help me get her to the boat.”

Kade helps us lift her limp body from the water, as Abbott pulls the jet ski to the boat, rambling a million excuses that he didn’t see her, and it’s all I can do not to scream at him to shut the fuck up.

He’s scared. So the hell am I. But fear isn’t going to help her.

Damon shouts orders, then leans over her doing some kind of CPR shit on her. But like in the movies, she doesn’t cough, doesn’t spit up water — doesn’t move at all.

“Daddy,” Lola cries, burying her face in Kade’s waist.

Kade looks how I feel. His face is white, muscles clenched, like he’s ready to collapse.

Abbott has tied the jet ski off and is pacing, tugging at his hair. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

I know how they feel.

Panic-stricken.

This is Quinn. Our Quinn. Our girl.

I don’t realize I’m holding in a breath, until I see her body jerk, and she starts coughing, gasping for air, and with her, I breath in again.

“Someone get me the goddamn first aid kit,” Damon orders. “And blankets.”

Abbott is the first to move, rushing below deck.

I kneel next to Quinn, whose eyes are wide and frantic as she continues to gasp for air.

“You’re okay,” Damon says with a calmness I know he doesn’t feel.

How the hell can he be?

Abbott returns with the blankets and First Aid kit.

Other boats have approached ours, and I can hear Kade talking to someone, his voice cracking with emotion.

“Don’t poke at me,” Quinn says, pushing Damon away when he tries to examine the wound on her head. She tries to sit up, like she didn’t just have a brush with death. She moans from the effort and lays back down.

“Stay still,” Damon orders.

“I’m sorry,” Abbott says standing at her feet. “I didn’t see you.”

“I know.” Her teeth chatter uncontrollably, and her body is trembling. “I’m freezing.”

“The wound looks superficial.” He takes the blanket from Abbott, wrapping it around her, then looks at me. “But we need to take her to Harristown General. That’s the closest hospital from here.”

“I don’t need to go to the—” she winces and touches her head. “Hospital.”

“Like hell you don’t,” I growl out, surprising everyone, including myself.

Kade has kept Lola back, but they both approach now. The kid’s eyes are red from crying, and when Quinn sits and reaches for her, she wraps her arms around her aunt’s neck, but I can tell it takes all the woman’s strength not to collapse with the child’s weight.

I place my hand on her back to steady her.

“How many times have I warned you not to jump in the lake without looking first,” Kade scolds, causing us all to glance up at him. “And Christ, Abbott, you know better than to drive the fucking jet ski that fast around the boat.”

His outburst isn’t uncharacteristic of him. But I know exactly how he feels. Fear makes a person irrational, and sometimes it’s easier to lay blame than to accept that sometimes shit happens.

“She’s all right,” Damon says, his words holding a warning.

Kade sucks his lips over his teeth and pulls at his dark hair, then walks away, pacing the back of the boat.

“Jeffries has his boat here,” Abbott says. “He can take Kade, Lola and Zee back to Port Clover—”

“I’ll go with you,” I say quickly.

Abbott’s lips thin, but he nods, then stands to talk to Kade.

“I thought you died,” Lola says, her bottom lip quivering.

Despite the way her body shivers, Quinn smiles at the kid. “I’d never leave you. You know that.”

Lola nods and swipes away her tears.

I keep a hand on Quinn’s back, and I’m starting to think it’s the only thing holding her up.

“You got her?” Damon asks me.

“Yeah.”

He stands, and helps Abbott secure the jet ski properly to the boat.

“You okay?” I ask, when Kade calls Lola to him.

She gives a small shake of her head. “No.”

Never one to admit weakness, I know she’s barely holding on.

I gather her into my arms, and stand, then tell Damon, “I’ll lay her on the bed. She’ll be more comfortable there.”

He grabs my arm. “You’ll need to stay with her.”

“I know.”

Downstairs, in the small, musky smelling cabin, I start to lay her down, but she lets out a small sound, and her fingers curl around my arm. She doesn’t have to say the words for me to know what she wants. And to be honest, I don’t want to let her go either.

Holding her against my chest, I lean against the headboard, and sigh when I hear the engine start.

She’s quiet, her body slowly relaxing against mine as the boat starts to move, her lips not quivering the way they had been earlier. But her eyes are closed, and I’m pretty sure there’s some kind of rule about falling asleep after getting hit in the head.

“Hey,” I say, bushing my knuckles across her cheeks.

“Hmm?”

“You need to stay awake.”

“Not sleeping.” Her eyes remain closed. “Just thinking.”

“About what?”

She doesn’t answer. And I start to worry that she’s drifted off. “Quinn…”

“I was thinking about you.” She doesn’t look at me, but her lashes flutter open, and her palm flattens against my bare chest.

“What about me?”

“All the different faces you put on. How you hide yourself from the world. From the people who love you.”

“How hard did you hit your head?” I joke.

She looks up at me then, her brows drawn down. “Why did you leave?”

I swallow hard before answering “I did a lot of shit I wasn’t proud of.”

“So you took off, rather than facing your mistakes.”

“I took off so I didn’t keep making the same mistakes, and hurting the people I cared about.”

She sighs, her eyes closing again. “I hated you when you left.”

“I know.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have. But I did.”

“And now?”

Her fingers curl on my chest. “I want to hate you. It’s easier that way. Because if I don’t...”

I place a hand under her chin and tilt it up. “I know what you think you felt for me. But you were a kid.”

She tenses in my arms, and her eyes harden when she looks at me. “You’re right. I was a kid. But you have no idea what I felt, and you have no right to undermine my feelings. I loved you—”

Her lips pull between her teeth, and I know she didn’t mean to say those words. She starts to pull away, but I hold her tight.

On the road with the band, I had chicks tell me they loved me all the time. Shit, they’d tell me anything I wanted to hear as long as they got a piece of me. But I know Quinn’s confession comes from the deepest part of her soul. And damn if I don’t wish I could be the man she deserves. The one to say those words back to her.

“People who love me get hurt.” Even as I say it, I know how pathetic it must sound. How cliché. But it’s the truth.

She doesn’t say anything back, and I feel the need to explain to her, confess my sins, bare my fucking soul.

“Did anyone ever tell you what happened to my mom?”

“I know she died when you were young.”

I nod, silence stretching between us, my demons poking their nasty little heads out and wondering how deep into the darkness I’m willing to go.

All the fucking way if it means finally making Quinn see how bad I am for her.

“It was my fault,” I finally confess.

She frowns at me, but doesn’t say anything, just waits for me to continue.

I’ve never disclosed the sin out loud. Sure, Liam knew. He’d been there. But I’d never told anyone. Not even Kade.

“I was always leaving stuff around. One of the things my dad used to...” I shake my head, not willing to go there. “That day, I must’ve left my bat and glove by the stairs.” I close my eyes, hearing the sounds — each thump and thud and cry of pain from the only woman I ever loved. Seeing her body lying at the bottom of the stairs, blood trickling from her mouth, eyes wide open but unseeing, and the bat still rolling across the linoleum floor.

“Zee?” Quinn places her palm on my cheek.

“She tripped on the bat. Fell down the stairs. Died instantly.”

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

I swallow and nod. I’m grateful that she doesn’t try to tell me it wasn’t my fault or try to ease my guilt. It’s a burden I’ll bear for the rest of my life.

“How old were you?”

“Eight.”

She sucks in a breath.

“Liam was only six. He saw the whole thing. I’m not sure how he isn’t as screwed up as I am.”

There are tears in her eyes — for me. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not sure why I told you that.” A small weight feels like it’s been lifted from my chest, and I don’t know why.

She starts to drop her hand from my cheek, and I take it, curling my fingers around hers. I bring her hand to my lips, and close my eyes, holding it there for a long moment.

“I care about you, Quinn. Always have. Don’t ever think I don’t.”

“But just not sexually, right?” she says with a small pout.

A groan rumbles in the back of my throat. “Jesus, Quinn. If you were any other woman, I’d have—” I bite my tongue on the details of what I’d have done to her. What I want to do to her.

Even now my cock hardens at the thought. That alone should prove what an asshole I am. Shit, we’re rushing her to the damn hospital and all I can think about is being balls deep inside of her.

“I’m not a little girl anymore. I make my own decisions. I don’t need you or my brothers protecting me.”

“Just saving your ass from being hit by a jet ski.”

She slaps my chest. “You know what I mean.”

“I won’t hurt you. And that’s what I’d do if anything happened between us.”

Our fingers are still threaded together. “You’re going to hurt me no matter what when you leave again. That’s inevitable. I can’t help the way I feel about you. You might as well give me a small piece of yourself that I can remember you by when you’re gone.”

I place my forehead gently against hers, careful not to touch the bandage.

“I kissed you once before,” she says. “I won’t be the first to do it again. If you want—”

I crush my lips against hers. It’s not a gentle kiss, even though I know I should be careful with her. But there’s a hunger so deep and possessive inside me, if she wasn’t injured, and her brothers weren’t fifteen feet away, I’d take her up on every demand I’d seen in her dark eyes.

Her fingers tangle in my hair, and her mouth opens for my tongue, and the primal part of my brain, the one that’s never been good for anything except picking a fight, growls out inside me, demanding so much more than I know I can give.

I feel the boat slow, and the engine turns to a soft hum, before turning off.

“I think we’re here,” I say against her lips.

“I’d rather just go home with you,” she mumbles, snuggling deeper into me.

“Not until we get you checked out.”

I hear a creek, and I lift my head.

Abbott is standing on the second bottom step, arms above his head, leaning into the room. I have no idea how long he’s been there, but I can see in his eyes it’s long enough. He glares at me, then looks down at Quinn, who hasn’t noticed his presence. When he meets my gaze again, he gives me a look, one that says I better thank my lucky stars he’s not carrying a loaded weapon at the moment.

I tense, holding his gaze, waiting for the lecture I know is coming. But he just shakes his head, and turns, stomping back up the stairs

“How is she?” I hear Damon ask from the deck.

Abbott grunts, and I’m pretty sure his response is something like, “I think she may have hit her head harder than we thought.”

I sigh and look down at Quinn, who has her eyes closed again, a small smile playing on her lips. And wonder just what the hell I’ve gotten myself into. Because she was right about one thing. After I do what I came here for, there won’t be any other option but to leave this place. And I know, she won’t just want to hate me.

She actually will.