17
QUINN
“I Like the Sound of That” by Rascal Flatts
- -
“What did he say?” I whine for the millionth time since he pulled me out of my house and into his truck. He just smirks, the infuriating man, ignoring me like he has for the last hour.
I haven’t even been able to fully enjoy the fact that we’re curled up on his cozy couch watching a movie, even though that movie is Suicide Squad and I’ve wanted to watch it since I missed it in the theater. I can’t even enjoy my girl crush, Harley Quinn. Nope, none of that. All because the stupid, infuriating, stubborn-headed man next to me won’t just tell me what my brother said.
He’s just like Clay and Maverick, both of whom are keeping secrets about these little meeting-of-the-minds chats they’ve been having with my man.
Holy shit.
My man.
I look back at his profile. “Are you my man?” I blurt, not even giving one shit that I sound loony tunes.
“What?” He laughs, turning from the TV to finally pay me some attention.
“Well? Are you?”
“Christ, Quinn, I thought you knew what was goin’ on here.”
“I do!” I yell, calming down when he looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. “I mean, of course I know what’s going on here, but I think we’ve left out some important things. Are we, I don’t know . . . exclusive while we get to know each other again? I mean, I know what you’ve said you want and all, but you’ve never actually said you wanted to be exclusive. So I think it’s a valid question.”
I snap my mouth shut, the verbal vomit just floating in the air between us, my eyes wide and freaked the hell out.
“Where is this comin’ from, darlin’?” he asks, low and carefully.
“So far, in two days, you’ve managed to work your way back into my life all the while erasin’ the pain I had held close. In that time, you’ve also held private meetin’s with my brothers, which screams that we’re a whole lot more serious than just gettin’ to know each other again, Tate. That screams that you’re in a place way past gettin’ to know someone. You won’t tell me what y’all talked about. They won’t say anything. Meanwhile, I’m over here wonderin’ if you’re ever gonna grow a pair and get on with it and break my hooha!”
His eyes bug out, probably mirroring mine—only I’m guessin’ his aren’t wide as hell, because he isn’t the one who’s mortified. Nope, that’s all me. My mouth just won’t shut the hell up today, it seems.
“Uh,” he mumbles, turning so that his arm isn’t over my shoulders holding me close to his side. My stomach drops and my eyes fix on to the coffee table. He shifts, turning so that one leg is curled between us, allowing him to turn his body to face me. Then he grabs my hands and dips his head to force me to look at him. “Not that I really understood all of that, but you know if you do break your . . . uh, hooha, that’s somethin’ I feel confident that I’m able to fix, right?”
Jesus Jones. I bet my face is so bright red right now it would glow in the dark. “Can you just forget that part?”
He chuckles. “Not a fuckin’ chance, Grease.”
“I didn’t think so,” I mumble, unable to look away from him even if my mind is screaming for me to.
“Your brothers just want to look out for you, Quinn. I took the time to let them know what my father did because I felt that was somethin’ they deserved to know, seein’ as it had to do with them too, in a way. Trust me when I tell you that there isn’t anything we’re keepin’ from you. The three of us, we’re on the same page when it comes to you, darlin’.”
“And what page is that?”
“The one where they stop worryin’ about you and I start lovin’ you.”
My breath stills in my throat.
“One day at a time, Quinn. One day at a time.”
I still can’t move. His words ricochet through my body, hitting every single nerve ending and zapping them into awareness before settling into my heart and waking it up completely after one long hibernation. Something clicks inside me in that moment, and I need to trust this between us completely. He wouldn’t be going above and beyond to prove to me that he’s here to stay—with and for me—if he didn’t mean it.
“Get over here, let me hold you and watch the damn movie, Quinn. Let your man hold you and give yourself some time to really hear what your body is tellin’ you when you’re in my arms.”
Oh. God.
Do I argue? Nope. Hell, no. That hell-raising badass inside me is already trying to lunge out of my body and curl against him, purring like a slut.
And I like it.
No. I love it.
- -
“What?” I sleepily mumble, trying to muster up enough energy to give a damn that I’m floating, only failing.
“Hush, baby. Movie’s long over. It’s late and we both fell asleep. Just takin’ you to bed,” Tate whispers in the darkness.
“’Kay.” I curl into his embrace, knowing his strong arms will carry me without fail as I feel my body being lifted.
The only sound I hear is that of his sock-covered feet walking up the stairs and I feel myself drifting. I try to wake up, but the soothing effect of his heartbeat against my ear mingling with the slow rise of his chest as he breathes is making me slip into a powerful spell of contentment. Just like that, I’m helpless to remain conscious and I fall dead asleep with a smile on my lips.
- -
Nine Years Ago—End of the Summer
“I don’t want this summer to end,” I whisper, curling into Tate’s naked body. “I feel like this one just started and now I have to say good-bye to you.”
His chest moves as he laughs under his breath. “Darlin’, we’ve done it for the past seven years. What makes the end of this summer different, when I’ve always come back to you?”
“It’s hardly the same! Every summer since we were eleven you’d leave and it would kill me inside knowin’ I wouldn’t see you again for ten whole months, Tate. It killed me then, and that was before I knew what it felt like to have the boy I love inside my body.”
I feel my chin wobble and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from crying like a child.
“Look at me, baby,” he demands softly.
“I can’t,” I whine shamelessly.
“Now, Quinn. Look at me.”
I make a big show of turning, hoping to buy myself some time to kick this vulnerable feeling out of my head. He shifts with me until we’re lying face-to-face in his bed. I feel the thick velvet heat of his erection as it presses against my stomach, hard and ready even though we just finished making love not ten minutes ago. I move closer, my nipples rubbing against his smooth chest, and moan a little, making the hardness at my stomach jump.
“Stop,” he says, his jaw clenching when I rub against him again.
“I can’t help it. I like the way your skin feels against mine.”
“So do I, obviously, but darlin’ I need you to hear me.”
“I hear you,” I defend, lifting my leg over his hip and shifting until the part of him I want to feel back between my legs is sliding against my wet pussy.
“Fuck,” he hisses, reaching one hand up and grabbing my hips to prevent me from taking him inside my body. “Don’t. Move.”
His chest is heaving. His handsome face is pulled tight with a frown and pinched lips. God, he’s perfect.
The dark curtains in his room are pulled closed, the muted sun, high in the sky, trying to make its way into his bedroom, but only casting a low light into the space. We’ve practically been skin-to-skin since he called to tell me his grandparents would be gone the whole day and night and that I should figure out a way to spend that entire time with him, in his bed. He was leaving at the end of the week, and this would be one of the last times that we would have a moment like this until he came back next summer. If it was possible, I would spend every one of those moments with him inside me, imprinting the feeling in my brain so I have the memory of it to carry me until I see him again.
Finally gaining control of himself, he opens those blue eyes I love so much. “I know it’s different, Quinn. Not just because we know each other in a way that no other person does. Even if we hadn’t been each other’s firsts, this would still mean just as much to me as I’m sure it does to you, darlin’. I’ll get breaks, and I can come back here for some of them instead of goin’ to my parents’ house. Now you’re done with school, maybe you can come out to Georgia. We’re gonna make this work. I haven’t gone a day without at least gettin’ an email, text, or call from you in all those seven years and I’m not goin’ to start now.”
“It still sucks after what we shared this summer, havin’ to say good-bye.” I pout, knowing he’s right, but still not liking it.
“It won’t ever feel right until we’re at that point where school and distance don’t keep us apart.”
“God, Tate, you’re goin’ to medical school—that’s a lifetime!”
He laughs, his chest moving erotically against my breasts. I try to move my hips, but he doesn’t relent in his hold.
“It’s not a lifetime, Quinn. Nothin’ will ever keep me from you. If you love me even a sliver as much as I love you, then a few years apart will just make us stronger. There’s never been anyone else for me, and darlin’, there never will be.”
I feel a tear roll down my cheek, falling against his forearm my head is resting on.
He lets go of my hip, lifting his fingers to my face to wipe away the rest before they all join the one that escaped. He moves until his forehead is pressed against mine, placing the lightest of kisses against the tip of my nose. My breath hitches and I stare into his eyes, soaking up everything about the boy I love, filing it away in a safe place in my mind so that I don’t ever forget it.
He doesn’t look away or move his head from mine, but I feel his hand slide between our bodies. He shifts his hips, and the leg I slung over them moves with him. Then I feel the thick tip of his cock press against my opening, holding still while he continues to search my eyes.
“No matter how far away I am, there will never be a day that passes that I don’t wish I was here. I’ve never loved anyone else, Quinn, never and that’s somethin’ that won’t ever change. Feel me and let me show you how much I love you. Feel us and let yourself remember that nothin’ will ever win except this—us.”
Then he’s pushing his length into me, my body stretching to accommodate his thickness. I know from watching him sink into me so many times this summer that he’s not even all the way in, and I already feel so beautifully full. I whine, needing more, but he just continues his slow push into me, the sensation tattooing itself into my very being.
I know his control is costing him just as much as it’s costing me. Both of us are panting with need. My eyes burn with the need to blink, but I refuse to look away from his face until I see him feel me surrounding him completely. I’ve become addicted to the expression that crosses his face at that moment.
“God, Tate, move, honey,” I gasp, the burn of him continuing to stretch me, making my vision blur, even though I’m more than wet enough.
His fingers, now at my hip, flex. The arm around my back jolts, curling up until his hand is cupping my shoulder. Then he gives one steady push and finishes entering me.
The second I feel him hit a spot deep inside of me, I behold what I had been waiting to see. The jaw that had been locked relaxes, his full bottom lip separating from the top one with a small puff of air. His strong cheekbones are covered in a light blush. And those eyes that I could get lost in lose focus even while still looking into mine, as he seems to vanish into some other world; then his lids lower and his eyelashes flutter over his cheeks.
Pure bliss.
That’s the expression I crave.
In the seconds that it took for me to get that, my center is already tightening around him just waiting for him to move. That’s all it takes for me, and I’m seconds away from shooting off into space.
His eyes open again, clear now, and before he starts to move, the arm around my back yanks me into his chest and his mouth is devouring mine. Then, as if we’re moving as one, he’s thrusting into me as I roll my hips into his, the erotic sounds coming from both of us muffled as our tongues continue to tangle together. My hands, resting against his chest since we shifted, slide up, one going to rest against his neck and the other wrapping around his back. My nails dig into his flesh at the same time his fingers clamp down on mine. In the back of my mind, I hope to God that we’re marking each other.
When our bodies start to move erratically, both of us on the cusp of euphoric ecstasy, he pulls his head back and pants against my mouth.
“I. Love. You.” He stresses each word with a slam of his cock deep into my body.
My toes curl and I explode around him, my body tightening so fiercely that I feel the sensation steal my breath.
“I love you too, Tate,” I rasp through a painful deep gasp. “I love you so much.”