She whispers this last part, but it could have been a shout with how she delivers it.
“Quinn . . . we’re all murderers. Including you now.”
She hears the sense in what I say, and that just pisses her off more. With a grunt, she pushes past me and starts down the stairs. I try to grab her arm to stop her, but she just shakes off my hold.
“I thought I was being helpful,” I say as I hurry after her.
She stops at the bottom of the first flight and rounds on me like a madwoman. Fire jumps in her eyes, and I take a step back to avoid getting burned. “Helpful would have been you standing there when he fucking admitted he was Desmond. Helpful would have been grabbing his arm and asking him what the fuck he meant when he made a fucking comment about my mother!”
“He admitted he’s Desmond? What did he say?” The rest of her words finally slam into me, and I’m confused once more. “Wait, what does your mother have to do with any of this?”
Her small hands form clenched fists at her sides, and she screams internally before bursting into tears. Just standing there, she looks so small. Fragile, even, like if I reach out to touch her, she’ll shatter into pieces and cut me.
It’s a risk I’ll have to take. I can’t just stand by and watch the lass fall apart like this. Not after what we shared last night—even if she doesn’t know it. Despite the alarm bells blaring in myhead, screaming how this is the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done, I step forward and wrap my arms around her.
“Get off me,” she mumbles against my chest. “I hate you. And despite these shitty tears, I’m not trying to kiss you!”
Her fists wallop my sides, but the puny blows don’t deter me. I don’t loosen my hold on her, and eventually, she relaxes against me and begins to cry harder.
“There, there,” I whisper. “Tell me what happened, lass.”
She pushes away from me again, and I let her this time. She smooths the hair from her red, tear-stained cheeks and looks up at me with a quivering chin that threatens to break me. If she looked small before, she’s practically minuscule now. I step forward to take her into my arms again, but she takes a step back with a shake of her head.
“No, you don’t get to pick and choose when to support me. You don’t get to run off and leave me like my mother left me, Aven.”
She bursts into a fresh wave of sobs as she turns and eases down the last set of stairs. It would have been quite the dramatic moment had she not missed the first step and basically tripped her way to the bottom. Can the girl not even have a dignified exit?
Instead of feeling angry with her, I just want to make something go right for her. I follow her out of the station, keeping a few steps behind to give her some space. Her little sneakers pound the pavement as she swipes the tears from her face and tightens her ponytail. Despite my long strides, she’s putting more ground between us. Anger is her great motivator, I guess.
As we near the park entrance, I slow even further. The only thing that way is the hotel, so I don’t feel the urgent need to keep her within arm’s reach. My heart rate slows a tad, but it picks up again when she glances back.
To make sure I’m still behind her.
I wince. I cannae help it. God, I was a feckless bampot for leaving the wee lass alone with him. Now I’ve either given her a complex or so firmly solidified an existing one that she’ll be in therapy for the rest of her years. Ach, what have I done?
When she’s finished glaring at me, she stomps her way through the exit turnstile. That is, until she spots a group of familiar faces just outside the gates. Her posture shifts from pissed-off She-Hulk to the infamous sway and soft curves that I’ve grown to think of a tad too fondly. The soft lilt of her head reveals more of her cheek, which is raised in a gentle smile. She’s back to playing pretend for an audience.
She’s painfully beautiful, and after last night, I’d do anything to keep her smiling. Bearing witness to the perfection that was her at her most vulnerable...Fuck, I can’t even think of words. It was something beyond beautiful or heavenly. Fantastic is too fake, and there was nothing fake about that orgasm.
Okay. Thinking about that moment with Quinn was a terrible idea when I’m about to walk into a group of people who donotneed to see the way my dick is straining against my shorts. I have an image to maintain, and “the boner guy” is thelastthing I want to be known as. Asshole? Aye. Feckless prick? On occasions such as these, yeah. But not the boner guy.
I push through the turnstile, purposely ramming the metal arm against my cock as hard as I can. I anticipate the pain, which is meant to help deflate the raging—and incredibly inconvenient—erection. What I don’t consider is that, as the stiff bar travels up the length of my concrete cum-gun, the damned steel will inevitably collide with the metal balls sitting on either side of the head of my dick.
My linen shorts don’t dampen the distinctiveclink-tinkas the arm rips my soul from my body. The pain is exquisitely horrific, and I nearly pass out on the spot. Worst of all, I don’teven know if the damned pain has accomplished its purpose. I grit my teeth as heads turn my way. I’m doing my very best to raise my cheeks in a smile.
I also raise my hand and open my mouth to say I just bumped my arm, as everyone is now looking directly at me, but my voice refuses to register to the human ear. The tuning-fork vibrations continue running up and down my dick, and now I’m not even sure the piercing is still attached. For that matter, I cannae even be sure my godforsaken dick is still attached because I cannae evenfeelmy godforsaken dick.
Just that gnawing, grating, searing, never-ending pain.
White haze clouds my vision, and I’m fairly certain I’m about three seconds away from kissing the concrete. That’s when an angel steps in front of me. A halo surrounds her golden ponytail...
I blink away the tears birthed from my pain, then look down at Quinn. Her eyebrows pull together, and she glances back at the group before stepping closer to me and putting her arm out. As her fingers wind around my wrist, I’m reminded of the way she let me hold her down last night.
Fuck! You cannae think of that!
Fresh pain shoots through my cock as it either tries to harden again or reaches the apex of hardness. Is that piss, blood, or sweat running down my leg? Hell, maybe it’s come. I’ll never know because I refuse to look down and see what’s going on below my abs.
Quinn cocks her head. “Are you okay?”
