Chapter Twenty-Two
The rumbleof motorcycles filled the parking lot, slamming into Quinn’s chest like a war drum.
She stood at the window, fists clenched against the frame, watching as Gypsy backed his bike into a space. His movements were fluid—controlled—but she could see it: the exhaustion bleeding from him, the weight he carried like a second skin.
Something inside her snapped. She threw the door open and ran.
The rain battered her, cold and punishing, soaking through her clothes in seconds. She barely felt it. All she saw—all shewanted—was him.
Gypsy saw her.
He was already moving, shoving away from his bike, crossing the lot in long, fast strides. His eyes locked on hers—full of want, full of anger, full of something so deep it made her bones ache.
Under the flickering parking lot lights, she saw his hands.
Bruised. Split. Bleeding.
Her breath caught. A fist closing around her throat from the inside out.
She reached for him, fingertips brushing over his torn knuckles, and it hit her. He had fought tonight. For her. But did he still love her the same?
The doubt cracked across her heart so loud she swore he could hear it.
Because his whole body tensed—and then he wasthere, grabbing a fistful of her rain-slicked hair, tilting her face up, forcing her to see him.
His other hand caught hers and slammed it against his chest, over the furious thud of his heart.
"You feel that, Mariquinn?" His voice was a ragged snarl in the rain.
"You feel what you still fucking do to me?"
"Yes," she whispered, barely able to breathe.
"Can you hear it? Hear the way my heart beats harder, faster, every goddamn time you look at me? Every time youtouchme?"
"Yes," she choked out, tears mixing with rain on her cheeks.
He leaned in, pressing his forehead against hers, breath coming hard and ragged. "Don’t ever doubt it," he ground out. "Don’t ever fucking doubt what you mean to me."
She whimpered, her fingers curling into his soaked shirt, anchoring herself to him.
"You’re it, Mariquinn," he whispered, voice breaking. "You're the only fucking thing that ever-made sense to me. You’re the only thing I want."
Before she could say a word, he crushed his mouth to hers.
It wasn’t gentle.
It wasn’t sweet.
It was desperate. Bruising. Messy.
It was rain and blood and forgiveness and pain, all tangled up in the frantic clash of mouths and the low, broken sounds he tore from her throat.
She clung to him, arms wrapped tight around his body as if she could somehow stitch them back together just by holding him close enough.
The rain spat at the ground around them, but they didn’t move.
Didn’t care. There was nothing left between them now. Only love. Raw and bleeding and real. And it was theirs.
