After I walked in and saw her lying on the ground half-naked, dressed only in her underwear,the look of fear and desperation on her face with that sick bastard wedged between her legs, thankfully still fully clothed, my mind hasn’t stopped spinning.
Did he hurt her? Did hetouchher?
My hands tighten around the steering wheel, white-knuckling as anger rises up inside me like a tidal wave at the thought.
Whatever happens to that bastard now, he deserves everything that’s coming to him.
We arrive at Quinn’s apartment and I walk her inside, my palm against the small of her back. We still haven’t spoken a single word all the way up here. I keep waiting for her to say something, but she doesn’t.
The moment I close the door she steps into me, clinging to me so tight, her cheek pressed up against my chest. My arms immediately go around her body and I press a delicate kiss to the top of her head.
“Are you alright?” I ask.
“Just hold me,” she whispers.
“Are you kidding? I’m never letting you go again.”
“I’m so sorry.” Her voice comes out strained as if she’s trying not to cry.
I pull her back and lift her chin to look up at me, and I run the pad of my thumb gently over her cheekbone that’s beginning to bruise. “You have nothing to be sorry about.Nothing.”
“But I-”
I press my index finger to her lips to silence her. “Quinn, whatever happened wasn’t your fault. I’m just so thankful that you’re okay. Christ, when Tori called me and told me you never showed… I knew deep down that Roger had something to do with it. I was so scared something awful had happened to you. I was so scared I’d lost you.” I close my eyes and rest my forehead on hers, heaving out a deep sigh.
She reaches up and presses her palm to the side of my face. “Hey, I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere,” she reassures me. I take her hands on mine and she tracks the movement, eyeing the broken skin of my knuckles. “Let’s clean you up.”
She leads me over to the sink and I stand behind her, bracketing my arms around her body as she takes my hands and cleans the cuts that are covered with dried, crusted blood. Once all the blood is washes away, the small gashes underneath aren’t half as bad as I expected, but they’re still a little tender. As Quinn rubs antiseptic over them, I pepper kisses from the nape of her neck and down her shoulder, making her squirm and giggle.
Fuck, I could get high on that sound, it’s a sound that I want to hear every day for the rest of my life, and I’m going to make damn sure that I do.
Once she’s done, we head over to the couch and she tells me everything that happened, everything from when she ended the call with my sister up until the point I rippedhimoff her.
“So, he didn’t…” I run a hand through my hair, “he didn’ttouchyou?” I force the words out.
“No! God, no.” Relief floods me and I feel the tension drain from my body at her words.
“When I saw you on the ground with him on top of you… I thought…”
“I know, and you got there just in time. I don’t know what I would have done had you not been there.”
“I’ll always be there for you.” I pull her in for a kiss, letting my lips linger on hers for a moment.
“You know what all this means though, right?” she asks. “Our secret’s out. They asked me how I knew you and I had to tell them the truth, I’m guessing they asked you too?” I nod. “What are we gonna do? Everyone at college are going to know about us.”
“Let them. I don’t care.”
“How are you not worried? Dwight, this could be the end of your job.”
“Idon’t care,” I repeat. “I’ve had my resignation letter written for months.”
“What?”
“It was before Thanksgiving, I typed it up one night when I couldn’t sleep. I knew then that there was no way I was ever going to give you up and that if I was ever forced to choose between one or the other, I’d always pick you.”
“But Dwight, you love your job, it’s your life.”
“No. Not anymore. Sure, I love teaching, and after Grace died it gave me an excuse to pull myself out of bed in the morning, but then I met you and everything changed. Do you remember when we spoke in the graveyard and I told you that teaching gave me a reason to live?”
