Page 126 of Quinlan

He comes around to her face, his fingers winding into Quinlan’s mess of a hair, tugging until she’s facing the ceiling. Looking directly at him.

He lowers himself to kiss her, his mouth slanting over hers. Coaxing her to open for him. To give in. To surrender.

Though I know he wishes she didn’t. Just so she would fight him.

For all the smiles he spreads, my best friend has a dark side lurking inside him.

“There won’t be anyone else.” There’s a finality in his voice.

It presses an invisible button inside Quinlan’s soul. One that switches on the tremors. The resilience.

Her eyes flash.

“When I leave…” she sighs, her eyes sad as she’s looking between us.

Not if.When. I pretend I don’t hear her saying that. No need to argue when she’s never leaving.

“There’ll be another man instead of you three.” This is her attempt to protect her heart against disappointment. I’m sure of it.

Damien told her all the right things. All the kind, loving words a woman like her deserves to hear.

He chooses a different approach to show her he cares, since the other one clearly didn’t work. His fist clenches in her hair, pulling harder.

“A man who’ll be kind and considerate to me. Who’ll—”

“Thank you, darling.” I see Damien hauling her off the floor before he even does that. She’s over his shoulder, and he slaps her ass while she shrieks. “You had me worried there for a moment. You were being too good. That wasn’t as fun for either of us, was it?”

“You psycho.” She punches his back. Kicks him. “Put me down! Rome!”

My lips remain pinched in a tight line.

Damien slaps her ass again.

“Assholes. Both of you.”

“There’ll be no other man. And compassion? Kindness? From us? Forget about that.” He climbs the stairs while he speaks. “You wouldn’t want us this way. You wouldn’t want anyone this way.”

I catch up to them. Damien takes her to her room, and I head over to his to get the red silk ropes he bought months ago. For her.

A wet cloth is the second item I bring with me.

“Someone else would treat me right,” she says. Shelies.

“A pretty virgin like you.” My friend’s voice carries across the hall. “Getting off on filthy sex. Are you really going to sit there and tell me you’d prefer to be fucked sweetly? Cuddled later?”

I step through the doorway, smirking at the two of them. Damien stands near Quinlan’s bed, holding her over his shoulder. She kicks his stomach, kneeing him in the chest.

It’s a futile attempt to get out of his grip. It doesn’t matter to Quinlan. The feisty girl doesn’t give up.

There isn’t a single cell in my body that’s disappointed in her rebellion.

This is her. This is us. Everything is exactly as it should be.

“First of all, I’m not sitting,” Quinlan growls, then gasps the moment her ass lands on her bed.

“Fixed that problem for you.” Damien tilts his head.

“How could you possibly know what I really want?” More lies. She knows we do. Her wet cunt is proof that we do. That we’ve given it to her.

---