Page 135 of Quinlan

Quinlan’s teeth dig into her lip, silencing the screams that vibrate in her throat.

“You’ve only been stalking me for what, five years, right?” she asks.

My answer is my tongue flattening on the area where I bit her.

“Five years, then.” Quinlan accepts my silence as a yes. “That doesn’t mean you know me. Doesn’t mean you’ll want to keep me. You could get bored with me. And what happens if I like you and…”

Her voice trails. I’m holding still, uncharacteristically silent.

The rest of the sentence is, if she likes us and we decide she’s not for us after all. What if the real her isn’t someone we’d burn down cities for.

“Five years, that’s all,” she repeats. She’s trying her best to make sense of my silence. Of the scattered puzzle pieces. Looking hard, searching for the missing ones. “You couldn’t have known me before that. You were young. No eleven-year-old would follow a baby around.”

Almostno eleven-year-old.

An adoring one, a grateful one, he would.

Without my fucking permission, memories barrel into me.

A fist throwing me into the wall. A knife glinting under cheap fluorescent lights. Mean, brown eyes. Harlow, his now-dead-wife, leaning against the doorframe, her arms folded over her chest, her auburn eyebrow cocked.

“What are you waiting for, Rex? Fucking do it already. Dinner’s getting cold.”

That’s fine, though. Jagger and Laurel are safe for the night. Nothing else matters.

“Nothing else,” I whisper against Quinlan’s skin.

“What?” Quinlan’s voice. A light at the end of a long tunnel. A beacon in a starless night.

My savior.

She won’t be the woman pitying me.

“Nothing.”

I’m on my forearms, bracketing Quinlan’s face and cursing under my breath. I should’ve listened to my own damn self earlier. Should’ve walked out of here when Rome had.

Except thispull. This fuckingpull.

“What did he do?” More softness. The lamp on the bedside table has nothing to do with it, though. This time, it’s all Quinlan. She believes me. “What did Rex do to you?”

She’s trying to turn the tables. Be the one who crawls under my skin. Infiltrates my brain. Poisoning my blood.

I could tell her it’s a waste of time.

The day she was born was the day I became hers. My love for her was innocent and now…

Fuck. Now I’m all hers.

But there are layers to place one on top of the others. A pace to stick to.

“I’ll tell you.” The hope in her eyes is short-lived when I add, “One day.”

The answer I offer does more than disappoint Quinlan. It upsets her. She fights the restraints, moving her body in the process. Grinding herself on my very hard cock.

My fingers curl around the side of her neck.

“You’re looking for answers?” I push back, my erection pinning her to the bed. “Or getting fucked? Making you nice and wet for Liam?”

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