Page 231 of Quinlan

“To say you lived an ignorant and privileged life is a fucking joke.” I shove one sleeve of my jacket off my shoulder. I release her for the second it takes me to shrug the other one off. Her chin is tipped up by my fingers again. “You’ve lived with guilt, with the responsibilities that have been shoved down your throat for years. He guilted you into believing it’s okay for a kid to carry these burdens on her own. Poisoned you for years.”

“So what?” Quinlan is exquisite. Rome’s thunderstorms flash behind her eyes. Liam’s fire is there, too. Both my friends’ personalities are embedded in her. As well as my sickness. “So fucking what, Damien? It was nothing. It was nothing compared to what you must’ve been through.”

“So what? That’s what you’re asking me?” With my hands on her shoulders, I force her down, ass to her heels. “We talked about this. During all this time he’d been brainwashing you, did he ever stop to mention he had foster kids?”

Her eyebrows shoot down. Her head shakes.

“That’s right.” The buttons of my shirt slide out of their loops one by one, from top to bottom. I’m hyper-aware of the fact that I don’t have an undershirt beneath it. Everything hurts, and Idon’t stop. “Now you do. You couldn’t have done anything back then.”

Her throat bobs as she gulps. Her eyes never leaving mine. “Okay.”

“Jagger Powell. Laurel Lambert. Me. We were his first and only foster kids.”

Her hands cover mine at the last button. Gripping me instead of comforting me.

“We couldn’t escape his cruelty.” My vision blurs at the edges as memories slam into me. I shake them off. “There was no running from it. Nowhere to hide when Rex decided we deserved a kick in the gut or a punch to the ribs. When he escalated and had Harlow hold us down.”

She doesn’t resist me when I flip my hands, grasp her wrists and lower her arms to her sides.

“Quinlan.”

“Yes?”

“This is why they held us down.”

She stares at me as I rip my shirt off my body. There’s no pity as she examines my scars. There’s strength. There’s love. Devotion, even.

“You cut me the other day.” There’s a question in her whisper. “You let me cut you. Are you okay? You could’ve said no. You didn’t have to do it.”

“I was aching for it,” I answer, knowing full well what I’m about to ask of her is going to be far more intense than anything we’ve ever done. Knowing how ready I am. “That was love. That was bonding. It had nothing to do with torture and pain. There was nothing ugly about it.”

“Okay.” Her resolution makes her features harden. “Okay.”

“Jagger and Laurel have those too. I couldn’t always save them.”

Nothing. She offers me nothing other than her touch. Every patch of skin, or pink and white scar tissue that Quinlan caresses, hurts. Hurts so bad. My abs flex, but I don’t want to flinch from her. I memorize the feel of her fingertips on me. The way she explores my body.

“You did your best.” She leans in, her lips pursed to kiss my abdomen. My scars.

The stark reminder of what happened when I wasn’t strong enough. When I was at an overwhelming disadvantage against Rex.

The marks I have to stare at every day. The marks I don’t want on me anymore.

“Don’t.” My hand wraps around the side of her neck.

When I tip her face up with my free hand, the air gets knocked out of my lungs.

“What’s this?” My tone is taunting, even though I’m struggling to breathe. I tighten my grip around her, using her to remind myself I’m not that kid anymore. I can protect her. I always will. “You’re angry.”

“Told you,” she grits out, feral. “I went out there to…” A rugged breath escapes her. It’s a challenge for her, to talk while my fingers bite into her skin. Her eyes shine brighter. “I ran away so I could kill him. He’s a monster. He hurt you.”

“I didn’t tell you what he did to me.” There’s no need to ask if Rome or Liam said anything. My trust in them is absolute. “What makes you think it was that bad?”

One of her eyebrows quirks. Her hands are on my thighs, nails digging into me. I groan at the exquisite pain. I’m hard. So fucking hard. I also don’t forget she owes me something.

I tug on this beautiful girl’s hair. “Answer me.”

“Not the specifics. You didn’t have to.” Quinlan’s confident as she slides one hand up blindly. She avoids my crotch, stops above my belt, her fingertips skimming the bottom of my scars.“You’ve given me all of you. Your friendly side. Your twisted side. The depraved side. All of you. Except your abdomen. You only took your shirt off when it was dark, when I had my back to you. Liam or Rome have been careful too. That’s how I knew it was bad.”

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