Page 233 of Quinlan

She’s determined, hellbent on fixing me like I asked her to. With confident movements, she peels away the past off me.Blood begins to trickle from that first cut, dripping to the waistline of my pants.

“I love you.” Her tongue is warm on my abdomen. She laps at the trail of blood, bottom to top, gazing at me.

Red paints Quinlan’s lips, her tongue. I swear I can see some of it in her eyes.

“I love you.” I pin her face to my broken skin. “Suck, Quinlan. Do better. Suck it.”

Her mouth purses and she does as I said. My cock jerks and it’s a heady feeling, how much I want to fuck her. How I want to love her for the rest of my life.

“Good girl.”

Pulling her off me hurts on a visceral level. I mask it by hardening my expression. By talking to her while she repeats the motions of cutting me. She’s so focused, so mesmerizing, as she gets rid of Rex and replaces his memory with hers.

“Be a good girl for me. Don’t stop. All five of them.” She nods at my orders, cutting me open. Licking me. “You’re doing so well. So goddamn well. You’re not hurting me. You could never. Fuck. It makes me hard, how fierce you are. How ruthless. Good girl.”

“I love you.” She licks me. Sucks me.

Slices another line on my abdomen.

“I love you.” Her lips kiss the gash, her tongue laves at it.

The more I bleed for her, the more I love her. That shouldn’t be possible. No one can claim they love a person more than they love themselves, only to realize there’s more love to give to them. Only to find out that they’re falling into a bottomless pit.

“I love you, Damien.”

“I love you, Quinlan.”

The drop is endless. I wasn’t imagining it. The longest leap anyone’s ever taken.

“I love you,” she says for the fifth and last cut.

I’m an impatient bastard, shoving her mouth to my open wound. I’m high on the moment. I’m cured. Fixed. I’ll kill Rex, no doubt about that. But this…

My God. Fuck.

“Look at you.” With my hand tight around her, I slide her mouth up and down the length of the wound, my cock straining for her. “I should’ve done this earlier. Fuck, so much earlier.”

Quinlan quivers in my firm grip. Tears brim in her eyes, and when she blinks, they break free. Fat, clear droplets cascade down her cheeks.

And her mouth. It gapes, taking more of me. But this isn’t about sucking my blood. I can see it before she completely breaks down. Then I hear it.

The most tortured sound I’ve ever heard in my life.

My heart splits. Splinters. There’s nothing left of it, it’s all broken.

Because she hurts worse than I ever have. Worse than I ever will.

This has been too much for her. Too much that she’s screaming and crying, throwing the knife away to cling onto my thighs for dear life.

Liam’s scars are different. They weren’t put there by Quinlan’s half-brother. She doesn’t blame herself for them.

She blames herself for mine. Even though none of this is her fault, the guilt is there. She feels responsible because he’s her family. Because she could’ve gone to the cops, and she didn’t.

Of course she fucking didn’t. She couldn’t have known. It wouldn’t have helped anyway.

I’ll die before I let her suffer for a crime she never committed. I’ll work hard to erase this guilt from her already burdened conscience. For as long as I live, I’ll be that person for her.

“You’re brave.” I pull her off me by her arms, moving us carefully to the pillows.

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