Page 68 of Confession
“Fora purpose,” he tries to argue.
My temper lashes up inside me, but I force it down. I can’t let him turn this into an argument. I can’t let him evade the point, even though it’s hard for me to pull back from my anger, which is so much easier than making myself say, “You scared me, Quinn. You really fucking scared me.”
His anger vanishes. His stubbornness melts. I watch him swallow hard. I watch him accept what I’ve said. His hand settles on my thigh again.
I don’t know what to do next, where to go from here. Then Quinn says, “Please, Vitali. Don’t keep me out of it. I won’t handle it well.”
I sigh. “I didn’t know this was going to be so hard.”
“You thought it was just going to be sex.”
“No,youthought it was just going to be sex. I thought it was going to be …” I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Easy,” he supplies accurately. “That’s because you’ve never had an actual, um, whatever this is.”
“Relationship, Quinn, Jesus.” He blushes. Fuck, he’s cute. “And when haveyouever had one?”
He huffs in annoyance.
“I’ll take that as a never.”
It’s strange maybe for two people who’ve never had relationships to have one together. But Quinn is right for me in a way that no one else could ever be. I feel it. I know.
I knew it from the beginning when I felt the impulse to claim him as my own. He’s mine. It’s that simple.
“So Cecilia,” he says. “You were going to tell me about her paying you a visit.”
“Was I?”
“Yes, Vitali. You were.”
Reluctantly, I tell Quinn about her visit to Eclipse. It’s hard to talk about it after the way I confronted him last night, after everything that happened.
We get through it, but after I’ve relayed everything, I get up. I need to move around. I go to the fireplace, where I set my lukewarm coffee on the mantle. My fingers drum by the cigar box.
“It doesn’t bother me if you smoke,” Quinn says from the couch.
I open the wooden box and extract a cigar, clipping the end and lighting it. I toss the silver lighter aside and draw the smoke into my lungs. I blow it out.
I don’t smoke often, but sometimes it helps me think. I guess Quinn knows that about me.
He says, “She hoped you would seize my evidence and turn it in.”
“Which would have rid her of her brother.”
“And you of me.”
I take another drag on the cigar and blow it out. “We’re destroying it.”
“Not yet.”
“I can’t use it, Quinn. I never would have. I already loved you, even if I didn’thowI loved you. Or how much.”
I watch the emotion intensify in his eyes until he can’t bear it. His eyes close. He really doesn’t know how to be loved. It’s hard to stay back, but I do. He needs to learn how to hear things like that.
He’ll be hearing a lot of them. For the rest of his life.
He opens his eyes and refocuses. “They don’t have to know that you won’t use it.”
