Burn (Brothers of Ink and Steel #2)

by Allie Juliette Mousseau

  Pretty soon, we’re back at the party.

  “Sorry,” Quinn says. “I told you I wasn’t any good.”

  “You’ll get it another time,” he tells her, now distracted and looking into the crowd—probably for a piece of ass he can be sure of—it is getting late.

  Douchebag. He would have stayed with it all night if she’d been flirting with him or if he thought he had a chance of scoring with her.

  “Don’t drink too much, I have an idea,” I tell her. She doesn’t drink much at all in the first place, but I have to say it anyway.

  “You always have an idea.” She gives me a playful shove. “Sorry I was an awful driver.”

  “You weren’t awful,” I semi-lie. “You had a lousy instructor.”

  “Doesn’t matter anyway, it’s your birthday after all. And this is for you.” She reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a small black box with a gold bow. “Happy sixteenth birthday.”

  I stare at it … dumbfounded. “You got me a gift?”

  “Of course! It’s your birthday,” she says with a glowing smile. “Open it!”

  Carefully, I take it from her sweet hand, but I know I could stay suspended in this moment with her forever and not care one bit about the box’s content.

  My mother and grandparents never once gave me a birthday present. In fact, my birthday had never been celebrated at my house.

  “You have to untie the bow,” she says, all sassy.

  I untie it and lift the lid to find a rugged wristband made with black braided leather cord strung through a series of black and silver beads and knots.

  “Quinn.” I’m fighting all the powerful emotions that are crashing over me, like when the plates of the earth move and crash together deep under the darkest parts of the ocean, causing a tsunami to be unleashed.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Yeah, I love it.” I’ve been trying to toe the line with her; I don’t want to blow this friendship we have. But I know beyond every doubt that I have crashed into her hard.

  “Awesome! Let me put it on you?”

  “Alright.” I’m all about her as I hold out my arm and she happily fastens it around my wrist.

  “It lies just right! I was worried it might not fit,” she confesses. “I was also worried you wouldn’t like it. And I can’t quite tell by your expression.” She squints up at me dramatically.

  We can see each other just fine in the golden glow of the bonfire.

  “The band is awesome,” I reassure her while admiring it.

  It’s a simple gift … Oh, but it isn’t. It’s so much more to me.

  “You look serious. You’re wondering how I got it, aren’t you?” she says. “I didn’t steal it.”

  “I wouldn’t care if you had,” I answer truthfully.

  “When you were off doing stuff with Randy, I collected bottles and cans. Made thirty-two bucks!” She sounds proud of her endeavor. “And …” She goes into her backpack and lifts out a small to-go style food container.

  “Hold that. But don’t peek!” She presses it into my hands. “Don’t sniff either,” Quinn warns while she looks in her pack.

  “Whew! Here they are.” She snatches back the container. “Did you peek … even a little?”

  “And incur your wrath? Not a chance. No, ma’am.” I wonder if she can even begin to understand what I feel right now.

  Like she’s the real gift.

  Softly she begins to sing the song “Happy Birthday to You,” and as she turns, she reveals a massive gourmet cupcake with blue frosting—my favorite color—with M&M’s candy laid out in the number sixteen. She lit a long blue candle and is protecting the flame from the air at all costs.

  She finishes and says, “Make a wish.”

  Can I wish that my birthday could be this incredible every year?

  “Hurry, before the wind blows it out!” She laughs. “You must have a wish in your mind.”

  I do.

  I blow it out.

  She squeals joyfully, and I’m so happy we’re doing this away from the party. It’s just the two of us.

  “What did you wish for?” she asks, removing the candle from the cupcake.

  “I thought you were the birthday expert … you know you’re not supposed to tell.”

  She crinkles up her nose. She doesn’t like that answer.

  “Fine. Bite.” Quinn has unwrapped the paper cup from around the cake and is holding it up for me to try it.

  “Is it chocolate?”

  “Yeah, it’s chocolate.”

  “Are you going to smash it in my face?”

  “I thought about it, but no. That’d be a waste of the deliciousness,” she tells me. “So, come on and bite.”

  I don’t close my eyes. I keep them locked with hers. She blushes and it makes her even more beautiful.

  As I sink my teeth into the moist, sweet cake, thrilling over the glow of her soft blood-rushed cheeks, all I can think about is how I’m a sixteen-year-old boy who is totally in love with the girl in front of me.

  “Good?” she asks.

  “The best,” I reply with my mouth full. “Your turn.”

  I take the cake from her and feed her a bite. Before long, we’re laughing and trying to get blue frosting on each other’s noses.

  “Thanks Quinn … for all of this.”

  She nibbles thoughtfully at her bottom lip. “You’re welcome.”

  Frank’s parents are gone for the week on a cruise somewhere tropical, which means a weeklong party and a place to stay to give Randy’s a break. It’s never good to stay in one place too long. People get tired of doling out hospitality after a while. So we hang out for another hour, and I watch Frank win a shots game against a friend, where they polish off almost an entire fifth of tequila. That’s when my brilliant idea goes into effect.

  I decide I’m going to “borrow” Frank’s car without telling him. He’ll get over it.

  “Congrats on the win, man!” I slap his back hard.

  Frank catches himself, his drunken gait unsteady. He slurs, “Oh yeah!”

  Oh yeah! I think.

  He never feels my fingers hook the keys inside his thick coat pocket. I give him twenty minutes before he passes out. He’ll never know his car was even gone.

  I go get Quinn. “Oh, Quinn,” I jingle the keys. “Look.”

  She considers me skeptically. “How did you get him to relinquish those?”

  I lie, very convincingly. “He said you’d be better off learning it from me after all.”

  “Cool!” she crows happily.

  We settle into the supple black leather seats. Her hands grip the steering wheel excitedly before she turns over the ignition.

  “You focus on the feel of the clutch and gas pedal. I’ll keep one hand on your knee.” Innocently, I rest my hand on her leg, but it sends tingles firing through my nerves, up my fingers and into the veins of my arm.

  Having been together now for over a month, we almost always have our hands linked and we hold each other while we sleep, but we’ve never taken it any farther than that. I’ve never tried to take it any farther. We have a good thing, and I don’t want to fuck it up. For me, I feel this indescribable power every single time I touch her, but at this moment—maybe because of her gifts, or the extra dose of adrenaline from me knowing I’m stealing Frank’s car, or the combination of the two—it’s even more intimate, more electrifying.

  “Liam?”

  “Right!” I snap to. “When it’s time to shift, I’ll press on your leg; that’s your signal to engage the clutch. My other hand will stay on your shift hand.” I put my hand over hers, spreading my fingers around her fingers until I feel the gear shift.

  What the fuck is wrong with me tonight? Now I’m shaking.

  Literally shaking!

  And it’s not from the cold.

  “I’ll work the shifter with you until you feel the way the car moves and works underneath you. Nice and easy. It’s just like sex.” It slides out of my mouth
so fast, I can’t take it back. And dear Christ, I can’t think of any way to soften the meaning.

  “Like sex,” Quinn repeats, slowly and deliberately. “It seems like a great metaphor, but it’s somewhat lost on me since I have nothing to compare it to.”

  Holy fuck! What is she saying?? Her words and tone are full of something! How am I supposed to read into that??

  Before I can figure it out, she jacks us into reverse, then with a few jerky pulls that make us lurch back and forth, she gets us out of the driveway.

  I can’t fucking believe I said that. It’s just like sex.

  We get some distance down the rural dirt road, and I realize neither of us has said a word since the “sex” screw-up.

  I turn and check behind us for traffic, even though it’s like one in the morning and we’re in the sticks. “Okay, you want to slow down and stop so we can practice sliding into gear.”

  She does.

  “Now, just push the clutch all the way to the floor until you get the hang of it, because if you don’t have the clutch right, the gear can’t get into place.”

  “Right, to get it into gear, you have to ready the clutch,” she repeats the instructions.

  She shoves the gear stick forward. The grinding metal whines in protest.

  “No! Too hard and too fast,” I snap.“We’re not in a hurry.”

  “Sorry.” She tries again, and I wonder how loud the screaming metal is outside of the car.

  “I can’t do it!” she cries out in frustration.

  “Yes you can. Try again,” I assure, but I’m pretty sure my ears are bleeding.

  She grinds the gears a few more times, until I don’t think I can take it anymore, then all of sudden she engages it smoothly. She beams the proudest smile ever.

  “That’s right,” I praise.

  “Oh my God! I did it! I did it!!”

  “Yeah, you did!” Her happiness is catchy.

  She drives a few miles up the road. Her steering is impressive for someone who has never driven. “You’re a natural.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Try turning up here to the left,” I tell her.

  “Okay, clutch, shift, brake to slow down …” she says to herself.

  “Good turn.” I nod.

  That’s when she tries to put it back in first gear too fast. Her clutch to gas ratio suffers so badly the car jerks forward, throwing the two of us up into the dashboard.

  “What is wrong with you? I didn’t tell you to do that!”

  “Don’t shout at me!”

  “I didn’t shout at you!” I shout.

  She lands a look at me like she’s going to shove me.

  “Pull the fuck over,” I say.

  She does and lets the car idle, folding her arms over her chest. And even though she’s angry, her bottom lip juts out into the sexiest pout.

  I blew it. “What did you expect?” I try.

  “I expect you not to shout at me!” she yells.

  “Okay, fine. I was an ass.”

  “Yes, you were,” she agrees. The anger dissipates a bit, but the pout doesn’t change.

  Keeping the engine on, I pull the emergency brake up and take the car out of gear. “We’re going to try this another way.”

  I turn my whole body towards her, anchoring my right foot to the floor while kneeling with my left on the seat. “I’ll keep one hand on your gas leg, and the other on your clutch leg. I’ll put pressure on or pull up in proportion to how you need to. Practice. Ready?”

  Like working a puppet, I pull up and push down on Quinn’s soft, denim-covered legs. When I’m satisfied, I look up from watching her Chucks working each pedal.

  I’m right in her face—nose to nose.

  I can feel her warm breath over the tender skin of my lips.

  She’s staring right at me.

  I’m lost, swimming somewhere inside her blue eyes. Involuntarily, my fingers squeeze the flesh of her legs. My dick grows behind my jeans without permission, and my heart races hard.

  Just like sex.

  Her sweet mouth falls open as her lips part. She’s holding me with her eyes, and I can’t move. I can’t think. I’m frozen.

  The shaking that had subsided when I concentrated on her driving is back.

  “Don’t you even want to kiss me?” she asks.

  The tone of her voice is timid and shy … but it’s something else too. Don’t you even want to kiss me?

  It’s the inflection on the want that has my brain grasping. “What do you mean, don’t I even want to?”

  Her eyes drop for a second, but mine don’t. I search hers desperately, like a lost, lonely, wandering man in the harshest desert seeks out water.

  “You’ve had over a month of chances to kiss me,” she says. “And you never have.” Now she meets my eyes again, and this time they’re filled with a million questions. “I know you like kissing. I know you’ve had sex. Aren’t I … pretty enough to want to … try with?”

  She doesn’t think I think she’s pretty enough? She doesn’t think I want to?

  Don’t you even want to kiss me?

  After so many all-night talks, I know she’s never been kissed, she’s never been touched. But she doesn’t know about me, how dirty I am, how used up. I want to think differently of myself, I do, even if it’s only for her, but she’s this pure white, loving creature, and I’m a filthy, soiled beast.

  I don’t want to contaminate her. I can’t contaminate her!

  I close my eyes. “Quinn, there is nothing and no one as beautiful as you.”

  That’s when I feel her hands grip around both my wrists. We’re wearing nothing but t-shirts, since we took off our jackets once the car heated up. Her hands travel up each of my arms, leaving a trail of unquenchable, needy fire.

  The air struggles through my lungs, and I can’t look at her. The darkness of my past—that starless night—threatens to crush me.

  “I love you, Liam.” She says it so softly I may have missed it, had I not been paying attention.

  I love you, Liam.

  Of the three people I have ever loved, two of them—my mother and grandmother—never said it to me.

  And Quinn … I love her more than my own life.

  Her soft, unsure hands smooth over my shoulders, simultaneously releasing and building tension with each muscle she glides over, until she reaches my neck and places her hands up under my hairline, drawing me closer.

  How is it that I believe she can fix what has broken me?

  I don’t believe in God.

  I don’t believe in the love of a mother or father or of grandparents.

  I do believe in Quinn.

  “Please, open your eyes, Liam.”

  Her request is so small, but I’m afraid of it shattering me, of it shattering her.

  Damn it, damn it! But even though the war rages inside of me—the past, the present, the future—I’ll do what Quinn wants and asks of me—every time.

  Slowly, carefully, I let my eyes open.

  Oh God! She’s so close I can taste her. I taste her desire and wanting, I taste her fear and trepidation, and I sample both our pain and salvation mixed together, invested in each other alone.

  My fucking blood is boiling, my dick is throbbing, my heart is pounding.

  As I take her mouth with mine it’s so unbelievably good it hurts.

  Her lips are so soft and warm; her hands are loving and gentle.

  Soon, I remember myself and rest my forehead against hers. I’m so overwhelmed. I can’t open my eyes, can’t look at her or face her.

  “Quinn …” I sigh. “I can’t keep kissing you like this.”

  “Why not?” She’s out of breath, and I like the way it sounds.

  “Because,” I say, my lips just hovering over hers, “I’ll want more. I’ll want you to be my girlfriend.”

  Neither of us pulls away.

  “I’ve never been a girlfriend.”

  That makes me smile. “I’ve never had a girlfriend
.”

  “You’ve had plenty of girlfriends.”

  “I’ve had plenty of girls,” I assure her, “but never a girlfriend.”

  “Liam …”

  “Quinn …” My eyes are still closed.

  “Kiss me again.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Did I do it wrong?”

  “No, you did it too right.”

  “Then let’s do it again,” she insists.

  “I told you, I’d have to make you my girlfriend.”

  “Then make me your girlfriend.”

  My eyes open fast. “You want to be my girlfriend?”

  “Yes. Especially if it means you’ll keep kissing me.”

  “Quinn, this is serious.”

  “I am serious,” she says. “Remember that when this started I was the one who said I love you.”

  I’ll never forget. It’s etched into my memory forever.

  “Being girlfriend and boyfriend means commitment. It means we belong to each other—no other guys, no other girls—nothing and no one can come between us. It means we love and we fight and we love again. We fix it, whatever it takes.”

  “I like that. And it sounds like what we’re already doing.”

  “I guess it does … it also means we don’t leave each other, either. We can’t, ’cause we’re all we’ve got.”

  “I promise I’ll never leave you, Liam,” Quinn vows, our eyes burning into each other’s. “I promise nothing … and no one … will ever come between us. I promise to love you forever. We’re two halves of one whole.”

  I put my hands on either side of her perfect face. Her eyes reflect back at me everything I feel.

  My emotions are everywhere at once, but as I close my eyes, lean into her body and press my lips against hers, everything I feel—everything I’ve ever felt—culminates at this one point, releasing all of my energy, all of my darkness and all of my light into this moment—where Quinn and I become one perfect star as our souls fuse together.

  Chapter Seven

  2015

  Quinn

  I shouldn’t be here.

  I shouldn’t be in this house.

  I shouldn’t be here with Liam.

  So what am I doing here?

  What am I looking for?