by J. Kenner
I glance sideways at Quincy, but he offers no explanation, and I don’t ask. I would never have guessed that Quincy would be friends with a guy like Sykes, but then again, there are all sorts of things I don’t know about Quincy Radcliffe.
That simple reality makes me sad, and I push the thought out of my mind and start to turn away from the table. I stop, though, when a small photo on the end catches my eye. A smiling woman holding up a stuffed bear, a carnival shooting booth in blurry focus behind her.
Denny.
Immediately, I feel hot. No, cold. I’m honestly not sure, other than I don’t like my reaction. Hell, I don’t like that I’m reacting at all, because what do I care anymore what Quincy does in his personal life or who he does it with?
I tell myself to just walk away. Instead, I glance up and find Quincy looking back at me. “I didn’t realize you and Denny were together.” I keep my voice bright. Chipper.
I feel like a fucking hypocrite, but no way am I letting him see that this peek into his life hurts me. Because it shouldn’t hurt me; I shouldn’t care at all.
“You didn’t?” His brow furrows, and I suppose for good reason. I mean, they definitely had a rhythm going at the party. He must think I’m blind. “For about eight months now.”
“Oh. She’s great. I like her a lot.”
“As do I. And now that she’s getting back in the field more—”
He cuts himself off sharply, his head cocked as he studies me. Slowly, the corner of his mouth curls up, and I see his eyes sparkle with amusement.
“What?” I hear the wariness in my voice and wonder what I’m missing.
“She’s my partner, El. That’s all she’s ever been. And even if she were single, that’s all she’d ever be.”
“Oh.” And then the import of his words hit me. Oh.
He takes a step toward me, so that he’s close enough now that he could reach out and touch me.
He doesn’t.
I don’t move either. I just stand there like a fool, looking up at him and kicking myself for revealing way, way more than I’d intended.
“I haven’t been involved with anyone since you.” His voice is soft. Soothing.
“Oh.” I’m having a hard time breathing, and the air between us crackles. He takes another step, and now he’s close enough that I can smell the scent of his cologne, still lingering despite being up all night. His eyes are locked on mine, but I don’t have a clue what he’s thinking. My breath stutters, and in that moment, I am certain that he will kiss me. But whether I’ll melt against him or slap his face, I have no idea.
I don’t have the chance to find out. Because in the end he does neither. Instead, he points behind me. “The bedroom is in there.”
“I can’t take your room. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“No,” he says. “My house. My rules. And that means that tonight, you’re in my bed.”
“Oh. Right.” My cheeks burn even though I have nothing to be embarrassed about.
I pause in the doorway, then turn to face him. “I should have taken Mr. Stark up on his offer of a room at the Stark Century Hotel.”
“I’d still be sleeping on sofa. If you think I’d leave you alone tonight, you’re crazy.”
“Technically, it’s morning. And Denny would have stayed with me.”
He looks me straight in the eye. “Probably. But I want you here with me.”
My heart does a little flip-flop number, the reaction pissing me off, because he has no right to make me feel this way. No right at all.
I backtrack my way into the kitchen, then help myself to a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge. “Why,” I say with my back to him.
He doesn’t answer, and I turn to find him standing just a few feet away, only the breakfast bar separating us.
“Quincy, why?”
“Because you’ve gotten caught up in something bigger than you anticipated. Because you don’t understand all of what’s going on, and no—do not even argue with me. You don’t, and the reason I know you don’t is because neither do I. You’re in deep now, Eliza. And until I know you’re safe, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
“Because that’s your job,” I say, unable to keep the tinge of dark sarcasm out of my voice.
His expression doesn’t change at all, and throughout his silence, he keeps his eyes locked on mine. I see no reaction. None at all.
“Yes,” he finally says. “It’s my job.”
Bastard.
I take a long swallow of water to camouflage my roiling emotions, then leave the small kitchen. I give him a wide berth as I return to the open bedroom door. “When you said I could stay here, I assumed there’d be two bedrooms. It seems small for you.”
He glances around the tiny condo. “It’s big enough for me. And it’s only a rental. A friend owns it, and it suits my needs. And it’s not that much smaller than my place in Manhattan.”
“New York? You live in New York?”
“I did. Before I accepted Ryan and Damien’s offer to join the SSA full time, I worked for a small organization based in the Hamptons. Moonlighted, actually. Most of the time I was with Deliverance I was still on the MI6 payroll.” He casually lifts a shoulder. “When Deliverance disbanded. I considered retiring altogether, but decided to come here instead. Liam made the same decision.”
“I see,” I say, though I have a feeling he’s only hitting the surface details. Not that I care much. I’ve locked onto the bigger picture. “Did you know I was still living in New York, too?”
He nods, and I swallow the hard knot that suddenly fills my throat. Not that his admission changes anything. But somehow the thought of him ignoring me from all the way across the Atlantic was easier to handle than the knowledge that he ignored me from only a few cross-town blocks.
I lift my chin as I return to the bedroom. “Good night, Quincy.” I pause on the threshold, then look back over my shoulder. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to get over you?”
It’s a lie, of course. I’m not over him at all, no matter how many lies I tell myself.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sure you are. So what?”
He doesn’t answer; what could he say?
I head into the bedroom and sit on the edge of the bed as he moves closer, hovering at the threshold, as if he’s waiting for me to dismiss him.
I don’t.
“Someday, you have to tell me why,” I say. “I deserve to know.”
I think I see a spark of emotion fire in those stormy gray eyes. “Maybe you do,” he says evenly. “But I think we both know that in this life, you don’t always get the things that you deserve.”
Then he reaches for the switch and turns out the light before gently pulling the door closed, leaving me alone in the dark with my memories. And my regrets.
11
“Here,” Emma whispers, shoving Mister Wellington into my arms. “No matter what, you pretend to be asleep, okay? And you keep your back to the room and your face up against Mister Wellington’s fur. You don’t roll over, and you don’t look. Promise?”
I nod, pulling the stuffed bear close.
“Say it,” she orders. “It’s only a real promise if you say it out loud.”
I take my thumb out of my mouth and whisper, “I p-omise.” I’ve just lost my first tooth, and I’m having trouble pronouncing my R’s.
Emma—a grown-up with all her teeth to prove it—frowns as she looks at me. I can tell she’s not satisfied, but she doesn’t say anything else. She just nods, then climbs into bed with me.
There are two twin-size beds in our dank, windowless room, but we never sleep apart. We’re only apart when he comes in, and that’s never a time for sleeping. That’s only a time for pretending to sleep. For me, anyway. Emma has to be awake. He says he wants her eyes open. He says he wants her to watch while he touches himself that way.
I never look. I don’t want to, but even if I did, I wouldn’t. I trust Emma, and if she tell
s me to keep my eyes closed, I do. Because I know that she’ll always take care of me. I know because she tells me so every day. And because she tells me she loves me, too. She’s the only one who does. And she’s the only one I love.
Certainly not him. I hate him. If I knew how to hurt him, I would, but I know I’m too little. Even Emma’s too little, and she’s fourteen.
Sometimes I wish our mother was here, but most of the time I don’t. I know better than to believe in wishes, because they never come true.
I don’t remember her, anyway, but Emma says she loved us. She says that our mother hated him, too, but that she wouldn’t have left us alone with him on purpose. Not ever. She says it’s his fault that she died, but nobody knows that. And she says that it will be okay. That she’ll take care of both of us. That even though we miss our mommy, we don’t need one. That she can be our mommy. And that someday, we’ll get away from him.
She just doesn’t know when.
“Go on now,” she urges, then shoves a lock of red hair out of her face. It’s thick and wavy and I think she looks like a movie star. He likes it, too, and she says that she’d cut it off if she could, but it would make him angry. But she doesn’t because it’s not good when he’s angry. Besides, she said our mommy loved her hair. She’d sit with Emma for hours and brush it. Emma tells me that’s what she thinks about whenever he runs his fingers through her hair. She imagines our mommy and tries to block him out.
I know there’s something different about tonight, but I don’t know what. I already know that I’m supposed to always keep my eyes closed and never, ever look when he’s in the room. So I don’t know why Emma keeps reminding me today. She’s acting weird, and I’m scared, but I don’t want to tell her, cuz then she’ll feel bad. So I just keep my face pressed up against Mister Wellington and my thumb in my mouth. Emma climbs in behind me and hugs me close, and I try really, really hard to go to sleep.
I can’t, though.
I just lie there, breathing dusty bear fur and listening to the wind outside, making the limbs on the big tree rattle and scrape against the side of the house. It’s spooky, but Emma’s with me, holding me while I hold Mister Wellington, so I’m not too scared. Not of the house or the tree.
I’ll be scared later, because I know he’s coming.
And then he does. The heavy footsteps. That rough, wet cough.
I hear the jangle of the key in the lock, and then the creak of the door as it opens. I screw my eyes shut tighter and I fist my hands in Mister Wellington’s fur. Emma’s arms tighten around me, and I can hear her breathing. Then I feel his hand on my hip, and I smell his sour breath near my ear.
“Your turn, girlie-girl.”
I freeze, then I remember Emma making me promise to pretend to be asleep no matter what. I tell myself I’m as still as a rock, I’m dreaming, I’m not moving at all.
“Is that so, you little bitch? Faking it, are you? We’ll see about that.”
Huge hands grab me around the waist, and I scream and scream and scream until the hands are gone and Emma is on top of me yelling and yelling, and I can’t understand what she’s saying until suddenly she’s gone, and I look up to see her skinny body flying through the air to land on the other bed.
He reaches for me again, but she hollers, “No! Me! Leave Eliza alone. I’ll do anything. I swear.”
Slowly, I feel him move away, until I can finally breathe the air again.
“Anything?” he says, in a voice from my nightmares. “Well, I think we can make that work out just fine.”
A tight arm hauls me up by the waist and plops me back down. “Open your eyes, girlie. Or it won’t be good for you and it’ll be even worse for your slut of a sister.”
I make whimpering sounds, and I hear Emma’s wet, raw whisper saying, “It’s okay, Eliza. I think you have to. I think we both do.”
He makes me watch. Every night he makes me sit up in bed and hug Mister Wellington tight and watch the nasty things he does to my sister. One hundred and fifty-seven times. I count them, then mark them in pencil on the wall after he leaves and while Emma washes off in the little bathtub in the corner of our closet of a room.
One hundred and fifty-seven times before Emma figures out what to do. Before she saves us.
Or at least, before she tries.
She picks the lock of that tiny room, and she leads the way down the stairs. We move slowly, careful not to let the floorboards creak.
And I can see the front door ahead of us. It’s open, and outside there’s sun and clouds and a perfect day. Right there.
We’re close. So very, very close.
That’s when Emma’s scream rips the air. When I see her fly past me down the stairs, tumbling into a broken pile of limbs and flesh and blood on the tiles below.
I turn away, horrified, and see him behind me. His bloodshot eyes. His crusty skin.
His lips curve into a hideous smile, and as I try to run, he grabs my arm and yanks me to him, then puts his mouth next to my ear as his hand slides down between my legs.
“You’re next,” he says, and I scream and I scream and I scream.
I wake in terror, my father’s arms tight around me.
I can’t get loose. I shake and I kick and I scream, but I—
“Eliza. Eliza, hush. It’s okay. He’s not here. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
Quincy.
I relax, and the strong arms surrounding me loosen a bit.
“It’s okay.” His voice is gentle. Soothing, and I press my face against his chest and breathe deep, my hands clutching tight to his shirt. One breath in, one breath out as Quincy gently strokes my hair, his touch as calming as his familiar scent.
“I’m sorry.” My words are muffled, but I don’t want to move. My heartbeat has slowed, and I feel safe now in his arms. “I’m sorry,” I repeat, my chest aching from the terror that had so recently pounded through me.
“Oh, love, no. There’s nothing to be sorry about.” There’s sympathy in his voice and understanding, and I melt just a little more.
“Do you want to tell me? Was it your father?”
Until Quincy, I’d never told anyone about my father. And I’ve never told anyone since.
Neither has Emma. Not even Lorenzo, who we both love and trust. Some things you have to hold painfully close, because they’re too dangerous to let out into the world.
I told Quincy because I loved him. Because he saw the scars on my soul and wanted to help me heal.
I trusted him. I guess maybe I still do, because I nod as his arms tighten around me. Then I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and try to describe the horror.
“He had me. He was dragging me back, and Emma was gone. He—he killed her. And I was all alone and I didn’t know how to fight him, and—”
“Shhh.” He lips brush my forehead, the touch gentle and sweet and achingly familiar. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
“Are you?” I know I shouldn’t, but I tilt my head up, wanting what I shouldn’t want, craving what I wish I didn’t need. Quincy is the only man who knows my secret past. The only one who has ever been able to tame my demons, and oh, dear Lord, I need him now. I want to slide under, to surrender completely, and let him take me to all those familiar places where I used to lose myself in his arms.
I want to bring the past back, and even if I can’t have forever I want right now. And in this moment, I don’t even hate myself for craving him so desperately.
His eyes meet mine, and I see the storm brewing. That familiar intensity, that controlled wildness, like a tempest in a bottle.
“Eliza,” he says, though what I hear is, no.
“Just one kiss,” I beg. “You owe me that much.”
He doesn’t answer, but my palm is pressed to his chest, and I feel the pounding of his heart. I feel his breath on my face and the heat of his skin against mine. I don’t know what happened to us, and I have no illusions that anything will ever be like it was again. But right now, I need to bring the past
back. I need to get lost in sweet memories, not in horrible, twisted ones.
I want Quincy, dammit, and I reach up, sliding my fingers through his coarse, dark hair. I’m never this bold, but I’ve spent more than four years craving something I couldn’t have. I’ve been starving, and I didn’t even know it.
He doesn’t resist as I tug his head toward me, and I’m ridiculously grateful. I crave his lips, his touch. My desire for him is as strong as it was all those years ago in London, and I’m not sure my ego would survive if he didn’t at least want me a little.
The air is charged between us, and I’m certain that I’m not imagining his desire. He wants this as much as I do, and that knowledge emboldens me. I brush my lips over his, a sweet, tentative touch. But I want so much more. I want what we had. His body pressed on top of me, his hands around my wrists, holding me still. The hard tension in his muscles as he takes what he wants, leaving me to surrender to the pure pleasure of being his.
I want that again. To be his. To belong. To feel.
I want it, yes, but right now, I will take whatever I can get, and if that is one single kiss then I’ll hold it close and cherish it forever. Just please, please, touch me now…!
The words pound through my head as I tease his lips, willing him to open to me. I don’t know what drew him away from me in London, and right now, I don’t care. Those days don’t exist. They don’t matter. All I have is this moment and my nightmare and Quincy. I need him. I need him to erase the horror.
“Please,” I whisper. “I’m begging you.”
I don’t know if it’s my words or my touch, but the dam breaks. His fingers slide into my hair as he holds my head steady. His mouth devours mine, tongue and teeth clashing as he takes and takes, and in the process is giving me exactly what I’ve been begging for.