by Kaily Hart
“Ward—”
“Shhhh. Be sure, Quinn,” he breathed, his hot breath a shiver against her neck. “Be sure before you turn around, or…”
She pushed again and he eased his weight from her just enough that she could turn in the cage of his arms.
Her breath caught. His features were set in harsh lines, his eyes dark, his jaw flexing. There was aggression in every line of his body. He might look rough and dangerous, but she knew with everything in her she was safest when she was with him.
“Or?” she whispered.
“Or…” His eyelids flickered, but his gaze didn’t waver from hers. “You might just break my heart here and…”
Her pulse was a roar in her ears and all the air sucked from her lungs.
“See, here’s the thing,” she whispered. “I lo—”
She gasped when he put a hard finger against her lips. He closed his eyes briefly before they flicked back open and Quinn’s stomach jolted at the look in his eyes, a look she’d never seen before. Dark, hot, possessive.
“Christ, Quinn, you deserve someone else, someone…more, better. You deserve someone who…”
“You know what I deserve?” She licked dry lips and tried to ignore the shaft of heat that arrowed through her when his gaze dropped to her mouth. “I deserve someone who loves me unconditionally, who would do anything for me, who’ll protect me. I deserve someone who’d rip their own arm off before they’d ever hurt me or let anyone else hurt me. Are you telling me you think there’s someone out there—another guy—who’ll do that for me better than you could?”
No.
The word screamed inside him, reverberating around inside his skull until he could barely think, had to close his eyes against the sensation.
He shook his head. “I’m not a…fun guy, Quinn. I’m no one’s idea of a good time. I don’t flirt. I don’t dance. I don’t do small talk. Hell, I don’t even smile most of the time. For me? ‘Happy’ is a foreign concept and I wouldn’t know how to do ‘carefree’ if my fucking life depended on it.”
“Hey, I don’t flirt either. It’s not in my DNA and trust me, you don’t want anywhere near me when I dance, but if I did, and you were, you’d so be smiling, probably laughing out loud. Trust me on this.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up despite strict instructions that he was keeping a straight face. Quinn dancing? Who knew what could happen?
He took a deep breath. He was serious here, damn it. So, against all odds he found her funny, she could make him smile on occasion, even laugh. She made him feel lighter than he’d ever felt, even before all the crap he’d dealt with, was still dealing with.
“I’ll give you the small talk thing,” she added. “I have that down, but you’re still wrong,” she added. “One hundred percent dead wrong.”
He let out a ragged breath. “About what specifically?”
She looked him up and down and damn if she didn’t pause to stare at his crotch. “You’re a good time all right.”
Ward felt some of the tension leave him. Yeah, she somehow managed to do that too, but the thing was…the stuff he dealt with on a daily basis? Who’d want to sign up for that ride?
“I’m banged up, moody and antisocial. And they’re my good qualities. On a good day. Why the fuck would you want someone like that?”
“I don’t exactly come without my own baggage and the pushing everyone away act doesn’t work on me.”
“It’s no act.”
“Sure it is. And that’s okay. I get it, but I made it past the outer barrier. You let me in.”
He made a last-ditch attempt. It was fucking halfhearted at best. He knew it as well as she would as soon as the words left his mouth. “I don’t play well with others, Quinn, not anymore.”
“I’ve noticed. But?”
Yeah, she’d know there was a ‘but’. He scrubbed his hand down his face, fought to ignore the ball of dread in his gut. Aw, what the hell?
“But I let you close anyway,” he forced out. “I never meant to do that.”
“I know,” she whispered. “And?”
Every muscle in his body tightened, he ground his jaw, clenched his fists. Yeah, and?
Time to man up, Andrade.
He zeroed his gaze in on hers. “And now I need you like I need air to fucking breathe.”
There. Jesus, he was a headcase. On top of everything else, now she probably thought he was nuts because she was still looking at him, eyes wide, cheeks pale, as if it was the last thing she’d been expecting him to say.
“Anyone ever tell you you have a real way with words?” she murmured.
“Nope. But you’re the teacher so I’ll take your word for it. And…why the hell are you smiling? You think me laying my heart out in the open to you is funny?”
Actually, she looked as if she was glowing from the inside. Man, had he done that?
She laughed. “Because you’ve gone from no way in hell is this ‘us thing’ happening, to you can’t live without me. And…is that what you’re doing?”
He sighed. “You’re hell on my ego, Quinn.”
She tilted her head to the side. “I’d say I’m just what you need.”
Yeah and he’d never be able to put into words just how much. Maybe ever. But man, he could show her. He could show her how much she meant to him, how much he was sorry for the dumbass things he’d said to her. She deserved a hell of a lot more than that from him. She deserved…everything.
He cleared his throat. “I have something for you.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the kitchen, the slide of her small, soft hand within his, so trusting, made him feel like the most powerful fucking guy in the world.
“I’ve had it awhile,” he added.
He dropped her hand and jerked open his junk drawer, taking out the small, white box. Actually, he’d been carrying it around with him until he didn’t feel like a complete idiot giving it to her. That time had never come.
“I’m—I’m likely to fuck everything up, but…” He thrust the box at her. “Here.”
She took the box from him, her fingers brushing his. Maybe he should have wrapped it, put it in a bag, something. None of that had seemed right, though.
Most people would have looked at it, wondered what it was, maybe gone ahead and just opened it. Not Quinn. Of course. She was looking all right—but at him—in her I-can-see-right-into-your-soul way. Or maybe that look was only reserved for him?
“You bought me something.”
“Yeah,” he forced out.
He’d never bought a gift for a woman before, the thought had never even occurred to him and maybe, just maybe, it’d been the dumbest thing he’d ever done but he’d seen it and bought it on impulse. Another first. He just kept racking them up with her.
“Are you going to open it or stare into my eyes all day?”
His gut churned as she flipped open the lid but the tension drawing his muscles tight eased when she smiled.
She lifted the necklace up and laughed at the silver four leaf clover hanging from the delicate chain. His heart skipped a beat at the sound. And at the look in her eyes.
“Figured I could use all the luck I can get, huh?” she murmured.
“Absolutely.”
She looked at him then, her gaze clear and direct in that way that immediately got his attention.
“You’re mine, Ward. You were meant to be mine and I was meant to be yours. And I love every moody, antisocial inch of you.”
The punch to his gut was fast and sharp and just like that everything inside him got quiet, calmed.
“Put it on me?”
Ward looked at the tiny clasp. Shit. Another first.
She handed him the necklace, turned and lifted her hair up. He swallowed at the curve of her neck, the smell of her hair as he leaned closer and the softness of her skin against the backs of his fingers.
His. The word pumped through him, made his hands shake, because he’d never thought in those terms bef
ore, hadn’t ever allowed himself to, but that’s exactly what she was.
“I never thought I’d ever have a woman I’d want to call my own,” he whispered, his voice rough and unsteady. “I never thought I’d want one. Maybe I never felt I deserved one.”
She put her hand over the pendant and curled her fingers around it once he’d finally managed to fasten the chain. “I’m never going to take it off, you know,” she murmured. “Not ever.”
“Yeah.” He swallowed at the intensity in her voice, the promise that underlined every word. “I’m kind of counting on it.”
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed NAIL DOWN, the second book in my Men Out of Uniform series. Have you read PIN DOWN, book one? You can find it HERE. Keep on the lookout for Jake’s story in TAKE DOWN, out in early 2016.
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