A Broken Soul (The Pembrooke Series Book 3)

by Prince, Jessica

  “Quinn,” I breathed, lost to the moment, to the feel of him.

  The moment his name left my lips, he sat up, wrapping an arm around me tightly as he kissed me, long, deep, wet. It was as though he couldn’t get enough of our connection, like he needed to touch every part of me.

  “So good, baby. Always so fucking good. You’re unbelievable.”

  I cried out as my walls began to tighten around him, my release just within reach. I squeezed my eyes shut and began to ride him faster, chasing after that euphoria. “I’m close.”

  “I know, baby. I feel you. Eyes on me when you come. Give it to me, Lilly.” His hips began to lift off the bed, meeting me thrust for thrust, driving himself as deep as he could possibly go.

  I opened my eyes and stared straight into his green depths as I drove myself up and down on his thick cock. Something about this was different. Making love with Quinn was always amazing, but there was an intensity to it this time I’d never felt before. His gaze never wavered as he pushed me closer to the edge. It was so consuming that tears began to burn the backs of my eyes as I dove headfirst into the most extraordinary release I’d ever experienced. It wasn’t just physical. I felt it on every emotional level possible.

  A tear broke free as I cried out his name. He caught it with his lips, and I felt that action down to my soul. His mouth moved to mine just as his cock twitched and he groaned from deep within his throat as he began pouring himself inside of me.

  We took our time coming down, and several minutes later, he lifted me off him, softly placing me on the bed before going to the bathroom to get a wet rag to clean me with. He turned out the lights and pulled the covers from beneath me, climbed back in beside me and wrapped me in his embrace.

  The last thing I remember before sleep took over was whispering into the dark, “I love you.”

  Then I was out.

  Quinn

  “I LOVE YOU.”

  Those three beautiful words plunged into my chest like a knife, leaving a searing pain in their wake so excruciating I could barely breathe.

  Because I felt the same way.

  And I knew I’d just ruined everything. I’d betrayed Addison’s memory. I’d betrayed Lilly’s trust. I could never be the man to give her everything she deserved. She deserved more than a man with a broken soul.

  Actions had consequences. And because of my selfishness we were both going to pay the devastating price.

  I had no one to blame but myself.

  Lilly

  I WOKE WITH a shiver as a chill worked its way over me, causing goosebumps to break out across my skin.

  The bedroom was still bathed in darkness behind my eyelids, but I could hear the distinct sound of someone moving around. Reaching across the bed, I searched for Quinn’s warm body only to come up empty. My eyes popped open at the sound of rustling fabric, and I could just make out Quinn’s silhouette in the faint moonlight. Sitting up, I flicked on the bedside lamp flooding the room with soft golden light.

  Quinn froze with his jeans halfway up his thighs.

  “What are you doing?”

  At my question, he came out of his motionless state and finished with his pants, zipping and buttoning before bending back down to snatch his sweater off the floor.

  His voice was flat as he replied, “I need to go.”

  Dread coiled in my belly as I turned to look at the clock. “It’s two in the morning, Quinn. Sophia’s at a sleepover. Why don’t you come back to bed?” I asked, fearing his response. It was like I’d developed a sixth sense when it came to this contrary man. He was a walking, talking contradiction. In the very back of my mind, I finally heard the whispered sound of the other shoe dropping.

  He was suddenly devoid of all the emotion that had been bleeding from him just hours before. “I can’t. I shouldn’t have come here. This was a mistake.”

  My stomach plummeted. My heart sank. But the one thing I felt above all else was white-hot fury. He was not going to do this to me again.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I seethed, jumping from the bed and snatching my robe off the back of my bedroom door, using the thin silky fabric as a shield around myself.

  His movements were jerky as he yanked his arms through the sleeves of his shirt and pulled it over his head, leaving his hair in disarray.

  “I can’t do this anymore, Lilly,” he sighed, his large frame slumping in defeat. “I can’t be the man you deserve. I don’t have it in me to give what you want. If you’d have just been happy with the way things were—”

  “Oh, I know you’re not blaming me right now,” I cut in, crossing my arms over my chest in order to hold myself together.

  He grabbed the back of his neck and turned away from me. “No, I’m not blaming you. This all just got so… goddamned complicated! I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, Lilly. I keep hurting you no matter how hard I try not to.”

  “Then stop doing it!” I cried, blinking rapidly against the tears that wanted to fall.

  “It’s not that easy,” he stated with a heavy frown.

  “Yes, Quinn. It is. I know what happened tonight was intense and scary,” I said, pointing toward the bed where he’d made love to me only a handful of hours before. “It was the same for me. But I saw it in your eyes. You felt the difference just like I did.”

  He held my gaze, his lips in a firm, hard line. He couldn’t argue, he knew I was right. I closed the gap between us, balling his sweater in my fists. “I love you,” I whispered.

  “Stop.”

  “And I know you love me, too. But you’re too fucking terrified to admit it.” I continued when I got nothing but more silence. “But if you’d just let me help, let me be here for you, you’d see how great this could be.”

  His fingers wrapped around my wrists, pulling my hands away as he took a step back. “You deserve someone better than me.”

  “I deserve to be with to be with the man I love!” I fought back.

  He broke eye contact and studied the ground at his feet for several seconds before saying, “Look, I’m sorry—”

  I lost my mind. “Stop saying that!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Jesus Christ, Quinn! Do you get off on ripping me apart? Is that what this is? Some sick fucking fantasy where you see how many pieces you can cut from me before there’s nothing left?”

  “Of course not!”

  I ran my fingers through my hair and balled it in my fists. I was teetering dangerously close to the edge of insanity, and it was all his fault. He just kept hurting me over and over. And I kept fucking letting him!

  “So this is it.” It wasn’t a question. I didn’t need to ask. Despite what my actions would lead most people to believe, I wasn’t stupid, I knew what he was doing. “You’re just going to walk away, again.”

  His expression grew devastated as he whispered, “I wish it could be different.”

  I laughed without an ounce of humor. “And I wish I wasn’t in love with such a coward. Looks like neither of us gets what we want.”

  I stood stiff as a board as he picked up his socks and shoes, tucking them under his arm before giving me one last brief glimpse before he turned for the bedroom door. But I couldn’t leave it like that. I had one last thing to say.

  “I hope your misery keeps you warm at night.” He paused as I continued. “Because I’m so done with this shit. You walk out that door, you don’t look back. I won’t be your doormat anymore, Quinn. If you’d rather be a pathetic shell of a man for the rest of your life, have at it. I’m done letting you walk all over me.”

  His head dropped down, and his shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. “I’m so sorry.”

  It was too late. I didn’t care. “So am I, more than you could possibly know. I’m sorry I ever opened my heart to you. Now get the fuck out.”

  The echo of my front door opening and closing put the final nail in the coffin that was our relationship.

  I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night. I spent the next several hour
s curled up on my couch, staring out the window at nothing. And as the sun finally began to rise over my sleepy mountain town, I picked up my phone and scrolled through my contacts.

  As soon as Eliza’s groggy voice came through the line, I broke down into tears. Once I was finally able to speak again, I gave her the whole truth about every depressing, heartbreaking thing that had been going on in my life, pouring out every single detail of my time with Quinn. I sobbed, I cussed, I yelled. And she listened to everything I had to say, once again, giving me exactly what I needed.

  Even from over five hundred miles away.

  Lilly

  “OH, SWEETIE. WE’VE got to find a way to turn that frown upside down.”

  I looked up from tracing random patterns on the scarred wooden top of my desk and offered Kyle a pathetic excuse for a smile. He scowled in return. “That’s not going to cut it, beautiful.”

  “Sorry,” I offered. I felt bad, honestly. I’d been a pain to be around for the past several weeks. Honestly, I was shocked that Kyle and Samantha hadn’t gotten tired of my doom and gloom demeanor yet and kicked me out of my own studio. I was seriously bringing the morale of the place down. Hell, I’d spent Christmas and New Year’s moping around my parents’ house like someone had just kicked my puppy. They watched on with equal concern, but neither of them pushed, giving me space to come to them if I needed it.

  Eventually, on New Year’s Day I sat down with my father and told the story once more for him as Mom flittered around the kitchen cooking our traditional New Year’s dinner. He offered me a steady shoulder, but kept his opinions of Quinn to himself, telling me he’d said all he needed to say the night of the Winter Showcase; that I was a grownup who was going to travel my own paths, but at the end of the day he’d be there for me no matter what.

  “I’ve just got a lot on my mind,” I said to Kyle.

  He walked through the doorway and plopped down in the torn leather chair across from my desk. “I’d say. You’ve got about six feet, three inches, and 22o pound of muscular man on your mind. Yeah, babe. That’s a lot.”

  I rolled my eyes to the ceiling and sat back in exasperation. “What’s wrong with me, Kyle? It’s been a month. Why am I still hung up on a guy who never really wanted me in the first place?”

  His eyes grew sympathetic as he studied me. I was not going to cry. I wasn’t! I’d cried more than any sane human being thought possible these past few months. I couldn’t risk another tear. I’d more than likely die of dehydration.

  “Honey bun, that’s easy. It’s because you love him.”

  I dropped my head into my hands with a groan. “I do. Damn it. It’s so easy to fall into love, but fucking impossible to fall out. It’s not fair, Kyle!”

  “If it’s any consolation, he does want you.”

  I snorted at that. “You’re wrong.”

  Sitting forward in the chair, he propped his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together. “I’m not. That man was crazy about you, but he’s broken, Lil. Undeniably so. I’ve never seen a man more shattered before, and that’s really saying something, seeing as I’m a gay man who was raised in a strict Southern Baptist household. Talk about being shattered.”

  “I just…” I pulled a deep breath in through my nose and let it out on a heavy, heart-sick sigh. “I wanted to help him. Every time I got close enough to help fix things he’d push me away.”

  “Oh, sweetheart.” His tone was so soft, so full of sympathy that my eyes began to burn. “You can’t fix a man like that.”

  One lone tear broke free and slid down my cheek. Sniffling, I batted it away and looked over at Kyle angrily. “So, what? He’s just supposed to walk around living half a life until the day he dies? How is that fair, Kyle? Explain that to me.”

  Standing from the chair, he made his way around the desk and squatted down so he could wrap his arms around me. “I didn’t say that,” he whispered. “What I mean is, you can’t fix a man like that. But you can try to be what he needs in order to make him want to fix himself.”

  The heaviness of my emotions was too much to bear at the moment, the weight of everything sat on me like bricks. I needed to lighten the tension, so pulling out of Kyle’s arms, I gave a small laugh and asked, “So you’re like a gay Gandhi now?”

  Being a good enough friend to know exactly what I was doing, he gave me the out I was in desperate need of and teased back. “Don’t hate on my mad intellectual skills.”

  I let out a watery laugh and stood up, wrapping my arms around Kyle’s trim waist and resting my head on his chest as he returned my hug. Kyle really gave the best hugs. “Thanks.”

  “Anything, honey bun. You know that.”

  We pulled apart, Kyle heading for the door as I set about locking up the studio for the night. My cellphone rang just as I hit the back stairs to my apartment.

  “Hey Mom, what’s up?”

  “Sweetheart.”

  Her voice cracked on that one word, the tears so evident in her voice that every fiber in my body froze, my blood running cold.

  The hairs on my arm stood on end as I asked the question I dreaded the answer to. “Mom? What’s wrong?”

  “Honey, I need… I need you to come home. Your father…”

  “No,” I shook my head frantically as uncontrollable tears broke free. “No. No!”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said on a pained whisper. “I’m so, so sorry sweetheart.”

  “Daddy…” I dropped to my knees and sobbed through the line as my heart broke in two.

  All it took was one phone call; that was it. One single phone call for my entire world to…

  Just stop.

  And the worst part was, the one person I wanted to seek comfort in was still so out of reach.

  Quinn

  I COULDN’T REMEMBER the last time I’d ever been so mentally and physically exhausted. The warehouse on the outskirts of town had been abandoned for years, and the county had been considering tearing it down for a while now, but with all the junk that had accumulated inside over the years, the goddamned place had gone up like a match.

  It had been fully engulfed by the time we got there, and there was no chance any of us were getting inside. Cap had called for a defensive attack as soon as we got on scene, so we spent hours trying to keep it contained so it wouldn’t spread to the other buildings around it.

  By the time we put the son of a bitch out and got back to the station, it was shift change. We cleaned and restocked the engine and restacked the hose before heading for the showers, and when I finally made it to my truck, I was dead on my feet. I was thankful my mom was getting Sophia to school this morning, because I couldn’t imagine anything but going home and collapsing face down in my bed and passing out for the next several hours.

  Tossing my duffle bag into the passenger seat, I climbed in, slammed the door, and started the engine, ready to get home. Just as I pulled out of the parking lot, my phone pinged from inside my duffle. Keeping my eyes on the road, I unzipped the bag with one hand and fished around inside. The ping was an alert, letting me know I had a missed call.

  I had expected the calls to be from my mom or Sophia, but something in my gut tightened at the sight of that little number 2 next to Lilly’s name. We’d barely spoken five words to each other in the month that had passed since I ended things, so seeing that she had called twice in the span of just a few hours set me on edge. As I swiped my screen and thumbed to her contacts, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

  Her phone rang one time before going straight to voicemail and that knot in my stomach began to sour. I hung up and hit redial three more times to the exact same result. Suddenly, the idea of sleep no longer held any appeal. I needed to know where Lilly was, that she was safe.

  Turning my truck in the opposite direction of my house, I headed for Main, going faster than the allotted speed limit. As soon as Lilly’s dance school came into view, I whipped my truck into the first available space and jumped from the cab as s
oon as I pulled the key from the ignition.

  The blinds were lifted, letting me know the school was open, but the main studio was empty. I shoved through the glass doors at a near run, my eyes scanning over every square inch of the lobby as a startled Kyle looked at me like I’d just grown a second head. “Quinn? Where’s the fire, man?”

  “Where is she?”

  His head cocked to the side as his forehead creased in confusion. The tension in my gut tightened at his silence. “What?”

  “Lilly,” I snapped, quickly losing patience. “She called me but I was at work…” I dragged my hands through my hair as that feeling of helplessness grew. I knew something wasn’t right. “I missed the calls. I tried calling her back this morning, but it’s going straight to voicemail. Is she okay? Did something happen?”

  A wave of sadness washed over Kyle’s face. “She’s not here, Quinn. She’s in Jackson Hole.” At that, my heart stopped, because I knew. “Her father passed away last night.”

  “Shit,” I hissed as I began to pace. Her father had died, the one thing she’d feared for so long had finally happened… and she’d reached out to me. And I hadn’t been there for her. “Thanks,” I muttered quickly, as I turned and bolted out the door. As soon as I got into my truck, I pulled my phone from the cup holder and hit call on the number.

  “Quinn?”

  “Mom, I need a favor,” I spoke quickly as I headed down Main back toward my house. “Do you think you could keep Sophia for a few more days? There’s somewhere I need to be.”

  Lilly

  IT WAS LIKE I was living in some sort of haze. Everyone around me was moving and talking, but I could barely make out the shapes and sounds over my own grief. My dad should have been there. He should have been playing host to all the extended family that was currently filling up my parents’ house. He was always so good at making everyone feel welcome.