Always My Girl (The Shaughnessy Brothers)

by Samantha Chase

  “But I miss you,” she whispered and then her head lolled to the side and she let out a soft snore.

  It wasn’t much.

  Hell, it was barely audible.

  But those few words gave Quinn more hope than he’d had in a very long time. Standing up, he covered her with a blanket, turned out the light, and left the room so she could sleep. Out in the living room, he got things in motion to get her car towed to the shop and to have all the tires checked.

  Once that was done, he made a few other calls—and woke a bunch of people up—to let them know he wasn’t coming in to the shop today, he’d be in touch, and he wasn’t to be disturbed unless it was an absolute emergency.

  He put the phone down and looked toward his bedroom door. Anna was here and he wasn’t going to let her leave until they finally talked things out. He’d given her the space she asked for, and ever since that kiss two weeks ago, he’d barely been able to think straight.

  He loved her.

  That wasn’t going away, and it wasn’t going to change.

  And after hearing her small admission that she missed him, Quinn was hopeful that maybe Anna still loved him too. Somehow, they had to make things work out. Yeah, he had a little explaining to do—like why he’d been out on a date—but she’d been out on one too! After seeing her at the café with that guy—who he now knew was Dan Michaels—Quinn had gone a little crazy.

  The date had been a mistake. He’d known it as soon as he’d agreed to it. Sandy was someone he’d gone out with a time or two a long time ago, and when he’d run into her that same afternoon and she’d invited him to go for drinks, he’d said yes mainly out of desperation. It had killed him to think of Anna with someone else, but he knew if she was moving on, he had no choice but to move on as well.

  But after he had kissed Anna in the ladies’ room, Quinn knew he couldn’t do it. He’d gone back out to the bar and faked an emergency at the shop and left. Sandy hadn’t seemed overly upset and he hadn’t heard from her since.

  It wasn’t until a week later that Aidan fessed up and told him how Anna really wasn’t dating Dan and it had been a business meeting. Quinn wanted to kick himself. She had essentially told him the same thing in the bathroom, but he’d been too riled up to listen. Seeing Dan with his arm around her and sitting so close to her in the pub had pretty much pushed every one of his buttons.

  And now look where he was.

  A quivering mass who was afraid to go into his own bedroom. Anna had obviously had a rough night, and the last thing he wanted to do was upset her even more.

  Unfortunately, for the first time in months, he genuinely felt ready to go to sleep. He looked over at his couch and grimaced. It was too small and it wasn’t comfortable. He kicked off his shoes and poured himself a glass of juice. He finished it in two great big gulps and then looked toward the bedroom again. He wanted to sleep, and he wanted to hold Anna while he did it.

  “Of course you do, you selfish bastard,” he cursed himself. “Glad to see you’re only thinking of yourself, as usual.”

  Yeah, he pretty much despised himself right now.

  Walking around the house, he locked up and turned off the few lights he’d turned on. It was a little after six in the morning, and he had a feeling Anna was going to sleep until at least noon. He had a second bedroom and Quinn had resigned himself to sleeping in there when he heard Anna call his name. It was soft at first, then a little louder.

  Cautiously, he opened the bedroom door and stepped inside. “You okay?” he whispered.

  “What…? How did I get here?”

  Quinn sat down on the edge of the bed, not trusting himself to get too close to her. “I just happened to be heading in to the shop early and I found you parked on the side of the road. What happened?”

  Slowly, Anna sat up and ran a hand through her hair and Quinn could tell she was still disoriented. “What time is it?”

  “It’s a little after six.”

  “We had Bobby’s going away party at the pub last night. I stayed afterward, to talk with Steve.” She yawned. “I didn’t leave until after three. I blew a tire. I tried calling everyone and no one answered.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?” he asked softly.

  She gave him a wry look. “I know how to change a tire. It was just a little more…challenging when it was pitch-black out.”

  “So you changed the tire?”

  She nodded and yawned. “It took me over an hour. By the time I was done, I was near delirious. I guess that’s when you found me.”

  “I’m glad I did.” He was almost shaking with the thought of what would have happened if he hadn’t come along at that point. “I’m glad you didn’t try to drive home.”

  “Speaking of…I really do need to get home. I’m exhausted and…and…and I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Anna, it’s really early and you’re exhausted, and to be honest, so am I. I was just going to the guest room to grab a couple hours of sleep.”

  “But you just said you had been heading to the shop,” she reminded him.

  He nodded. “I was, but you scared the hell out of me and I haven’t been sleeping well, and suddenly I feel like I might actually be able to sleep.”

  “Oh.”

  He looked at her, studying her face in the dimly lit room. She was so beautiful. How had he looked at her face for so many years and not realized that?

  Anna made no attempt to lie back down.

  Quinn made no attempt to get up and leave the room.

  He saw her swallow hard and then lick her lips. He wanted to do that for her—lick her lips and then every inch of her. But it was too soon to hope he’d ever be allowed to do that again. He willed her to say something, anything—preferably to ask him to stay—but she just continued to watch him warily.

  Resigned, he stood. “Get some sleep. I’ll take you to get your car later. Don’t be mad but I had it towed to the shop. You know, just so it wouldn’t be sitting there on the road. You need to be safe.”

  Silently, she nodded.

  So did he. “Okay then.” Quinn turned to leave the room when Anna whispered his name. He stopped and looked over at her. “Are you okay? Do you need something? I put a glass of water on the nightstand for you.”

  “Don’t go.”

  If he hadn’t been watching her, he wouldn’t have been sure she had indeed spoken the words. He sighed her name.

  “Please.”

  And then he was lost to anything and everything but Anna. He pulled his shirt over his head and watched as she slowly stood and peeled her jeans off. He followed her lead, and in seconds, he was down to nothing but his boxer briefs. Anna did that funky little trick where she took her bra off without taking her shirt off. He loved that trick but would have loved seeing her without a shirt too.

  Crawling back into the bed, Anna lay back and waited for him. Unsure of how he was going to survive being this close to her and just sleeping, he said a silent prayer and then climbed in beside her.

  Without asking, she curled up beside him—her head on his shoulder, her hand over his heart. Which was just as well, because it belonged to her.

  * * *

  The next time Anna opened her eyes, she really believed she was still dreaming. She was in Quinn’s bed, in his arms, and everything seemed just right. Sighing happily, she snuggled closer. She loved these dreams. In them, they were always still together and he loved her and had begged her to take him back—after she’d made him grovel for a little while.

  Yeah, she loved these dreams.

  His arm tightened around her, and if it was possible, that one simple act made her feel a myriad of emotions—safe, protected, cherished. Another sigh. Her thigh was wrapped around his. In her dreams, they were both always naked—mainly because of the hot and steamy sex they always had. But when she shifted her leg, she could feel his
boxer briefs. Then she moved again and realized she had on a T-shirt.

  Oh crap… Everything came crashing back to her. The party. The tire. Quinn. Her mind began to scramble for a way out—a way to excuse her practically begging him to sleep with her without making her look pathetic. Plus, she really wanted to leave just in case one of his new girlfriends decided to drop by. Ugh…that would just about kill her.

  “I never thought someone’s brain could be so loud, Anna, but yours could compete with a freight train,” Quinn murmured right before placing a kiss on the top of her head.

  She squirmed against him, but Quinn held her firm. “I need to get up.”

  “No.”

  She struggled a little harder and cursed a blue streak when he wrapped his other arm around her. “Dammit, Quinn…let me up!”

  “I don’t think so,” he said mildly.

  With a loud sigh, she ceased moving. “Fine. Happy now?”

  “Did you sleep okay?”

  Anna wanted to punch him. Like seriously inflict major pain on him. “I guess.”

  “Mmm…good,” he said.

  They lay there like that until Anna was certain she’d go mad. “You can’t keep me here forever, you know. Eventually you’ll have to move.”

  “I’m not so sure. I’m pretty content just like this. I don’t have any place to go and no one’s gonna call, so…really, I’m good.”

  Yeah, she was gonna punch him hard. “Dammit, Quinn, come on. Maybe you don’t have anything to do today, but I do.” His grasp instantly loosened, and she took full advantage to put some distance between them and sit up. Frantically, she looked around the room and spotted her jeans and bra, and was about to swing her legs out of the bed when Quinn reached out and put a hand on her arm.

  “Don’t,” he said softly. “Not yet.”

  Anna looked over at the clock—it was almost one in the afternoon—and groaned. “It’s late. I need to get my car.” When she met his gaze, she saw the defeated look on his face—it was something she’d never seen before. And suddenly, she didn’t feel so good about herself or about how she was just thinking about him. She started to say his name, but he was rolling out of the bed and pulling his jeans on.

  “Just give me five minutes and we’ll go,” he said as he walked out of the room.

  That was it? He wasn’t going to argue with her or force her to listen to him? She looked around in confusion—as if she were in the middle of a Twilight Zone episode. Jumping up from the bed, she stepped over her pile of clothes and walked out of the room after him.

  Why she couldn’t just be thankful he was being agreeable she couldn’t say. But for some reason, his quiet acceptance was more irritating, more insulting than his arguments ever were.

  “So that’s it?” she called after him. He was standing in the middle of his living room and he turned and looked at her in confusion. “You hold me in a death grip, telling me I can’t leave, and then just—”

  “Agree and let you leave?” he finished for her, but there was very little emotion in his voice.

  “Well…yeah.” She studied him. He’d lost weight, he needed a haircut, and…he bore little resemblance to the man she’d always known.

  He shrugged. “What is it you want from me, Anna?” he asked sadly. “When I argue with you, you’re pissed. When I playfully disagree with you, you’re pissed. And when I give you exactly what you ask for, you’re pissed. Baby, I can’t seem to win. So if you’ll just tell me exactly what it is you want, I’ll do it. I’d do anything for you, Anna.”

  Slowly, she advanced on him, her eyes never leaving his. When she was only inches away, she stopped.

  For a minute, Quinn looked hopeful—like he took it as a good sign she wasn’t fighting with him and maybe, just maybe she was coming to him to hold him, hug him, forgive him.

  He was wrong.

  With everything she had, Anna reared back and punched him in the stomach. His loud oomph filled the room as he staggered backward. “What do I want from you?” she cried. “I want to know why it is you can go from being this amazing man one minute to a colossal jackass the next!”

  “What? When…?”

  “Every day, all the time,” she responded sarcastically. “Do you have any idea how many changes I put myself through to be the perfect woman for you, you big jerk?”

  “I never asked you to!” he said defensively. “There wasn’t anything wrong with you!”

  She punched him again—this time in the arm.

  Hard enough that her knuckles stung.

  “I changed the way I dressed! The way I did my hair! My job! Hell, I even took some stupid classes on automotive repair so we’d have that in common! And you know what? I hated it! All that engine grease and dirt—it was disgusting!”

  “You said you enjoyed learning about all that stuff!” he argued.

  “Yeah, well…” She huffed. “Okay, it was interesting. But I don’t want to make a career out of it. And that’s not the point! I did so much and made myself crazy to get your attention! But did you even notice? No!”

  Quinn quickly stepped back and moved behind one of the living room chairs to put some distance between them. “I didn’t know! I never wanted you to change, Anna! You were perfect the way you were!”

  “Clearly I wasn’t!” she argued and began to walk toward him. She chuckled when he looked around for an escape route. “For years I did everything I could to make you see me—really see me—but you didn’t. And then finally—finally!—you did, and I still wasn’t enough for you!”

  He held up a hand to stop her advance. “That’s not true. Anna, I swear. It’s not true.”

  Something in his tone made her stop. She waited for him to continue.

  “You know me better than anyone, Anna. You know me better than my own family—you always have. I may come off as being confident and self-centered, but I’m really not. I’m afraid to fail. I’ve always been afraid to fail. And if I ever think there’s a chance of that happening, I bail.” He shared with her the conversation he’d had with his father. “And then there was you.”

  She looked at him quizzically. “Why would we fail?”

  He stepped out from behind the chair with a bit of fire in his eyes as he turned the tables and began to advance on her. “Why would we fail? You mean other than the fact that every single person we know pointed out how I didn’t deserve you? Like I wasn’t good enough to even touch you? Or maybe because no matter what I tried, I was never going to be as considerate and thoughtful toward you as you are to me? And believe me, people had a field day reminding me of that one!”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? You know, you and I used to tell each other everything. Some would say we shared too much! But as soon as we went from being friends to lovers, you stopped talking to me!”

  “I did not!” he denied fiercely. “We talked every day, all damn day!”

  “No, we talked about safe stuff—work, what we wanted to eat, or what movie we wanted to watch, the basics—but you never shared with me how much everyone was freaking you out. Not until I pushed. And I never had to do that before.”

  His shoulders sagged. “When have you ever known me to admit a weakness?” He waited a moment and before she could answer, he added, “But I never had to with you—because you always knew. You knew and you helped me. Only now…now you weren’t looking, and I felt like you were judging me for them.”

  “Me?”

  He nodded. “For as long as we’ve known each other, we talked about everything, and you stopped talking just as much as I did. And when everyone was making those comments about me not being good enough for you, you didn’t exactly correct them.”

  “What was I supposed to say?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, how about that I was good enough? Or maybe that you loved me for who I am and not some stupid image everyone had built up fo
r you?”

  He had a point there. She hadn’t said a whole lot to defend him. Wait…he almost had her again! “So because I wasn’t playing cheerleader for you, I deserved to be taken for granted?”

  “I’m not perfect, Anna!” he shouted and raked a hand through his hair. He began to pace and let out a growl of frustration. “I’m never going to be perfect! And you know what? I didn’t think I would have to be with you! Everywhere we ever went when we were just friends, no one questioned us being together. But suddenly I’ve got my arm around you or look at you differently, and all of a sudden people are looking at me like I’ve committed some federal offense by touching you! Do you know how it made me feel?”

  Anna opened her mouth to speak, but he stopped her.

  “But now? Being without you all this time? I’d gladly take the comments, the looks, the sneers…all of it. I’ll take it, and hell, I even agree with them. I don’t deserve you. I never deserved you. But I need you.” His voice cracked. “I love you, Anna. I know I screwed up and I hurt you, but if you could find it in your heart to give me another chance, I promise to spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

  “Quinn,” she sighed.

  “I sent Jake’s cars back,” he said quickly. “I never should have agreed to work on them. Even though you said it was okay, I should have known you were being selfless—for me. I was so busy paying attention to what I wanted for the business that I let you down. I don’t need that kind of fame and attention. Not if I have you.”

  “Quinn,” she said a little more firmly, a smile beginning to form.

  “I know I’m begging… Hell, I’m groveling. I’m not good at it, and you’re probably wishing you could just leave—my truck keys are on the counter. You can take them and go. I won’t stop you.” He shook his head. “I should have just taken you home earlier. I took away your choices—again. Shit. See? I’m standing here talking about trying not to screw up and I’m even screwing that up!” He closed his eyes and turned away from her. “Really…just take the keys and—”

  Anna’s lips claiming his stopped his words. She had to work a little harder to get him to give in, but once he did, he simply consumed her. Quinn’s arms instantly banded around her, pulling her close, and he kissed her until they were both falling to their knees, gasping for air.