“I’m sorry, love,” he said, swiping at his watering eyes with the back of his hand. “It shouldn’t be funny, but it is.”
She’d happily tell him all the gory details of every embarrassment she’d ever faced to get him to laugh, she realized. He looked younger when he laughed. Less troubled. “I get it. Believe me.”
“What about the most recent one? The arsehole Harper told me about?”
“Nothing funny there, I’m afraid. Just cliché. Boyfriend cheats on girlfriend with secretary. Boyfriend dumps girlfriend before she gets the chance to dump him first.” She shrugged. “No great loss, really.”
His expression turned serious as he reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I should think I owe him one. If he hadn’t royally fucked up the best thing he’ll ever see in his life, I wouldn’t be here with you right now.”
“Maybe our luck is changing after all,” she whispered.
One corner of his mouth quirked up in a hint of a smile that would’ve weakened her knees if she’d been standing.
“Aye, love. That it is.”
Chapter Twelve
Quinn wasn’t all that surprised when their conversation turned to his past. He’d avoided it as long as he could. She’d been so open with him that he’d be a complete dick if he didn’t reciprocate. He wouldn’t keep things from her now, even though common sense told him he should.
So, after they covered favorite TV shows (Supernatural for her, Game of Thrones for him), movies (The Princess Bride for her, The Bourne Identity for him), favorite music (classic rock for her, metal for him), and favorite superheroes (Iron Man for her, Batman for him), she asked him the question he’d been stealthily avoiding since their very first conversation.
“Are you going to tell me why you were in prison, or are you going to keep avoiding the subject?” she asked.
So much for stealth.
He twirled a strand of her long, thick hair around his index finger and sighed. “I’m not trying to keep secrets from you, love. I just didn’t want to ruin the moment.”
More like he didn’t want her to realize she’d just shared her time and perfect body with a common street thug who’d deserved every second of his prison sentence. Didn’t want her to stop looking at him like he was worthy of her.
She raised a brow at him. “You do realize that my brother-in-law is an ex-con, right? And Seven? She’s an ex-con, too. So is Nikolai, who just happens to be my best friend’s husband. We’re not terribly judge-y about that kind of thing in my family. If you give me a little bit of trust and the truth, I think you’ll find I’m pretty open-minded.”
Well, when she put it like that, how could he not tell her anything she wanted to know?
He cleared his throat. “I was, oh, I don’t know, maybe six when I went started slayer training with Sentry. I don’t remember much of anything about my life up until that point. My file with Sentry said I was born just outside of Dublin and that my mum was killed in a car crash. My da turned me over to Sentry right after that.”
“Why would he do that?” she asked quietly. “You were just a baby.”
Quinn had long ago stopped trying to figure out his father’s motives. What difference did it make now? “My mum had been a dhampyre like me, but my da was just a regular human. He apparently didn’t know what to do with the likes of me. He might’ve thought he was doing the best thing for me when he turned me over. Who knows?”
Marina made a disgusted noise that let him know what she thought of that theory. Her disgruntlement on his behalf meant more to him than he cared to analyze at the moment. So he went on, “Basically, when Sentry disbanded, all I’d ever known was slaying. Hunting. To say I was out of sorts when I no longer had a purpose would be an understatement.”
It would be more accurate to say he drank himself into a stupor every night, made some very questionable decisions, and woke up on a stranger’s lawn more times than he cared to admit. Sometimes without his pants. But he figured that info fell into the TMI category. He wanted to be honest with Marina, but shit, he didn’t want to be that honest.
“What did you do for work?” she asked.
“Oh, this and that. Took some construction work here and there. Was a bouncer at a bar in Cicero until I bounced someone a little too hard and got fired.” He hadn’t intended to toss the drunk who was ass-grabbing any waitress who walked by through the bar’s front window. But, hey, shit happened.
“But back then,” he went on, “the anti-Sentry sentiment was way worse than it is now. If I’d had someone like my employment agent, Lanie, back then, things might have turned out differently for me. But…idle hands and all. When I got fired from the bar, I spent a lot of nights just wandering the streets.” Barhopping, mostly. But, again…TMI. “One night I found a group of street thugs, gang bangers, harassing a young girl. She—Sara was her name—couldn’t have been more than fourteen. Saving her felt…good. Made me remember what it was like to have a purpose, you know?”
Her lips tipped up ever so slightly. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“So, after that, I quit looking for work and decided I was going to clean up the streets, and I’d start with the gang I’d saved Sara from. Go all Daredevil on their asses, yeah?”
Marina’s eyes widened slightly. “I know I’m a bit of a sicko for saying this, but that’s kind of…hot.”
Vigilante justice—or Daredevil, maybe—turned Marina on. Good info to keep on file for later. “And it worked, too. For a while. But the thing about gangs is that for every one you break apart, another rises up to take its place. And each new one is worse than the last.”
The Kings, the last gang who tried to take over his neighborhood before he went to prison, was the worst of all. Human trafficking, drugs, arms trading, murder, rape…they did it all. And he’d totally underestimated their intelligence and ruthlessness. But that wasn’t the worst mistake he made. The worst mistake he made was overestimating his own control.
“So, Sara and I had stayed in touch after I saved her. She was like the little sister I never had. She was smart, too. So smart. She warned me not to go after the Kings,” he added quietly. “Told me they were different, and that it wouldn’t be as easy to put them away as it had been with the other gangs. She told me to walk away.”
Marina ran her fingers through his hair, then let her palm rest on his cheek. “You didn’t stop, though, did you?”
“No. I was cocky. I got sloppy. They figured out who I was, where I lived.” He swallowed hard. “Who I was friends with.”
“Oh, no,” she whispered, her gaze full of sympathy he didn’t deserve, but that he was grateful for all the same. So damned grateful.
“They killed her. Dumped her body on my doorstep.”
He’d never told another soul about Sara. About how seeing her like that—cold, bloodied, tortured—had broken him in ways that couldn’t be repaired. But somehow telling Marina about it made it all a tiny bit more bearable.
“I lost it after that,” he went on. “I hadn’t ever killed a human before Sara…died. But that night...”
“You killed them,” she finished for him gently. “The gang? You killed them all, right?”
He couldn’t speak or make himself even nod. The fear of breaking down and bawling like a damn baby was too great. He could only hope his silence told her what she needed to know.
He barely remembered much of that night. Blood, screams of pain, bones snapping like dry twigs, monsters pleading with a monster for mercy they’d never offered their victims…it was all a blur of rage and hate and violence.
That’s the state he was in when the police burst in. The trial that followed was open and shut. What could a defense attorney say for a client who’d been found knee-deep in the blood and entrails of his victims?
He’d had plenty of time to think about what he’d done after they locked him away at Midvale. Killing humans—even pathetic, sick humans like the Kings—had twisted him, turned him into the
kind of monster he used to hunt for Sentry.
He deserved to rot in his cell for the rest of his life.
He’d even told Hunter that when the vampire had pulled him out of the pit at Midvale and discussed parole. But Hunter hadn’t listened. He’d been sure, somehow, that Quinn still had decency within him. So, Hunter had waived Quinn’s sentence as time served, provided he work with Lanie, find stable employment, and become a functioning, productive member of society.
And of course, immediately after meeting with the aggressively optimistic, bright and chipper Lanie, Quinn had marched right to the nearest bar and drank his weight in cheap whiskey, because he wanted so badly to be the person Lanie and Hunter thought he was. But he wasn’t—no, couldn’t—be that guy. Not ever again.
Marina shifted in his arms, and Quinn steeled himself for the moment when she’d get up, get dressed, and look back at him with regret, disappointment, or maybe even fear. It’d hurt, he realized. Way more than it should, given their short acquaintance.
But Marina, true to form, shocked the hell out of him by crawling further up his body. His breath caught in his throat when she leaned down, pressed a hard kiss to his mouth, and cupped his face in her hands.
“You made a mistake,” she said, her eyes filling with unshed tears as she held his gaze. “You regret it. Anyone can see that. And you did your time. Now you have a chance at a brand-new start. It’s time to forgive yourself and decide what kind of person you want to be now, because the person you were is dead and gone.”
He blinked up at her, stunned silent. Could it really be as easy as that? Could he really just forgive himself and, what, move on with his life? Possibly even with her at his side?
“Do you forgive me?” he choked out past the lump in his throat.
He knew it was a stupid question. It wasn’t up to her to forgive him. It wasn’t even what he really wanted to know. But he couldn’t seem to find the right words to ask her if she’d ever consider inviting someone like him into her life, instead of just into her bed.
She was smart, though. Understanding lit her eyes almost immediately. She knew he was silently asking a much bigger question than the pathetic one he’d managed to spit out, and her gaze never left his as she answered, “I forgive you, Quinn.”
Her forgiveness, her sincerity, was like throwing open the doors of his soul and letting sunlight into all the dark, forgotten corners. It was cleansing, almost as if she’d managed to scrub years’ worth of guilt and pain and rage off his psyche. He felt lighter. It took him a minute to recognize the feeling for what it really was.
Hope.
Chapter Thirteen
The rest of Marina’s week flew by in a blur of sex-soaked, sleepless nights, and days spent counting the minutes—the seconds, really—until she could be alone with Quinn again.
By the time the charity gala rolled around, she was tempted to skip it altogether. Who wanted to spend the night with a bunch of stuffy, uptight WASPs when she could be naked in bed—or against a wall, or on the kitchen table, or bent over her couch—with Quinn?
Truthfully, only the giant, gaping hole in her checking account left by the dress she’d bought convinced her to go the event. And even that wouldn’t have worked if she hadn’t lost the receipt, rendering the dress unreturnable. Damn it.
But she was comforted by the fact that Quinn would be with her. The idea of making her ex regret dumping her didn’t hold appeal anymore (like Quinn said, she was better off without him, really), but she’d quickly learned that spending time with Quinn while they were clothed was just as fun as their quality naked time.
Marina had never known a man like Quinn. She’d always been a little quiet and reserved with men, nervous. But not with Quinn. With him she just felt…safe. Appreciated. Adored. Something about him—or maybe everything about him—just put her at ease.
She’d found that there were never any uncomfortable lapses in their conversations, and she could tell him anything. Hell, she’d never even thought of telling another person about how it felt to live in the shadow of her exceptional family. Only Quinn knew that.
And even better yet, he understood. She’d said so many things to him and he never once judged her. It seemed to be reciprocal, too. She’d be willing to bet he’d told her things about his past he hadn’t shared with other women. She felt like she was getting to know him—really know him—in a way she’d never known another man, and vice versa.
Overall, being with Quinn was a delicious swirl of easy comfort and crazy-sexy chemistry. It was sort of exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time.
She wasn’t foolish enough to call what they had love. They hadn’t known each other long enough for that. But they definitely had…something worth exploring. And Marina couldn’t be happier that he seemed to be just as into her as she was into him.
After spending an inordinately long time perfecting her hair and makeup, Marina stepped out of her bathroom and caught sight of Quinn, facing away from her, looking out the bedroom window while talking on the phone. It didn’t take long to realize who he was talking to.
“Yes, of course I’ve checked out the venue,” he said on a sigh. “Twice. There’s security at every entrance, and they aren’t letting anyone without invites in. I talked to the building’s head of security and he seems competent.”
There was a long pause on Quinn’s end while Harper spoke, after which he snorted and said, “Well, not everyone can have four dhampyres on staff, Harper. Your bar for competent is probably much higher than everyone else’s. They’re doing the best they can. Short of kicking them out and you taking over, there’s not much we can do about it. Unless you want me to discourage her from going.”
Yes, please, Marina thought. I’d much rather stay in. And by in she of course meant with Quinn in her.
Harper must’ve nixed that idea, though, because Quinn said, “I’ll guard her with my life. You have my word.”
Marina’s throat clogged up with a giant lump of emotion at the sincerity of Quinn’s tone and the ease with which he said he was willing to die for her. Had anyone other than her family cared for her that much? If they had, Marina certainly couldn’t remember it.
He glanced over his shoulder at her when she cleared her throat, and his eyes went wide as they moved slowly down over her body, then back up to her face. “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” he muttered.
Marina wasn’t sure what made her happier: his astonished words, the naked desire in his eyes, or the smoky, thick tone of his voice.
Dress: ridiculously expensive. Quinn’s reaction to the ridiculously expensive dress? Priceless.
Marina wouldn’t typically wear anything as daring as this particular dress, but when she tried it on and it conformed to her curves like it had been created by the fashion gods just for her, she knew she had to have it. The dress, low-cut in the bodice and slit on each side to mid-thigh, somehow managed to be both erotic and elegant simultaneously.
The fabric, raw silk in a shade of deep emerald that perfectly complemented her olive complexion, felt deliciously rich and decadent as it slid over her skin every time she moved.
And it had taken an hour to get her thick hair up into the intentionally messy-looking bun with a few carefully selected face-framing strands around her face, but the end result was sexy, stylish, and totally worth the time.
“I’ll call you back later, Harper,” Quinn said, disconnecting the call without even giving Harper a chance to respond. He shoved the phone in his pocket and shook his head, his eyes still moving her body, his expression nothing short of shocked awe.
Marina lifted her arms and turned a slow circle. “Well, what do you think?”
He cleared his throat. “I’ve never seen the like,” he said quietly.
Pleased, she glanced down at herself. “It is gorgeous, isn’t it? Not something I’d normally choose, but since it was a special occasion, I splurged a bit and…”
Her spill of words halted when he lifted her hand to his
mouth and brushed his lips gallantly across her knuckles. “I wasn’t talking about the dress, love.”
She stared at him breathlessly for a moment as he stroked her knuckles with his thumb, doing the mental math on whether or not they had time for a quickie before they had to leave.
Let’s see…if we kept it to ten minutes, we’d only be a little late, and I’d need five to fix my hair and makeup, but maybe we could keep it to seven minutes if we didn’t both get totally naked first…
He chuckled. “I know what you’re thinking, and you can forget it. We only have about four minutes before the car gets here, and that’s not nearly enough time for what I want to do to you.”
Damn it. She’d forgotten that Harper had rented a limo for them. A bullet-proof one, no less. Her sister was nothing if not prepared (and paranoid).
With a long-suffering sigh, Marina stepped back out of his reach and couldn’t help but pout a little as she took in how incredibly, well, fuckable Quinn looked.
He was wearing a black three-piece suit with a crisp white dress shirt and an expensive-looking green-silk tie that almost perfectly matched her dress. His beard scruff had been trimmed, but his hair was as disheveled as it always was, which made her smile. She worked with hair every day and knew that thick, wavy locks like his were impervious to pretty much all attempts at taming.
“You look…edible,” she finally said.
His answering growl was music to her ears. “Behave yourself,” he grumbled. “The sooner we get there and you put in an appearance, the sooner we can leave.”
“Fine,” she muttered. “But I won’t wait for longer than an hour, and if we’re there a minute longer than that, I’m going to drag you into the coat closet and I won’t be held accountable for my actions.”
His smile was pure, unadulterated sin. “Wouldn’t have it any other way, love. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Chapter Fourteen
Semi-Obsessed Page 7