15. Lance
15
LANCE
W hat the hell is wrong with me?
I just slept with Killian’s little sister, the woman Killian trusted me to protect. I took advantage of her vulnerability and Killian’s faith in me to be honorable and respectful of Quinn. And now I’ve gone and had sex with her.
Seriously, what is wrong with me? I must be immeasurably broken to have so completely violated the trust of people I consider as good as family. The Kings have been nothing but good to me, and how do I repay them? By having sex with Quinn when she’s clearly struggling and still traumatized.
“This won’t happen again,” I promise her, struggling to meet her eyes as I swallow the guilt that rises like bile in my throat.
“Why not?” she asks, hurt and confusion flitting across her face as she pulls the sheets up to cover her body—her still bruised and recovering body.
Fresh guilt twists in my gut, and I’m two seconds from making a break for it. But Quinn deserves a conversation. An explanation. I owe her that at the very least. “Killian would be furious if—” I swallow convulsively. “When he finds out.”
“And why the hell should it matter what Killian thinks?”
I glance sidelong at Quinn to find her cheeks a deep shade of crimson in her fury. “Because Killian’s like my brother. I have no right to be looking at you at all. Let alone touching you.” I close my eyes, grinding my teeth as my choice of words sends a vivid memory flooding into my brain—of the pleasure I felt at exploring Quinn’s beautiful body, every silken inch of her feminine curves.
“You can’t be serious,” she snaps, her arms crossing defensively over her chest. “What we just did…what we have felt more right than anything I’ve ever imagined.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a devil takes note of the fact that she just admitted to having imagined something like this happening between us. But I refuse to read into it. Because I’m so deep up a creek without a paddle, I can’t allow myself to think that way.
This isn’t just some beautiful girl I slept with on a whim. This is my best friend’s sister. A girl thirteen years younger than me. She might be a strong, intelligent woman, but I had no right to take advantage of her like that. To fuck her when she’s clearly going through something. There must be a special place in hell reserved for men like me.
I can’t just take back what I did. Pretend it didn’t happen. How the hell am I supposed to ever look Killian in the eyes again? It doesn’t matter if that was the best sex of my life. If it felt more meaningful than any kind of intimacy I’ve ever had before. It was wholly and utterly wrong of me.
The need to run from my shame is so intense, I roll out of bed instinctually. Quickly stripping the condom, I toss it in the waste bin. Then bending down, I snatch up my joggers and quickly start to dress.
“Lance, wait,” Quinn insists, her voice catching.
My heart twists at the sound of her vulnerability, and I can’t help but look up to meet her sad green eyes. Then my brain registers the small rust-colored stain on her sheets. My gaze falls, and my stomach plummets. That’s definitely blood.
“Shit, Quinn, did I hurt you?” What if I had sex with her too soon after her kidnapping? What if she’s still injured and I exacerbated an injury? But where?
I scan her partially covered body, searching for the source of blood. But all I can find is an intense blush spreading across Quinn’s cheeks and neck as she clutches the sheets more firmly against her chest. “No,” she murmurs, suddenly unable to meet my eyes.
The answer hits me like a train, knocking the oxygen from my lungs. Please, please, let me be wrong. “You weren’t…” I swallow convulsively. “Were you a virgin before we…?”
“Yes,” she whispers, her blush spreading to the very roots of her strawberry-blond hair.
Jesus. I didn’t just sleep with my best friend’s little sister. I took her virginity. I never had high hopes for making it to heaven, but now I’m starting to wonder if hell would even accept me.
Combing my fingers into my hair, I yank forcefully at the roots. “Damn, Quinn, I’m so sorry. I never should have slept with you?—”
But before I can finish groveling, the night gets exponentially worse…as Quinn bursts into tears once more.
I honestly don’t know what to do. Maybe I really did hurt her even though she said I didn’t. It shreds my heart to see her cry like that. To know I’m the one responsible. “Quinn…” I rasp, my throat tight with anxiety.
I reach for her slowly, gently because I don’t want to frighten her, and as I ease onto the bed, unsure of how to comfort her, she doesn’t pull away.
“Why are you crying?” I ask, baffled, desperate for a way to make it stop.
“You just told me that having sex with me was a mistake, that you never should have slept with me,” she sniffles, wiping furiously at her wet cheeks as she glares at me. “So, basically, you’re rejecting me because your friendship with Killian is more important. You regret being with me. And here I was thinking that was the best night of my life. Am I really that bad at it?”
A fresh wave of tears spills onto her face, and she buries it in her hands, the sheet slipping down until it’s dangerously revealing.
“Oh, Quinn…No, that’s not what I meant at all.” I pull her into my arms, wrapping the sheet more securely around her body as I tuck her head beneath my chin. And I dig deep for the strength to comfort her platonically when her beautiful body is all but naked in my arms. “It’s not just about feeling bad for having had sex with Killian’s sister. I feel awful for taking your virginity without even knowing. It’s a big deal, a special moment you only experience once, and I was…” I swallow the fresh wave of guilt rising in my throat. “I would have been more gentle if I’d known,” I murmur, ashamed at the kind of first-time experience I just gave her. I must have hurt her. Looking back, I know I did, because I wasn’t careful with her at all. “And now I’ve gone and made you cry…I’m doing this all wrong.”
Agonizing shame pounds through my body, reminding me of how horribly I failed as Quinn’s protector.
She pulls away from me, putting distance between us, and as painful as it is, I let her go.
But she doesn’t go far—just far enough to look me in the eyes once more. “I don’t think so,” she states, making my brow buckle. “I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. I’ve wanted you for so long…This has been the best night of my life—or at least, it was until you ruined it by telling me that having sex with me was a huge mistake.”
My stomach knots at the same time as my heart lifts. Because I’m grateful that at least Quinn doesn’t regret anything that happened. That she doesn’t blame me for hurting her or taking advantage of her vulnerable state. That doesn’t make it right, but at least it makes me feel a little less guilty.
And hearing that she’s wanted me for a long time, sets free an odd tingling sensation at the base of my spine. A feeling not entirely unpleasant, though I do my best not to pay it any mind.
“Killian doesn’t get to rule my decisions about who I want,” she insists, her green eyes lighting with that infamous King fire. That rebellious streak that says no one and nothing will lay down the law for them. “And he shouldn’t get a say in who you want to be with either. If we want to be together, we’re two fully mature, consenting adults. And there’s nothing wrong with being attracted to each other.”
Technically speaking, she’s not wrong. I might be her foster brother, but we don’t share any actual blood. But Killian is as good as my family, and I feel like I’m betraying him to want Quinn the way I do right now. Like a man wants a woman, without reservation, and with every bone in his body.
I know Killian wouldn’t want this.
He’ll hate me for laying a finger on his sister.
He might just kill me over it.
I could see it in his eyes the day he found me in this very room after Quinn stitched me back up.
Sleeping with her was a betrayal to our friendship, and I don’t know that I can forgive myself for that—even if I want Quinn an astonishing amount, with an intensity I never even dared to think about until tonight.
“Lance, stop thinking about the guilt for just a second,” Quinn insists, scooting closer to me on the bed as her green eyes hold mine captive. “Just tell me this, do you want me?”
The question knocks the wind from my lungs, and for a moment, I’m utterly speechless.
I don’t know how to respond.
And that intense lump in my throat returns, threatening to choke me.