Chapter 12 Quinn #2
Lowering myself into the chair, I watched him as if he were a caged animal while he regarded me almost warily as though he expected me to bolt. When I was seated, he yanked a chair out and dropped into it, his hard stare never leaving mine.
“Tell me everything.”
Carefully, slowly, I told him what I had told Jett.
I watched him as he sat rigid in his chair, his gaze never wavering, his attention wholly on me, and while I spoke, I waited for the eruption.
Gray would never harm me, not physically.
Emotionally . . . well, we had no problems taking those blows from each other.
“You changed your mind?” he asked me, the tone in which he asked me almost daring me to say no.
“I changed my mind. I couldn’t do that to him, her, I don’t know, it?” I sniffed as I finally broke his stare. “I couldn’t do it to us.”
“There is no us.”
The unforgiving words caused more pain than he knew, and I’d be damned if I showed him. Instead, I sat in front of him, the mask firmly in place as he assessed me, equally as closed off to me as I was to him.
“And now you know it all.” Leaning back in my seat, I looked at his hand. “Coach is going to kick your ass.”
Gray grunted but said nothing as he looked at his hand. “I fell.”
“I can see teeth marks.”
“I fell against someone’s face.”
My eyebrows rose as I turned away from him. “He films the births?” I asked quietly.
“Yes.”
“You watched them?” Why? What else was there on the film?
“Yes.”
“Why are you so angry about them?”
Tiredly, he rubbed his eyes. “I stink.”
“Your personality could be better, I agree,” I murmured as he stood, and I caught the quick flash of a smile.
“There’s showers down here, I’m going to clean up.” He didn’t look at me, but he turned his head toward me, and I was already agreeing before he spoke.
“I won’t leave the room again.”
“I won’t be long.” The door closed softly behind him, and I was once again alone.
Sitting in the chair, I realized neither of us had cleaned the mess of the coffee-stained wall and the broken cup.
I sat for longer than I should have before I moved and started cleaning up.
There was a large pile of napkins that I used to clean the wall, and then, crouching, I gingerly started picking up the broken shards of the cup.
It was inevitable that I would cut my finger; it was my luck, I suppose. Hissing at the cut, I stood with my finger in my mouth as I dropped some more napkins onto the floor, pressing my foot on them to soak up the spilled coffee.
Reaching over for another napkin for my finger, I opened the cupboard to see if Onyx had a first aid kit. He didn’t. Wrapping a napkin around my finger, I watched the blood soak through the white paper.
Strong hands came from behind me and unwrapped the napkin, and then Gray was investigating my small cut.
Compared to his hand, it was nothing, but the care with which he held my hand?
You would have thought I had a serious injury.
Blood oozed out from the cut and trickled slowly down my index finger.
There was something fundamentally wrong with me, because when Gray’s tongue licked the blood from my finger, my insides clenched with desire.
Slowly, his tongue traced the length of my finger again before his lips covered the soft pad, and I felt my body heat when he sucked slightly.
Hooded eyes met mine as he looked at me, and I didn’t resist when his other hand reached out and grabbed my hip, pulling me into him.
His hand lowered to cup my ass, and then I was flush against him, feeling the hard length of him pressing into me as he pulled my finger slowly from his mouth, dragging it over his bottom lip before his tongue flicked out one final time, as if he were sorry that it was leaving the warmth of his mouth.
I felt his fingers dig into the softness of my ass as he dropped my hand to curl around the back of my neck and pull me to his lips.
“I’m angry.” His words were low, quiet, full of emotion. “I want to kill him. I want to kill them all. I want to rip them apart with my bare hands.”
“Gray—”
His lips pressed against mine, not in a kiss but as a way to stop me talking. With wide eyes, I watched him as his eyelids fluttered closed before they opened again and he stared right past all my defenses and into my darkest depths.
“I want to rip you apart with my bare hands.” He spoke against my mouth, but I heard every word, felt every word. “But I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because as much as I may want to, it’s not my desire to hurt you.
” Again, he cut my words off by pressing his lips to mine, but this time it was as a kiss.
And like the helpless fool I was when it came to this man, I returned his kiss.
It was slow and sensual and brought all my defenses crashing down around me.
My hands curled into the front of his hoodie, pulling him closer to me.
Gray gave a low growl, and his fingers dug into my ass as he pulled me into him, deepening the kiss as his tongue brushed against mine, swallowing my moans as his hand on my neck tilted my head to give him better access to my mouth.
To my soul.
His hand on my ass slipped up over the curve of my hip and then dipped under my hoodie and caressed gently over my breast. His thumb ran over the pebbled nipple, causing me to moan louder against him. I felt him hard against me.
I winced when his teeth bit my bottom lip, but it only made me ache to be closer to him. Slowly, he pulled away, my blood staining his lower lip. His hand dropped from my neck and untangled itself from under my hoodie. Never breaking my gaze, with slow, measured steps, he moved away from me.
“I can’t be around you.”
“Gray—”
“I can’t,” he cut me off again. “Knowing what I know, what I always suspected, and seeing the film . . .” He hesitated. “You need to stay away.”
What could I say? No? I had no right to do that. I had no hold over Gray. What was between us really? Nothing. Nothing but heartache and hurt that we may never be able to move past.
How in the world could I deny him anything after the last few days? Days? After the last year.
“Okay.”
“I have . . .” He hesitated before he gestured to the door. “I have to see this through. I need to do this, and I have . . . I have football. And I . . .” He shook his head.
“I know.” I wrapped my arms around myself as I watched him while I prayed that I could keep it together long enough so he wouldn’t see me break. “I know, Gray, it’s okay. I understand.”
He took another step back, his hands running over his hair and grabbing behind his head as his eyes searched mine. He stood there like that for a moment — beautiful, pained, broken.
I did this. I caused this. The urge to reach out to him and give him the comfort he didn’t want or probably need, at least not from me, was strong.
“It’s okay,” I repeated softly. “Go.”
He looked almost as if he wouldn’t, and I closed down my emotions as I felt a brief flare of hope in my chest, but he turned and, with purposeful strides, left the room.
Bending over, I clasped my arms around myself as I allowed myself to feel the pain.
It rose from the pit of my soul and engulfed me, threatened to consume me, but I had to fight it.
As I squeezed my eyes shut as if I could shut out his tortured words, I straightened.
With my hands trembling slightly, I finished cleaning the mess.
Realizing that my finger had stopped bleeding, I gave it an accusatory glare.
As I finished with the coffee cup and the numerous napkins I had probably wasted, I straightened my hoodie, pulled my hair over my shoulder, and sat back down again to wait for Jett or Onyx to come.
My life was in tatters around me, but I was not broken. I was not beaten. I had overcome so much; this pain, too, I would endure.
However, when Onyx opened the door later and looked at me with his usual scorn, I knew I shouldn’t have been surprised, even though my stomach plummeted with dread.
Rising to my feet, I silently followed him to his car without a word spoken between us.
He drove me back to college in total silence.
I noted his damaged hand, and he noted the one tear that spilled over, but neither of us acknowledged the other’s hurt.
This relationship, I had always understood.
It didn’t surprise me that he knew exactly where my dorm room was. He always knew too much.
Reaching for the handle, I made to leave the car when his words stopped me.
“I told you years ago . . . you would ruin him. I won’t let you destroy him again.”
Focusing on my hand on the door handle, I spoke to him with the same coldness he gave me. “You know nothing, but I’ll tell you what I told him, I’ll keep my distance.”
“Make sure you do, from all of them. Your reign is over, Queeny.”
Turning my head, I met his black stare brimming with cold hatred, and it was exactly what I needed, because it hardened me further. “Fuck you.”
I got out of the car and made it into my apartment, closing the door behind me as the weariness washed over me.
Heading straight to my room, kicking off my boots as I walked, I didn’t bother undressing as I collapsed onto the bed.
Lying face down on my pillows, I finally let the tears fall as I wept for what I had lost.