Chapter Eighteen
LEVIFELTSHAKENto his bones. He hadn’t been able to resist her when she’d come into the shower. It had been the slippery, wonderful surprise of his life, and he had been uninterested in resisting.
She was beautiful, and he wanted her.
So why the hell not? She was there, she wanted him, and he wasn’t going to protect the girl from herself.
He’d expected to be in control of it. He hadn’t expected her to be a virgin.
He got ice cream out of the freezer and set two bowls on the table.
And waited.
He heard soft footsteps coming down the stairs, and when he looked up, his whole being went tight. His groin, his chest, everything in between. She was wearing a very large red sweatshirt and some plaid pants that were far too big for her. And the pants were seemingly held on by boot socks that she had pulled up over the bottoms of the pants, which were... Why were socks so cute on this woman? He had never given a single damned thought to socks a day in his life, and here he was with Quinn Sullivan, obsessing about socks regularly.
Her red hair was wet and bedraggled, and he wanted to pick her up again and carry her to the table.
But he didn’t.
He let there be a little bit of distance, because he felt like he needed it.
Dammit all, he needed it.
She padded to the table and sat down, right in front of one of the bowls.
“Mint chocolate chip or salted caramel?”
“Salted caramel,” she said, pushing the bowl toward her preferred ice cream container. He started to scoop it for her.
“Okay. So, you know my dad died when I was eighteen.”
“Yes,” she said.
“I wasn’t an adult. I felt...half-finished at best. I had to figure out how to be the caregiver and I was fighting blind. I still didn’t know that I had all those learning disabilities and suddenly all this paperwork was on my lap. Plus, three kids. The first time I had sex it was some girl from school who pitied me. Who came by and had a quickie with me on my couch after the kids went to bed, when she dropped off a casserole her mother had made. I was glad, because it felt like I needed to get it over and done with. I needed to be an adult. An adult ought to know what sex is, right?” He sighed. “I don’t know how to do the emotions, though. I’m not... I know how to take care of kids. I raised my siblings. I love them. In a lot of ways I never learned how to really take care of myself. I learned to stitch myself back together. To make sure I wasn’t bleeding all over, but I’m not... I’m not the kind of man who should be having sex with virgins.”
“I literally jumped you in the shower and brought a condom. And news flash—I knew I was a virgin.”
“Yeah, you did, but... Quinn, I can’t do the whole true-love thing.” His chest felt like it was full of ground-up glass. He wondered if that’s how his dad’s heart had felt. Before it had given out.
The image of him dropping to the ground played in Levi’s mind.
He did his best to block it out.
“I understand that,” she said softly. “I don’t want it, either, actually. I want... Why do you think I’m a virgin, Levi?”
“You made it sound like you had an array of surfers.”
“I lied. I went to college, and I didn’t really make any friends. Even when I had roommates, I didn’t get to know them. Because I was so busy policing myself, making sure that I was there for the right reasons. Making sure that I was doing the right thing. I was trying to...to prove myself. To someone who wasn’t even there anymore.”
“Your dad,” he said.
She nodded. “Yeah. My dad. I told you I followed him around every day. I cared so much about the ranch and about his approval. He used to like it. He changed. He got short-tempered. My chattering started bothering him. The day before he left...he had a blowup at me. He said I was too much. Annoying. I...I thought he liked being with me. And then the next day him and my mom just...blew up. About his affair. I trusted my dad, Levi. I didn’t think he had a secret life. But he did. And he packed up his bags and left us.” She heaved a deep breath. “I chased him and I begged him to stay. I cried and cried. I ran after his truck. He didn’t stop. And I know he left because of him. I know the changes in him, the year he screwed you over, the year he started to get impatient with me, it was about him.” She breathed deeply again, like she was trying to shift a weight in her chest. “But it felt like maybe it was because of me. And I got so...so angry. It felt better than crying.”
She continued. “I was angry like that for a couple of years. Fighting with everyone, all the time. Until I got into a fistfight with a kid at school and got knocked flat on my ass. That’s why I was so horrified when I punched you. I...had decided to never be that person again. It’s when I decided I needed to get myself focused, because I couldn’t let what my dad did take my future from me.”
He felt understanding begin to shift inside him. “He was setting up income for himself. For when he left the ranch. When he screwed me over. Because he got money from that for nearly a decade.”
Quinn nodded. “I think you’re right.”
“Then it wasn’t you, Quinn. He was planning on going all that time. You get that, right? He...he was treating you like a dog you can’t stand to have following you around because you’re going to give it up.” He grimaced. It didn’t sound as flattering as he meant it to be.
But she just smiled. “I guess he was.” She shook her head. “I don’t ever want to rely on a man. Not like that. My dad already just about screwed me up for good. This...this is helping me. I didn’t know how to be anything but one thing after he left. I knew how to be angry. Then I knew how to be driven. Now I feel like I’m finding me again, so don’t regret the sex. It was time for me. And don’t think I’m going to expect more from you than you want to give.”
He needed that to be true. Because he needed her. Right now he needed her, but he didn’t want to hurt this woman who had already been so badly burned.
“Quinn, I am tired,” he said, his voice rough. “I’m really tired of being responsible for people. I can’t do it anymore. I don’t want to get married. I don’t want to have kids. I’m done.”
“Okay,” she said.
She looked so young then, pale, the freckles on her skin standing out even more than usual.
“I just need you to understand that,” he said.
“I do. When we open the farm store I’m going to be busy. Very busy, and it’s what we’ve been working toward. This next phase of Sullivan’s Point. And that’s the most important thing to me. I don’t want to get married. I’m a Sullivan. I aim to stay one.”
“Okay.”
They were both silent for a long moment. “Just so you know, I don’t think you should hold on to that pain that you carry.”
He looked up at her. “What?”
“I know you blame yourself. For what my dad did. But just like with me...he had a plan and he was willing to take advantage of you to see it through. Your vulnerability wasn’t wrong. My dad was.”
He looked down at his hands, and he felt like he couldn’t fully turn over those things she was saying.
“Well, just so we’re clear, it’s the same with your anger. Did you ever think that you were entitled to it?”
She blinked three times. Four. “No. Because...”
“Quinn, you had every right to be angry that your dad left. It’s normal. And maybe you shouldn’t have gone punching somebody, but maybe they deserved it. I did. I made you angry. I can take responsibility for that. That’s why I wasn’t upset when you punched me. I deserved it. People have to take responsibility for their actions, too. Everything your dad said to you at the end, everything he did, was him trying to make his own actions seem justified, and they weren’t.” For a minute, the only sound was their spoons scraping against the ice cream bowls.
A small smile curved her lips. “You do admit that you deserved to be punched.”
“In this case.”
He realized he didn’t quite know what to do with a woman in his house. Maybe he was half-feral. He had often thought so.
He didn’t have the occasion to hone social graces, and he really didn’t have experience with this kind of thing. Sharing food with someone he’d just had sex with.
It struck him how much he felt like a virgin right then.
And he didn’t like that. And every time, he realized, Quinn did something that butted up against that insecurity of his, he got mad at her. He was really just mad at the world.
He had a feeling Quinn could relate.
He wondered then if he was no better than a little boy who had been pulling pigtails on a playground.
He liked her. And there was part of him that had acknowledged that already. He liked her.
She was spirited, and she was beautiful and cute. All those things.
He’d tried to compete with Four Corners by signing that contract, and he’d let Brian Sullivan guide him because it had seemed like someone from Four Corners would understand the business of making money.
For all the good it had done him.
But Quinn wasn’t at fault for that. She hadn’t caused any of the problems.
She hadn’t created any of the systems.
And he’d been so busy feeling threatened by everything that she was...
You were probably right to be.
Maybe. Because here she was in his kitchen, eating his ice cream, so that said quite a few things about just how much of a threat she was.
He wasn’t going to get mad at her. Not now.
Because it wasn’t her. It never had been.
And one thing was certain—he wasn’t sharing. He didn’t want to take advantage of her. In fact, apparently he had something to learn from the situation.
“I don’t really know what comes after this,” he said.
“Me, either,” said Quinn. “I’m blessedly free of expectation.”
So was he. Because sex had never been this.
Another area of his life where he’d had to skip important steps.
He laughed. “Oh, come on now. I don’t totally believe that. You must have an expectation of some kind.”
“I really didn’t. The ice cream has actually exceeded any expectation I might have had.”
“Right. Well. Quinn... Are you able to get home all right?”
He felt wrong asking that, but they had already left his room, and he didn’t fully feel right about having her spend the night, either. So maybe he should. Maybe he should put her dress and socks and underwear in the dryer and take her back up in his bed.
Then he could have her again.
That, he realized right away, was a bad idea. She was new at this. He couldn’t go doing it all over again so quickly.
“Yeah,” she said, nodding, digging into the ice cream bowl even deeper. “I can make it home. I should get home soon anyway. Because, you know... My sisters.”
She couldn’t spend the night. That was kind of a relief. She couldn’t spend the night because her sisters would worry.
He nodded slowly. “Right. I’ll pitch your things in the dryer and have them all ready for you... You’re coming back tomorrow?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I said I would do the week. And now I’m committed to doing whatever... I don’t want you to give me the easement just because we had sex. Because you know that feels a bit like prostitution.”
He laughed, but not a rolling, roaring laugh, just a short chuckle, mostly because he hadn’t expected that. “First of all, I told you it was yours after we kissed.”
She sniffed. “I felt there was an expectation.”
“Right. Well. I would never give you the easement just because we had sex. But I do feel more like giving it to you, now that I am sitting back and being honest with myself. It isn’t you I don’t trust, Quinn. You didn’t do anything to me. You just showed up looking a lot like my issues. And I reacted badly to that. And yes, I don’t have a great well of love in my soul for Four Corners. I have some issues with that whole collective, and I’m not the only one in the community who does. But it has nothing to do with you and, really, has nothing to do with an easement on and off the property. I trust you.”
Her green eyes looked suddenly dewy. “You trust me?”
“Yes. I do. You’ve proved to me that you are honest, and that if you tell me to make sure it’s all okay, you are. I don’t believe that you would dig into a situation that feels untenable.”
“I wouldn’t,” she said.
“So it isn’t about kissing or sex or anything like that. Okay?”
She nodded. “Okay. I believe you.”
“Good.”
She stood up, still adorable in the too-big clothes. Her sisters were probably going to question that. But that, he figured, was something she would either be concerned about or not.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He thought about leaning in and kissing her, but he didn’t know about that, either.
And she didn’t make a move toward him. She seemed suddenly a little bit skittish. And he didn’t think—he just reached out and put his hand on her cheek, stroked down the back of her hair. And she seemed to still.
“Good night, carrot,” he said softly.
“Good night.”
She turned and walked out of the house, and he felt like he shouldn’t let her go.
But what he did do was go to his room and collect her clothes, pick up her bra and drape it over the shower, because he wasn’t going to put it in the dryer, because he did know better from a particular disaster that had happened once when Jessie was in high school. But everything else went straight in with a dryer sheet that was going to make her clothes smell like his.
He stood there for a while pondering that.
He wasn’t quite sure just what in the hell he’d gotten himself into here. But he was into it.
So, there was nothing else to do but be in it.