Chapter 4
If I was a bird, I’d fly into a ceiling fan.
— Shayne to Quinn
SHAYNE
2 and a half years later
The knowledge that he was now an officer in the Marines was what changed my career path.
The old saying, “ Anything you can do ( I can do better)” stuck with me over the years.
But he would not be better than me.
I would make sure that I was his equal.
Which was why I went the Army warrant officer route, and decided to fly.
Rotary wing aviator warrant officer.
That was the official title.
It took a long time to accomplish it.
I had to pass a lot of tests. Complete WOCS —warrant officer candidate school. WOFT —warrant officer flight training—came next. SERE —survival evasion resistance escape was after. And finally, secret security clearance.
It was a very long, drawn out process, but in the end, I’d made the jump.
And . I . Loved . It .
I had no clue that my love of flight would help fix a hole in my heart the size of Quinn .
And though I still thought about him often, I now had a second love of my life.
It was on my first night back after a six-month stint in Afghanistan that I saw him.
The odds of us meeting in the middle of a backwater bar in remote New Jersey were few and far between.
It was apparent that he was working, or here in an official capacity.
He was dressed in his Marine Corps dress blues, speaking with another man beside him, when he finally noticed me across the bar.
I turned away the moment his eyes met mine, my heart thundering.
It’d been two and a half years, and it felt like not a day had passed since we’d last seen each other.
Every single emotion I felt toward him was just as sharp and uncomfortable as the day he broke my heart.
Why did it hurt so much?
Why did it continue to feel like he’d sent my heart through a shredder before handing it back to me?
Also , why the fuck was I still here?
I had no reason to be.
I was meeting no one here tonight.
I was officially on leave for three weeks.
And since he was here in New Jersey , there was no reason I couldn’t go home and see my brother, Nonna , and Ande …
“’ Scuse me,” I heard said. “ Would you care for another drink?”
I looked up at the man who’d approached and barely contained my grimace.
There was nothing wrong with him physically. He was cute.
But he had the same body type as Quinn . The same hair color. The same eye color.
The only thing different was that his face was less angular. More round.
Why did he look so similar?
Because he was Quincy , Quinn’s triplet.
“ What are you doing here?” I asked, taking in his attire.
“ I’m here because my brother just finished some schooling where he was recognized for outstanding performance. Quaid’s here, too,” he answered.
Just as Quincy said that, Quaid appeared on my other side, then took a seat next to me.
“ Nothing against seeing y’all,” I said, “but I’d really like to keep him away from me.”
Meaning they needed to leave. Pronto .
Because I knew that them being here would allow Quinn to scrounge up the courage to come check in, and if I saw him after the six months I’d had, I might very well make some bad decisions.
He was always my best worst decision.
“ You know, you are both miserable without each other,” Quincy said out of the blue.
I looked away from him, studying the list of beers above the bar, deciding not to answer that.
He kept talking, though, acting like our friendship had never ended.
Like their brother hadn’t broken my heart and pulverized it after.
“ Leave it, Quincy .”
That voice.
It still had the power to send shivers down my spine.
I didn’t turn around.
But probably should have.
There was no way we were going to be able to leave without acknowledging each other.
But I wasn’t ready to face him.
Probably never would be.
“ Give us a minute, please,” Quinn said when nobody replied.
The stools to my left and right emptied, and then there was only him.
We were in the middle of a crowded bar, but we might as well have been alone.
He took the seat to my left, always my left, and swiveled in his chair so that his legs were on either side of my body, pinning me in.
I swallowed hard, and finally scrounged up the courage to look at him.
His eyes, those beautiful green eyes, speared me the moment I raised my gaze, and held them.
“ What are you doing here?” he asked. “ Did you come to see me graduate?”
I scoffed. “ It’s hilarious that you think I’d come here looking like this to see you, let alone care enough about you to watch you graduate from whatever you were doing.”
I was excited to see that the barb struck deep.
Once upon a time, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
But we didn’t have any fairy tales happening anymore.
Nope , all that was left was scarily real reality.
His gaze ran up the length of my body, taking in the dusty clothes and the well-worn boots.
Hell , I’d needed to shower something fierce, but the idea of a Dr . Pepper on tap had been too much for me to ignore as I passed this bar.
Now , I wished I’d listened to my inner self and gone back to my buddy’s place.
Maybe then I wouldn’t be thinking about getting something out of Quinn that I definitely shouldn’t be thinking about.
“ What are you doing here then, Shay ?”
Shay .
I hated that name.
If anyone else called me that, I would ignore them.
But this was the man who gave me that hated name. The one person who had said it with such sweetness before he’d tossed me out like yesterday’s trash.
Picking up my Dr . Pepper , I took the last swallow of it before placing it down on the counter. I reached into my pocket and produced a five-dollar bill. Tucking it under the glass, I got up and left without another word.
He didn’t follow me.
I was nearly at the door when a friend of a friend flagged me down with a smile.
He took one look at me and said, “ You look like you’re about to cry.”
I shrugged.
“ Is that your ex?” he asked.
I didn’t look behind me, but I knew Baskins was looking at Quinn .
“ Yeah ,” I answered.
“ So you’re single?”
I frowned. “ If he’s my ex, then that would make me single.”
He snorted. “ I meant, are you single, or trying to teach your ex a lesson, single?”
I didn’t know what that had to do with anything, but I said, “ Single’s single, Baskins .”
“ No ,” he moved so close I could smell the beer on his breath “ It’s not.”
Baskins was hot. Don’t get me wrong.
However , I didn’t get anything warm and tingly happening to me when Baskins crowded me.
But those warm tingly feelings went absolutely electric when I felt his presence come up behind me and said, “ How about you let us speak alone for a few minutes?”
Baskins’s eyes went over my shoulder before he said, “ How about you take a hint and leave?”
I could feel the heat radiating off of Quinn’s back when he said, “ I don’t think I will.”
I patted Baskins on the shoulder before saying, “ I know you’re trying to help. You think you can, but really, there’s nothing about Quinn and me that you can fix.”
Baskins immediately backed off, proving he really was a good guy. “ If you need me, you know my number.”
I didn’t.
Actually , he didn’t give his number out to anyone, being the secretive guy that he was. But obviously, Quinn didn’t need to know that.
With one last look at me, Baskins took off, leaving me alone partially in the hallway with everyone else a half a bar away.
“ Come to my hotel with me,” Quinn ordered.
Of course there wouldn’t be a nice, polite request from Quinn Carter .
I mean, why would he make this easy on either one of us?
He knew what his orders did to me.
Which was probably why he did it.
“ I …”
His hand smoothed around my waist, and he pulled me back to him.
I felt his arousal pressing against my backside, and long-ago memories of how it felt to be wrapped up in his arms as he used a certain appendage to drive me insane popped up into my thoughts.
God , even at eighteen, the man had known what he was doing.
The first time we’d had sex had been four weeks after we’d met. It’d been in the bathroom at the high school at his senior prom that he’d invited me to.
We never made it into the gym to celebrate, either.
We’d gotten as far as the first dark hallway, which he’d pulled me down to kiss me.
From there, things got out of hand, and all of it had to do with his skillful hands and talented mouth.
“ Come back to my hotel,” he repeated, brooking no room for argument this time as he tightened his hold on my body.
“ Your brothers are here,” I tried to argue.
He snorted. “ My brothers are here because it gave them the leave they wanted to take a break. They didn’t actually come for me.”
I didn’t say anything.
Not at first.
No , my brain was too busy whirling as I tried to stop my crazy thoughts from taking the natural path they wanted to take when it came to this particular Carter .
Almost without thought, my feet carried me out of the bar, and down the street before Quinn could guide me. Within five minutes, we were walking into a Marriott .
Two minutes after that, we were inside his hotel room, and he was staring at me expectantly.
That’s when I temporarily caught up to my morals.
“ Quinn James , what are you doing to me?” I asked.
“ What I’ve been trying to do since you left me,” he grumbled, then he kissed me.
It took a few long seconds for his words to register. I mean, Quinn’s mouth had a way of making me stupid. But eventually his words sank in, and they angered me.
I pushed at his shoulders, catching him by surprise. “ I didn’t fucking leave, Quinn ! You did!”
He fell back a step, shock on his face at my abrupt reaction.
“ I didn’t leave!” he corrected me. “ One day, we’re taking a break, and the next, you’re in Missouri joining the goddamn Army !”
“ A break…” I said, shaking my head to clear it. “ We were on a break ?”
“ It was…” he paused. “ A pause. A break. A …”
A fucking break up…
I scoffed. “ You’re fucking nuts if you expect me to think what happened when you broke up with me was a goddamn break.”
“ Watch your mouth,” he snapped.
One day, I’d asked Quinn why he hated when I cussed.
He’d said it was because, when I cursed, it wasn’t because I was hurt, but because I was pissed off and inconvenienced.
See , when I was a child, I was diagnosed with a disorder where I couldn’t feel pain.
According to the doctors my parents had made me see, I had congenital insensitivity to pain and anhidrosis—also known as CIPA .
From toddlerhood, my family knew I was different.
It was only when I turned six, and I broke my arm and didn’t cry, that the doctors finally put a name to the condition.
From then on, I had to be hyperaware of myself. When I got a cut, or a bump, I had to make sure that it wasn’t more serious than just the peripheral.
When I met Quinn , the day we’d become what we were to each other, it was because I’d walked into a door and broken my nose.
I hadn’t cried, called out, or anything.
All I’d said was ‘dammit.’
It’d caught the attention of one Quinn Carter , though. And from then on, we’d become us. Quinn + Shayne .
You didn’t hear one name without thinking about the other.
Until you did.
Needless to say, when I cursed, it was usually because I’d hurt myself, and inadvertently caused myself inconvenience.
Quinn didn’t like how nonchalant I was about hurting myself. Nor did he like when he had to guess if I was actually hurt, or just reacting.
Hence his aversion to my cursing.
“ Fucking make me,” I challenged him.
His eyes flared, and then he was pressing me against the wall, his big body holding up mine.
My legs went around his waist, and my arms around his shoulders.
His mouth slanted over mine, and then we were back to where we were always the greatest.
Physically , we’d never had any issues.
It was always good.
There was never a time where he hadn’t gotten me off.
He was an unselfish, overly dedicated lover, and I’d missed him while he’d been gone.
No one else had touched me. No one else had run their lips along mine. No one else had had me in their arms.
I’d missed this.
I’d missed the closeness. The way I felt in his strong arms. The way he smelled. The way he breathed. There wasn’t a single thing about him that I hadn’t missed.
I was desperate for him.
Touch starved.
His mouth plundered mine.
There wasn’t an inch of my mouth he didn’t explore with his tongue. He nipped. He bit. He growled.
When he finally pulled back, my lips felt bruised, and my heart knew that this wasn’t going to be something that I could recover from.
I was barely hanging on as it was.
Yet , here I was, allowing it to happen despite the pain I knew he’d cause when he walked away again.
’ Cause he would.
He wouldn’t stay.
There were too many things against us for him to choose me.
My hair was yanked hard to the side, and my eyes were focusing on his.
“ Don’t go there,” he growled. “ We’ll worry about later when it’s done.”
It’s done.
So , even though I knew it’d kill something inside me this time when he left, I gave him all of me.
I’d never be able to not to.
The hand supporting my butt moved forward, and he pressed deep against the seam of the jeans I was wearing, knowing exactly where to go. Where I wanted him.
I moaned into his mouth, my legs tightening around his torso to the point of strain, as I fell deeper into his kiss.
His hips continued to press me against the wall, but his hands went to work, sliding up my shirt, revealing the bareness of my belly. His hands stilled when he encountered the barely there pasties I was wearing.
And when I say barely, I mean truly barely. All it did was offer the most infinitesimal amount of support but was mostly another added layer in between my nipples and the outside world.
I’d found the pasties online last year, loving how they were enough to get rid of my nip prints and that I didn’t have to wear a bra at all anymore.
I mean, what was the point when you had such small boobs that wearing a bra only made them smaller?
“ What is this?” he growled when he pulled away from my mouth.
His hands went to my shirt and yanked it off my head, revealing my bare upper body to him.
My hair slid forward out of the bun it’d been very loosely corralled in, temporarily concealing my nipples from him all over again.
He growled and gathered my hair into a single fist, pulling it off of my chest.
Then he stared at the flesh-colored nipple stickers.
“ I don’t know what these are,” he said to me. “ But I like them.”
“ Nipple covers,” I breathed, pressing my hips into his hard belly.
He spun us fast, then all but dropped me on the bed before following me down just as fast.
Then he pulled the nipple cover off.
With . His . Teeth .
I died.
I died right then and there, watching as he pulled them off with the utmost care.
First one, then the other.
Once my nipples were free, he sucked each of them into his mouth one at a time, giving each a thorough reunion with his tongue and lips before pulling away and following the line of my belly down to my jeans.
The jeans came off in much the same fashion.
The buttons were undone—all five of them—with an ease that showed he’d done this many times before.
And with me, he had.
The first time he’d taken my pants off of me, I’d been wearing button-up jeans. He’d caught the top of my jeans with his fingers and tugged me to him, causing all of the buttons to come undone with just a gentle tug.
From then on, I purchased nothing but button-up jeans, mostly because every time I buttoned them up, I was reminded of the way his eyes had lit up when he’d divested me of them the first time.
Now , it was like a kick to the heart.
It was the best kind of agony as I watched him and remembered that later this memory would torture me also.
Once they were unbuttoned, he caught my panties and my jeans by the waistband and ripped them off my thighs.
My body jolted at the move, eyes wide, as he showed off the ease with which he could move me.
My thighs went up and together, uncomfortable all of a sudden with the intensity in his eyes.
Speaking of his eyes, his narrowed at the move, a frown marring his face.
“ Why are you hiding from me?” he asked.
Instead of telling him the truth—that he unnerved me— I said, “ I don’t think we should be doing this.”
We shouldn’t.
It might kill me to stop.
But it would kill me if we kept going.
Another piece of my heart would shrivel up and die the moment he left.
He started to unbutton his pants in answer.
When they hung loose around his hips, he started on the first button of his uniform top.
I watched as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt, keeping his eyes on me the entire time.
The shirt fell to the floor, leaving him in his white undershirt and pants.
I started to rub my thighs together, unable to stop the move despite not wanting him to know how he affected me.
“ Fuck ,” he said as he tagged the back of his tee at the base of his neck, hunched his shoulders, and pulled it off of his body.
I was left with the chest of a god staring back at me.
Though Quinn wasn’t quite as muscular as his brothers, he made up for it in the ripped department. The man was shredded. I could see the muscles under each one of his ribs. His arms were large and defined. His shoulders were perfectly shaped. His abs. Oh , his abs.
They’d gotten better in the years since I’d seen him last.
He’d grown into his body in a way that showed he’d moved from boy to man.
Those deep lines, also known as the Adonis belt, were bold and apparent as they dipped into the pants that were hanging on by the curve of his ass alone.
And his ass.
That’d been the one thing about him that I’d always been jealous over.
He had the perfect, most rounded and defined ass, that I’d ever seen.
The man could fill out a pair of Wranglers like nobody’s business.
“ You’re looking at me like you need me,” he growled.
The problem was, I did need him.
He just wasn’t willing to fight for me.
I bit my lip, and he dropped his pants.
He hadn’t been wearing underwear.
I didn’t know what Quinn’s aversion to wearing underwear was, but the man hated them.
The only time he wore them was when he was forced to—i.e., working out or going somewhere that required him to be in them.
But now, under his dress uniform, I was unsurprised to see his cock pop up with nothing left to contain it.
I’d always loved his cock.
I’d only ever seen two in my life, his and my brother’s accidentally in a traumatizing event when I was thirteen that had us both walking into each other in the hallway when we thought we were alone.
But I knew Quinn’s to be perfect.
It was long and thick, perfectly veiny. The head was prominent. The tip a darker pink than the rest of him.
It was just… perfect.
And the things that perfect dick could do to me…
He caught his cock and pumped it twice, his eyes staying on me the entire time.
“ You’re staring,” he snarled.
I was.
“ I …” I shifted, my legs momentarily breaking apart, and I saw the moment he realized what he was doing to me.
It was hard to hide the evidence of arousal when it was coating my inner thighs.
And the stupid lights above the bed framed it almost indecently, allowing the glare to flicker off my arousal in an obscene way.
He snarled something under his breath before prowling to me.
I watched, heart in my throat, as he came my way.
“ Are you sure this is a bad idea?” he asked as he pushed my legs apart and all but forced his way between them.
“ Um ,” I hesitated, wondering what it was that we’d been talking about.
Oh ! The stupidness of this decision.
Sex always complicated things.
Right ?
“ Baby ,” he said. “ You’re not sounding very convincing.”
That was because his cock was now pressed up against my pussy.
I could feel the head dipping between my wet folds, coating the length of it in my arousal.
“ I’m trying,” I panted. “ But …”
But I couldn’t think straight.
Not with his cock delving between my pussy lips.
Not with the head of his cock running against my clit, making me think of nothing but the way he felt.
The way he’d feel when he sank inside…
I cried out as the head of his cock breached my entrance.
God . I wanted more!
“ Quinn ,” I breathed. “ Con …”
He pushed all the way inside before I could finish.
“ Con …” I started to say again, but he pulled back, making me cry out in desperate need.
He pushed back in.
Out .
In .
Out .
In .
Then he started to grind, and I forgot all about why we would need a condom.
I forgot all about how I knew this would hurt.
I forgot about the way he always ruined me when he left me.
I focused on him.
On the way he was making me feel.
On the sound of our breathing as he fucked me into oblivion.
The doubts. The what ifs. The indecision.
All of it disappeared with each stroke of his hips.
“ Fuck , fuck, fuck,” he breathed. “ You’re so wet for me, baby. Are you mine?”
Was I his?
I’d never be anyone else’s… but his? I didn’t think so.
I’d never be his again.
“ No ,” I breathed.
He slammed back inside of me, harder this time.
I saw stars, and my body started to tip precariously close to the edge.
But before I could fall over, he stilled, his hand going to my face as he grabbed my jaw and forced me to look at him.
His blazing hazel green eyes stared into mine as he said, “ Are . You . Mine ?”
Never .
Not unless he was mine right back.
He must’ve seen that look in my eyes, my resolution, because he said, “ I’ve been yours since the first time I laid eyes on you.”
I swallowed hard. “ Quinn …”
“ You .” He slammed into me. “ Are .” Slam . “ Mine .”
I cried out.
My orgasm blasted into me.
He growled and dropped his face to mine, breathing in my exhaled breaths.
His hand tightened around my mouth, and then I felt him tense as the first splashes of his release bathed my insides.
No words were exchanged for a long few minutes.
Not until he finally rolled over and pulled me with him, my body landing on his.
I felt the wetness sliding down my thighs, likely landing on him, but couldn’t scrounge up the desire to care.
This .
This was a bad idea.
Because now I didn’t want to leave him.
I didn’t want this to end.
But it would end.
Because we still had the same issue now that we did then.
His unwillingness to see anything but black and white. My brother’s unwillingness to have a sister who dated a cop. But did anyone ever stop and think about me in this scenario?
Because , had they, they might’ve stopped long enough to realize it was killing me.
To have the man I loved hating another man I loved.
It wasn’t fair.
And it sure the hell wasn’t solved miraculously by sex.
His phone on the bedside table rang, and he tensed.
I leaned over, snatched it for him, and tossed it his way.
I didn’t miss the name on the screen, though.
Elliette .
But the person who answered as I crawled off of Quinn definitely wasn’t a boy.
It was a girl.
She said something in quick succession to him answering, and Quinn put his hand on his face before shaking it. “ I’m not at the bar anymore.”
My stomach sank.
Was he meeting someone there?
Was he meeting this girl?
“ No , I’m busy,” he answered, making my heart soar.
He wasn’t leaving.
Who was this woman? And why did just the sound of her voice make me want to murder her?
“ No , definitely not coming back. Sorry ,” he said as his eyes followed me to the bathroom.
I stole his sweatshirt off the floor, pulled it on over my t-shirt, only looking back at him once before closing the door softly behind me.
That didn’t mean I didn’t hear every word that was exchanged between them, and I certainly noticed how every word that was exchanged wasn’t something exchanged between lovers. At least not from Quinn’s side of the discussion.
I finished up in the bathroom and came back out to see Quinn there, staring at me, waiting for me to open the door.
We switched places, and I went back to the bedroom, putting my knee into the mattress and contemplating what I should do next.
That question was answered for me when he said, “ You want me to plug in your phone?”
I snorted. “ I don’t have it.”
“ You what?” he asked in disbelief.
“ I left it,” I answered. “ I didn’t want to deal with anything tonight.”
Mainly , contemplating calling him since it was my first day back on American soil.
Yet , here I was, doing exactly what I’d been trying to prevent.
What were the odds the man I’d been trying to not call would show up at the same bar as me?
Really freakin’ slim.
He grumbled something under his breath, then took the same spot he’d left earlier.
I pulled my knees up to my chest and tried in vain to stop the words from coming out of my mouth.
Yet , they came out anyway.
“ Who was that?” I asked curiously.
The voice had sounded feminine.
“ A friend,” he answered. “ We met during police academy.”
I waited, hoping he would offer more, and found that he wasn’t going to.
And , since I wasn’t the type of person to pry when it was apparent that prying wasn’t something he wanted, I closed my mouth.
Even though, I had to admit, it was absolutely killing me not to know about this woman in Quinn’s life.
Who was she?
What was she to him?
What was the status of their relationship?
Did he like her?
Did she like him?
All kinds of questions speared through my brain, but again, I chose to control myself.
I eyed my pants across the room, thinking that now would be a good time to leave.
He went to say something, but I showed him my back, stood, and walked to my jeans.
I audibly heard his teeth click together as he snapped his mouth closed, likely forcing himself to stay quiet when he wanted to beg me to stay.
“ I’ll see you around, Quinn ,” I said once my shoes were in place.
“ You want me to walk…”
I shot him a look. “ I don’t want anything from you, Quinn Carter .”
He’d more than shown me that I didn’t need to know anything more about him, so why shouldn’t I give him the same?
And that’s how it went, every single time we ran into each other.
For a single night, and sometimes for a full week if we had it, we would meet up. We wouldn’t talk about the future. We wouldn’t talk about a damn thing, really.
Our bodies, however? They worshipped.
And through the years, my nine or ten times that I got to spend the day worshipping Quinn , was what got me through life.
The shirts I’d steal I would use to sleep in every night to remind me of him. I’d wear them until the smell was gone, then tuck them away in my drawer never to be worn again.
Everything stayed exactly the same, going strong through both of us leaving the military. Him getting a job back at DPD , and me doing everything I could to stay away from Dallas .
Until one night, it didn’t work anymore.