Chapter 21
Quinn
Someone was screaming.
I wasn’t sure where it was coming from, but it felt like everywhere. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. Something was pressed against me, crushing me against the mattress. His smell smothered me, choking me.
The screaming intensified.
My throat burned.
I was certain that I was dying, suffocating until there was nothing left of me.
But then there was a voice I recognized. A familiar voice that soothed my soul.
The screaming quieted, and something warm pressed against my cheek. I sucked in a full breath, my lungs expanding without resistance this time.
“Quinn, sweetheart, open your eyes.”
Graham’s voice filled my senses. I frowned, obeying, and met his vibrant blue hues. He was looking down at me with a sharp frown, worry stark on his face. I blinked. The dark room around me came into focus.
What had happened?
As if he heard my unspoken question, his thumb caressed my cheekbone. “I think you were having a nightmare. You’re all right.”
My heart stuttered, clunking against my ribs as the realization dawned. A dream. I’d been having a dream.
I had been the one screaming.
I sat up quickly, forcing Graham to pull back as I tried to catch my breath that was suddenly out of control again. My throat was raw and throbbing.
How long had it been since I’d had a nightmare where I’d screamed so loud I’d woken myself? I was beginning to think that I’d become immune to them. I’d wake up cold and distant rather than shrieking.
But the past always had a way of clawing back when you thought you’d escaped it.
Shoving the blanket off my sweat-slicked skin, I threw my legs over the side of the bed and stood, swaying a little on my feet. Graham grabbed for my arm, steadying me and saying something I didn’t catch.
My mouth was so dry. I wasn’t drunk. Not even buzzed. But I was still so disoriented from the nightmare. I needed a moment.
I mumbled something about water and pushed past Graham, stumbling toward the en suite bathroom. I slammed the door closed behind me. Leaning against it, I tried to calm myself by recalling the breathing techniques. It helped, but only a little.
Once my knees ceased their wobbling, I splashed some cold water on my face. There was an empty cup next to the faucet, and I filled it from the sink and drank until my stomach hurt.
I was so thirsty.
When I physically couldn’t drink anymore, I glanced at myself in the mirror.
My eyes were puffy and swollen. Dried tracks of tears left salt lines on my cheeks.
I should probably feel embarrassed about making a scene in the middle of the night, but I didn’t.
I was just tired. Tired and so incredibly lonely.
Straightening my spine, I turned away from my reflection. The light wasn’t on, but the night wasn’t a depthless black. It was light enough to see in gray hues, as if the moon were bright enough to light the sky, or dawn was near. I didn’t know which it was, but it didn’t matter.
Graham was sitting on the edge of the bed when I returned. Silvery light filtered in through the thin gaps in the blinds, outlining him. His hair fell over his forehead, obscuring his eyes.
He didn’t move as I approached him. He was still, as if he were made of stone.
It was only when I stood right in front of him that he looked up at me. There was a question in his gaze, but he didn’t speak it.
“I owe you a secret,” I whispered.
The faint lines around his mouth deepened. “Quinn, you don’t have to—”
I didn’t let him finish. I barely even thought before I moved, listening to the ache that festered in my chest. The longing that I had been denying myself for too long.
I crawled into Graham’s lap, one knee on each side of his hips as I curled against his chest, desperate for connection, for warmth.
I pressed my face into his shoulder and breathed him in.
He stiffened beneath me as I wrapped my arms around his neck, clinging to him so tightly I might’ve been choking him.
I didn’t care, though. I didn’t care about anything but the feel of his body so close to mine. His pulse thumped against my own; I could feel it, hear it, the rhythm as erratic as mine. For a long time, I didn’t move. I let his warmth seep into me, melting my cold, icy heart.
“When I was fourteen, I was attacked,” I said, my words in such a rush to leave my mouth that they almost tripped over each other. “It was at my home. In my room. I’d fallen asleep with the window open and when I woke, there was someone on top of me.”
Graham’s heartbeat kicked up more and the tension in him grew taut. His body was almost vibrating with it, but I simply continued to cling to him, my face buried in the crook of his neck.
“He thought I was dead when he was done, but I wasn’t. I never…never saw his face. My brother, Austin, found me when he came to wake me up for dinner.” My lungs spasmed and the burn of tears welled. I squeezed them shut. “I will never forget the sound of his scream.”
Graham moved for the first time. His arms had been pinned against his sides, but he wrapped them around me, holding me against him.
I gasped and choked back a sob, not only from the old memories I was letting loose…
but because I couldn’t remember the last time someone had hugged me like this. Someone who truly cared about me.
I didn’t doubt it anymore. Graham cared.
“I made a full physical recovery, but I couldn’t remember anything at first. Whoever had attacked me hadn’t left any DNA.
At least none that we knew of at the time.
When Austin found me, I had apparently fought him.
I didn’t remember it, but when he’d touched me, I’d lashed out and scratched him all over his arms. He had carried me to his car and raced me to the hospital anyways.
The only physical evidence they found on me was all from him. ”
Graham’s arms tightened around me even more. I think he was starting to shake. Or maybe I was. We were so close I couldn’t tell. I didn’t want to talk about the next part, but I forced myself. It was cathartic, in a way. Like letting go of something heavy after you’ve been holding it for too long.
“Austin was never a violent person. But he’d done some stupid things when he was young. Our parents were never home and he’d been arrested for things like vandalism and trespassing. He was a pain in the sheriff’s ass, but he had never hurt anyone.” My lungs ached as I drew in a labored breath.
“I don’t even know how it happened, but suddenly the police had arrested my brother—my brother—for attacking me.
” I shook my head without lifting it. Even now, it was so preposterous.
“I might not have remembered who had broken into my room that night, but I knew it wasn’t him.
The sound of his horror when he found me was real.
My brother would’ve never hurt me. He had always taken care of me. ”
It was definitely my body that was trembling now. Graham rubbed slow, methodic circles against my lower back. He still didn’t speak. He gave me time to say all that I needed and wanted to.
“After Austin was arrested, everything fell apart. My parents, who had always been on the edge of crumbling themselves, gave up completely. They had both worked my whole life and spent as much time as possible away from the house, and us kids. My mother lost herself to her pills. My father drank until his liver gave out. It didn’t matter that my brother hadn’t even been convicted.
He was guilty in the public eye. He sat in jail, rotting and waiting for his trial because his public defender was trash.
“Then, one day, I got that call that shattered the last remaining piece of me.” I drew in an unsteady breath, steeling myself.
“My brother was killed by another inmate. I always knew it was a possibility. That even among criminals, crimes like that were not tolerated. But nothing could’ve prepared me for it. ”
Silent tears slipped from between my eyelids. I was quiet for so long that Graham’s hand stilled. Then he finally spoke.
“It wasn’t your fault, Quinn,” he said, his voice so low it was almost a growl. My bones ached as he pulled me in closer. “That never should’ve happened to you. I’m so, so sorry, sweetheart. You deserved better than what the world has given you.”
More tears dripped from my lashes. For the first time, I dared to believe that might be true.
“I—I tried to vouch for him. I told them it hadn’t been him, but no one believed me. The first time, I had said I didn’t remember and they—wouldn’t believe me when I did.”
His hand started those calming circles on my lower back. “I believe you, Quinn.”
He said it so softly, I wouldn’t have heard it if his mouth wasn’t so close to my ear.
“It wasn’t until I was an adult and long after my brother’s death when I got the opportunity to have the evidence from my case tested again.
I was almost done with law school and I couldn’t give up on clearing his name.
This time, they found an unknown male DNA profile.
They ran it through CODIS and got a hit. ”
My jaw clenched, and my nose crinkled at the memory of the first time I saw my true attacker’s face.
“He was a serial predator who had been arrested multiple times. He had been living in the city next to my childhood town. I think—it was just chance. Bad timing. He was known for being a Peeping Tom, and I think he happened to be in my neighborhood that night. My window was open and I was…easy prey.”
Graham made a strained noise deep in his chest. “Did he at least pay for what he did to you?”
I lifted my shoulders in a weak shrug. “By the time we connected him to my case, he was already in prison for murdering someone else. And…he was apparently sick. Cancer sick. He died before my case got to trial.”
He growled again. “That’s bullshit.”
I almost laughed. It really was some bullshit that he got to die before I saw justice. The only consolation was that he was in hell.
“At least I never have to think about him again. I officially cleared my brother’s name, even though it didn’t really matter. Everyone only ever remembers the worst thing anyone has ever been accused of.”
Graham’s arms loosened. He shifted his shoulders as his hands roamed up my back, my neck until he had my jaw cupped in his palms. He gently pulled my face from his shoulder and forced me to look at him.
He searched my face, but I wasn’t sure what he was looking for.
“It does matter,” he eventually said, gently shaking me like he was trying to rattle loose the untruths I had long harbored within me.
“It isn’t what people remember that’s important.
What matters is you fought for him. You fought for him when no one would.
You did everything you could, and it was enough, even if it seems like it wasn’t. ”
I went utterly still, something deep in me jolting as I gazed into his face and saw nothing but sincerity. I hadn’t realized that I’d needed to hear words like that until he spoke them, and it was as if a lock had been sprung open inside my heart.
A place I had long shut down ignited with heat.
Without thinking, I shoved my fingers into his thick, dark hair. The strands were impossibly soft against my palms. I leaned closer until the tips of our noses were touching. “Thank you,” I breathed, shoving every ounce of gratitude, of relief, of pure desperation into those two words.
I didn’t give him time to say anything in return before I crushed my lips against his.