Chapter 25
Quinn
Isought refuge inside my room, slamming the door behind me. I stumbled toward the bed, but didn’t get into it. Instead, I sank onto the floor, my back pressed against the side of it. My chest was tight. I pulled in a shaky breath, letting my head fall back against the mattress.
The room was too quiet. My head felt too full of everything I’d felt outside—everything I wanted and knew I couldn’t have.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there before footsteps thumped in the hallway.
A knock. I didn’t answer, but the door cracked open cautiously. “Quinn?”
It was Graham. He said my name a second time, a question that I didn’t answer or deny. When he had the door open wide enough to look inside, our gazes met. I couldn’t read the expression on his face, but I wasn’t hiding mine.
Graham stepped inside.
He crossed the room slowly and lowered himself onto the floor beside me, shoulder to shoulder. His hand dropped on top of mine, the weight and comfort of it almost breaking me again.
I waited for him to say something, to ask how I was or to scold me for leaving such a sweet time with his family.
He didn’t, though. He simply sat in the silence with me, filling the empty space with his steady presence.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said. The words held all the hopelessness and shame and guilt that festered inside me.
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
Tears burned in my eyes. I pulled my legs into my chest and buried my face in my knees.
I was, though.
I was sorry for walking away like that. I didn’t even know how to explain it to him…how did I tell him how good his family was? How good he was?
“I’m going to be leaving soon,” I said dully, squashing down all the emotions drowning me.
“I know,” he answered, with almost the same lack of emotion.
“It’s what’s best. I—I don’t have a purpose here anymore.”
His hand tightened over mine. Tension radiated from his body. I didn’t look at him, though. I kept my face buried, pressed against my kneecaps.
“I don’t know if that’s true,” he whispered.
“Why not?”
There was a long pause.
“You would do amazing things no matter where you were. No matter what case you were working on…or who you were working for.”
A weight pressed down on me until it felt like my bones might crumble under the pressure.
“I’ve been working toward partner at my firm for—for years, Graham.” I bit my lip. “I really don’t even know if Preston can just fire me like that. I have to have options…maybe legal ones.”
He shifted beside me, leaning closer until his arm pressed against mine. “I’m sure you’d succeed no matter what you decide to do.”
I wasn’t sure why it made my heart fall.
Something unsettled lingered in the silence that followed, like he was going to continue speaking.
“What?” I snapped, when he didn’t continue. “You don’t think I should work so hard? That I shouldn’t fight for everything I’ve worked toward?”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
He was holding something back. I could sense it.
He let out a soft breath. “Is that what will make you happy, Quinn? Making partner?”
I lifted my head, twisting to look at him. He stared at me, his eyes steady and blue like the water of the river on a calm, still morning.
“Make me happy?” I repeated, like the thought had never occurred to me.
Graham’s mouth pulled down at the corners, but he nodded. “Yes.”
Then he took the hand that had been covering mine and touched it to my cheek. “You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be fulfilled and love the life you have built for yourself. The life you have worked so hard on. You deserve the whole damn world, Quinn.”
I blinked at him, my eyes stinging. But it was the emotion in his face—the utter sincerity—that choked me. He meant every word.
I tried to swallow, but a lump was stuck in my throat. I stared at Graham, my stomach stirring like there were a billion fluttering wings inside it. “I—I’ve never really thought about it.”
His brows pinched. “What do you mean?”
I lifted a shoulder. “Happiness has never been a priority for me. I’ve always had goals. Motivations. Places where I wanted to go and things I wanted to achieve. Happiness had little to do with it.”
I said it all very quickly, the words soft and slightly embarrassed.
I’d always wanted to make something of myself.
To prove that I was more than the people who raised me.
More than the rumors and the whispers and the mud the world had smeared across my name.
I wanted to help people like my brother—people who were innocent even if no one believed them. People the system took advantage of.
Graham’s thumb ghosted along my cheekbone, swiping back and forth across my skin.
“Don’t you want to be happy?”
The question was soft and tentative as his eyes searched mine.
I locked my stare on his. “Maybe I do now.”
There it was—the confession I hadn’t even wanted to admit, not even to myself.
Graham leaned forward, making my skin tingle. “What would make you happy, little lynx?”
He was so close, the rush of his warm breath fanned over my mouth. It opened without me thinking, my heart skittering at the way he said it. Little lynx. Like he was caressing each syllable as it ran over his tongue.
“Why do you call me that?” I asked, my voice ragged and heady from his proximity.
His mouth kicked up at one corner, flashing his teeth. “Because I think it suits you.” He somehow drew even closer without managing to touch me. “You’re a sharp, wild, vicious little thing sometimes…”
If I breathed too hard, his lips were going to be on mine. “Vicious?”
There was no offense in my tone.
“You bite.”
My teeth sank into my bottom lip. I just wanted him to kiss me, but he hadn’t attempted to close the hair’s width of space between us.
“And that doesn’t scare you?”
“No,” he said without hesitation.
“Why not? Do you just…love torture or something?”
He let out a sound that resembled a chuckle, rumbling deep in his chest. My entire body vibrated with it.
“I can’t say I’m particularly sadistic, no.”
This felt like torture, though. My gaze darted to his mouth before they returned to his eyes, wide with longing.
Just kiss me, Graham.
“What would make you happy?” He repeated the question, tilting his head so he could lean a fraction nearer without our noses touching.
My pulse pounded, blood rushing through my body, heating my skin.
The answer was on my lips before I could stop it. Before I could even think about it.
“You.”
He finally closed the space, that gap that had felt like a chasm between our mouths.
He tasted of amber and spice and a hint of chocolate.
I inhaled until my lungs ached, my lips devouring his.
It was frantic and heated and urgent, but it was also grounding.
Like some deep understanding snapping into place.
He kissed me like he’d been holding himself back for a lifetime. The restraint I had seen in him for weeks finally cracked open. His mouth slanted over mine, hungry and sure, and I melted into him with a desperate sound I couldn’t swallow.
His other hand slid up until he held my face in both his hands, guiding me closer—until I was practically climbing into his lap. My fingers fisted in the fabric of his shirt, pulling him in because I needed him everywhere.
His other arm wrapped around my waist, anchoring me, deepening the kiss until I was drowning in him: in his warmth, his scent, his steady, unshaking resolve that made me feel like I could trust something for once in my life.
He sighed into my mouth, a low, aching sound that shot straight through me. My heart was hammering so violently it hurt.
Graham broke away for a breath, his forehead pressed to mine, both of us panting.
“Quinn,” he murmured, voice raw, breath feathering against my lips. “God, I—”
A sharp, rapid knock rattled the door.
We jerked apart.
The door swung open before either of us could say a thing. Roman filled the doorway and for a second, I flushed with embarrassment, heat racing up my neck—but the emotion evaporated when I really took him in.
His chest was heaving, face pale beneath the glow of the hallway light. His jaw was tight, eyes blown wide—not with judgment or surprise, but fear.
Something was wrong.
Really wrong.
Graham was already pushing off the floor, rising in one smooth motion. “What is it?” he demanded, his voice cutting through the air as the haze of our kiss disintegrated around us.
Roman’s hand strangled the doorknob so tightly his knuckles had gone white. His gaze kept darting between the two of us, like he didn’t know how much he should say in front of me.
“You need to come downstairs,” he said, breaths uneven. “Something—” His eyes locked on me for a beat, and the hesitation was unmistakable. “Something happened.”
I scrambled to my feet beside Graham. “What is it?”
Roman’s jaw flexed. “Just…come downstairs. August will explain—”
“Tell me, Roman.” Graham’s voice was steel. I had never heard him use that tone before.
Roman froze. Whatever that tone meant between them, it worked.
“It’s Amos.” His voice wavered—not weak, but terrified. “He’s missing.”