CHAPTER THIRTEEN #3
“You’ll meet someone else.”
“I don’t fucking want anyone else.”
Emotion filled her eyes, and I watched her fight a battle on her own. If only she’d let me in so I could tear down those walls and destroy the demons.
“Quinn, we both damn well want this. Let’s work out how—”
“My father...you heard him that day.”
Fuck.
“Fuck your father,” I snapped, tightening my hold on her face. “Tell me you want me. Tell me, Quinn!”
A tear slid down her face.
“Quinn,” I pleaded and hated myself for it. Closing my eyes, I sought equilibrium and drew in a breath. “Look, I leave in two weeks. Let’s go get a burger and talk, really talk, and I can give you that ride on my bike.”
She could take that however she wanted.
Suddenly, she took a little step back, slight panic filling her eyes. “I was teasing before.”
The dagger in my heart was now twisting painfully. I’d discharged and she couldn’t even agree to a conversation about being together.
Quinn was a closed book, and trying to pry her open was like finding a rusty tin can on a deserted island.
Towering over her, my heart on my sleeve, raw and vulnerable, I realized in that moment that I was in love with Quinn Parker. That I would do anything for her and to have her in my life. But unless she took the step on the path with me, I was fighting a pointless battle.
I should’ve been used to this powerlessness when it came to her. The Army and its rules had always been the wall between us.
Now it wasn’t.
There was no one to blame...the choice was Quinn’s, and she had made it with that tiny step backward.
The hurt inside me shifted, turning to anger. I slid my hands into my pockets and rocked back on my heels. “Then why the fuck are you here?”
Quinn flinched.
“I came to say goodbye.”
Another piercing turn.
“Fine. Go. Sign my good-bye card. Turn around and walk away, Quinn,” I challenged her.
She swallowed, her face turning pale.
“Noah, please.”
“Here he is! I found him,” Johnny yelled as he rounded the corner with fellow soldier, Avery, who grabbed hold of my shirt and tugged. “Mechanical bull challenge starts now, and you’re up!”
I held Quinn’s eyes until I rounded the corner, and when I climbed onto the bull and it started up, I hung on to it like it was her.
When it flung me off, I laughed.
The irony.
When I climbed to my feet and glanced around, she was gone, and Tyrell was clapping and grinning.
Fucking prick.
Six long months I’d waited for her to reach out, regretting her choice that night. She hadn’t. But life had thrown us back together, and now she was lying in my arms.
I had tasted her and made her come.
Knowing Quinn, she’d try to bolt out of her own room, but this time I wasn’t letting her. Hell, she’d probably be saying no to me right up until she said I do.
I brush her dark hair from her forehead and study her face. With little effort, I could slide my cock inside her and fuck her so hard she’d have my name imprinted on her uterus.
But that would be going too far tonight.
For Quinn.
Not for me.
So instead, I settle beside her and wrap her in my arms as she turns to face me.
“I said no,” she says quietly, lying.
“You look beautiful when you come,” I reply, feeling my eyes glistening with desire and emotion.
“It never happened.” Quinn blushes as she glances away, but when I take her chin in my fingers, all I see is the lingering contentment of a powerful orgasm.
“I have your juices on my tongue still, sweetheart. It happened. And it’s going to happen again.”
She lets me kiss her again, melting into me as I cup her sexy ass.
Is it possible that this could really happen between us?
“What happened with the rope?” Quinn asks the moment my lips lift from hers. Despite the change of subject, her fingers play with the buttons of my shirt, and I like it.
“Keep this quiet, but we think it might be the cartel.”
“God, really?” Quinn tucks her hand under her head, then flinches. I take it, frowning, as I rub my thumb over the Band-Aid.
“Remember my last night at the bar? Before I went on the bull—”
“Don’t, Noah.” Her eyes flutter closed, not wanting to remember. “What we just did...This. Us. It can never happen.”
The hell it can’t.
I could point out that I had her spread out like a sandwich, eating her pussy, thrusting my fingers inside her. That if I wanted, I could rip off everything she’s wearing and feast on her breasts, make her suck my cock until I come so hard she’s forced to swallow.
But Quinn Parker is as stubborn as an ox.
With no legal ramifications between us, I am free to act like I wasn’t before. Talk doesn’t seem to work with her, so I let her body do the talking. I grab her face and kiss her with so much passion that those pretty eyes of hers are forced open and have to acknowledge me.
Then, when she’s out of breath, I turn her over, throw my leg over hers and tuck her flush against me.
“Go to sleep.”
Inch by inch, I will make her mine over the next two weeks. By the time she leaves training, Mark will be some guy she used to know, and Quinn will be mine.
Forever.
I will not become my father.