Chapter 43 – Quinton #2
I pulled back enough to see her face, both of us breathing hard. My arms were still wrapped around her waist, hands splayed across her back, holding her close. Her eyes were dark, pupils wide, lips flushed. Beautiful. She was so fucking beautiful.
She let out a shaky laugh. “That was?—“
“Yeah,” I said. “It was.”
Neither of us let go. Her hands settled on my chest, fingers curling into the linen of my shirt. I could feel her pulse through the attunement, still racing, still buzzing with the aftershock of what we’d done.
Then her hands rose. Slowly, like every part of her was thinking through it but doing it anyway. Her fingers brushed my jaw, soft and curious, and it stopped my breath.
Her thumb traced the edge of a scar I’d long forgotten the pain of: the thin white line on the corner of my mouth. Shallow, barely visible in shadow, but I felt her notice it. Felt every heartbeat of her touch like a brand.
“Where did you get this?” she asked, barely a whisper.
I swallowed, eyes flicking to hers, soft now in a way they rarely were. “Fight outside Voshen,” I said quietly, watching her trace it again like she could erase it with her fingers. “Bastard got close. Not close enough.”
She didn’t smile. Just kept her hand there, like she could feel the story underneath the skin.
I’d taken blades, broken ribs, and worse for people who would never remember my name. But her fingers on this one scar undid me more than any wound I’d ever carried.
Then her hand slipped higher. Past my ear.
Into my hair. Her fingers were careful at first, as if she wasn’t sure if she was allowed.
I didn’t breathe a word, just let her explore.
Needed her to. Her fingers sank in, sliding through slowly, curling into the longer strands at the back where they brushed past my collar.
Her nails scraped gently against my scalp, and my knees damn near buckled.
A helpless groan clawed up from deep in my throat, and she heard it. I knew because her eyes flicked up and caught my expression.
“I just found out Quinton Thornvale’s greatest weakness,” she murmured, voice honey-thick with amusement and something darker.
The sound that left me was half laugh, half surrender as I dropped my forehead against hers. “Not fair,” I muttered. “That’s cheating.”
But her fingers didn’t stop. They dragged again, nails teasing along my scalp, and fire crawled down my spine.
Fuck.
I didn’t even realize how good it felt being touched like this. Like I was something delicate. Something to be learned, not taken. No one had ever touched me like that. Not with intention, not with wonder.
She hummed, eyes focused on where her hands moved through my hair. “I didn’t know it was this soft.”
My lips tugged into a crooked grin. “You’ve been looking?”
Her eyes flicked to mine. “Maybe.”
I barked a low laugh. “Didn’t think you noticed.”
She didn’t answer right away. She twisted her fingers again in the strands, letting the weight of silence carry what words couldn’t. Then, quietly, almost too soft to catch: “I notice everything about you, Quin.”
The words hit something inside me so deep I didn’t know it was there. I couldn’t speak. I stared at her. At the way she looked at me like she meant it. Like she’d meant to say it for a long time.
Because I saw her too. All of her.
How her breath always hitched before she said something vulnerable. How she wore grief like a second skin and still kept getting up. How she was looking at me right now, like I was worth seeing.
My hands slid from her waist to cup her face again, needing her warmth under my palms. Her skin was soft and heated, her breath brushing my lips with each shallow inhale. I leaned down until our foreheads touched, until the space between us disappeared.
“I notice everything about you too,” I said, rough and low. “Everything.”
Her fingers were still threaded in my hair, gently tugging as her nails scraped again, slow, coaxing another groan from me before I could stop it. I breathed her in, eyes closing. Her touch, the fading light through the window, the scent of her all around me. Too much and not enough.
She made me feel known.
And it lit me on fire.
I turned my head, pressing my face into the curve of her neck, breathing in the place where her pulse beat closest to the surface. Soap and citrus and salt and her. My lips brushed the skin there, light enough that it could have been an accident.
She tilted her head, giving me more.
I pressed my mouth to her pulse point, feeling it flutter and race beneath my lips. She shivered against me, a full-body tremor, and her fingers tightened in my hair.
And then something surged inside me. Not heat. Not want. Something deeper, older, pulling from a place I didn’t recognize. A sudden, overwhelming urge.
Bite.
Not a nip. Not a playful scrape. The instinct to sink my teeth into her pulse point and claim her in a way that felt primal and necessary and utterly beyond my control.
My teeth grazed her skin. Pressure building, half a breath from?—
I jerked back.
My heart hammered. I stared at her neck, breathing hard, trying to understand what the fuck had risen inside me. The magic in my blood thrummed with confusion, hungry for something I couldn’t name.