Quinn #2
Light leaked from the corners of Tobias’s eyes, sparks jumping between his eyelashes.
“I spent the last few years guarding my every thought. Wondering if today was the day I would die and knowing there was a good chance it could be. Letting you in, giving you that power over me…it goes against everything I was forced to become to keep the ones I loved safe.” His voice cracked.
“Everyone around me dies or is worse for having known me. I refuse to lose anyone else.”
I expected him to pull away. My breath caught as he leaned into my touch instead.
His broad hand covered mine, pressing it flat against his heart. “I refuse to lose you.”
“Well, I already lost you,” I said, my voice breaking.
“You died, and I had to keep living.” A tear rolled down my cheek, quickly followed by another.
“For seven long years, I carried you with me like a hole in my heart. When I realized you were alive…it felt like a piece of myself came back to life. But there was a war left to win, and you were having such a hard time simply existing.” Tobias’s throat bobbed, struggling to swallow.
“For a moment there, in the woods…I thought you were coming back to me. Then we spent months in the same city. Months in the same fucking house, and every time I tried to get close to you…” I could feel his heartbeat accelerating beneath my palm.
“Why is it that you always try to run from me, even now?”
“Maybe you should be the one running away,” Tobias said darkly, though he made no move to release me. “The boy you knew died in that cell.”
“No.” There was an ache in my chest so acute I barely resisted the urge to try to heal it. “You can’t believe that. Not when you came back to me.”
“Great argument,” Tobias sneered, and I flinched.
“You’re forgetting the part where I spent four years beneath that damned castle, unable to do anything but scream as they ripped me apart over and over again.
I’m not the person you used to know, Sagray.
I’m broken, and it’s not the sort of broken that you can heal. ”
The defeat in his tone, the self-loathing, was enough to tear my heart in two.
“But you’re right,” he continued, the magic in his eyes fading as that damn mask slid back into place. “You do deserve better than me. So how about we do what we need to do and then you can go find someone else to torment.”
Anger flared within me, rising to the bait. “Torment? Is that really how you feel about the time we’ve spent together?”
My nails dug into his chest, and I found myself torn between pulling him closer and pushing him away.
Tobias’s jaw clenched. “Yes, Sagray. Every second with you is fucking agony. You should take the hint and leave me alone like everybody else.”
The air between us felt charged, like the moment before a lightning strike—the electric anticipation of an oncoming storm.
“You don’t mean that.” I drew out each word, refusing to back down. “After all we’ve been through, how can you even say that to me?”
“Don’t tell me what I mean,” Tobias said, his voice nearly a growl. “You have no idea what I’m thinking and yet you—” He inhaled sharply, then blew it out in a furious rush. “Why do you even care?”
As though that wasn’t completely obvious. My fists clenched as I cried, “Why do you think?”
A muscle flexed in his jaw, lightning jumping between the gold flecks in his irises.
He was too close. And not nearly close enough.
My voice dropped. “I can’t do this anymore.
I can’t stand here, waiting for you to see what’s right in front of you, only to watch you bury your feelings again and again.
” His throat worked, and my eyes burned with the start of furious tears.
My voice splintered as I choked out, “Let me know when you find the courage to face me without your mask.”
Tobias’s chest heaved like he stood at the edge of a cliff, trying to convince himself to leap. I started to turn away, about to storm out of his room and find somewhere that he couldn’t hear my heart break. His hand fastened around my wrist, dragging me back.
I opened my mouth to protest when he placed my hand against his heart, its wild rhythm matching my own. But it was the look in his eyes that froze me in place—his gaze so openly raw I couldn’t bring myself to look away.
“You don’t understand,” he whispered. There was something akin to devastation on his face—like that mask had cracked, and he was desperately trying to hold it together.
“It’s not a lack of courage. I think I always knew what we could be to each other.
But I…I didn’t want to trap you into it.
” He sucked in a shuddering breath. “I didn’t want to trap you with me, not when we both know that you deserve better. ”
I tried to protest, but Tobias’s next words knocked the breath out of me.
“You’re my first thought in the morning, my last thought before I fall asleep, and the only thing that gets me through the night,” Tobias said so solemnly it felt like a vow.
“You’re the only thing I seem to be able to think about despite having a sister to save and a kingdom to run…
though I’m well aware I couldn’t do either without you.
You also happen to be kind to a fault, aggravatingly selfless, annoyingly brilliant, though somehow never arrogant about it, and beautiful inside and out without even trying.
” His eyes were brimming with hope and longing, and something endless that felt like it was pulling me in.
“Whether or not I deserve you, you’re mine, Quinn.
You’ve always been mine, and I don’t have the strength to keep pushing you away. ”
For a second, I thought a trio of stars had fallen through the window before I realized it was his magic, three balls of light swirling around me. “Maris…” I breathed.
“No, please let me finish,” Tobias begged, seemingly unaware of the light circling around us even as another glowing orb joined the rest. “You make life worth living, Quinn. And you made me want to live, even when things were darkest.” He glanced down, his voice hoarse as he added, “Especially then.”
His gaze was soft as he looked back up at me, his expression so unguarded for a change, I felt dizzy. “I can’t get you out of my head, and I don’t want to. You…you’re everything I’ve ever wanted, for longer than you can imagine. And I’ve long since realized that I’ll never, ever want anyone else.”
That last barrier between us crumbled, unable to hold up against the strength of his proclamation. I had the vague sensation that I was floating above my body—like this was a dream, and one false move might make it fade away.
“You’re what I want too,” I breathed. “I need this to be real. I need…you.”
For one endless heartbeat, we stared at each other. Then his mouth crashed into mine in a kiss so forceful that my knees buckled.
And then I was kissing him back, that fear dissipating into pure lust mixed with something more. His arms wrapped around me, holding me against him as he devoured me body and soul.
The world could have exploded around us, and I wouldn’t have noticed with the fireworks going off behind my eyelids. It wasn’t until I opened my eyes that I realized that the light was coming from him—an entire universe of tiny stars bobbing around us in celebration.
I gasped his name as he started working his way down my throat, nipping and sucking. When he pulled away, I blinked at him in a daze. “Why’d you stop?”
There was something vulnerable in his eyes…something like hope.
“Say it again,” he pleaded.
I pressed my hand to my swollen lips, still reeling. “Say…what?”
“My name, Quinn.” His voice was nearly a growl. “Say my name.”
“Tobias—”
I cut myself off with a gasp as he yanked me up his body by my hips, hitched my legs around his waist, then carried me to the bed.
He cradled me almost reverently as he laid me down—his touch so gentle compared to the furious way he had kissed me that my heart skipped a beat.
One hand slipped beneath my dress, grabbing a handful of my upper thigh.
He ground against me. My answering moan was so loud it took me by surprise, even as I ached for more.
Tobias drew back, panting. His eyes trailed down my face to my chest—to my breasts, where my nipples pushed against the thin silk, then lower still to where his hips rucked up my nightgown above my thighs. His gaze felt like lightning, heat searing through every part of me it touched.
I needed more.
My eyes followed the muscle of his neck down his defined chest—tracing each abdominal until I reached the vee that disappeared into the waistband of his shorts.
I wanted him so badly, for so long. And here he was, wanting me too.
When I slid my gaze back up to his face, the look in his eyes made my thighs tighten around him. But after so long of wanting this, I didn’t want to rush him into anything. He must have seen the hesitation on my face because he went still before I could even whisper, “What do you want, Tobias?”
His expression was both soft and guarded, like he could barely believe this was real. “I want you, Quinn. I’ve always wanted you.”
“You can have me,” I quickly assured him. “You already do.” My teeth sunk into my lower lip as I tried to clarify. “I meant tonight…what exactly do you want to have happen?”
A sensual smirk curved his mouth. “Do you want the honest answer or the polite one?”
“Honesty, always,” I said immediately.
His eyes darkened. “I want what I’ve dreamed about since I was a teenager.
I want to bury my head between your thighs and hear the sounds I’ve imagined over and over again.
I want to wrap your gorgeous legs around my waist again and push my way inside you.
I want to hear you scream my name until you can’t take anymore.
And then I want to make you come so many times you lose count before I make you come again. ”
My mouth went dry. It was all I could do to nod.