Chapter 30
Cassie
F or the months that follow, Quinn and I continue to see each other behind everyone’s backs, and while it could be considered by some to be morally gray, deceiving the people we care most about in this world, it’s also a little risky, and therefore really, really hot .
I’ve never had so much sex in my life. Nor have I had such intense sex. The positions—varied and many.
Immediately after the Goodbye NY concert, Reed, Kael, and Jaxon all left the city for destinations unknown. Nick did too, for that matter. He didn’t go into details about what had happened, only that there had been some kind of altercation between Reed and Kael, and now the media were all over it. He also didn’t go into detail about where he was going or who he was going there with. All he said was there would be no family dinners while he was away, and he’d check in with me again when he got back.
I wasn’t entirely disappointed. Does that make me a terrible person?
Probably.
But as it turns out, the lack of anything even remotely related to Cold Neptune for a few weeks was a blessing in disguise, and it allowed Quinn and I some real quality time together.
Not only in the bedroom.
But other places, too. Shock. Horror.
Among all the sex, we did other things. Day to day things that “normal” couples do.
Quinn spent most nights at my apartment. He said there was less chance the paparazzi would find him in downtown SoHo. I don’t know if that’s true, or not. Or if he just enjoyed sleeping over at my place. But either way, I loved having him in my bed every night.
Between classes, homework, putting the finishing touches on my final paper, and work, Quinn and I fell into a comfortable routine, and to his great astonishment, we somehow managed to do it all without the eyes of the world watching us.
We played tourists in our own city, doing things neither one of us had ever done before. We visited the top of the Empire State Building just before dusk. I’d always wanted to go, but I’d just never gotten around to it, and Quinn said that the thought of going up there had just never crossed his mind until I brought it up.
The observation deck was near empty, granting us some privacy, and the view from the top was absolutely breathtaking, with deep pinks and rich purples playing background to the twilight skyline that stretched out beyond.
A few days later, Quinn convinced me to do a mafia/gangs of New York walking tour through Chinatown and Little Italy. It was guided by a retired NYC Detective, and I’ll admit, at first, I thought the whole idea sounded like a disaster waiting to happen. But the places this guy took us to… holy cannoli, I didn’t know half of them existed. It was like spending a few hours with Grissom from CSI , and you know what, it actually turned out to be one of the best days ever.
Quinn hasn’t stopped talking about it.
We also got around to watching the first three seasons of How to Get Away with Murder.
She’s so damn clever that lady, it makes my head spin.
On the nights I was working, Quinn would stay at my apartment, playing his guitar, and ordering pizza from the shop at the end of my street. He always made sure to leave me some. And he always waited up for me.
Every single time.
Coming home to a cold, lifeless apartment sucks, big time. I should know. I’ve been doing it for years, but having Quinn there, warm and sleepy, freshly showered, and ready to crawl into bed beside me, made it less sucky.
Decidedly so.
It was addictive. The more I had, the more I craved.
Quinn left to go on tour of the States with the band a few weeks later, and when he kissed me goodbye, it felt like a piece of my heart was going with him.
He’s so honest and so real. He doesn’t play games. He’s not bothered with his fame, or his fortune, and he’s just the most down-to-earth guy I’ve ever met.
Am I falling in love with him?
I don’t know, maybe?
It sure feels like it.
I never thought I could love another man as much as I loved Jeremy. But that’s the thing about love, isn’t it? It’s not divided, only multiplied. It’s a bit like when a couple has a second child. I’ve heard they often worry about loving that baby as much as they love the first child. But babies bring their own love with them, and maybe that theory goes for messy-haired, tattooed rock stars, too.
Maybe loving Quinn has nothing to do with Jeremy, and maybe Jeremy’s love has nothing to do with Quinn, because we all bring our own love with us.
When the plane landed in LAX later that afternoon, Quinn sent me a quick text message.
Quinn: We’re here. A bus is picking us up shortly to take us to our hotel. You doing okay?
Me: Not really. I miss you. But I’m glad you got there safely.
Quinn: I miss you, too. This is harder than I thought it would be. I’m tired, and my head’s killing me.
Me: Are you alright? Take some painkillers. This is going to be the longest three months of my life.
Quinn: First concert tomorrow night is sold out. I’m slightly freaked .
Me: You’re going to be great. I wish I could be there to see you up on stage. Wear the black leather pants and think of me.
Quinn: LOL. I’ll think of you every time the zipper rubs across my dick.
Me: You’ve got a filthy mouth.
Quinn: It’s only filthy for you, Alabama. I’m getting hard just thinking about your body. Awesome. Now I’m standing at the airport sporting a boner, and Kael keeps smiling at me, the freak!
Me: Kael’s the freak?
Quinn: Ha ha. I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to call. Our schedule is crazy.
Me: Don’t stress about it. I’m going to get so much work done on my paper, it’s not funny. You’re very distracting, just so you know.
Quinn: We’re doing a meet and greet by the hotel pool tonight. We won’t get back to our rooms until late. I’ll text you when I can.
Me: You better.
Quinn: You ever tried sexting?
I stared at the screen for the longest time after that, so long in fact that Quinn messaged me again before I had the chance to respond.
Sexting?
I wasn’t sure I even knew what that meant, but then again, maybe the clue was right there in the title .
Quinn: Did I just scare you?
Me: No. What does it involve?
A full ten minutes passed with nothing more from Quinn, and I started to panic that he might have lost interest with our conversation. I wondered if he has grown bored with the slightly unworldly and inexperienced transplant from Alabama who doesn’t know much about the dark and twisted path of…
Quinn: It involves me talking dirty to you while you touch yourself. The desired result is you orgasming all over your own fingers. I left a present for you in your bedside table.
He left me a gift?
I jumped off the couch so fast I think I pulled a muscle. Hobbling into my bedroom, I opened my nightstand drawer, and what do you know…Quinn did in fact leave me a parting gift.
How considerate of him.
And look at that because the six-inch silicone vibrator comes in a delightful shade of purple and looks remarkably like a real penis. If real penis’s had rabbit ears and were powered by D batteries, of course.
Let’s just say, Bugsy got plenty of use over the next three months while Quinn was on the road, and it turns out I’m actually a real pro at the whole sexting thing.
It took me a few tries, sure, but with some encouragement and a few dirty words from Quinn, it wasn’t long before I was getting him off just as often as he was getting me off.
Win, win .
Christmas came and went. I Skyped my parents and my brother, but for the most part I just hung out by myself in the city, enjoying the first snowfall of the winter.
On New Year’s Eve, a swarm of drunken college kids filed through the doors of Leon’s, the party kicking off into full swing just before midnight.
We were swamped behind the bar, working at full speed to fill drinks orders and taking advantage of our overflowing tip jars. The live cover band Leon actually forked out for wasn’t awful. They belted out a rendition of “Proud Mary” that got the crowd up and dancing, and when I looked out from beyond the sea of happy faces in front of me I noticed the dance floor was actually packed to capacity.
Quinn sent me a text message a few minutes after midnight wishing me ‘Happy New Year’ , but it wasn’t the same as having him there in the flesh.
January soon rolled into February, and with it came even more bad weather. New York was a cold-hearted bitch when she wanted to be, and not for the first time since I moved to the city did I miss the milder temperatures of the Deep South.
March arrived, and it was colder still. The city looked so pretty blanketed in white, and I spent my days wandering the sidewalks along the Hudson River so bundled up I couldn’t even see my own feet.
Or feel them. It was so freaking cold.
In the second week of April, an e-ticket popped up in my email that caught me completely by surprise. I read the entire thing twice before it fully sunk in. The ticket was for a flight to Miami, courtesy of one very famous guitarist who just happened to play for one of the most popular rock bands in the entire country, soon to be the world, if what was being written about them in the newspapers was anything to go by.
Apparently, the tour had been a complete success.
I couldn’t have been happier for them. Cold Neptune was skyrocketing up the charts, and their faces were plastered over every billboard in the city, as well as on every social media platform.
It turns out though, certain members of the band who shall not be named for privacy reasons—it was Kael, totally Kael, celebrated their success a little too hard, and according to Quinn, he and Nick were currently on a flight back to New York to check Kael into a room at Rochester Rehabilitation Center.
Reed had blown through also, racing back to New York straight after their last gig. Quinn didn’t divulge all the sordid details, but apparently Reed was on a mission to win back Brinley’s heart. Brinley? I hear you ask. Yes, that Brinley, opening act, open mic night, one and the same. I don’t know how it happened, why, or even when it happened, but it turns out Reed Devlin is madly in love with her.
Who would have ever thought?
That just left Jaxon, and well, the last Quinn saw of Jaxon, he’d rented a private yacht from some guy in Miami who didn’t speak a word of English and was currently headed to the Caribbean.
All this meant, of course, with Nick, Kael, Reed, and Jaxon out of the picture, I was booked on a flight south, and after Quinn spent a couple of days with his parents in Pensacola, he and I then spent the next two weeks together, lying by a private pool, sipping cocktails at the secluded beach house he’d rented, and catching up on all the things my purple counterpart failed to do for me over the past three months.
Glorious, glorious memories flood my mind…
I’m still shuddering from my second orgasm of the night, when Quinn lifts me off his face, sliding me down to his lap where his dick is standing hard and proud against his stomach. I reach between us and take him in my hand, wrapping my fingers around his thick base.
“Wait,” he growls.
But it’s too late.
I suck in a sharp breath as the broad head slowly penetrates my body. I’m so hungry for him that I push down on him, taking him all the way inside me, filling me with everything he has as I grind down hard on his cock.
Quinn’s hands grip my hips, lifting me up slightly, and the instant loss of warmth curls disappointment tightly around my spine.
“Condom,” he says grimly.
I glance down, and my breath no longer exists. “Oh, shit, I…sorry, I just—”
Flipping me over onto the mattress, he fumbles for the nightstand, and when he finds what he’s looking for, he slides a foil wrapper out, and I lie back, watching while his hands are busy positioning the slippery rubber over the head of his shaft.
“Good to go?” he asks when he’s done.
“With you, always.”
He crawls over the top of me, spreading my legs with his hands, and then he pushes himself into me with shallow pumps that swiftly turn into something deeper, something faster, and something more meaningful.
We move together so seamlessly it’s like our bodies are made for each other’s pleasure, and nothing else. As the sensations rocket throughout my body, I can’t help but feel like this time is different from all the other times we’ve had sex.
This time feels more intense and not just on a physical level but on an emotional and spiritual level too.
Quinn speeds up as if he, too, feels it, equally overwhelmed at the connection building between us. He stares down at me with what can only be described as wonder shining in his eyes, his mouth open, and his breath coming in short pants.
When he rolls his hips the way he knows I like so much, I can’t contain the soft moans coming from my mouth. The friction feels so good. I’ve never felt anything this good.
“More,” I whimper.
Quinn speeds up, and I can feel the intensity building. I desperately want him to reach his climax, but at the same time I never want this feeling to end. I want the sensation to last forever.
A few moments later Quinn’s stomach clenches tightly, his toes dig hard into the sheets, and the release bursts from his body with a deep, loud groan.
As his orgasm starts to ebb, I stare up into his eyes. He stares back at me, and I’m almost overwhelmed by the emotion on his face, the emotion in his pounding chest, the warmth in his expression.
He looks lost and found and broken and complete.
Tears threaten to spill down over my cheeks. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. The emotional connection I feel to this man is beyond all expectation, all reason.
It makes no sense. It changes me .
I’ve fallen in love with him. Deeply.
The words are on the tip of my tongue, and I barely manage to swallow them back. I can’t explain it, not really, not in a way that will do this feeling justice. All I know is that I will never be the same after this.
We will never be the same after this.
By the time we flew back to New York, I had a lovely golden tan, and I was sporting that wonderful post-coital glow that comes with not having to hide your happiness for the sake of anyone else.
And I was happy. Deliriously happy.