Untouched

by Maisey Yates

  “Hey.” He put his hand on her cheek. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” she said, her voice thick. “I’m not. I wanted to . . . have this and not have them know. I wanted to make a grand gesture without actually having to face any consequences for it.”

  “You could have gone with them.”

  She shook her head. “No. I couldn’t. But I have to . . . I have to make my own decisions. My own mistakes. They have to let me someday. Today’s a good day to start.”

  “Fair enough,” he said, his chest tightening when she said the word mistake.

  “I can’t believe he did that to you,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek.

  “Okay, I don’t like your brother, let’s get that straight right now.”

  “It wasn’t unclear to me, ever, how you felt about Cade,” she said.

  “Yeah, well. I’m making sure you know. I don’t like him. But in his position? I probably would have done the same thing.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. And my sister is older.”

  “So you’re all sexist asshats who think women can’t make their own decisions?”

  “No. We’re brothers. We’re protective. Right or wrong. Double standard or not.”

  “It’s not fair.”

  “Fair doesn’t come into it. It’s all gut-level emotion, which isn’t exactly logical.”

  “You haven’t really talked a lot about your brother and sister,” she said.

  “I didn’t know we were sharing personal stuff,” he said.

  “Uh . . . my brother just got all up in your grill, and you know my dirtiest family secret. Do you need any more? Cade used to wet the bed; it’s true. Oh, and because of some old debts that I’m now certain are connected to my dad, we’ve been struggling financially.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, we have money, but getting enough cash flow to keep the ranch going has been tough. The only thing bailing our asses out are the new contracts Cade helped get us for providing stock to the Rodeo Association. There. I shared. I shared dirty personal stuff. Spill your secrets, Parker.”

  He tried not to let that thought linger in his mind, tried not to weigh the significance of it. Of what it could mean for him. Of how he could use it.

  He looked at Lark instead. At the sincerity on her face. At the concern in her eyes. Even while she was in her own personal hell, she was worried about him.

  “Follow me to the bathroom so I can mop my blood up and I’ll tell you.” He blinked, and a pain shot through the bone in his nose up to his forehead. Then he started toward the bathroom.

  Lark closed the lid on the toilet and sat, watching him as he stood at the sink and cleaned the blood off of his arms.

  “How many brothers?”

  “Two,” he said. “One sister. All older. All blond. Pale.” He looked up at the mirror, at his busted-up face and brown eyes. “They all have blue eyes too,” he added.

  “So you don’t belong.”

  “No. And I know why.”

  “Your dad.”

  “Yes, the man who fathered me. I don’t actually have a dad. Not the man I was raised to call that, and not the man whose genes I share. It’s funny, because I still consider my mother’s husband to be my dad. He’s who I think of when I hear the word.”

  “Have you met your real father?”

  He nodded slowly, still looking in the mirror. “For about thirty seconds.”

  The front door to the modest track house had opened to reveal a shocked-looking man. A man with eyes that matched his own.

  “He told me to go away,” Quinn said. “Because his real family couldn’t find out about me.” He looked down at the sink, at the bloody water running down the drain. “That’s the story of my life, really. I was a bomb. Talking about me too much, or in the case of my real father, acknowledging me at all, would have blown up people’s lives. My mother’s husband pretended not to know so that he didn’t cause a scandal. My mother pretended I didn’t exist. That she’d never had her moment of insanity. I’m this thing they made that doesn’t fit anywhere in their lives.”

  She stood up and walked behind him, reaching around his body and putting her hands beneath the water. Then she put her palm on his forearm and slid it over his skin, over the blood that was still there.

  “You fit, Quinn. You fit with me.” She moved her hand to his jaw and removed the blood there too. “You fit in me.”

  “Not at first.”

  “Well, you do now. Turn and face me.” He did. She grabbed a hand towel from the rack by the sink and wetted it, smoothing it over his face. “I’ve never gotten to take care of anyone before. Everyone’s always taking care of me.”

  This felt weird. Wrong. Because it felt so right. Because it made his heart feel like it was too big for his chest. Like he could stand there, in the tiny bathroom, forever, with his face bleeding and Lark Mitchell taking care of him.

  It didn’t feel like a couple weeks. It didn’t feel temporary.

  But it was. Nothing would change that fact.

  “Well,” he said. “No one ever took care of me, so . . .” He cleared his throat. “I kind of like it.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t make a habit of this.”

  “I used to,” he said. “Make a habit of getting the shit beat of me.”

  “What changed?”

  “The rodeo. I got serious about it. I won’t say I stopped being a drunk jackass the minute I got into the circuit, but it started easing then. Having a goal gave me a purpose.” He winced. “I was a better fighter then, or maybe alcohol just made me think I was. Ten foot tall and bulletproof. I miss the feeling a little bit today.”

  “We could go get a drink.”

  “Nah. I can’t.”

  “Off the ranch,” she said.

  He shook his head, for some reason a little embarrassed to make his next admission. “I don’t drink anymore. At all.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I . . . I don’t know if I was an alcoholic; I wasn’t drinking all day. But I was more prone to being an ass when I was drunk, and I got drunk pretty much every night. That started early on. I got a DUI when I was sixteen. Kinda kept up with the drinking through my early twenties. In bars, so I would say, ‘Yeah, well, I’m not drinking alone,’ like that made it okay. Then one day I was hungover before a big ride. I fell off the damn horse and into the dirt almost before he was out of the gate. I didn’t feel so bulletproof right then. I looked like a fool. I felt like one. I lost the event. I never drank again. Eight years sober.”

  “The circuit really changed you.”

  “Yes, it did. For the better. Being without it seems to be bringing out the worst in me.”

  Lark’s hands shook while she kept dabbing at the blood on Quinn’s face. She was so angry. So beyond angry that Cade had hit him. That Quinn hadn’t fought back. Even while knowing she would have been mad at Quinn if he had fought back.

  “And in Cade,” she said.

  “He thinks I stole what he loves,” Quinn said, his dark eyes intent on hers. She didn’t know if he meant the rodeo or her.

  “But you didn’t,” she said. Either way, it was true. Because she was going to be left without Quinn in a few weeks, and she didn’t believe that Quinn had done anything to hurt Cade.

  Not the man she knew. The man who had been consumed with guilt after taking her virginity. The man who cared so much about her satisfaction. The man who’d drawn her a bath and cleaned up her blood. Like she was doing for him now.

  The man who had been rejected by everyone who was supposed to love him.

  That man wasn’t perfect, but she had no trouble believing him now when he said he hadn’t done anything to Cade.

  Which was why, as much as it hurt to know she’d made Cade feel betrayed, she’d stayed. Because he didn�
��t deserve their hate. He didn’t deserve the consequences he was living. As much as she ached to go with her brothers, too much of her was with Quinn. Walking away was impossible. It shouldn’t be, but it was.

  “You’re so sure?” he asked.

  “My brother just beat the sassy out of you with his fists, and you didn’t do anything about it.”

  “Fighting is stupid.”

  “And so is cheating. So is cheating when the cost is going to be worth so much more than the gain. You’re not a stupid man, are you, Quinn?”

  He leaned in, and she looked at his nose. At the purplish bruising spreading from the bridge and down beneath his eyes. “I might be. I think this . . . us . . . it’s probably kind of stupid.”

  “Well, thanks,” she said, her next stroke of the wash cloth over his skin a little bit too hard. “Should I be glad to be your moment of stupidity?”

  “I’m your big mistake, aren’t I?”

  “Fair enough. And next time please don’t let my brother use your face as a punching bag.”

  “Next time?”

  “Well, you know, yeah. Can you imagine how dead you would be if he’d caught us on the table?”

  Quinn laughed, a humorless sound. “The authorities would be scouring the woods for bits of my bones.”

  “They’re so stupid. Like I didn’t have a choice. Like I didn’t drive here myself.” She knew it wasn’t that simple. She knew they thought that Quinn had nearly killed Cade, and in the beginning, she had too.

  But not now.

  She’d known it, deep down, probably since that night in his truck. Because he just wasn’t the villain he’d been made out to be. Sure, he was rough, but he wasn’t the bad guy in the story. She just knew.

  Maybe . . . maybe she could make them see.

  “Lark, you’re going to have to make up with them eventually.”

  “Like when you leave?”

  He shrugged. “If you want to leave it that long.”

  A wave of embarrassment hit her. “Sorry, I realize you didn’t offer to let me stay here, and that’s sort of what all this . . . sounds like. Like I’m inviting myself.”

  “Hey, I wouldn’t complain about having you here. But we do have a bunch of teenage boys staying, so it just can’t be too obvious you’re sleeping with me.”

  “Setting a good moral example?”

  He snorted, then winced. “Hell no. I’m incapable of that. But it would go one of two ways. Either they’d see you were with me and leave you alone for fear I’d squash their heads like grapes if they touched you, or they would see that you were a woman engaging in a sexual relationship and decide you were game for them.”

  “Oh.”

  “In which case they’d find their hoodlum asses sent back to where they came from. I can take a lot. If they want to cuss and yell and generally be horrible snots for a while, fine. But if they disrespect any of the women here—you or anyone else—it’s over.”

  Her heart tightened, and her certainty in her decision, about Quinn, about staying with him, intensified.

  “I’ve come to a conclusion,” she said, standing back and assessing him. She’d gotten his face clean, but his nose was swollen, and he had bruising spidering out from there and along his jaw.

  “What’s that?”

  “Now that I’ve seen so much of it, I’m convinced.”

  “Of what, darlin’?”

  “Quinn Parker, I don’t think you have a drop of bad blood in you.”

  Something changed in his eyes. For a moment he looked lost, sad. Then it disappeared, replaced instead by that sort of steady, emotionless void that was always in Quinn’s eyes.

  “I wish that were true, but it’s not.”

  “You’ve never done anything to hurt me.”

  He laughed, and it chilled her down to her bones. “Baby, I’m hurting you right now. Every minute you spend with me is saving up more and more hurt to cash in when I leave. I’ve already messed things up with Cole and Cade.”

  “They messed it up themselves. I get that there’s no way Cade is going to be thrilled that I’m with you, but if he just got to know you . . .”

  “I’m having sex with you, and he’s perfectly aware of that, which means any chance he had of liking me is over.”

  “That’s stupid. Cade’s had sex with, like . . . a million women.”

  “Double standard, like I said, it’s a brother thing. I’m sure he would even agree, but I’m sure he wouldn’t care either.”

  She started to unbutton his shirt. “You have blood on this. It’ll stain. And you really seem to understand him for someone who considers him a mortal enemy.”

  “I have a feeling we’re a lot alike. Don’t repeat that. Ever.”

  “Both boneheaded dumbasses?” she said, pushing the shirt off of his shoulders and throwing it onto the ground.

  “I told you I was stupid.” He bent down and kissed her lips. “You make me stupid, Lark.”

  “How hard did you hit your head?”

  “Hard,” he said. “You’re going to have to stay with me and make sure I don’t fall asleep. If I sleep I’ll slip into a coma and die.”

  “Liar.”

  “Come back upstairs with me.” His voice was rough and sexy and his face was swollen and misshapen. And she wanted to go upstairs with him. Wanted to start the day again, in Quinn’s arms, without all this crap with Cole and Cade.

  Because very suddenly she wasn’t high on adrenaline. And she wasn’t even angry. She was just tired. And sad and confused. Every tear she’d already shed threatened to build into an endless stream of them.

  She forced a smile. “I can never resist a man with a flattened nose.”

  “If I would have known that, I would have had your brother hit me weeks ago.”

  “Quinn, I was just being nice. You look like a raccoon.” He laughed and she went up on her toes and kissed the tip of his nose. “I’ll totally still bang you though.”

  “Thank God he didn’t kick me in the balls.” He swept Lark up into his arms and she flailed, putting on palm on the wall.

  “Hey! What are you doing? You’re bruised and beaten. Put me down.”

  “He only hit my face. My body’s fine.”

  “I’ll say.” He looked at her and she smiled, some of the sadness easing. “You going to show me how fine?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “My knees are weak.”

  Quinn took them out of the bathroom and started up the stairs. “Good thing I’m carrying you, then.”

  “Just don’t drop me.” Her eyes clashed with his and she tightened her hold on his neck. And she suddenly didn’t feel like that was part of the joke.

  Please, Quinn, please don’t drop me.

  Unfortunately, even in his strong arms, she was afraid she was already falling.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lark knew she couldn’t stay away from home forever. For one thing, she only had one pair of clothes. And her panties were honestly missing. They were somewhere in Quinn’s room. She was starting to get scared they’d gotten put in his laundry.

  There was something intimate about laundry mixing. About her panties tumbling around with his Fruit of the Looms.

  Not that there was anything less intimate about rolling around naked in his bed all morning. Which they had. Saddle sore didn’t begin to cover it. But it was freaking worth it.

  Sadly, she couldn’t stay in bed with Quinn forever. There were already other employees on the premises, and she didn’t relish the idea of one of them catching them like this. Which meant she needed clothes. Sometime at around ten that morning, the third time Quinn had taken her to heaven and back, he’d told her she definitely needed to stay, and that they would be as discreet as they needed to be, but he wanted her in his bed.

  She had not been abou
t to argue with that.

  But that meant she was headed back to Elk Haven—without Quinn, because she didn’t want her brothers to shoot him and mount him on a wall.

  She was a little too attached to him to let that happen. Which was another problem, because this was a temporary affair. She knew it. Had known it from moment one. Quinn had never lied to her about that.

  But for some reason her stupid female emotions were drawing hearts, flowers and Mrs. Quinn Parker all over that memo.

  She was a mothereffin’ cliché.

  She put her car in park and hesitated before turning the engine off. She didn’t want to go inside. She didn’t want to face her brothers like this. They’d been mad at each other before, but this had felt different. It was different.

  This felt like permanent rift material. It made her feel sick to her stomach.

  She walked up the porch, her steps heavy on the wood, then stopped at the front door. It was strange, but she almost felt the urge to knock. To get into her own house.

  “Stupid.” She pushed the door open and walked into the front room. Cade was standing there, leaning against the counter that held the computer they used to check in guests. Great. The person she was most hoping to avoid.

  Because just looking at him made her feel guilty and sad and angry, all at the same time.

  His eyes widened.

  “What?” she asked. “I freaking live here.” She slammed the door shut and headed up the stairs.

  “Hey, wait a second.”

  “No.”

  “Why are you here?” he asked, his tone accusing.

  “Just getting my things.”

  “Your things?” He walked to the stairs and gripped the ends of the handrails, looking up at her. “What do you mean you’re getting your things?”

  “What do you think it means?” she shot back, wanting to yell at him and cry at the same time. “I’m going to Quinn’s. I’m going to stay there.”

  “Are you serious, Lark?” he shouted “Are you that stupid?” Heavy footsteps were now following her up the stairs.

  She stopped and turned. “Seriously, Cade? Insulting my intelligence. Again? That’s what all of this is about. Well, half of it. And all you’re doing is reinforcing my convictions.”