by Camden Leigh
“Momma says a lot and most of it’s shit. Look at Quinn, he’s doing that thing he used to do when he would get caught sneaking out of the house.”
I glance over. He’s got one hand in his pocket, jiggling it like he’s looking for loose change. His other hand squeezes the back of his neck.
“I think we should rescue him.” Kat pulls me toward them.
“I think we shouldn’t.” Ellie tugs me in the opposite direction. “When did you get all soft anyway? Thought you hated him.”
Kat shrugs and lets go of my arm. “I’m making an effort.” She pulls her mouth into a flat line. “Because he’s making an effort.”
“Good, but I still don’t think–”
“Cassidy, there you are.” Quinn calls.
Crap. The last thing I want is to be in the middle of two sisters fighting over right and wrong, a sister and brother fighting over the past five years, and a guy and his ex fighting over who knows what. Heck, they could be making up instead of fighting. Either way, this is the last place I want to be.
“Hey y’all.” He gives each of his sisters a peck on the cheek and by some miracle Kat doesn’t pull away. Maybe she really is trying.
Quinn hugs me to his side and lets his kiss on my cheek linger a bit too long.
Annabeth clears her throat. “Quinny, I thought we could grab dinner while your sisters give the intern a tour of Rainbow Row. Sunset’s the best time to see it. And Momma should be here shortly with Dad and my nephew. Won’t you stay and say hello?”
I am extremely happy to oblige. Just to escape. “A sunset tour sounds—”
“Actually, I promised to make Cassidy dinner.” Quinn hugs me tighter. Death grip is more like it. “Left the meat on the counter so we should be on our way.”
I have to crane my head back to look up at him. Has he lost his mind? “Oh, I—”
“Remember in the truck? You never got to finish what you started.”
My eyes about fall out of my head. He did not just reference me going down on him. My body starts to heat and I can feel red slowly working up my neck. My cheeks. My ears. God, I can feel it all the way to my split ends.
That was days ago.
Ellie stares at me. I think she hopes I’ll pick the tour and let Quinn and Annabeth do their thing. I can’t really tell because she shows no expression. Kat, on the other hand, has a grin the size of the bridge behind her, which I learned spans an impressive thirteen thousand feet.
“I guess you did mention it, but, er . . . I don’t mind rescheduling.” I try to appease both sisters, but Quinn looks devastated.
His hopeful smile drops and his arm around me no longer feels comfortable. I hate to say it, but I care more about his feelings than anyone else’s at the moment.
“Actually, my stomach just rumbled so, yeah, I guess now’s a good time to cash in on that promise.”
His sigh against my ear moves my hair. I turn into him, remembering how that same pleased sigh felt tickling my neck. And my chest. My body hums at the memory and I don’t realize I’ve grabbed his hand until he squeezes it.
My heart pounds so hard the pavement feels like it’s vibrating along with it and giving away my nerves and my hope. Hope that he rescues us both from the people watching like we’re starring in a Hallmark movie.
“Maybe we’ll both get to finish this time,” I add.
He moans in my ear. “Jesus Christ, Cassie.” I’m the only one that seems to hear him. “You better believe it.”
I swallow and it’s so freaking hard. My throat fights me. My heart skips instead of thumps. “I’m feeling a little . . . I don’t know.” I fan my throat and swear the ground moves.
“Because you haven’t eaten.” He takes my hand. “Are you okay?”
Why are there two of him? Why is my heart speeding? Why do I feel so hot?
“Come on Ellie . . . Annabeth,” Kat says. “We still have time to catch the sunset.”
“Oh, I’m meeting my parents, I’ll have to pass.” Annabeth looks at Quinn over her shoulder. “Maybe tomorrow, Quinn? Stop by the house anytime. My parents would love to see you and you can meet my nephew.”
“Maybe.”
The girls walk toward the sidewalk running along the water, and once they’re far enough away I can’t tell who’s who, Quinn leans his forehead against my temple.
“Thank you.”
“No problem.” With all the chaos gone, my heart slows to normal and my feet feel sure beneath me. Normal. That’s the key. Keep things normal. “I should thank you. I’ve had enough tours for one day.”
We ride back to the plantation house in silence. The entire time, he rubs his hands over the steering wheel. He doesn’t miss one inch. It’s sexy as hell, imagining him doing that to my body. My entire body.
I turn the AC up and peer out the window to try to cool my thoughts. Yeah, right. He’s got me so worked up and he hasn’t even done anything. Finishing what we started means getting my hands back on Quinn. And him getting his hands back on me. Would it be so wrong to go with it? To spend one night without caring what tomorrow brings?
After we park and move awkwardly toward the side porch, he says, “You seem like you could use a drink. I know I could. Want to go inside and meet my friend Jack Daniel and take the edge off?”
Looking at him, I know rescuing him from Annabeth was the right choice. His previously distressed expression has softened to the point the only trace of his unease is the squeeze he’s still giving the back of his neck.
I nod, open the screen door, and head inside. I glance back to see if he followed. Still outside, he presses his hand against the screen. I match my hand to his, then press my other palm against the screen.
He smiles and draws a line across my palm. “Can I come in or do you and Mr. Daniels need some time alone?”
I drop my hands and push open the door, letting him slide past. He grabs my hand and pulls me through the dark house toward the kitchen.
He flips the light on over the stove and reaches into the cabinet above it. He brings down two shot glasses. “Single barrel or”—he twists a bottle in his hand and reads the label— “oh, Ellie used to love this shit. Tennessee Honey?” He shows me the front.
“Single, but make it a double.” I flip over the two shot glasses and push them toward him.
He fills them up and stands back. I chase the first with the second, then look for something to cool my throat. “Holy mother. That’s”—I fan my face and bite my tongue— “smooth but h-hot.”
“Supposedly the honey goes does down cooler.” He twists the cap off the other bottle.
“I’m good. Your turn.” I fill up the glasses and hand one to him. “Cheers to the fucked up.” I raise my glass and he taps it with his.
“Tell me about your art. Do you dabble in other mediums besides paint and graphite?” His plain, normal question surprises me. “I prefer landscape photography. Old buildings. Sunsets. Anything that plays with light and dark and eludes to, but doesn’t give away easily, the grays between. I hate portrait photography. People are crabby.”
“You don’t say.” I lean against the fridge, eyeing him suspiciously. Can this conversation really stay neutral? Worth a shot, I guess.
“When my sisters gang up on me, I sneak off with my camera. I used to escape to the darkroom, but that happy hour turned to shit-on-Quinn hour.”
“But you seem to hold it together . . . in most cases.”
He shrugs. “A front. The less they know the better.”
He opens the fridge, grabs a beer, and pops the top in one fluid motion. “Everything they think happened is a lie.” He taps the bottle against his lip before taking a swig.
“What kind of lie?” Like why he tripped and fell into a barbed-wire fence?
His tongue slides across his lower lip. “I didn’t go to college.”
Whoa. A Covington without a college degree is reason enough for exile. “I would have kept that a secret, too.”
I trace the l
ines in the granite countertop while ticking off numbers in my head to keep from asking questions. Zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight. They add up naturally, clearing my disorganized thoughts. Thirteen, twenty-one. I spin the liquor bottle, needing to neutralize the static between us before Quinn has me climbing on the counter. His presence already lingers like he’s wrapped me in his force field. Any more touching and I’m liable to forgo Jack Daniel’s for a protein shake. Thirty-four, fifty-five—
“Was it hard to leave?” he asks.
I puff my cheeks in surprise. “So you did your homework.” I spin, giving him my back to stare at the sink. “Don’t believe everything you read about me.”
“That’s why I’m asking. I want to know the real you, not who the internet says you are.”
“What would it say about you?” I turn, ready for battle.
“It would say what an asshole I was for leaving. What a jerk I was for never calling. What an idiot I am for not coming home sooner. I hate that I left. I hate all this . . . bullshit, all the stares, all the questions. But I deserve them. I wish I’d never left.”
I tap my foot against the tiles. Putting himself out there like that took guts. Can I really do the same? “Not me. I’m glad I left.”
“It wasn’t hard?” He leans against the counter and picks at the label on his bottle.
“The first day I cried until my eyes were so swollen I couldn’t see. I wanted to go back and apologize but at the same time felt free. And freedom, being able to breathe, feels better than guilt. I haven’t cried since.”
“Never?”
When he glances my way, I shake my head.
“That must be what I saw in you the day we met.”
“What?”
He gives me a cockeyed grin. “You dropped in like a rainstorm but brought calm instead of calamity. What’s your calamity, Cassie? Where’s your calm?”
Calm is when I sink my hands in clay, feel it turn from cold to warm. In high school I’d work it until my hands ached, letting the clay absorb my frustrations, my pain, and on good days, my personality—everything that made me me. I wanted to form something out of nothing, which was opposite of what my parents were doing to me. They wanted to deconstruct me so everything that made me human could no longer interfere with the genius in my brain.
My calamity stems from my mom and started to resolve itself the night I laid in bed trying to accept what a life without creativity meant. I pondered why numbers couldn’t also be beautiful. I fell asleep with sweet acrylic paint fumes and earthy slip clinging to my hair and woke with the reminder of the future I was giving up.
Years later, I still want a calm life. I want to remain free, making my own decision. But Quinn—I study his fine lines, barely evident at a glance but etched discretely into his forehead and the outside corners of his eyes.
His question isn’t so easily answered.
“I have an idea.” He clears a stack of mail off the island then open an app on his phone. “We’re doing therapy.” He taps the counter. “My way.”
Chapter 13
Quinn
“’Kay, here’s the game,” I say. “You’ve played Never Have I Ever before?”
“Where are you going with this?”
“That’s what this app is, but to add a twist, I’ll say whatever’s on the screen and you have to guess true or false. If you guess right, I drink. If you guess wrong, you drink. Then we’ll switch.”
She smiles. “I like your brand of therapy, Mr. Covington.”
“Wait, maybe I should barter with kisses instead.”
“Maybe so, because you’ll be the one peeling yourself off the floor come morning. Not me.” She grabs the phone. “I’ll go first. Never have I ever flown a plane. Wow, that’s boring.” She looks up.
“Yes,” I say.
She snorts. “Dumb ass. You can’t even follow your own rules. True or false, remember?” She pours me a shot. “Drink up.”
I really should’ve thought this game through. “Let’s add something else. The loser can choose between taking the shot or telling a deep, dark secret.”
Her smile falters and her shiny eyes harden. She taps my phone against her chin. “Okay,” she whispers. “I’ll even throw in a kiss if I choose the shot.”
I contain my smile but my insides want to burst. Looks like win-win for me. Secrets or kisses. “I choose the secret.”
Her lips curve up on one side and she stares intently.
“I have tattoos.”
“Not a secret.” She pinches my elbow, then presses her fingertips below my ear above my shirt. Her fingers flatten against my chest, precisely where my inked heart rests. With each touch, her pressure softens, and I harden. How is this so fucking intimate it sends shockwaves to my dick?
I grab her hand, maneuver her pointer finger straight and draw lines with it, tracing the trailing wire and vines over my shirt. I take both her hands, wrap them around me, and guide them up my spine as far as I can reach. Her eyes stay connected with mine. I want badly to lean closer, while she can’t push away, to suck her cute, pouty lip into my mouth.
Her fingers curl in and tug at my shirt as her chin drops. Her forehead taps against my chin. I inhale slowly, clenching my jaw to keep from licking my lips, kissing her until she can’t breathe or taking her right here in the kitchen. I tuck her fingers under the edge of my shirt and trace her fingertips over the vine that plunges south. As I near my waistband she curls her fingers into a fist. I hold my breath, wishing for more, being okay with less.
“Guess that one’s the secret, huh?” Her hand slips from mine and our private little bubble busts.
“My deepest secret. My deepest guilt.”
“Your tattoos represent guilt?” She turns back to the countertop, two shades redder than before we’d touched. It’s a sexy color on her.
“That’s another secret for another round.”
“Why do you hide them, you know, around your mom? Aren’t they a part of who you are now?” She pushes questions like a shrink.
I want to answer her, but she’s got to give a little, too. “I’ll drink a shot to that question.” I tip one back. The burn eases down my throat. I’d rather it fucking scald me senseless. It scares the shit out of me how easily she reads me. Reading her is like learning a different language, but I’m determined to become fluent in all things Cassidy, even if it means exposing more of me than I’d planned.
She grabs the empty glass and waggles it. “I believe you owe me a kiss with that shot.”
“You said you’d give a kiss if you chose to drink. I never said I’d give away any kisses.”
Her mouth pops open. Just enough to glimpse her warm tongue within. “You play dirty.”
“That would be you, Sweet Cheeks. I’m playing clean.” I tap the phone and read the screen. “Never have I ever received oral sex in a moving car. What? You get ‘flying a plane’ and I get ‘oral sex’?”
“Unfortunate for you, you don’t actual get oral sex,” she snickers. “We both know the answer’s false. Regardless, someone as fly as yourself probably got a fair share of head in a vast array of moving vehicles.”
“Wrong. I’ve never been given head in a car.”
“Then what the heck do you call what I did?”
“Foreplay. I never came. I’m a car-moving, blow-job receiving virgin.”
The flare in her eyes does nothing but aid the vivid picture blooming in my mind of her mouth wrapped around my cock. Again. I don’t fucking care if it’s in a car or not.
“You’re full of crap, but that’s okay, I can handle the shot.”
“That means a kiss. Sure you don’t want to tell me about your tattoos?”
“Don’t have any. A shot, please.” She gestures for me to pour it in her mouth then bites the air until the burn mellows. She grabs my shirt, jerks me close and plants a whiskey-laced kiss on my cheek. It takes all my willpower not to show her a real spine-curling, blue-ball-making kiss.
Inst
ead of letting me go, her lips slip across mine, not really kissing, just being in the right place at the right time. I growl and she nips my lower lip with her teeth, pulls until I can’t take it, sucking it in her mouth and dancing her tongue over the surface. I grab her around the waist and show her how much better the kiss could be. I press into her until she walks backward into the counter. I keep pressing, hoping she’ll just lean on back, hop on the island, and let me have my way with her.
Her hands press against my chest, pushing me away. I concede and finish our kiss with one last attempt to make her melt to her knees. When I pull back, she flattens the wrinkles from my shirt, runs her tongue over my lip, and sucks it hard between her lips. “That’s how I’d give head in the car.” She pats my shoulders then grabs the phone. “Next time, maybe I’ll finish.”
Me? I’m breathless.
“Never have I ever kissed a girl.” She frowns. “You seriously play this with people?”
“I’m playing it with you, aren’t I? True.”
“Wrong answer.”
I rap my knuckles against the counter and stare at her. Aren’t I learning quite a bit about the mysterious, play-by-the-rules Cassidy Beck. I pour a shot, get it close to my mouth, then set it down. “Another secret.”
She steps back and waits.
“My sisters hate me because I left after our dad died.”
“Again, not a secret.” She points at the shot.
“I left for two reasons. One was my mom.” I run my fingertips across my chin. “When Dad died, Ellie and I became the parents. Mom traded our well-being in for a liquid bandage and sleeping pills. I left so she’d deal. I never came back because it was easier than . . . Just easier.”
“So the tattoos. Guilt from leaving them? Pain from losing them?” Her fingers tap through several screens. “Isn’t it weird how the unseen is what fucks everyone up?”
It would be easy to pour out the truth to her. Tell her everything from start to finish. But how would the truth impress her? We’ve gained more ground in this conversation than all our others put together. I’m not about to fuck up our progress.
