by Mercy Walker
“Bud?” I said, raising an eye brow.
“Lite,” he sighed, patting his thickening middle. “Your mother has me on a diet.”
I had to smile. My mother wanted to keep my father in mint condition. If she could have, she’d have left him in the original packaging…with bubble wrap.
I popped a bottle of Bud Lite and set it down on a cocktail napkin. Dad pulled out his wallet to pay and I held up my hand. “Your money is no good here.” And I pulled a couple bills out off my tip cup and cashed him out.
“You know I’ll leave a big tip anyways,” he said with a knowing grin.
Yeah, I knew that too.
He picked up his beer, took a pull and set it back down. And then he made to get up.
“Now I have to go to the head.” My dad said miserably. He liked getting old just about as much as my mother liked him getting old.
The Head is the restroom. My dad had been in the Navy for twenty years.
He strolled on back to the men’s room, smiling and greeting friends as he went. My dad was a popular guy.
And just like the curse he was, Quinn walked into the bar the second my dad disappeared out of view.
Damn, damn, double damn…
His melted chocolate eyes shot straight to me, and I literally felt a hot surge of bald faced lust shoot up from my suddenly inflamed nether regions. My nipples even got hard.
He smiled as if he knew my body was happy to see him, even if I wasn’t. He came over to the bar and took the seat right next to where my dad’s drink sat.
Oh, this was going to be awkward.
So how do you know my little girl?
Oh, I just had sex with her a couple times—once in the strip club, and once at her apartment, in her bed.
Fucking fabulous!
“This bar is for members only,” I said flatly, crossing my arms over my chest…well, under my breasts. Girls with breasts like mine have to settle for crossing our arms under our breasts. It was just another cross to bear.
Quinn pulled out his wallet and handed me his membership card. He was a member of the VFW in Bloomfield. That meant he lived not far from Frisky Kittens.
“Your dad in the service, or do they just let ex-cops join out of courtesy?
His smile didn’t waver but his drowning deep brown eyes did sharpen. “I was a Marine: served in Afghanistan and in the Gulf.”
I gulped. This guy was a constant surprise. And this surprise made me feel really bad for giving him a hard time. My dad had taught me to have respect for those who were or are in the armed forces. He’d tear me a new one if he thought I acted any different.
“What can I get you then?”
His eyes softened…and he looked me up and down. I was pretty sure what he was thinking. But he said, “Jack, neat.” And I turned and poured him three fingers in a rocks glass and sat it down in front of him.
He nodded and took a gulp. He wiped his thick, delicious looking lips on the back of his hand.
“We need to talk.”
No…no we don’t. “I’m at work.”
Quinn surveyed the bar and then shot me with a knowing look. “It’s dying down, so I think you can spare a few minutes.”
“It’s my first day. I don’t think the manager would appreciate it.”
He sighed and slouched for a beat, but then straightened and shot me straight through with his sexy gaze. “I’ll just follow you home after your shift, so you might as well—”
“What did you just say?” my dad said, cutting Quinn off and placing a white knuckled fist on the bar right beside Quinn’s drink.
I’d never heard my father speak in anger. He was a real raid back guy. But he was an ex-Navy officer, and he didn’t take discourtesy well, especially when he heard it being heaped on his little girl.
Quinn turned and stared at my father. “That’s no concern of yours.”
Okay, that wasn’t a good thing to say…
Dad leaned forward, and when he spoke his voice rang with hard edged anger. “That’s my daughter you’re speaking to…so it damn well is my concern.”
Quinn had been turning away from my father, but jerked his gaze back to him, his spine straightening, and the miffed expression draining from his face, replaced with a sudden wide-eyed respectfulness.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Quinn said clearly. “I didn’t know. I apologize.”
“You shouldn’t be talking to any woman like that, son. I hope you’ll remember that in the future.”
“Yes sir, I will.” Quinn actually looked genuinely relieved when my dad straightened and took another pull of his beer.
“Now, tell me son…”—Uh oh—“How do you know my Bev?”
Please, please, please don’t tell him the truth!
Quinn looked to me and I tried to relay EDIT! in the wide, desperation in my eyes.
“Well, sir…I know your daughter from her former place of employment.”
Okay, that wasn’t too bad.
But my father’s face turned bright red, and he set his beer down hard enough to sound like the gabble of a judge.
“So, you must be that Quinn fellow I’ve heard about.” My father turned and glowered at Quinn. “That would make you the reason my daughter had to quit her job.”
Holy hell, how had this gone so freaking bad so quickly?
Wait a minute…
“How do you know who he is?” I shot at my father, feeling my own ire welling up inside me.
“From Teddy,” he said, taking a step closer to Quinn, and not sparing me even a glance.
“Teddy! How the hell do you know Teddy?”
He shot me a look that said Please…
“You’ve worked for the man for five years. You think I wouldn’t check the place out…or the man that signs your paychecks?”
“Now wait a goddamn minute!”
Quinn stood up just then and squared his shoulders as he regarded my father. Quinn was nearly six inches taller than my dad, and out-weighed him by over twenty pound. But my father was what you’d call a bruiser. He just exuded menace…at least, that’s what he was exuding as he glared like a pit-bull at Quinn.
“I didn’t mean to make anyone quit,” Quinn said in a reasonable voice. “And I don’t regret what transpired between us.”
I saw my dad’s shoulders tighten and I could literally hear the knuckles in his hands crackle as he balled them up into fists.
“And it’s not like I left. She threw me out and called the cops.”
I turned and looked Quinn straight in the eyes. He looked like he wasn’t lying. So that was why he’d left. Mrs. Scattergoods had really called the police, and they’d escorted him away from my apartment.
I took a breath to say something, but I was cut off by the blur of my father’s arm snapping out and punching Quinn in the face. It was a damn good punch, and Quinn fell back against the bar, and then held his face for a beat.
He was holding his hand over his eye.
Well hell…
I dashed around the bar.
“Dad, no!” I cried out as I threw myself into him, grabbing his arm before he could pullback and throw another punch. “I’m fine. I’m freaking fine!”
Dad looked at me and I could tell he didn’t believe me. But he backed off, straightened his jacket and then turned to leave the bar. But first he turned and gave Quinn a hard, long look.
“Don’t be causing my daughter anymore problems…or you’ll have to deal with me. You hear?”
“Loud and clear,” Quinn said, and my father exited the bar.
“Sit down,” I told Quinn as I ran back behind the bar and grabbed a clean bar towel and loaded it up with some ice.
Quinn sat back on his stool and took a long swig of his drink. I leaned over the bar and pressed the make-shift ice pack against his reddening eye. It looked swollen too.
“Hold that,” I said and started refilling drinks, trying to sweep the little fight under the rug. But I saw that Vince was standing back towards t
he office. He’d see the whole thing.
To my surprise, Quinn obeyed me, staying sat and holding the icepack to his eye.
It was late, and within a few minutes I was calling last call, settling tabs and clearing dirty glasses.
Quinn sat there, holding the icepack, but keeping his one open eye on me. It made me nervous, in a bad and in a good way. God, just being around the guy was exhausting. Quinn didn’t say anything, but he was the last customer to leave. He left the ice pack and a hefty tip. But I was almost certain he would be out in the parking lot, waiting for me.
I sighed as the door closed behind him, and then I pulled the till, gathered my slips and headed back to where I knew Vince’s office was. He was waiting on me, and though he didn’t look pissed, he did look bothered.
“You did a great job tonight,” he said.
“But?” I knew there was a “but” coming.
“But you were the reason behind that fight tonight.” I couldn’t argue that. “And this was just your first night. We haven’t had a punch thrown in here in over ten years. This is a quiet, safe bar where veterans get to talk to their own and have a drink.”
“I understand,” I said, feeling humiliated that not only had I been the cause of a bar fight, but that it had been my father to start it. I could have cried thinking how humiliated he must be. I’d ruined his sanctuary from the stresses of life. And he’d pulled a lot of favors to get me the job in the first place.
That’s me, best daughter in the world material.
“You want me to walk you out to your car?” His gaze met mine and I saw he understood things a little better than I would have liked. Probably better than I did. “He’s probably waiting for you outside.”
“I know,” I said and turned to walk out. “I’ll be fine.” I looked back to him. He was shorter than me, even out of my heels, and he was built spare and thin, but I could tell he had a will and a spine of iron.
“I’m sorry for tonight. I hope you’ll blame me and not my father.”
He blinked at me and shook his head. He actually was smiling, his dimples just as adorable as they were the first time I’d seen him smile. “Don’t worry, I blame you completely.”
I laughed, and so did he. Our laughs sounded good together. I gave him a little wave and headed out to the bar again, grabbing my jacket and my purse and went out the front door.
*****
Quinn was waiting for me, as Vince and I had both predicted, and I felt wary and strangely excited at that. He’d waited for me. He’d let my dad punch him in the eye. He’d sat in humiliation until we’d closed, and now he was waiting for me to talk to him.
If I didn’t already know how this all was going to end, if I had any real hope that things might actually work out between us, I might have let the moment overtake me. I might have flung myself into his arms and begged him to ravish me on the spot—maybe on the hood of my GTO.
But I knew for a fact that if I gave him even a fraction of my heart I’d get it back bloodied and tortured. And I couldn’t live through another bad romance, another broken, bleeding heart. I’d been in love with a man I’d thought I’d be with forever—
Funny how you can start thinking in terms as ridiculous as “forever” so soon after meeting someone. Love was the worst drug. And I would not be its bitch ever again.
I had a flash of a handsome, cruel face in my mind’s eye, and I could hear myself saying his name. I shook my head and willed the memories to return to the dark little corner of my mind I kept them sequestered in.
Maybe I’d have to lock them in a box? Maybe soon I’d have to lock memories of Quinn in a box too.
He was leaning his sexy, denim-clad ass on the hood of my GTO—which would have been a crime if his ass hadn’t been so fantastic—and he looked up at me when I walked closer. His eye was swollen and starting to turn a light purple.
“You’re going to have a hell of a shiner tomorrow.”
Quinn smiled and winced as his eye protested him making any expression. “It’s worth it if it gets you talking to me.”
I rolled my eyes at him. When in doubt and feeling a little too intense about a guy, go for sarcasm. “One black eye earns you five minutes.”
“Then I should have had your dad punch me in the other eye too.”
I gave him a chilly smile. “I can always call him back. He doesn’t live far.”
He shook his head and sighed, looking down at the pavement before looking back into my eyes. “I think I’ll pass.”
“Afraid?” I taunted.
“Of you using your father as a weapon, knowing I’d never fight back…let me think? Yeah.”
“So you think I’m some sort of sociopath?”
He stood up from my GTO’s hood and towered over me. Just having his huge physicality so close to me made my heart flutter, and things much lover shudder.
Steady…
I wasn’t going to do this again. Twice was enough. Once had been too much.
Third time is not the charm!
“I think,” Quinn said, stepping even closer, close enough I could smell the leather and silk of him, and feel the heat rolling off his body. “That you have some kind of mental hang up about me...or maybe men in general.”
I took a breath to argue, but he cut me off by holding up his fingers to my lips. His thick, strong, rough fingers…
A shiver ran up my spine…my nipples hardened…and I was ready to start hyperventilating any second.
“And you especially have a kink in your think—” Kink in my think? “—about any man that finds you, in particularly attractive.”
It felt like he’d just slapped me, and I staggered backward a couple steps. Was he right?
“What is this,” I yelled, “the Doctor Phil show?”
“He’s a quack. But I did have to take a bunch of psych courses while I was with the department…and…”
My anger evaporated as I saw the terrible, haunted look on his face. I almost took a step closer, but I forced myself to stand perfectly still. I needed to walk away from him, not to him.
He looked into my eyes and all humor left his expression. “And I went through some therapy after I was placed on leave…I’m still going.”
Whatever had happened when he was a cop must have been pretty damn bad. I couldn’t imagine what it was…but whatever it was, it was still killing Quinn.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Feeling sorry for the man is one thing. To let that feeling dictate whether you’re going to let him back in—into your life and your bed—was another.
“Cut the psycho-babble,” my voice went hard and icy. “Speak English.”
He took a breath to speak English, but I cut him off this time by turning away and moving to the driver’s side door of my GTO.
“On second thought, don’t speak at all. Thanks to you and my dad, I’ve got to find another job in the morning.”
Quinn’s hand shot out and pushed my car door shut, his warm, rough hand resting on top of mine. Feeling his flesh against my own ignited a swirling blaze inside me, making my entire body overheat in nothing flat. My breath rushed out of me, and I felt dizzy; his hot, sweet breath blew across the back of my neck as he spoke.
“You already have a job.”
I clenched up and stamped down hard on the desperate need to turn around and kiss him. It was a hot, potent need, and it was welling up inside me ready to explode.
“I quit…remember?” Please go away…please…
“Teddy says you’re on the payroll until hell freezes over.” I laughed. That sounded just like him. “And I’m not going to accept your resignation…I’m not going to accept anything but you coming back—” His free hand touched the back of my neck, giving me a full-body shiver, and quelling the cacophony of racing thoughts in my head.
God, it would be so easy to just let him take all my doubts and fears away. And if he could do it with just the touch of his hand…we should never leave my bedroom again.
But it was just temporary. I knew he’d turn into a lying, cheating, abusive asshole sooner or later—men that actively sought out women that looked like me were all the same. Charming and sexy, great in bed, and then they either vanished without a trace or they became more demanding, more abusive, until…
Just then Quinn’s fingers ran across the scar I had deep on the back of my neck, up in my hairline—
And just like that I was terrified and alone, gasping for breath and bleeding, knelt on the floor, broken glass glittering from the floor all around me. And he was standing over me, his belt held in a white knuckled grip, my blood smeared on the silver belt buckle—
—I spun around and pushed Quinn away from me, hard. My heart was pounding in my chest from pure, screaming terror. I hissed, “Get away from me.”
He stepped back and held up his hands. “What did I do?”
I crammed my key in the lock of my car and yanked open the door, shoving myself down behind the wheel.
“Was that a scar on the back of your neck?”
My hands were shaking as I slammed the door and struggled to get the key in the ignition. Quinn was standing a few feet away and to the side of my car, hands still held up in surrender.
“Please talk to me…”
I threw my car into drive and stomped on the gas, screeching tires and laying rubber as I shot away from the VFW and back to East Carson Street. Luckily it was very late, and the streets of Pittsburgh were almost desolate. I think I would have crashed my car if I had to maneuver through traffic too.
I flicked on my radio and turned the volume up as loud as it would go. Bob Seger blared, singing how much he loved that old time rock and roll, and I tried to lose myself in the hard rock. But I was scared, and I hated being scared. I hadn’t let that feeling overwhelm me in so long—and I hated it.
Quinn
I stood there on the street in front of the South Side VFW, watching Bev’s tail lights disappear as she turned onto East Carson. The overwhelming feelings I’d been trying to resist had dragged me here, against my better judgment, and had pulled me to her, so close to pulling her to me and kissing her again. That had been all I’d been thinking about for the last five days since I’d last been with her: kissing her, touching her, making love to her.
