by Kaily Hart
“If—if you suck on my earlobe I’m not going to be responsible for what happens,” she warned.
As if he’d been waiting for the invitation his hot mouth closed over her earlobe, his teeth tugged, his tongue… God, his tongue flicked at it, over and over, just like when he—
She groaned when hard fingers made their way under her top, around toward her stomach and under the waistband of her pants without any hesitation, without any warning. He tunneled under the edge of her panties and slid his fingers down into her wet heat.
She whimpered and he groaned against her neck when he slid a finger boldly into her.
“Figured you’d be wet,” he murmured.
He gave her another open-mouthed kiss against the side of her neck, sucking, licking, as he began to finger her, his movements slow, unhurried and mind-destroying. The dual sensations had her gasping for breath and struggling to stand.
“God, Ward.” She shuddered, her hips rocking, the flesh between her legs drenched, on fire. “I’m not sure how much more of this torture I can take.”
In an instant he stiffened against her. He pulled back and away from her so fast she almost stumbled. She gasped when she turned to look at him. He’d paled, his face all hard angles and harsh lines.
“Ward?”
He dragged in several deep breaths through clenched teeth, took a step back and walked out of the room.
Quinn followed him into her kitchen. He stood with both hands braced on the sink, his weight on his good leg, his head bowed.
“I’m sorry,” he forced out. “For being weird.”
“It’s fine, I—”
Quinn could see the edge of the scar on his scalp, his rough, ruined fingers as he gripped the front of her apron sink. The nails on his left hand were rough, deformed, as if they’d all fallen off at some stage and hadn’t grown back the same. She thought of his leg, damaged, horribly scarred, barely healed, all the other marks he had all over him. And his… A cold like ice, so sharp her body stung from the sensation, settled in the pit of her stomach.
God.
“Oh, Ward,” she barely managed. “I’m so very, very sorry.”
“Why apologize? It’s not your deal. You couldn’t have known.”
She should have known, she should have figured it out. It wouldn’t have been that much of a stretch. “I’m not apologizing for saying that word. I’m— Just the thought of— God…”
Quinn put a hand over her mouth to stop anything else stupid from coming out. And to stop the trembling in her hands, her body, her voice.
“For—for how long?” she made herself ask.
“Two days. Not that long in the whole scheme of things, right?”
“Yes, but you wouldn’t have known that at the time.”
He glanced over at her then. “Yeah,” he breathed, before ducking his head again. “Our mission went sideways. Guys died. I was captured. They dicked around with me for a day. Taking turns with their fists, their boots, wooden clubs. Cuts, a few broken bones. Nothing too major. They were making sure I stayed awake, aware, because they were just getting started.”
He let out a long, shuddering breath. “They didn’t take me as a prisoner. They weren’t taking me to any facility for processing. There was no handing me up their chain of command. We’d taken a lot of them out before everything went to shit. I was pay back, plain and simple. And they were going to make it count. I figured my team was dead or they assumed I was. Either way, I wasn’t getting out of there.”
Quinn didn’t ask who “they” were this time. She didn’t want to know. And it didn’t much matter.
“And then the knives came out.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “They started to get twitchy. Maybe they were worried they’d be discovered. They’d blown out my knee cap and it was bad. The other one was next and then God knows what.”
He took a deep, dragging breath, his fingers clenched on the edge of the sink so hard his knuckles were white.
“Most pain has some means of relief or you know there’s an end. Somewhere. Sometime. That’s what gives you hope, that’s what feeds the strength to get through it. Eventually. This? Yeah, there was no end. I thought… There wouldn’t be an end. Not anytime soon.”
He dipped his head lower, his voice when he spoke was harsh. “You think you know what pain is. We’ve all experienced physical pain to some degree before, right? I was a SEAL, the toughest of the tough. Trained to endure. You delude yourself into thinking you’re strong, that you can take whatever you need to, that you’ll deal, somehow, someway, but… None of us know what real pain is until it’s delivered by someone intent on it, determined to maximize its effects, to make it last as long as possible.”
Quinn didn’t know what to do, what to say. She moved to stand beside him and laid her hand over the top of one clenched fist, careful to keep the touch light, gentle.
“It must have been…unimaginable,” she breathed.
“Even now, I try to remember exactly what it felt like, but I can’t. I can’t quite tap into any of the sensations, not anymore.”
“Why would you want to remember what it felt like?”
Oh, God. Wouldn’t he just want to forget?
“Because.” His hand flexed under hers. He released his hold and turned his hand, enveloping hers in a hard grip. “I want to remind myself, I want to— I need to validate how unbearable it was, how…” He swallowed. “I begged for death, Quinn. Begged. I begged for them to kill me, over and over, I begged…”
Oh, God.
He dragged in a shuddering breath. “How fucked up is that?”
His hand jerked around her own and she could feel the tremble in his grip. His jaw flexed, a vein throbbed in his temple. “I’m sorry, Quinn,” he rasped in a harsh whisper. “But I gotta go.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yeah. I do. I’m not fit to be in anyone’s company right now. And I don’t want to talk about it. To anyone. Ever. Okay?”
Quinn swallowed against the thickness in her throat. God, was there more? The marks on his body told her more than she ever wanted to know. “I don’t want you to talk about it.”
He looked at her then. His gaze was dark, shadowed, his eyes rimmed in red, his lashes in damp clumps. His mouth was held in a tight line.
“Unless you want to,” she whispered. “It’s probably selfish, but— My imagination is in overdrive right now and I’ll bet my context doesn’t even come close to your reality, so… Yeah. I don’t want— I can’t… Oh, God…”
A tear tracked down her cheek.
“Quinn,” he breathed. “Don’t.”
He pushed away from the sink and wrapped her in his strong arms in a single, fluid move, his forearms solid bands across her back. He held her tight, too tight, but she wouldn’t have had it any other way. He buried his head against her neck. The tremble she’d felt in his hand was full body now.
She didn’t have any words, nothing that would have made a scrap of difference and that wouldn’t have felt trite. She couldn’t know what he’d been through, wouldn’t be able to even imagine it. So she held on tight and offered the only comfort she thought she could. Her presence. Her warmth.
All at once he pulled back and she felt cold without him wrapped around her. His eyes were flat. “I’m outta here,” he rasped.
Quinn stepped right in his path when he turned toward the front door.
He frowned. “Quinn—”
“We could, you know…watch TV?”
“Yeah, I don’t watch TV.”
“How about a game? Maybe—”
“No. I don’t have the patience for games.”
Big surprise.
“Well, how about I make us something to eat? I’m almost one hundred percent certain you eat.”
“Only almost?”
She glanced down at him. “Body of a God, remember?”
“Quinn…”
“Stay.”
He groaned, tilted his head back and closed
his eyes. “Nah. I’m sorry. I gotta go.
Chapter Six
Ward glanced through the small glass window in the classroom door and his stomach jolted when he spotted Quinn. She had on jeans and a t-shirt and even from this angle he could see how they hugged the curves of her ass.
Damn. He’d figured some distance would have lessened her effect on him. Maybe he’d even talked himself into believing the intensity he felt when he looked at her was all in his head. Nope. His gut and his dick said otherwise.
He’d tried to stay away but it hadn’t stuck. For the first time in longer than he cared to remember he’d actually missed something. Someone.
He might not have seen her for a few days, but already his heart rate was up and anticipation was riding him hard. He’d ached to see her, touch her, see the smile that went all the way to her eyes, to know he’d been the cause of it.
The classroom was empty except for the kid she was talking to. Despite the fact that the kid towered over her and probably outweighed her by fifty pounds, he had his head bent and his hands jammed into his pockets. Ward winced. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but it was plain she was ripping the kid a new one.
Ward stepped back when the kid shouldered through the door. He was broad and lanky and his gaze direct when it landed on him. He also stopped and put a hand out across the door when Ward would have walked into the room. What the—
“What’s your business with Ms. Devlin?”
Ward had gone on full alert at the first move. His focus narrowed, body poised, ready. Instinct drilled into him over years and honed raw time and time again was impossible to override. It was as much a part of him as breathing. The kid had some balls, he had to give him that. Not many grown men would get up in his face. He probably learned his nerve at the School of Quinn.
He might have a man-sized body, but Ward could have snapped him like a twig. His eyes though were hard, wary. Ward had seen eyes like that plenty of times. The look in them said he’d left childhood behind a long time ago, had seen more in his young life than he ever should have.
“Mason, it’s okay.”
Quinn might have been talking to the kid, but her gaze was locked to his. It felt as if her eyes were eating him up and just like that his heart rate kicked up a notch. Yeah, there was wariness there too. Her voice was soft and it was all he could do not to close his eyes at the sensation of it coursing through him.
Mason’s eyes narrowed. “You know him?” he said without taking his eyes off Ward.
“Yes, it’s okay.”
The kid let his arm drop slowly. He nodded to Quinn and turned to walk off down the hall.
“Sorry,” she breathed. “Some of the boys can be a bit…intense.”
Boy? Ward shook his head. “Quinn, that was no boy.” A punk kid with a chip on his shoulder and a driving need to prove himself maybe, but a “boy”? No.
She sighed. “I know. Not many of them are.”
Ward looked around the classroom. Everything was old and beaten up. What there was of it.
“So what’s his story?” he said, motioning toward the hall with his chin.
“I think he might be gifted.”
“You think?”
“I suspect he’s sabotaging his tests.” Quinn sighed. “Probably has been his whole life. With quite the skill too.”
Yeah, he could imagine a scenario where a kid might think his best option was not to stand out.
He watched as she gathered papers and files together at a desk in the back of the room. It was clearly hers. It might have been awhile since he’d been in a classroom, but the teacher’s desk was always at the front.
Ward frowned. “You sit at the back of the room?”
“Why not? I’m learning in here too. In fact.” She smiled. “I might be the one learning the most.”
“This is what you always wanted to do, huh?”
Quinn stopped what she was doing and looked at him, really looked at him, and his gut tightened. He’d probably never get used to how intense her gaze was when he was the only thing she was focused on.
“Knowledge is the only super power any child needs. It’s the answer to everything. These kids? I know a lot of people write them off, but behind every defiant attitude and example of bad behavior is a story that will break your heart. They deserve a chance, just like everyone else. And then? If they decide to not take it? It’s on them. So…what are you doing here?”
Yeah, good question. One he hadn’t been able to answer himself exactly.
“I wanted to see where you work.”
That was good enough for now.
She frowned. “Why?”
He sighed. Maybe not. He wasn’t about to tell her he’d needed to see how dangerous this place was for himself. Just like he wasn’t going to tell her he’d personally checked all the security protocols. Thoroughly. Even talked to the campus cop along with the rent-a-cop her mother had tagging her to and from work. He might have had to jump through some security hoops to get onto the school grounds, but anyone with enough determination could circumvent every one of them. It wasn’t enough to satisfy him, not by a long shot, but what the fuck was he going to do about it? There was risk walking across the road. And anyone with half a brain could see she was right where she belonged.
“Just curious.”
She gave him that look, the knowing one that called him on his bullshit.
“Right,” she drawled.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Gus tells me you haven’t been to boot camp this week.”
She smiled a half smile as she packed files and papers into a briefcase. “I’m sure the ducks are grateful. Along with my muscles, believe me.”
He didn’t smile in return. “Why not?”
She frowned. “That’s why you really came?”
“You were doing well, I—”
At her raised eyebrow, he did smile. Couldn’t help it. “Okay, I didn’t want you to stop going because of me. I’m never there that early in the morning, so…” He finished with a shrug.
“I didn’t, I just— I’ve been busy this week, that’s all.”
Ward nodded, cleared his throat. Figured it wasn’t a good idea to call her on her own bullshit.
“And I wanted to let you know I was sorry. About…the other night. You know, for taking off.”
“You have nothing to apologize for, but it’s becoming quite the habit.”
Her voice was soft and quiet and just like that the tension left his body.
“Yeah. I’ve probably apologized more to you than I have my entire life.”
She smiled. “You could have called, you know. I’m pretty sure I put my number in Gus’s files.”
“Nah, this is one of those has-to-be-done-in-person apologies.”
“Ward, if there was ever anything I could do, you know, to help in some way, you know I would. Perhaps I could—”
“I’m not one of your students, Quinn.”
She looked him up and down and damn if a ball of heat didn’t explode low down in his gut. “No. You’re not.”
“I mean— I’m not some kid who needs to be ‘saved’.”
She tilted her head to the side. “No, but I think you probably were once.”
“No. Maybe. A long time ago. I helped myself.”
“I don’t save any of these kids, Ward. I show them how they can save themselves and hope they’re paying attention. All they need is a spark of hope to believe in themselves. Sometimes all it takes is one person who has high expectations of them because no one else really does, you know?”
Quinn glanced down at her watch. “Um…damn. I’ve got to go. I’ve got to get these files together for a meeting in the next building. Which has probably already started.”
“You’re working late?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll ask someone to walk you to your car.” He’d already scoped out where she parked. It was lit, but not nearly enough to satisfy him.
She frowned. “Ward, I do this all the—”
“Irrelevant.”
“But—”
“Promise me, Quinn.”
“You want me to promise?” she threw out. “Then you know what you have to do.”
He pushed out a breath but he raised his hand, his little finger extended. “Swear, Quinn.”
She smiled, as if he’d walked right into her trap. Of course, she’d know he never forgot a single thing, not even a casual, throwaway comment like that. He doubted there was another person alive who knew him as well as she did. Yeah, why didn’t that do a fucking thing about the dark feeling in the pit of his stomach because sure as hell, he was toxic to someone like her. And if he needed any further evidence he should stay the fuck away from her from now on, that was it.
“Okay.” She raised her hand, locked her pinky around his. “I swear.”
Ward nodded, dropped his hand and turned. He wasn’t going to look back no matter how bad he wanted to. His eyes narrowed when he noticed the kid was still hanging around out in the hall and something in him eased. “You stayed to watch out for Quinn? Ms. Devlin?”
The kid straightened away from the wall where he’d been leaning. Ward figured he’d been hunched over his phone texting or gaming but he stuffed a beaten up old book into his backpack before he lifted his chin, defiance in every line of his skinny-ass body. “So?”
“You do that often?” Ward asked. “Look out for her like that?”
“Maybe.” A shrug might have said it was no big deal, but Ward could see it was. The kid took the whole thing dead seriously.
The kid might be lean, but he had the height and shoulder width that meant he was going to be a big guy. If he hit the protein and the weights with a proper program he’d grow into that frame in no time.
Ward motioned to him with his chin. “You work out?”
“Yeah. So?”
“At a gym?”
“What the fuck do you think?” the kid sneered, held his arms out wide. “Do I look like a gym rat?”
Ward had already noticed the overlong hair, ripped jeans, too big jacket and torn shoes. Along with the expression the kid wore like a shield. Surly he recognized and could handle. Hell, he might have invented the look when he’d been a kid himself.
