Now Adam and Elise slept, though it was a fitful and delicate slumber. Long after when they should have been down for their naps, it hadn’t helped matters as she’d quieted them.
Quinn wrapped an arm around her middle as she slid along the wall away from the nursery, eyes heavy and each step leaden. She just had to make it to the nest and not collapse before that. Meghan had made weepy promises, the liquid quality of her tremulous voice assuring Quinn that all would be taken care of.
A huff of air that tried to be a sigh of relief escaped her as she made it to the bedroom. Fingers plucking at the strings of her clothing, she shed the loose, silky items and stumbled free of them without altering her course. Stopping now would send her to the floor, and she knew from experience it would be that much harder if she did.
Crawling into the massive bed, Quinn whined as her muscles protested. A bone deep ache settled in, take up residence through every limb until she creaked and groaned with every shuffling move. Collapsing into the nest, she shoved her face into his pillow and breathed deep. There was no energy left in the quivering arm that strained to tug a blanket up.
Breathing in his heady musk where it lingered in the soft fabric, Quinn closed her eyes and prayed for sleep.
It didn’t come soon enough.
Feeling as though the whole ordeal was mere minutes ago, she heard the door click shut. The mattress shifted, the solid weight of Tobias coming up the bed as his heat engulfed her. She knew what would come, the demands he’d make of her. Knew just as well that she couldn’t withstand it.
It wasn’t even a sob. Misery fled over her tongue in a hard exhalation, chest squeezed in a vise as tears strangled her. Face hidden in the thick drifts of downy softness, she knew he wouldn’t see, and even if he did, he’d do it anyway. As if she lost control of every atom of her being, Quinn felt the weight of her heart sinking her body deeper into the bed.
“What is it, little bird?”
There was no strength left to her. Too exhausted, too wrung out, she couldn’t control anything anymore. Not even the weak promises to herself to remain strong against his presence could hold up against the utter depletion. Submerged in fine linens and his scent, she gave up and released her tenuous grasp on even that to drag in a rattling breath for a response. Not that she knew what to say. Too often her words were ignored, her complaints and denials silenced under his lips as he forced her to his will.
This would be no different.
She was so very tired.
“Quinn!” It sounded as if he’d been punched, the rumble of her name dragged out of him with force. Hands too gentle to make sense, he rolled Quinn to her back. Feather light the glancing touches to her face traced the sunken contours of cheek and eye as he bent close. “Quinn, sweetness? What is it?”
Quinn’s breath hitched, glassy eyes staring up at him while her lips and tongue struggled to form the motions. To tell him how much it hurt, that she needed sleep, that he was killing her by fractions all the while he professed his care and need.
It was then she realized that the deep green of his gaze held more than the usual determination and hint of irritation. There was worry there, an edge of fear tightening the fullness of his lips as he huddled over her. As if he would protect her sprawled body with his own, heat leeching into her frigid skin. A slow blink allowed her gaze to drift, and it was then she saw the reason why his caresses felt so strange.
His hand trembled where it hovered beside her face. Afraid to touch, and somehow she knew he was worried he would hurt her more than she already was.
“Quinn?”
Again came that sound. Using the last of her will, she shifted her gaze back to his. She hadn’t recognized it, because she had never heard it from him. A sob of breath as he was overwhelmed by something not within his power to control.
Her chest twisted, tightening in ever increasing bands. The hammering behind her sternum wasn’t the sluggish thump of her heart. She knew that. Understood somehow that the tangled web that threaded its way through her was him, his thoughts and feelings, the emotions now running rampant in a dizzying blur. Faster than she could make sense of anything.
“Quinn,” Tobias shouted in a whisper, heavy hands cradling her skull as he bent closer. “Answer me, dammit!”
“Tired.”
It was just a breath, the last of her energy expended to soothe the tumult that raced around her brain before darkness pulled her eyes shut and sleep found her.
Chapter Three
Quinn whimpered as her eyes fluttered open, not rested enough by half for the shaft of gentle morning light that pierced through her retinas. The whole room was bathed in golden radiance, warming her skin where it peeked out from under the heavy drifts of blankets.
A shadow fell over her, cool and soothing before a solid object took up sentry in the field of her blurred vision. Blocking the stinging rays, protecting her from that particular agony until she could shove her face into the dark crevice between two pillows.
“Hold on, sweetness.” His voice was a quiet purr, calming and gentle as his fingers swept the tangled length of her hair over her shoulder.
Darkness descended over the room, shutting away the strengthening sun. She didn’t bother to move, remaining listless as his hand traversed the hollow valleys of her ribs. Whatever reprieve she’d received the night before, he’d do what he wanted now.
“Is that better?”
The sludge between her ears masquerading as her brain couldn’t make sense of what her senses perceived. His purr continued, quieting the dull ache that infected the marrow of her bones, but there was no insistence in the gentle reverberation. Though he touched her, it wasn’t his usual pawing. He made no demands as he brushed his knuckles over her shoulder and skimmed down her arm.
Neck creaking, Quinn angled to see him. The lowered high-tech blinds afforded a far more comfortable dimness, allowing her to open her eyes and look around. To see him sitting on the bed beside her with brows pinched tight, deep furrows marring his forehead.
