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“I doubt that. The people in this room tonight respect you. They care about you. You may not have a typical family, but you have a great family.”
“Do you have a good family?” I ask.
“I do. Mom and Dad are a normal, everyday couple from Maine. I have a sister, Natalie. She’s soft and flowy and full of dreams. She’s married to a nice guy, and they’re going to give me a nephew in four months. I’ll finally be Aunty Quinn. They live in Arizona, but I see them as often as I can.”
“You’re far away from home, little bird. What made you come all the way out here?” I move a strand of hair out of her eyes and pull it around her ear.
“I’ve always needed to be independent. My parents love me, but they try to fix everything. I found a good job and decided I needed to spread my wings.” She pauses. “Best decision I ever made.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“Because I met you.”
Christ! I need to kiss her. I tilt her chin up. She licks her lips. She wants this as much as I do. Her gaze drifts to my mouth, and her lips part slightly. I tease her by running my tongue over her lips. An audible moan escapes from deep in her throat. I close my mouth over hers, gently at first. When her hand slips into my hair, pulling me closer, I explore every crevice of her delicious mouth. She kisses me back with just as much fervor until she clenches her other fist into my shirt and winces in pain.
I pull back and take her wrist in my hand.
“We gotta slow this down. It’s been a hell of a day, and you need to rest.” I hold her in my arms, my lips to her brow. “I want to stay the night.” When I pull back, I see the glint in her eyes. “Not like that,” I warn. “I’ll sleep on the couch, but I want to be here in case you need me. We don’t know how you’re going to feel in the morning. Sometimes the next day, you feel the aches more. You might be stiff when you wake up, and I want to be around for you.”
“On the couch?” she says, brows raised.
“Yeah.” I nod.
“We can share my bed. It’s a big bed,” she says shyly, a tinge of pink creeping into her cheeks.
“I’m trying to give you space.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Yeah, why?”
“A lot has happened today. Your emotions are high, and we’ve made lots of decisions about us. I’m trying to be a good guy and give you time to think things through,” I tell her. I sure as fuck hope Quinn is sure about us, but in the light of day, things may look different to her.
“I’m not changing my mind,” she says with steely determination.
“Baby—”
“Don’t.” Quinn lays her finger over my mouth. “Since that day in the park, I’ve been walking around miserable. I’ve had nothing but sleepless nights. And time to think if I should have done things differently. Maybe if I’d stayed, we could have talked it through, and you would have come home with me. I wanted to call you and stopped myself a dozen times. I waited in this room all night for you to come. I prayed you would knock on the door and come for me. When you didn’t, I was heartbroken. But if you were happy, then I needed to let you go.”
“Stop, Quinn.” I’m gutted by the idea of her waiting for me that night. I drove past her apartment over and over. I was tempted to storm up the stairs, throw her over my shoulder, and climb into bed with her. “I wanted to come to you. I stopped myself time and time again. I was saving you from me. You deserve a pretty house with a white picket fence. That’s not who I am. I don’t keep normal hours. My club brothers are a big part of my life, and I’ve never been in a relationship. The role models I had growing up were disastrous. My parents were completely dysfunctional, and their idea of a marriage is a joke.” I pause and take a breath. “I may not be any good at this.”
“What if it’s me who screws things up?”
“Quinn, you’re perfect. Beautiful, smart, successful… I’ve spent the better part of my time fucking up everything I touched. It wasn’t until Guard and the Pride took me on that I started getting to understand myself. I like my job with Ghost, and I’m good at it. Camille and I are good now. Her husband is cool with me, and their kid thinks his Uncle Priest is a rock star. I’ve come a long way, but I’m still figuring shit out.”
“UnclePriest?” she teases.
“James Turner, but better known as Priest. James died when he joined the Pride. He wasn’t a good man and was renamed Priest. It’s not a name I gave myself. The brothers did that.”
“Why do they call you that?”
“Because I listen more than I talk, like a priest in confession. I take it all in, help when I can, offer advice when asked, and I know how to keep quiet.”
“I like the name James.” Coming from Quinn’s lips, it’s almost melodic. I’ve always hated my name. Probably because most of the time, my mother was screaming it and it sounded shrill and demeaning.
“That man’s dead, precious.”
