His eyes bore into hers, neither one of them saying anything, but both standing their ground. She wiped at her face again, determined to show strength and not bawl in front of him.
Quinn looked down. When he finally lifted his eyes up to hers again, they were pained. “Will you stay now, Keeks? Please…stay.”
All the tension drained from her body and relief seeped into her heart. That was all she wanted and he’d just given it to her—for him to conquer his fears of rejection and just ask her to be with him. It was what she had been asking for since they’d first started dating, yet it had always felt like she was the one pushing for their relationship.
Now, she realized, it had always been the opposite.
When she got to him, he reached out a hand and interlocked his fingers with hers. They stood in the doorway, not outside and not inside, staring at each other as she waited for him to say something…anything.
Quinn’s gaze flickered down to her lips, then back to her eyes. “Can I tell you a story?”
Frowning at the tangent, she decided to go with it. “Sure.”
“Once upon a time, there was a little girl who had more guts and confidence than someone three times her age. She didn’t need anybody, but there was a little boy who didn’t have that same spunk, and he needed her. Out of that, a friendship grew and it would quickly become the most defining relationship in his life.”
Kiera’s knees trembled as she listened, his hand holding hers and his dark eyes distant.
Quinn continued. “The little boy was head over heels in love, but he was too young to know what that dizzy, floating feeling he had every time he looked at her was. She never seemed to notice, and he was okay with that, because he was a kid—what did he know about love? He waited, and it killed him to watch her pine over other boys, but he waited.”
“Quinn,” Kiera started, shaking her head as a weight settled on her chest that felt like it would never lift.
He didn’t wait for her to finish. “Then one day, the girl looked at him the same way he’d looked at her for years, and they weren’t so little anymore. They were young adults and love made a little more sense, but it was still so damn terrifying. For one brief evening, they made love, they were in love. He knew she felt it, too. And then she was gone. So, he waited again.”
“Quinn, stop.” Tears were pouring down her face; she was unable to restrain them any longer as she leaned against the doorframe they were standing in. She yanked her hand from his, but he reached for her. She shoved him away, a feeble smack as her hands landed against his chest. “This isn’t my fault! I never meant to hurt you. You’re being unfair—I didn’t know and you never told me. You should have told me!”
She smacked his chest again, but Quinn grabbed her wrists, pinning her entire body against his as he pushed her back against the doorframe. “Keeks, let me finish the story.”
“No,” she cried. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear how I’m the worst person that ever lived because I broke your heart when I was eighteen freaking years old! I cared about you, too. I always did.”
Quinn exhaled sharply, irritation flashing over his face. “Kiera.” His lips descended on hers and she fought it for a moment, but barely. She dissolved against him, their lips fighting and angry, but also loving and needy.
When he pulled away, Kiera kept her eyes closed, focusing only on his breath on her cheek, his hands on her wrists pressed against his chest. When he spoke again, her heart pulsed with every word.
“While the young boy waited, the young girl chased her dreams and figured out who she was away from the shield he’d always held around her. And he saw her occasionally over the years, but she was still figuring herself out. So he kept waiting.”
She opened her eyes slightly, peering up at him. He let go of her wrists, pinning her against the doorframe with his body as he used his fingertips to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
“The boy was now a man and the girl now a woman, and the two met again.” His voice was thick with emotion, and she was almost sure she saw a glisten of tears in his eyes while he stared at her in earnest.
Her heart thudded as she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed the side of her face to his chest, tucking her head under his chin.
“What happened next?” she whispered, more than a little afraid of the answer.
“She came home, and there was no more waiting.” Quinn’s voice was soft in her ear, and she trembled against him. “He finally found the courage to tell the girl, now a woman, he’d been in love with her for more than twenty years. He was still in love with her, and he always would be. She was his reason.”
“His reason for what?” she whispered even more softly as she clutched him tighter, certain she’d fall apart if he wasn’t holding her.
“For everything, Keeks.” He pulled away enough to search her eyes. “You’re my reason for everything. You always have been.”
Tears slid down her cheeks again, but she didn’t try to hide them because they weren’t sad. They weren’t painful. They weren’t filled with anything but adoration for the man pouring his heart out to her.
He was right. She’d moved on, and she’d needed to. She’d needed to grow up and stand on her own, just like her mother had always raised her to do. But a part of her had always known he would be there when she came home. He was her home.
“So, you’re in love with me, Quinn Kavanagh?” she asked, nibbling on the corner of her bottom lip as she looked at him.
“Yes, I am, Kiera Finley,” he replied, his eyes dropping to her lips, then back to catch her gazing at his mouth, as well. His dark eyes heated and flared, and he pushed his hips against hers, backing her farther against the doorframe.
Reaching up, she cupped his face in her hands and brought his lips to hers. Their kiss was soft, sweet, slow…genuine in its timidity, and open in its honesty. It was a fresh start, a clean slate, and yet the beginning of a story already half written.
“Quinn?” she asked, trying to catch her breath as she parted their lips for only a moment.
He paused as she organized her thoughts.
“I just…I want to be honest with you. I’m falling for you, I know I am. I think I always have been in some ways.” Her tongue slid across her lower lip. “But I’m twenty years behind.”
Quinn smiled and kissed her again. “I’ll wait.”
Her heart exploded into a million little pieces at his acceptance, his love, and his determination. He’d hold her heart even when she wasn’t ready to give it to him.
He pressed his forehead against hers and kissed the tip of her nose. “Let’s get inside. It’s cold out here, and I want to show you the latest piece I’ve been working on.”
She laced her fingers with his and followed him inside. “I get to see? Finally!”
Quinn chuckled. “Only because I love you.”
She beamed, hugging his arm to her chest and trying to figure out how she’d gotten so lucky.
Chapter 16
“How was the pool this morning?” Kiera asked him as he pushed off the wall, finishing a set of one-legged wall squats during their physical therapy session that afternoon. It was winding down to being one of their last, since he’d really improved in their time together. Working with her several times a week the last couple of months, plus the extra time he’d put in swimming, had really helped the healing process along. He still used the cane, but was looking forward to that being gone soon, too.
“It was good; did some jumping jacks in the shallow end and then some laps in the deep end.” Quinn wiped a small towel across his brow. “I’m much stronger, and my endurance is back.”
She nodded, writing something in his charts on the clipboard she was holding. “You definitely are, but please still use the cane the majority of the day. Stability, balance—you don’t want to overexert yourself.”
Quinn’s eyes trailed down her body while she took her notes. She looked so damn sexy in her doctor’s coat, her h
air tied back into a ponytail, and a cute pair of glasses on the tip of her nose. He saw her wearing them only when she was reading, but one of these days, he was going to insist she bring them to bed.
“Well, I think we’re—” Kiera lifted her head to look at him, pausing when she saw his face. “What?”
“You look so fucking sexy right now.” A wicked grin spread over his face, and his voice lowered so no one in the hallway or around the corner heard him.
“Quinn!” Her eyes widened, glancing around. “I’m at work.”
“I know, but that door closes.” He pointed toward the exam-room door.
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll see you at home in two hours. I think you can restrain yourself that long.”
“Maybe.” His lips twitched as his eyes moved down her body again. “But just to be safe, bring the doctor’s coat home.”
Kiera laughed, pushing her glasses up her nose. “We’ll see. Oh, but hey, I did want to talk to you about something.”
“Yeah?”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cellphone, flipping through it until she found what she wanted. “Here.”
He took the phone from her, an advertisement on the screen for an art gallery in Manhattan. “What am I looking at?”
“Well, it’s a gallery soliciting new artists for an upcoming exhibit. A friend of mine walks the gallery owner’s dog, and she said she’d put in a good word for you.”
“A word for what?” He handed the phone back to her.
She slid it back into her pocket and shifted her weight to one foot, one brow raised. “For your art, obviously. You could be in a real gallery where people can see and appreciate your sculptures.”
“Absolutely not.” Quinn waved his hands back and forth. “I appreciate the thought, but I’d rather drink tea made from Kane’s jockstrap.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Quinn. Or gross.” She grimaced, tucking the clipboard away in a drawer. “It was only a suggestion.”
“I know, and you’re sweet,” he said, taking hold of her upper arms in his hands as she stepped toward him. He kissed her gently, a soft peck. “I love the thought, babe, but my art is a hobby at best. I don’t want to put it out there for the whole world to judge me on how amateur I am. And Manhattan? They’re the pros, Keeks.”
“You’re better than any pro I’ve seen,” she assured him, lifting her arms to wrap around his neck. “Will you please think about it?”
“If I said yes, I’d be lying.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine, but your sculptures are amazing. The rest of the world should see them. Your own family doesn’t even know about your ‘hobby.’ They’ve never even seen your studio or your apartment upstairs!”
“That’s why I picked a place on the edge of Woodlawn, Keeks. Anonymity is key when you have a giant, nosy family.”
“Fine, fine.” She exhaled sharply. “Do what you want. I’ve got to finish up work, but you did great today.”
“Thanks, babe.” He kissed her forehead and grabbed his coat, pulling it on as he picked up his cane. He barely needed it anymore, but he was following doctor’s orders. “I’ll see you tonight?”
“Yeah, see you at home,” she said absentmindedly, flipping through a file on the counter.
He grinned, loving that she called his place “home” now. She’d technically been living with her mother since she moved back from the West Coast, but the house was empty while her mother and stepfather were on a ridiculously long cruise.
Without any real decision-making process, they’d spent almost the entire last month sleeping together at his place, in his bed, with his arms wrapped around her. He loved every second of it.
He loved waking up to her, making breakfast together, and arguing over who would be cooking dinner that night. He loved their never-ending competition to best the other while watching television game shows, as silly and trivial as that might sound. He even loved her toothbrush in his bathroom, and her shampoo in his shower.
He’d gone so far over the committed-and-in-love deep end, he didn’t even mind that his television occasionally recorded Real Housewives of Who Cares over a football game he’d wanted to watch. Maybe it was rose-colored glasses, or maybe he was being naïve and still in the infatuation stage of it all, but he didn’t care.
He had the woman of his dreams, and he was going to embrace every moment of it.
—
“In the kitchen!” Quinn called out as she walked in the front door of his apartment. He hadn’t locked it—he usually didn’t—so she often waltzed in like she owned the place. In fact, it didn’t even feel that strange to her anymore. She felt at home in his home, and he seemed fine with that.
“What the heck?” She stepped into the kitchen and immediately stopped in her tracks.
Spaghetti sauce decorated the ceiling, coated the entire stove top, and covered all of Quinn.
At least…she hoped it was spaghetti sauce.
“Yeah, so I was thinking we should order delivery tonight?” Quinn turned to her, his chest covered in red, chunky stains.
“I have a lot of questions,” she said, dropping her purse on the couch and walking over to him in the kitchen. She grabbed a sponge off the sink and tried to clean the mess.
Quinn laughed and pulled his stained shirt over his head. “Apparently, so do I. Like…how do you make spaghetti sauce that doesn’t turn into a bomb?”
Her eyes stuck to his chiseled, tattooed chest for a moment, but she cleared her throat and turned back to the stove. Finding the culprit, she saw that the burner heat was turned all the way up and he’d literally boiled the sauce, causing it to bubble over and burst, sending the sticky red liquid in every direction. She turned off the burner. “It’s probably still good, just maybe burned.”
“You know what’s not burned? Chinese.”
Kiera smirked and started to clean up the mess while he ordered them dinner from one of their favorite local Chinese restaurants and changed into clean clothes. By the time he came back out, she’d gotten most of it up.
“Babe, you didn’t have to clean up for me,” he said, kissing her cheek as he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.
Well, I kind of owe you, Kiera thought as she wondered how she should break the news to him. She’d gone ahead and secured him an audition for the art gallery, despite his insistence otherwise earlier today.
“Well, I feel kind of bad about earlier,” she said, turning around in his arms and kissing him softly.
He furrowed his brows. “For what?”
“Pushing you about the art gallery thing. I know you’re not ready to go public with your work.”
“Keeks, that’s not something to feel bad about. Relax, I’m fine.” He kissed her forehead and then walked over to the cabinets, pulling down two glasses for them.
“Right, I know, but then I…” She paused, leaning her elbows on the counter. Suddenly, she worried her attempt at helping him might not come off that way. He was going to be mad…maybe rightfully so. “Never mind.”
Quinn lifted one brow as he filled their glasses with water. “What did you do, Kiera?”
“Nothing.”
Narrowing his eyes, he walked over to her and handed her the glass. “Kiera.”
“What?” A small giggle left her mouth—a nervous habit—as she walked over to the couch and dropped onto the cushions.
Quinn sighed loudly, following her to the couch. “Damn it, Kiera, did you call the gallery owner?”
“That is a distinct possibility.” She grinned, nudging his thigh with her toes as she tucked her feet under him on the couch.
“I thought I was clear when I said no.”
She shrugged. “I’m not very good with that word.”
Quinn laughed, his hand rubbing her leg gently. Maybe he wasn’t as mad as she’d feared. “Ain’t that the damn truth. You’re stubborn as hell, Keeks.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter either way,” she replied, lifting h
er chin. She was not stubborn. She was…persistent. “The owner only offered an audition and said they’ve had a lot of interest. He said metalwork was really hard to do, and few people did it well. I think he was just being nice, honestly, instead of telling me there was no chance of you getting in.”
Quinn surveyed her—his expression masked. She fidgeted with her fingers, turning her eyes downward as she wondered what he was thinking or if her bait had worked. The owner had said all those things to her—she wasn’t lying. But she also knew posing it like that to Quinn might make him see it as a challenge. He had never been one to back down from a dare.
Taking a sip of his water, he cleared his throat. Leveling his gaze at her, he put the glass back down. “I know what you’re doing, Kiera.”
She put the most innocent expression on her face she could muster as she moved closer to him on the couch, dropping her chin to his shoulder and batting her eyelashes at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, darling.”
“The hell you don’t,” he said with a chuckle. “You’re trying to goad me into doing it.”
She gasped melodramatically, her hand flying to her chest. “I would never! I can’t believe you’d ever think I’d try to push you to do something that could be amazing and life changing for you, an opportunity that may never come around again, or want to show the world how amazing my boyfriend’s art is.” She injected a heavy dose of sarcasm into her words and didn’t bother hiding her huge smile. “Do you even know me, Quinn? Really, maybe we should reevaluate our relationship if this is who you think I am.”
He laughed loudly, tilting his head back. “The only thing we need to evaluate is your head, Keeks.”
The doorbell rang, and she popped to her feet to answer it, grabbing Quinn’s wallet off the counter to tip the food delivery man. Returning to the couch, where they normally ate cuddled up together, she placed the bag of food on the coffee table and began opening the various containers.