With Every Heartbeat (Forbidden Men #4)(54)

“My mom,” he answered with a blank nod. “But only until I was twelve. That’s when she overdosed and died. I went to live with my grandma after that. I’d never had any kind of schooling at that point. Gran knew I would’ve been horribly out of place if I started public school then, so she homeschooled me until I was ready for ninth grade. I don’t think a lot of people knew I was seventeen my freshman year of high school.”

“Wow,” I whispered. My hand trembled as I reached for him, but I kept reaching until my fingers were covering his.

He slipped his around until our palms pressed together. Then he sent me a sad smile. “I was worried about you when you first showed up. I’d had years to get over what I went through before I moved out on my own. But you were just escaping. I didn’t know how easily you’d adjust. I wanted to let you know I was here to talk...you know, if you ever needed to, but I wasn’t sure...I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to broach the subject.”

I smiled and nodded, sniffing with a new batch of tears wetting my eyes. “You’re doing a very good job of it now.”

He half smiled, half laughed. “Yeah. Better late than never, huh? I guess we should’ve watched a scary movie together weeks ago.”

When I blurted out a laugh only to mop up more tears, he stood and tightened his grip on my hand to urge me out of my chair as well. “Come here.”

My stomach fluttered with unease and excitement as I followed his instruction without question. I stood, and he pulled me into a hug.

I’m not sure if I’d ever really been hugged before. It was...amazing. I rested my cheek on his shoulder, inhaled his heavenly scent and hugged him back as hard as I could.

Warm lips pressed against my forehead. “It’ll get better. I promise you.”

More tears fell and I squeezed my eyes closed, wishing this moment would never end. But footsteps in the hallway approached and Cora’s voice lightly called, “Quinn?”

“Right here.” His arms loosened around me, but he didn’t lurch away with any kind of guilt.

He was still lowering his arm from around me when my best friend appeared in the doorway, rubbing her eyes and yawning. She jerked to a stop when she saw us. Dropping her hand to her side, she gazed back and forth between us with confusion. “What the hell?”

“You caught us,” Quinn said with a grin as he held out his arm to draw her into his side. “We’re both complete chickens who couldn’t sleep after you made us watch that awful movie.”

Cora went to him willingly but frowned at me in concern when she saw the tears in my eyes.

They fell a little harder because it’d been so easy for him to turn to her after sharing such an intimate moment with me. I felt completely altered after being held in his arms, but obviously he hadn’t feel the same, which only made the guilt inside me fester and grow.

I was developing feelings for my best friend’s boyfriend. This was worse than awful. It was devastating.

“No, really,” Cora said, looking up at Quinn. “What’s going on here?”

He kissed her temple and pulled her tighter against him. “We ended up sharing a couple horror stories of our own.”

Cora’s shoulders fell. “Oh, so you finally told her, huh?”

He nodded. And I realized Cora already knew all about his past, probably ten times more than what he’d just told me. They were the ones with all the intimacies between them. Not him and me.

Feeling like a stupid, young fool, I murmured, “I think I can finally go back to sleep now. Excuse me.” My gaze met Quinn’s. I wanted to thank him for opening up to me, for making me feel better, but I didn’t know how, so I said nothing.

I slipped past them and hurried to my room, shutting myself inside and crawling under the covers until I had the blankets over my head, so I couldn’t hear anything that might be happening outside my room.





Guilt gnawed at me as a white-faced Zoey fled the kitchen, and it wasn’t because my girlfriend had walked in on me hugging another woman. I felt guilty because Cora had interrupted my moment with Zoey, as if I’d just cheated on Zoey—not Cora.

That was so messed up, it left me reeling. But I’d just shared something with Zoey that I’d never shared with Cora. We had connected on an entirely different level. I’d opened up to her and for some reason, I knew she’d been able to see me. The real me, not someone I had to strive to be. Just me.

“Let’s go back to sleep, my big man.” When Cora reached for my arm, I just couldn’t follow her. My head was everywhere; I felt that anything I did right then would be wrong. But staying the rest of the night with her while I was this way had to be worse.

I pulled my arm away before she could touch me. She shot me a surprised glance. I winced and rubbed the back of my neck. “How’s your stomach feeling?”

She nodded. “Better. In fact...” A grin spread across her face. “I’m willing to show you just how much better.”

Her fingers reached for my chest this time. My body reacted to the ideas she put into my head, but I was still too affected by what I’d just experienced with Zoey. So I caught Cora’s wrist, brought her hand to my lips and kissed her knuckles before smiling softly at her.

“Actually, if you’re feeling okay, I was going to head home. We gotta get up early in the morning to get ready for the game tomorrow.” I paused to send her a hopeful glance. “Are you going to make it to this one?”