With Every Heartbeat (Forbidden Men, #4)(53)

“Clearly, she has issues.” Unable to stay away, I wandered to the table to see what he’d been reading. When I realized it was the notebook I’d given him, I sat, wondering which one it was. I’d been too nervous earlier; I’d just picked out the first one my fingers had touched and shoved it his way without seeing the title I was handing away.

Tucking my feet up on the seat with me, I rested my chin on my knees and read a few words. Ahh. This one was about the dragon slayer who ended up making friends with the dragon. Very How to Train Your Dragon like. I know, I was so original. Except they weren’t Vikings in my story, the main character was a girl, and the main dragon was not named Toothless.

Glancing up at Quinn, I sighed. “I kept dreaming about someone breaking into the apartment, so I had to make sure it was locked. But now that I’m up, I know I won’t be getting back to sleep any time soon.”

He sat back in the chair he’d been in when I’d come into the kitchen, and he lifted his water in a silent kind of cheers. “Same here.”

I clinked my bottle gently against his. He smiled, and we drank together in silence.

“How’d you do on your biology test?” he finally asked. “I totally forgot to ask earlier, what with that guy breaking into his ex-wife’s window and trying to cut her apart with the saw and all.”

I grinned and rolled my eyes. “I think I did okay. I feel really good about it, anyway.”

“That’s great.” He tilted his water bottle toward me again. After another bump, we drank some more.

“Caroline got tickets for me to go with her to your home game tomorrow,” I said, thinking I should make small talk, and actually wanting to make small talk with him. “I even bought an ESU shirt to wear to it. I’m kind of excited.”

“Really?” His eyes lit up. “You’re going? That’s cool. I didn’t know if you even liked football.”

I shrugged. “My father’s a fan, so...I learned about the game from watching him watch it.”

Quinn watched me curiously before he shrugged. “I didn’t know much about it myself until I joined the team. I was homeschooled until high school.”

“Really?” My jaw about hit the floor. “No way. So was I.” That was so strange.

He nodded and glanced away. “Yeah, I know. Cora mentioned it before.”

I gulped. Oh. “She did?” What else had Cora told him about me?

Not meeting my gaze, he nodded again. “I never planned on trying out for the team, but the coach saw me walking down the hall one day and said with my size, it was a shame I wasn’t trying out. So I decided to go for it, and ended up being the starting quarterback by the end of high school. Of course, I was twenty at the time, so I’d matured a lot more than the other guys.”

I tipped my head to the side, curious. “Why were you twenty when you finished high school?” He obviously had no learning disability to hold him back. His biology help had told me that.

When his mouth opened, but no words came and a strange expression entered his face, I held up a hand. “Sorry. Ignore me.” That information was none of my business. “Still...that’s so cool that the football coach came to you. You must’ve been a natural.” I smiled, glad to hear he’d turned out a success after his beginning had been so similar to mine.

Quinn shrugged bashfully. “I was big enough to handle a hit here and there, but I still had decent aim with my throwing arm.” He glanced at me only to suck in a sudden breath. “Ouch. That must’ve hurt.”

Before I knew what he was doing, he reached out and slid his fingers over the top of my shoulder where my shirt had slipped down revealing bare skin. The graze of his flesh against mine made me shiver. When my nipples instantly went hard, I jerked back with a gasp.

His eyes widened as if he’d just then realized what he’d done. Snapping his hand back to himself, he immediately apologized. “Sorry, I just...they surprised me. I’m so sorry.”

When I realized he was talking about the scars and that’s what he’d touched, I immediately covered the area with my hand.

“The way they’re in a straight line like that...” He shook his head and his eyes filled with compassion. “That’s crazy. Someone must’ve possessed some insanely controlled temper to do something like that.”

I shook my head, instantly denying it, but Quinn merely whispered, “Zoey.” He lifted a hand to stop me from protesting. “I know what cigarette burns look like.” Then he reached for the hem of his own shirt and lifted it. I got an eyeful of perfectly formed abs before he twisted to show me his back.

My mouth fell open. Not only was he marred everywhere with belt-inflicted scars, but little white and red dots were scattered sporadically, showing me how many times someone had taken the butt of a cigarette to him and burned him.

Tears filled my eyes.

He dropped his shirt back into place. “My abuser just wasn’t as neat as yours.”

I opened my mouth and met this gaze, but no words came.

“Cora told me about you before you ever moved here,” he admitted. Then he glanced away. “I’ve wanted to say something to you for a while, let you know I understood and that I’d been there, too.”

I wiped at my wet cheeks and finally managed to asked, “Who...?”