Sloe Ride (24 page)

Rafe brushed his lips over the tip of Quinn’s nose, and Quinn shivered under the contact.

“That cat loved you. No two ways about it. Fighting, fucking, and Quinn. That’s what that cat lived for. And you’ve got to know, Q, you didn’t lose any of me when Tommy went on. You’ve
always
got me, okay?”

Despite Rafe’s soothing hands, the dark lingered around the edges of the room, shoved back only slightly by a slender twisted-metal lamp on the nightstand. Quinn tugged at his waist, finding he was still wearing the jeans and T-shirt he’d changed into so the medical examiner could take his work clothes off to the lab. The denim was sticky and heavy, dragging along his thighs where the fabric twisted around as he’d slept. It had to be late, much later than he’d imagined, because Rafe was half-naked in a pair of long shorts and bare chested, his dirty-blond hair rumpled from sleep. Quinn halfway remembered wanting to lie down for an hour before he ate something. He’d been so tired, and the last thing he’d heard from Rafe was something about a pizza.

“Talk to me, Q.” Rafe patted his cheeks, a devilish smirk lurking on the pout of his mouth. “Do you need a pill? One of those magic ones?”

“Is that a joke?” He cut Rafe a look, but the smile tugged him higher out of the black. “Fucker. You know I hate that.”

“I know.” He could feel Rafe’s laugh echo through his hands. “It’s why I said it.”

“Dick.” Quinn sighed, feeling the butterfly sharp of his panic settling down, its serrated flutter slowing as his breathing got easier. There was more than the panic in him, something softer and sweeter—something whiskey-hot and golden—Rafe. He could actually
feel
Rafe’s affection touching the coldest and dampest parts of his soul, a spray of
bokeh
to fill the emptiness he had inside of him. “Oh God, I can feel you.”

“I’m almost sitting on top of you.” Rafe chuckled. “I hope you can feel me.”

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head as much as he could, clasped in Rafe’s palms. “I mean… inside of me. Do you know how hard it is to
feel
anything? I can
feel
you. I mean, I usually have to guess… hope… that what I feel for other people is how they feel about me. I hear Mum say she loves me but—”

“Q, if you think your mom doesn’t love you, you’ve got more than just that one loose screw. She’d fucking
kill
for you.”

“I know she would, but a lot of times, I can’t… it’s hard to explain. It’s like my heart doesn’t… I can feel
out
, but I can’t feel
in
. I have to trust in what people tell me. Da, I can feel him… I can
hear
him inside of me. He’s like this bass drum, rumbling away behind my soul. Kane I get tingles from all the time… and Con. But—” Quinn stopped short, aware of Rafe’s piercing stare and how close he’d come to spilling out the secret he’d held inside of him for longer than he could remember. Feebly, he tried to recover, hoping to gather up what little shreds of his dignity he had left. “Never mind. I’m rambling because I’m tired and—”

“Yeah, I feel you too, magpie,” Rafe whispered, and Quinn’s darkness exploded in a rush of stars.

It was a perfect kiss, the taste of Rafe on his tongue bursting with maleness and heat. Quinn was aware of every inch of Rafe’s body, of his hands as they held his face and the flat of Rafe’s bare chest where Quinn placed his palm to steady himself as the room spun around them.

It was unlike any other kiss he’d had before. There was no wondering when it would end or listening to their teeth clinking. Instead Quinn fell into Rafe’s mouth, needing more—begging for more—and when Rafe pushed him back into the headboard, Quinn’s dick responded, growing hard and wanting beneath the tightness of his dream-sweaty jeans.

Their mouths broke apart, and Quinn heard himself mewl, a needy sound he’d dragged up from his balls to lay out before Rafe in the hopes for more. Rafe leaned forward, resting his forehead on Quinn’s temple so his breath washed warm over Quinn’s flushed face. His shorts bagged down, the heft of his cock pressing into Quinn’s hip, and Rafe ran one hand down Quinn’s side, stroking at him through the fabric.

Quinn didn’t know what to say or how to say it. Too many doubts crowded in—whispering smoky trails of reasons Rafe Andrade would plunder his mouth or push him hard against the heavy wood. He was there, his mind vomited back. Rafe was being nice because Quinn had a bad dream. Or even the deeply buried fear of Rafe Andrade teasing out a kiss just because he could.

“Rafe—” He needed to find some way to let Rafe go, anything he could find so Rafe could slide off of the bed and leave Quinn’s borrowed room without having any guilt or obligation. But for the life of him, Quinn found nothing but the fading stars Rafe left inside of him and the bruised promise of Rafe’s lips on his own.

Then Rafe sighed sweetly, and the emptiness inside of Quinn trembled, threatening to shatter into a million black specks, too tiny and impotent to gather up again.

“Fucking hell, Quinn,” Rafe whispered, skimming his mouth over Quinn’s, his tongue teasing the plumped flesh of Quinn’s lower lip. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that. Or how good you fucking taste.”

Tearing down the road, Devil on my tail

Told you not to love me, Told you I’d bail

Kittens and daisies, Picnics and wine

Till the day I walk, and you’re no longer mine

—Devil on My Tail

“D
ON
’
T
…
DO
this. Don’t play with me, Rafe.” Quinn’s anguished whisper tore through Rafe, shredding the pleasurable glow their kiss left in him. “I can’t—”

Rafe didn’t know what was funnier—the shock of Quinn believing he’d lead him on or his own arrogance in thinking Quinn would be all in solely because Rafe’d kissed him. The pain in Quinn’s eyes was real, the anguish in his voice a tear across Rafe’s soul.

“Hey, no, no, no.” Rafe brushed a kiss across Quinn’s cheek, then shifted his weight back onto his haunches, careful not to rest on Quinn’s legs. “Q, you’ve got to know, I’m not—babe, today when you called me, I was in the middle of playing with the Sinners’ guys, but I heard your voice, and all I could think about was getting the fuck out of there to be with you.”

“You should have stayed with them. You should have….” Quinn’s teeth worried at his lower lip, dimpling the swell Rafe’d just tasted. “You
want
that so badly—”

It was rough hearing his dreams spill from Quinn’s mouth. Harder still to understand that the passion he’d felt in his blood that morning in the studio was like the flaring rush of a drug in his veins instead of the simmering burn of Quinn’s body against his own. The burn stayed, Rafe realized, no matter where he was. The want for Quinn was there, and a part of him sighed with relief whenever Quinn was around.

“Yeah, I did want it. I do. But Q, right there at that moment when I heard you, I found out I could walk out that door—and never come back—if I was walking towards you,” he whispered, cupping Quinn’s cheekbones until their foreheads touched and all Rafe could see was Quinn’s face. “And it scares the shit out of me, Q. I’m not going to lie to you.
You
scare the shit out of me.

“You are everything to me, Quinn. Today I figured that out, and I’m sorry it took me so fucking long about it, but… when it’s all said and done, you’re kind of who I’ve been running from my entire damned life, because not having you—not loving you—made me hurt so much inside. All this time I’ve been trying to fill this hole inside of me, fucking around, drugs and shit, when what I should have done was just come home—and find you,” Rafe whispered into the tight space between their faces, the slice of air and shared breath that’d become their world. “I’m shit. I know that. I’m fucking nothing… especially compared to you. I kissed you because I
need
you. Because I finally fucking figured out—today of all shitty days for you—that I need you, and I don’t want to let you go.”

Quinn’s lashes flew up, fluttering black sweeps over his glittering green eyes. His breathing was shallow, held tight in his chest as he studied Rafe, his lips parted and glistening. When he finally spoke, the mists of an Irish forest followed, his thickening accent blurring the edges of his words. “You are
not
nothing, Rafe Andrade. Don’t you be saying that to me—to yourself, even—not to anyone. You’ve—”

“I was handed a fucking gift of a life, Q, and I screwed it up,” Rafe whispered over Quinn’s melodic rumbling. “Not good at school, hated the world, and the one thing I could do, I fucked it sideways and threw it away.”

“You have a chance again. With Damie and Miki—”

“I’d rather have a chance with you,” Rafe murmured, chuckling at Quinn’s sharp intake of breath. “Sure, I’d love to be a part of whatever the fuck Damie’s putting together, but if I’ve got to choose between you and them—even if you aren’t a sure thing and you want to walk away from me—I’m going to choose you. Just like I did today. Because apparently that’s what’s got to happen. I just need you to know that. I want you to understand the
last
thing in the world I’d do is hurt you—tease you or lead you on.”

“You never looked at me before,” Quinn whispered back, a soft reproach riddled with doubt. “Why now?”

“Jesus, Quinn. You think I didn’t look? I couldn’t help but look.” Rafe grimaced ruefully, recalling the sharp glances he’d gotten from Connor and Kane. “You were a kid. I wasn’t much more of one and a selfish asshole. Don’t look at me like that. It’s the truth. And let’s face it, your brothers would have kicked my fucking ass if I touched you when we were younger. You forget you were
sixteen
when I went on the road the first time? Looking was my best bet. Then leaving was the only thing I could do to keep sane.”

“Don’t think it worked,” Quinn teased, and Rafe smiled, seeing a lightness touching the edges of the dark lingering in Quinn’s mood.

“Today I was driving to get you, and it felt like I was choking down razor blades. I was
that
balls-out scared.” Rafe shifted on the bed, evening his weight out on his knees. His thighs ached a bit, muscles stretched out while he straddled Quinn’s thighs, but for the first time in his life, Rafe had Quinn Morgan where he wanted him, under him—mostly. “Not because I didn’t think you weren’t strong enough to handle what was going on. It was because I didn’t want you to be alone… and I wanted to be the one who was there for you. Like I should have been before.”

“We wouldn’t have worked before,” Quinn replied, his lips ghosting a kiss on Rafe’s thumb as it moved across his chin. “You needed to get lost, and I needed to get found. But now….”

“Now’s different, babe.” Rafe cocked his head. “I wandered off way too far before. I had to come back to you to find myself. Man enough to admit it. Man enough to know I’m shit without you. All of the noise and screaming inside of me just goes away when you’re near me. I
forget
about the crap that doesn’t really matter.”

He could have said more. Hell, Rafe knew he could have strung words together like a pearl necklace, but they wouldn’t matter much to Quinn. His magpie would be more interested in the glisten or a single drop slightly off color than the rest. He’d pick it apart to examine the knots, then laugh when it scattered, broken into a confetti splash of noise and sheen. The whole never mattered. Not to Quinn. Not to the man who saw into Rafe’s soul and knew who was there.

“No one else understands how much I need to play,” Rafe whispered. “Do you know that?”

“Pretty sure Miki and Damie do.” Quinn’s hands were light, gentle touches on Rafe’s bare chest, curving over the planes of his stomach with a delicate, feathery skim.

“They don’t matter.” Rafe chuckled at Quinn’s snort. “They don’t. Trust me, Q. They’re not who I want to do this to.”

This kiss was deeper, hotter, and Quinn moaned against Rafe’s mouth when Rafe pulled him away from the headboard and down onto the bed. Stretching out over Quinn’s lanky body, Rafe fisted Quinn’s black mane, then held him still as he plundered his mouth. Their teeth brushed, humming a pearly chime, and Rafe chuckled, feeling the sound reverberate across their tongues.

Then Quinn’s passion flared, deepening their kiss, and Rafe lost all thought of pearls and chimes.

Licks of fire spread under Rafe’s skin, and he fought to get free of his clothes. Quinn’s tongue flicked over the roof of his mouth, sending a sparkling trail of desire careening down Rafe’s belly and straight to his cock, hardening his shaft until Rafe was sure it would burst from his anticipation. He needed to breathe, his lungs tightening under his ribs, but Rafe couldn’t bring himself to break away, not with Quinn’s hands moving over his hips to push his shorts down.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” Quinn panted. He squirmed beneath Rafe, the button on his jeans scraping across Rafe’s bare stomach. “I mean…. Rafe, I’m not good at this.”

Quinn’s fingers pressed dimples into Rafe’s ass, spreading his partially nude cheeks out. A lick of air touched Rafe’s balls, and its slight chill slapped a bit of sense into the primal growl in Rafe’s brain. He needed to slow down, take his time exploring Quinn’s body and letting him do the same back. Forcing himself to focus, Rafe panted into the crook of Quinn’s neck.