Shelter for Quinn Read online

  “I’ll try,” Quinn told him. And she would. It wouldn’t be easy, but she understood where he was coming from. Honestly, most of the time when she was around him, she didn’t think about her disfigurement. How could she when everything about John was larger than life?

  “Good.” He stepped away after a second’s hesitation. Quinn didn’t miss the way his eyes darted to her lips before coming back up to meet her gaze. “The big question is…do you like bacon?”

  “Um…doesn’t everyone?” she asked.

  John chuckled. “You’d be surprised. How do you want your eggs?”

  “Over medium.”

  “Coming right up. How are you feeling? Headache or anything?”

  Quinn shook her head and got comfortable on the stool. “No. I’m never hungover. I don’t know why. Guess I’m lucky.”

  “Definitely. But make sure you drink an extra glass of water this morning anyway. Don’t want you getting dehydrated.”

  And that was the beginning of the most surreal breakfast of Quinn’s life. John made sure to serve her first, continually asked her if she needed anything, and he went out of his way to make sure she had everything she wanted before he’d even taken one bite. Not once in her entire life had someone doted over Quinn like John did.

  Not when she was a kid.

  Not with any previous boyfriends.

  Not with any of her friends, because they spread out the chores when they were together.

  It was weird, and a bit awkward, and very eye opening.

  Quinn supposed this was what Sophie was talking about when she said that Chief always made her feel like she was the center of his world.

  She could get used to it.

  The glimmer of hope in her belly sparked to life, and seemed to grow just a bit.

  Forty minutes later, John was pulling up to Quinn’s apartment complex. He pulled into a space right in front of the lobby doors and turned to face her. “Any big plans for the day?”

  Quinn shook her head. “You?”

  “Nope. I have today and tomorrow off, then I’m working a forty-eight-hour shift.”

  “Isn’t that hard?” she asked.

  “Not really. It’s a lot of downtime between bursts of adrenaline-inducing action.”

  “I think it would give me a heart attack,” Quinn told him. “Give me my nice and sedate nine-to-five job of sitting on my ass, any day.”

  John laughed. “Can I call you later?”

  Quinn’s heartbeat increased, but she tried to be all cool and calm. “Sure. I guess I need to give you my number.”

  “I have it,” John told her.

  She stared at him. “You do? How?”

  “I asked Chief to get it from Sophie.”

  Quinn wasn’t sure what to say about that. “How long have you had it?”

  “About three months.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. Quinn, it can’t be a surprise that I’ve liked you for quite a while now.”

  “Well, no, but I didn’t know you had my number.”

  “Does it matter?”

  Quinn thought about it. “Not really.”

  “If it makes you feel better, you can call Sophie and tell her to ask Chief for my number,” John teased.

  “You mean she doesn’t already have it?” Quinn asked.

  “Of course she does. Chief wanted to make sure she always had someone to call in an emergency if she couldn’t get ahold of him. He made her put in the numbers of all of us from Station 7, plus our law enforcement friends too.”

  Quinn knew that. Sophie had bitched about it, but later admitted that it made her feel cared for. Counting in her head, Quinn knew she had only three true friends’ numbers in her phone. Sophie, Tory, and Autumn, all from work. Sad but true.

  “Or I could just text you right now,” John told her, pulling out his phone.

  Before she could answer him, her phone vibrated in her purse.

  “There. Now you have mine, and you can’t not answer it because you think it’s a telemarketer.” He grinned, then sobered when she didn’t return the smile.

  “I’m moving too fast, aren’t I?” he asked.

  Quinn shook her head. “No. It’s just…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Just what?” he probed.

  “I’ve liked you for so long, and I’m still having a hard time figuring out how we went from tiptoeing around each other to dating and me having slept at your place.”

  He chuckled. “Stop thinking so hard and just go with it,” he advised. Then asked, “You’ve liked me for a long time?”

  Quinn shyly nodded.

  “Me too.”

  Then, as if it were scripted, John leaned subtly toward her, and Quinn mirrored the move. And suddenly they were kissing.

  John’s hand wrapped around the side of her neck, the side with her birthmark, but she wasn’t thinking about the blemish right now. She couldn’t think about anything but the way his lips brushed against hers and how right the moment felt.

  John didn’t take the kiss too far, didn’t shove his tongue down her throat, and didn’t move his hand from her neck. Eventually, he pulled back and licked his lips.

  Neither said a word for the longest moment, but it wasn’t awkward at all.

  “I’ll call you later,” John finally said.

  Quinn nodded.

  “God, you taste so much better than I ever imagined you would,” John said under his breath. Then he kissed her once more, a mere brush of his lips over hers, before sitting back.

  In a daze, Quinn opened her door and climbed out. She grabbed the bag he’d given her to put her dirty blouse in and backed away from the truck. Waving once, she smiled shyly at him, then turned and headed for the lobby of her apartment complex.

  After she went in, she looked back and saw him still sitting in the same place, making sure she got inside safe and sound. He waved and gave her a chin lift, then backed out of the space and headed home.

  The particle of hope deep inside grew a smidge more.

  “Please don’t hurt me,” Quinn whispered, then turned and headed for the elevator.

  Chapter Two

  Driftwood leaned back against his couch cushions and clicked on Quinn’s name. He’d waited as long as possible before calling her. He hadn’t wanted to drop her off that morning, had wanted to spend the entire day with her, but he also didn’t want to freak her out.

  He couldn’t remember where they were the first time he’d seen her, but he remembered how fascinated he’d been with her eyes. Yes, he’d noticed her birthmark, but it was the deep green of her eyes that had drawn him in.

  Her finally agreeing to date him had been a long time coming. Driftwood had been infatuated with her for what seemed like forever, but she was so shy and opposed to a relationship that he’d begun to lose hope she’d ever give him a chance.

  The night before, when he’d seen her expression after hearing the strangers’ crude comments about her face, he’d snapped. He was sick of people being assholes. Sick of others not having the common decency to treat strangers with respect.

  And he was done with Quinn pretending she didn’t feel the chemistry between them. She liked him. He loved the way her eyes followed him when she didn’t think he was paying attention.

  But he’d known she was never going to take the initiative and ask him out. She couldn’t even admit that she liked him. After seeing how surprised she’d been when he’d taken the men to task for being rude, he was done pretending they didn’t want each other.

  And when he’d informed her that they were now dating, she hadn’t protested. Hadn’t rolled her eyes. She’d simply gazed up at him with a half-confused, half-relieved look on her face.

  “Hello?”

  Just the sound of her voice was enough to calm him. “Hey, Emmy. How was your day?”

  “Mostly uneventful. Just how I like it. Yours?”

  “Same. What’d you do?”

  “Nothing much. I read for a while, th
en I put a pork loin in the slow cooker. I had lunch, put in a load of laundry, got stared at by my creepy neighbor when I went to get my mail, cleaned up a bit around here, read some more, ate dinner, and now I’m talking to you.”

  “Stared at by your creepy neighbor?” Driftwood asked.

  “How’d I know you were going to focus on that?” Quinn asked.

  “Because. Tell me about him.”

  She sighed. “There’s not much to tell. He lives down the hall and usually when he sees me, he goes the other direction, but this morning we both arrived at the mailboxes at the same time, so he couldn’t ignore me. I felt him staring at me while I got my mail.”

  “Did you ask him what his problem was?” Driftwood asked.

  “John, you know how people are. They stare. All the time. They just can’t help it. If I went out of my way to tell off every single person that looked at my birthmark, I’d never get anything done.”

  “But you can’t let rude behavior go on without saying something. Otherwise they’ll never learn their lesson.”

  “Did you not hear me?” Quinn asked. “Every single person I pass stares at me. Oh, some at least try to be sneakier about it, but I’m a curiosity. I can’t walk from my apartment to my car without one of the residents of the apartment complex staring. Even though I work in a lab connected to a hospital, I get stared at there too. You’d think after a while, people would come to their senses and stop it, but even doctors and nurses I’ve known for years can’t help themselves.”

  Driftwood hated that. “I’m sorry, Emmy.”

  “Don’t feel sorry for me,” she said fiercely.

  “I don’t feel sorry for you,” Driftwood told her. “I’m sorry that they can’t get over their fascination, and that they make you feel uncomfortable.”

  She sighed once again. “I know. It’s just…if you’re going to spend every minute of the time you’re with me glaring at other people and telling them off, this isn’t going to work between us.”

  Driftwood sat up straight, his heart hammering. “This will work,” he said forcefully, then gentled his tone. “I’m sorry, I just can’t stand when people are rude to you. It literally drives me crazy.”

  “I’m used to it,” Quinn told him. “Honestly, most of the time I don’t even notice anymore. I can’t say I’m not self-conscious about how I look, because you’d know that’s a lie, but when I’m with you…I actually forget about it most of the time. And you don’t know me well enough yet, but that’s a minor miracle. If you’re constantly on a quest to educate the world about port-wine birthmarks or to make them realize they’re being rude, that comfort I feel around you will go away.”

  Driftwood thought about her words. She was right. “I get it,” he said. “And I’ll do my best to ignore the stares as much as I can. But, Emmy, you can’t ask me to let the rude comments go. I can’t. I know I can’t protect you from the whole world, but I can sure as hell try. Do you think Chief lets people get away with making fun of Sophie when she stutters? No way in hell. That’s just not the kind of men we are.”

  She was silent for a long moment, and Driftwood shifted nervously in his seat.

  “No one has ever stood up for me the way you have, and we weren’t even dating.”

  He hated hearing the hurt behind her words. The awe that he would actually go out of his way to try to protect her. It was infuriating and sad at the same time.

  Driftwood knew some of Quinn’s background from talking with Sophie. How her mother had put her up for adoption right after she was born because of the birthmark—which she’d discovered after overhearing a social worker discussing her case with a potential foster mother. How she’d gone from foster home to foster home. And how some of those homes had been absolutely horrendous. The other kids, and even some of the adults, hadn’t wanted to touch her because of the mark on her face.

  He hadn’t asked for any more details, feeling as if that would be going behind Quinn’s back and prying too much into her privacy. But hearing her confirm that no one had ever stuck up for her struck a chord deep within him.

  “You’ve got me on your side now, Quinn,” Driftwood told her softly. “You aren’t alone anymore.”

  He heard her swallow hard and take a deep breath before she asked, “How was your day? What’d you do today?”

  “Well, first off, I took a nap.”

  “A nap? You don’t seem like the nap type,” she teased, then groaned. “Oh no, the floor was way too hard, wasn’t it? I knew it. You so should’ve put me on the couch. I feel terrible for taking your bed and making you sleep like crap.”

  Driftwood chuckled. “I didn’t sleep badly because of the floor. I’m can sleep sitting up on the hard floor in the middle of a firehouse, with people coming and going all around me.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Then why did you take a nap?”

  “Two reasons. One, I really was tired, because I got up every hour or so last night to check on you.”

  “To check on me? I was fine.”

  “You were drunk, and you were sleeping so deeply you didn’t wake up, even when I carried you into my house and put you to bed. I didn’t want to take the chance that you’d get sick in the middle of the night and choke. So I set my alarm to vibrate every hour so I could make sure all was well.”

  “John…you…that was…” Her voice trailed off.

  “And the second reason I took a nap was because I wanted to smell you on my sheets.”

  The words seemed to echo between them, and Driftwood had a feeling if she’d been standing in front of him, she’d be blushing profusely.

  She surprised the hell out of him by saying, “I understand that. One of the first things I noticed when I woke up was how good something smelled. It was your scent on the sheets.”

  Driftwood groaned and reached down to adjust his dick in his sweats. He felt as if he’d been hard for months. All it took was remembering the sound of Quinn’s laughter, or smelling her shampoo, and he’d get a woody.

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah. I can’t say that I had the most restful sleep though.”

  “Why?”

  “Because every time I closed my eyes, all I could picture was you lying in my bed. Us there together.”

  “John, I… This is weird.”

  “It’s not. But I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

  “You didn’t. Well, okay, maybe a little. But it’s weird because when I was watching you sleep this morning, I was disappointed that you weren’t lying right next to me.”

  “Damn,” Driftwood said, running a hand over his face. Every word out of her mouth made it that much harder not to get up and immediately head over to her apartment. He’d just left her that morning, but he missed her.

  “Too honest?” she asked.

  “No!” he said immediately. “I always want you to tell me what you’re thinking. I don’t ever want you to blow smoke up my ass. You want to do something tomorrow?” he blurted, needing to see her.

  “Um…yeah.”

  Closing his eyes in relief, Driftwood sat back against the cushions once more. Now that he’d finally gotten her to agree to date him, he didn’t want another day to go by without spending time with her one-on-one. He knew a lot about her, but he wanted to know more. “You want to come hang over here? Or go out somewhere?”

  “Over there,” was her immediate response.

  Driftwood didn’t know what they’d do, but it didn’t matter. He’d get to spend time with her, that was what was important. “Perfect. What time do you want me to come pick you up?”

  “Oh, I can just meet you there.”

  “Let me come and get you,” Driftwood pleaded.

  She sighed, but relented. “Fine. What time?”

  “Ten?” he asked. He wanted to come even earlier, but he didn’t want to annoy her.

  “Sounds good. Should I bring anything?”

  “Just you, Emmy.”

&nbs
p; “John?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m nervous.”

  “About what? Me?”

  “Yes and no. Not you in particular, but I haven’t had good luck with dating in the past. I’m afraid I’m going to do something to screw this up. Or you’re going to get sick of being gawked at wherever we go. People are going to talk. They’re going to wonder what you’re doing with me. Some might come right out and ask you.”

  “I hope they do,” Driftwood said vehemently. “Look, I can’t tell you I won’t get annoyed, because I know I will. But I’ll be annoyed that people aren’t seeing how pretty you are. That they’re being superficial assholes. If anything, they should be wondering why you’re with me.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” she asked. “You’re gorgeous, John. The kind of handsome that people fantasize over. I bet there are groups on Facebook right now drooling over a random picture of you that was taken at one of the fire scenes you’ve been on.”

  He shuddered. “God, that would be awful.”

  Quinn chuckled, and Driftwood loved hearing it.

  “I’m as nervous as you are, Emmy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to say or do anything that will turn you off. I don’t want you to regret giving me a shot. I’m a guy, I’m going to fuck up sooner or later, and I’m scared to death you won’t be able to give me a second chance.”

  “I’d like to think I’m not like that,” she said quietly.

  “All I’m saying is that this is new to us both,” Driftwood said. “Like any relationship, it’ll take some time for us to get comfortable around each other and not worry about saying or doing the wrong thing. But I think the fact that we’ve known each other for months is going to work in our favor. And we do know each other. Maybe not like boyfriend/girlfriend, but as friends. I think that’s a pretty darn good foundation to build on.”