9. CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT

Quinlan

Bright purple sports bra. Matching T-shirt and black leggings.

Socks. Running shoes. Yup.

All set. I fix my high ponytail, lock the door to my apartment, and slide the key into the hidden pocket in my leggings. I’m out.

This morning, I thought I’d have to give up on running. Work doesn’t wait for anyone, and I’ve got loads of it.

The thought came and went. I never miss my one-hour jogs, four days a week. I’ve been sticking to those for years. If I don’t have my strict schedule set, I’d never get any exercise in, and I need it. I have to prioritize myself, otherwise I won’t be able to work. Won’t be able to provide for parents who can’t provide for themselves.

Taking care of myself isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity.

That’s the lie I tell myself tonight. That it’s only about my health.

The other reason I’m not staying in my apartment is them. The men I met outside my building.

Mystery stalker guy. Liam and his fire for eyes.

The idea of bumping into any of them wakes the butterflies in my body. Quickens my pulse before I’ve taken the first step on the sidewalk.

The realization that neither might be there sends a fresh wave of humiliation through me. It’s pathetic, going out there, hoping I’d see them.

Fuck pathetic. They wanted me too. I didn’t hallucinate the look in their eyes. The way they touched me.

That was real. They were real.

Heat blooms in my chest. Shoots up my throat, scalding my cheeks. It’s been forever since I even thought about a man like that, let alone fantasized about two of them.

About a smirking, wicked stalker.

About an intense man who set an envelope to flame because he felt like it.

The sounds of the street are louder when I push the door of the building open. Louder when I walk outside, one cautious step at a time. I look around, trying not to be too obvious.

The wind chills the burning sensation across my skin, but it’s not enough.

My God. Look at me. Going outside to jog shouldn’t be such an issue. I take the same route every time I run. A left at the corner of the street. Wave at Rex on my way to Grant Park, where I run on the trail parallel to the river. Double back home.

The route is a familiar one. I could do it with my eyes closed.

Yet I stay exactly where I am. My feet planted on the concrete. Frozen in place.

A fresh wave of goosebumps makes me shiver. That same unease from the last two days comes rushing back while I’m standing here.

Someone’s intense attention is on me.

The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. Can’t shake it. Can’t do anything about it.

Thoughts of paranoia are there and gone. This is real. As real as my quickening pulse. As the heaviness in the pit of my stomach.

I search the crowds for any sign on either of the two men. There are people all around me. Getting back from work. Walking their dogs. Milling in and out the storefronts.

So many of them.

None of them has sapphire blue eyes. None of them has the fiercest silent presence I’ve ever come across.

Not one single person casts a gaze my way longer than appropriate.

I’m. Not. Paranoid.

I won’t stay here to be toyed with. I spin to the left, taking the long way to Maeve’s. In less than fifteen minutes, I’ll catch a glimpse of my half-brother working.

My shoes pound on the pavement, the jog helps me shake some of my worries off. When I run, I’m liberated. From life. From the burden of my past.

There’s a presence somewhere nearby still. No doubt. The prickling sensation is ever present. The heat on my nape is undeniable. It hasn’t left me over the last five minutes or so.

Whoever this is, they can make themselves known. Otherwise, I’m done being prey.

Or maybe I like it. Maybe I enjoy the chase.

Only one way to find out.

I pick up the pace, riding the endorphins. Faster, faster, faster.

My lungs have warmed up. My feet carry me forward.

Lights are on in a few apartments in my neighborhood. Some shops have the closed sign hung up.

I twist my body, sidestepping whoever comes across my path. White noise follows me as I weave through the human traffic.

The heat, that searing attention, it’s somehow stronger. And fuck, I like it. Fuck, it’s so wrong how it turns me on. I can’t stand it.

The uncertainty, the tension. I lead a simple life. The single life. I don’t know what this is and how to handle it.

Where are they?

Not to my left or right. Not behind me. Nowhere, really. There’s no one here.

“Ouch,” I huff. It hurts, bumping into a wall.

“Careful there, sweetheart.”

Uh—this isn’t a wall.

Walls don’t speak. They don’t have a low, bass voice. They don’t smell so good and clean and manly. They don’t have strong fingers that curl around my arms to balance me.

Talk about humiliating. I ran into a man. Not only that, but the same man is helping my clumsy ass to stay up on my feet. I turn my head from the street to the man who’s holding me. He doesn’t let go, even though I’m no longer in danger of face planting on the sidewalk.

First thing I notice about him is, he’s tall. As tall as Liam and the mystery man. I’m pretty sure, since I have to lift my head up in about the same angle.

And he’s broad. I’m almost swallowed up by his size. His muscles aren’t huge , but he’s definitely lean. His biceps are accentuated through his sweatshirt…and I did think I bumped into a wall.

Other than how big he is, he’s gorgeous. Even backlit by the light of a streetlamp, his beauty is evident. My eyes make out every hard edge. Every sharp line. His high cheekbones. Accentuated jawline and a neat scruff. Thick, light brown hair has been styled in a buzz cut.

His expression is just as harsh. This isn’t what sends an icy chill down my spine. It’s him.

A hurricane personified. The embodiment of a storm. All stark highlights and grave shadows. Either this or that. Nothing soft about him. Nothing in the middle.

Then he does the unexpected. The corner of his mouth quirks up. A small smirk. His eyes, though, remain dark. The kind of dark the ocean becomes in the late hours of the night.

Terrifying. There’s so much violence in him that his body buzzes with it.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

My hands are numb. Since he won’t let me go, it seems like I should do something with them. Push him away. For once in the last three days, I should do the smart thing and run in the other direction.

At least create some distance between me and this stranger I barreled into.

And I…don’t want to.

“No need to apologize.”

The smirk is still there. Eyes still icy. He scans my face, lingering on the tattoo beneath my eye. Most people do that the first time they meet me. I’m used to the ink on my face drawing attention.

This feels different. No one’s ever looked at the heart on my cheek like that.

A thrill races through me. His focus is so intense. A raw emotion flashes across his features. A quick, fleeting show of something that resembles softness.

Is that…compassion?

Impossible.

He doesn’t know about Blake. Can’t know.

“Happens to me all the time.” The harsh, cold look returns to his face.

It’s insane, what this stormy night of a person does to me. I’m longing. Yearning.

Whatever it is, I’m hooked.

My fingers flex at my sides, itching to rise and grab his forearms for comfort.

I won’t do it. Won’t let him see it in my eyes, either. I cut my gaze down, and, oh man, big mistake. The sleeves of his black running jacket are rolled up. Veins cross his toned arms. Then there are the red lacerations that haven’t fully healed on his knuckles.

He bled, not too long ago.

Why was he bleeding? Who did he beat up?

Why did I turn into his captive and why the hell am I still obsessed with putting my hands on him? Why is watching him bleed so hot?

“Are you okay?”

“After what happened?” I fix my gaze on his stormy eyes. Suck in a breath and come up with something funny to say. Otherwise, I’ll do something reckless like…touch him. “Well, I guess, considering I just bumped into a, uhm”— not that word, Quinlan, not that word —“really big man. But I survived.”

Holy shit. I just said he’s really big . What the hell is wrong with me?

He takes a step back and rubs the scruff on his jaw. His hand slides slowly over his mouth. Oh God. He likes it that I called him that.

He’s hiding a genuine smile that reaches his eyes.

Then he shakes his head, and his hand isn’t on his mouth anymore. It’s at his side and his lips are once more pressed together in a severe scowl.

Our silence is loud, even in the crowded street. As loud as it is, it offers me a moment to think. A moment to feel . And what I feel is that I’m no longer being watched.

Could it have been him watching me? Do I have not one but two stalkers?

“Yes, you did.” The man slices through my thoughts. “Survival looks good on you.”

Before my silly heart can soar at the sweet words coming from ice man, he adds, “You should thank me, though.”

I should run, that’s what I should do.

“How come?” He’s freed me from his hold. I could do it.

I don’t.

“Well, because...” His head tilts, and his fingers brush an errant strand of hair behind my ear. “This wall saved you from the floor. This wall could’ve done more than help you settle in place.”

I shudder at his touch. At what he’s implicating. I really ought to start practicing self-preservation.

The street is bursting with people this time of the day. I could scream for help. Get the fuck out of here. Sprint past him and hope to get to Rex before this man makes his knuckles bleed again when he charges at me.

But no, he won’t hit me. I’m positive he won’t.

He could, though. Could crush me under his weight.

I wonder if he’d lose sleep over it.

Probably not.

“You have the proof to back it up.” My attention and his slide to his knuckles.

The man closes his fist. Opens it, then places a finger under my chin so our gazes would collide.

“The punching bag took a beating, true. It’s being replaced as we speak.” A spark, a flash of lightning appears behind the endless night that are his eyes. “If they haven’t changed it already.”

A punching bag. Huh. That makes perfect fucking sense. It reassures me and saddens me in tandem, knowing he won’t chase me down. That he won’t hurt me with those big, menacing—

Stop drooling, Quinlan. What’s wrong with you?

“What do you say we start over?” His eyebrows dip at the slightest. His hand releases my chin and he outstretches it to me. “What’s your name?”

This thing he’s doing is his version of nice. I can tell. Storms aren’t polite. They don’t put in the slightest effort at soothing those who are about to be hit by them.

They just exist.

This particular storm is trying. For me.

I slip my small hand into his much larger one. Force down another shudder at the touch.

My name is there on the tip of my tongue. A long monologue is right behind it, about how I didn’t see him coming. That I already have two men circling in my head, two men I shouldn’t think about, and yet I do.

It would be reckless to strike up a conversation with a third man, I want to tell him.

Especially when he gives off murderous vibes.

All I do is swallow around the lump in my throat.

“I’ll start.” He’s struggling with this. With being soft. “I’m Rome.”

He knows he’s scary. You don’t walk around with dried blood on your knuckles and think you’re anything other than intimidating.

“I enjoy jogging and demolishing the punching bags at my building’s gym for sport.” A twitch of his lips. An attempted smile. “Coordinating collisions is a part of my business. Metaphorically.”

A businessman who jogs and boxes. Of course, he is. His running gear is new and expensive. He even smells expensive.

I feel like I have to say something, so I mumble, “Oh, yeah. I get it.”

“Not a killer.” He glances at his knuckles, then at me. “Could I have your name?”

He’s right. He isn’t a killer. He’s extreme. And telling him my name shouldn’t be an issue.

“Quinlan. Hi, Rome.”

“Hi, Quinlan.” He shakes my hand before releasing it. “What do you do for fun?”

When I talk to Rome, the background noise, sounds and smells vanish. He commands my attention, and I give in to him. To this not-killer person.

“Run. Read. Work.” It’s embarrassing, how little hobbies I have. My face blazes.

Rome nods to himself. Is he bored or is he asking me to tell him more?

“I, uh.” A part of me wants to show him I have more in me than that. “Hang out with a friend when I have free time.”

His expression is stony. A wall has fallen over his eyes.

Against all reason, I need to get him back.

“I also sit around and work at the café my brother works at.” At that, his eyebrows lower, eyes flaring. “Half-brother.”

Mystery guy seemed pretty mad when I brought up Rex’s workplace. Rome’s harsh expression transforms into something else entirely. An emotion I can’t place.

“A café,” he muses.

“Yes, it’s on my running route.” What the actual fuck. I’m not telling this yet-another-stranger personal shit about my life. Oh, wait. I do. “He told me to wave whenever I jog past it. So he knew I’m okay.”

“Their coffee any good?”

What? “I, uh… yes?”

“Let’s go, then.”

Let’s go?

“I could use a shot of caffeine.” Rome takes a step closer. Angling my head up to stare deeper into his blues, I clench my fists to keep my hands from roaming over his forearms. They’re delicious. “It’s been a long day.”

Run, run, run.

“I’ll show you where it is.” A compromise. I won’t run. Won’t give him a glimpse into how badly he terrifies and allures me. “Then I’m off. I have to finish my route and work.”

“No.”

“No?” My jaw goes slack. My mouth hangs open.

“No, Quinlan.” Rome’s finger hooks beneath my chin. Snapping my mouth shut. “You’re having coffee with me. You’re staying.”

He did not just say that.

“I—”

“No.”

“Excuse me?” I shiver at the dark cloud that descends over him.

“No, Quinlan.” He straightens himself, so tall that he blocks out the sky. That he cages me in. “I said no. As in, I’m not asking you to come. I’m ordering you.”