“Please don’t say things like that.” Tears filled her eyes, and she pulled away, turning her back on me. “I can’t do this right now. I just can’t.”
I hated the distance she was putting between us, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally, too. I could feel doors closing on me, could feel her drifting farther and farther away from me.
I reached out for her, pulling her around to face me so she could see my face and know that I was speaking from my gut. “What do you want me to say, then, Quinn? Tell me, baby. Tell me, and I’ll say the words. Please help me, because I feel like I’m losing you.”
She tried to pull away, her eyes leaking tears. “I don’t want you to say anything. Don’t you understand that you can’t lose me, because I was never yours to begin with?” She tried to lower her lashes to hide what was in her eyes, yet she couldn’t hide the pain in her voice. “For years, you tried to drive that truth home to me, and I finally saw the light. You should be relieved.”
Her pain hit me like an iron fist to the chest. I didn’t know how to fix what I had spent so long attempting to break. Not for the first time, I wanted to hit rewind and do it all over with her.
“I’m not relieved, baby. Not even a little.” I cupped her neck with both hands, tipping her chin up with my thumbs. She kept her lashes lowered, refusing to let me in. “I’m an idiot. I know that now. Only a stupid idiot would have let the girl who owns his heart, his fucking soul, go like I did. You tried to show me repeatedly what kind of happiness I could have with you, but I was too much of a chicken shit to open my eyes. I don’t know how to tell you I’m sorry any more than I know how to fix it, but please give me the chance to show you that I’ve changed. Let me show you that I will spend the rest of my life loving you.”
She stumbled back, her lashes lifting, showing how shocked she was by what I had just said to her. “That is not funny. Take it back. Take it back right now,” she commanded angrily.
I shook my head. “No. I can’t, and I won’t. I love you, Quinn. I probably always have.”
“You really like to hurt me, don’t you?”
I closed my eyes, locking in the tears that were suddenly blinding me because I was unable to figure out the right thing to say to her. I couldn’t lose her. “I only want to love you and take care of you, baby.”
Chapter 25
Quinn
He was tearing me apart with each word that left his mouth. How many times had I dreamed of something like this? How many damn times had I ached for words just like the ones leaving him right then?
Too many.
I had been a blind fool who couldn’t see the reality of how hopeless it was to love a man who didn’t love me back. Now that my eyes were wide open where Raider was concerned, he was telling me everything I had always wanted to hear. It wasn’t fair. Why did he have to torture me like this? This game was too much to handle.
“Quinn, please.” His voice was rough, and it took me a moment to realize why. He was close to tears. That realization stopped my heart. “Have mercy on me, sweetheart. I feel like I’m drowning without you.”
A lump filled my throat when he opened his eyes and I saw that I hadn’t been mistaken. There were tears in his eyes.
“I need you more than I ever thought was possible to need anyone. Without you …” He sucked in a harsh inhale and shook his head. “I don’t even feel like my heart is beating.”
“Raider,” I breathed his name, my heart clenching when the first tear spilled over his lashes.
“You own me, baby. You own me.” He lowered his head, and his shoulders began to shake. “I don’t know when it happened, probably when I was trying so hard to pretend like I didn’t care about you. It snuck up on me and scared the fuck out of me.” He looked up at me then, not caring to show me that he was so openly crying now. “My heart is yours. I belong to you.”
I lurched back, trying desperately to deny his words. “I … I don’t belong to you. Maybe I did once, but not anymore.”
Raider’s body jerked as if I had physically hit him. “I don’t believe that, and deep down, neither do you. The love you feel for me can’t just be turned off, baby. Trust me; I know, because I tried to turn it off while I was gone. I tried so fucking hard, but I quickly realized that I didn’t want to. Not anymore. I’m tired of fighting what I feel for you. It takes too much energy to fight fate, when what I really want to be doing is loving you.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, still refusing to let his words penetrate the walls I had set up around my heart. But they were finding all the cracks that I had missed and slowly crumbling it a little at a time.
“How do you know if you really love me or not? For so long, you made sure I knew you didn’t care at all about me, and suddenly you realize you love me? Can’t you see how crazy that sounds?”
“Fuck, I know how crazy it sounds. I know how crazy it feels, too.” He scrubbed his hands over his face, wiping away his tears, only for more to fall. “But it’s the truth, Quinn. I love you.”
My breath caught in my chest, making it impossible to inhale. It was pure madness to believe him, but my heart was aching so badly, wanting to do just that.
“I … I don’t—”
A knock on the door had him moving quickly. He picked up the shirt he had pulled from his top dresser drawer and put it on me, as if I was some helpless child who couldn’t dress herself. But it was nice, I admitted, as he smoothed his hands down my arms, so achingly tender without him seeming to realize he was even doing it. The way he had undressed me earlier, how tender he had been … how loving he had been.
Raider lowered his head and pressed his lips to the center of my forehead, then stepped back when a tap on the bedroom door came again. “I have to go to church. Don’t go anywhere while I’m gone.”
I slowly nodded. “Okay.”