Catching Serenity (Serenity #4) (23 page)

As my vision blurs from the tears, as I study the sketch, I realize something that Quinn likely wants no one to ever know. He speaks through this art. This one sketch he tells me everything. It tells me how much he loves Rhea.

One glance in his direction, at the long planes of his beautiful body and the lean muscles that define his wide arms, and I crawl over him, kissing each ridge, sliding my mouth over his chest, down to that flat stomach.

Because he is my balm.

Because, one more time, I need us both to forget.

RHEA WANTED US
together. Both Quinn and I next to her. He paints scrolling loops of filigree around her eyes because she has asked him to. Because today she wants to be a fairy. I read from Harry Potter,
The Mirror of Erised
, because it is her favorite chapter.

“What would you see in the Mirror, Sayo?” It’s a question she’s asked more than once. My answer has never changed.

“You know what I’d see,” I tell her leaning on the railing of her hospital bed as Rhea closes her eyes. Quinn finishes the last embellishment around her temple, adding accents of gold and silver on the colorful loops. When her eyes stay closed, Quinn and I exchange a look. There is a glassy sheen in his eyes. “Rhea?” My voice has her blinking and a small flush of color warms her cheeks. “Did you fall asleep?”

She nods, shooting a half smile at Quinn when he packs away the paint. “What would you see in the Mirror, Quinn?”

At first he doesn’t acknowledge her, deflecting the question by busying himself with his brushes and small tubes of paint, but then Rhea slips her fingers over his hand and the Irishman stills, blinking before he clears his throat. “You, love, flying like a proper superhero.” He leans against the railing letting Rhea hold his hand, letting her draw an invisible sketch against his palm.

“That would be nice. I’d love…” The medicine has drained her and Rhea has spent the past couple of weeks unable to stay awake for more than an hour at a time. We are inching close to that now. “I’d love to fly,” she tells Quinn and just like that, she is asleep, those small fingers stopping, that invisible sketch unfinished.

“Shite,” Quinn mumbles to himself and I think for a second he forgets I am there. His expression is raw, open and that glassy sheen floods so that he dips his head, keeping his face hidden on the mattress.

Rhea has lost all of her hair. She has no eyebrows, no lashes, and she has grown so pale that the deep blue of her veins around her neck and temple stand out against her fair complexion. To me, she is a fairy—delicate and ethereal, and I let the silence, the stillness in the room fill me as I watch her. I have forgotten Quinn, too, but still we share this pain. We never speak of it, even when we try to ease it with the comfort of our bodies together, but it is still there. It births a breech between us. We can touch and taste each other, set fire to our skin, to our bodies, but we cannot talk about Rhea fading and what that reality does to our souls.

As though remembering where he is and who he is with, Quinn grunts, that same indistinguishable sound that alerts the world to his frustration, and then he kisses Rhea’s forehead softly and leaves the room in a rush.

“Boys are stupid,” Rhea says, eyes still closed, but a growing smile twitches her mouth.

“You think so, kiddo?”

A slow blink and she moves her head, reaching for me when I set the book on the bedside table. “Mama told me that once when Chris Larson called me ugly in second grade.”

“Did she try to tell you that he said that because he liked you?” The idea had me frowning. That was the biggest load of shit mothers could ever tell their daughters.

“No,” Rhea says, that smile widening. “She told me he was a jerk and I should ignore him. Then she said boys are usually stupid.”

“She’s not wrong.”

“But Quinn…”

I lean on my elbows, holding her fingers against my face. “What about Quinn?”

For the longest moment Rhea just watches me. “Mama… mama said when boys are scared, they act mad.”

“You think Quinn acts mad because he’s scared?”

“I think he’s the scaredest boy ever. You can’t forget that, Sayo. Don’t… don’t forget how stupid boys are. Don’t.” She yawns, snuggling against the pillow. “Don’t let him stay scared.”

RICKY TIBBIT HELD
a post-match party that Autumn made me swear I’d attend. I did, with the intention of ditching everyone when the drinks started flowing. Declan holds court, telling a joke, earning laughs from Ricky and Vaughn while Autumn and Mollie try to outdo each other with shots of
Patrón
.

There’s nothing to celebrate but the win over Cameron.

Autumn had tried to get me to drink, so did Mollie. They’d given me three shots. I only took one but they are too drunk, too happy in their normal lives to pick up on what I was keeping from them. We are young. We are meant to be impulsive, immature. We should be drinking and road-tripping and doing things that we’ll regret when we’re forty and be grateful for when we’re on our death beds.

But I don’t feel young. Not tonight. I feel tense and tired and worn from circumstance.

When Autumn pours another round for her boyfriend and the rest of the squad, I leave the kitchen, itching for some fresh air, the smallest reprieve from my friends’ good intentions.

Ricky’s parents own every lumber yard in a twenty mile radius. In East Tennessee, that means ample supply and plenty of business. It’s the reason they have this cabin in the mountains. There are stairs that curve up to the main house some thirty feet off the ground with a porch that wraps the entire structure. It’s a typical mountain retreat—three story square log cabin with views of Smoky Mountain National Park, stack stone and slate fireplaces, floor to ceiling windows to take advantage of those majestic views.

I step out onto the deck because it’s the only quiet place available. Ahead lies Chilhowee Mountain and the cut of a wide brook that runs the length of the property. The stars are brightest out here, shining so clearly that I think of reaching for them, to see if they will catapult me off of this planet, free me from reality.

But that doesn’t happen.

My reality is sick and dying.

My reality edges out of the sliding glass door and stands behind me.

Quinn doesn’t speak and I don’t ask any questions. I only follow, let him lead me down the long hallway, away from the drunk crowd in the den.

The coats and scarves littered across the camp bed get pushed to the floor with one sweep of Quinn’s arm. One nod for me to lay down and I oblige, too tired, too broken to refuse. Besides, I want this. So does he.

It had been a bad morning.

Why he’s here, I don’t know. Why Declan would let him tag along, why Autumn wouldn’t have mentioned it on the ride over…

Then I don’t care why Quinn is at a party where he isn’t welcome.

I only care that his mouth is on my skin, that my fingers fit perfectly in his hair, that the way he moves us, the way we move together is like a dance—a sweaty, thundering naked dance that makes my stomach tighten and my thighs clench.

His mouth on my ribs, down my stomach.

My tongue in the hollow of his neck.

His cock in my mouth.

My pussy on his face.

In this room, in any room where we come together, there is only the music of our bodies and the low, constant refrain of pleasure moving like lyric and rhyme around us.

Quinn slides over me, inside me and I crave the what his body provides. I don’t see anything in the shadow of the room but the shape of his shoulders, the outline of his hair, his arms as he works over me.

I don’t hear anything but our breaths labored, pleased, exhausted.

I don’t hear Rhea upset, apologizing, scared.

I don’t see blood in the bin when she threw up this morning.

But I do…

Quinn stops moving when a low sob leaves my mouth. That gaze is focused on my face, on my reaction and I think he might stop, that he might take away my balm, but then I stuff my hand over my mouth and pull him close.

Needing.

Wanting.

Desperate for him to take everything from me and put himself in its place.

The tears still come, still flow but Quinn does not stop, will not stop, not until we are depleted from the effort. Not until the room goes still and silent.

RHEA SLEEPS NEARLY
all the time now and when she isn’t sleeping, she’s barely lucid. I miss my little cousin. I miss the way she smiles, how she mouths the words when I read the books she’s read a thousand times. I miss the secret way she and Quinn whisper, how they plan and scheme to make a wonderful comic, how Rhea planned to send it to Dark Horse, betting that they’d love the novelty of publishing a comic that came from the mind of a cancer kid.

We have not had more than ten minutes of conversation with her in weeks. We knew this would happen. We’d been warned. But sometimes we tell ourselves that the inevitable will not happen. We convince ourselves that life will move forward even when it isn’t meant to.

We live in denial because it comforts us.

For weeks, without Rhea, watching her slowly fade, I have occupied myself with Quinn O’Malley. Taking from him what he offers. Giving only my body back in return.

Tonight he paints me, laying on his back as I straddle him, his thin brush dipped in red. He draws lines and circles, characters across the planes of my stomach, circling my nipples.

“Sayo, love, slip onto my cock.”

I do. My pussy throbs when he directs me, when Quinn makes demands, probably because it’s the only time I’ll listen and so I do what he tells me, holding his hand smudged with red paint, hovering over his beautiful, long dick as he holds it up for me, then slipping down slowly, sheathing him deep inside me, feeling him, and then moving, moving, until we are both hissing, working against each other, racing toward that final finish.

Quinn holds my waist, directing me and I arch back, loving how tight his grip is, how he lets those fingers rest on my lower back, guiding me, and at my hip, moving, leading my body at the right angle.

“So fecking perfect, love. You’re so fecking tight, so wet…”

I lean over him, moving my weight to the balls of my feet, hovering over him, covering his mouth with my hand. We’ve discussed this. So many times. No talking unless it’s a demand, no compliments or excess words, and still Quinn cannot seem to help himself.

He nibbles at my palm and I straighten, lower back on my knees as Quinn dips red paint onto his hands, finger-painting across my nipples, tweaking one between his fingers as we continue to fuck, our pace easy, practiced, comfortable. Then he shifts his hands up my neck, coming to cup my face, sticking his thumb between my teeth.

“Fecking… shite…” he groans when I suck on his thumb, licking the bottom, and then Quinn moves quickly, sitting up, taking one nipple into his mouth, sucking and sucking, pushing me down on his dick until I feel the swell of my orgasm, until his dick and mouth and grip all level up the sensation, until Quinn pulls on my hair, tugging it because he knows I like it and I come and come and come until he joins me, until he fills me.