Page 64 of Waiting For You
He picks up his pace, forcing me to move faster, and pretty soon we’re nearly running down the span of the shore, sand kicking up into our shoes, his laugh floating through the wind as we race. When we finally stop, our chests are heaving, our skin flushed and damp.
It’s humid and the wetness in the air sticks to our skin. He’s shining, practically glowing.
“God, that felt good,” he says, tilting his head back and breathing deeply.
I can’t help it—the pull toward him is so damn overwhelming—I lean over and lick a stripe right up his cheek, tasting the salt on his skin.
Quinn’s eyes snap open and he stares at me, his lips open in surprise.
“You motherfucker,” he says with a smile. “Why’d you do that?”
I shift on my feet and then reach out and pull him into me, slanting my mouth across his and pushing my tongue into his mouth.
He melts into me, his hands clasping my arms as we kiss and kiss andkiss. We only pull away when a crack of lightning lights up the sky.
He gasps, his fingers linking with mine once more, and then we’re running back the way we came, seeking shelter from the impending storm. My legs and lungs burn as we run down the pier, back to town.
“Wait,” I say, gasping as he pulls me under a storefront eave. Quinn pushes me back against the brick wall and presses his lips to mine as we pant into each other’s mouths. I’m exhausted, wrung out, but so fuckingalive. I can feel it coursing through my veins, it’s like a drug being here with him.
“Come on, in here,” he says, pulling away and leading me into the small gift shop just as rain starts to fall from the sky, leaving Quinn with raindrops smattered across his face.
I reach up and brush one away, watching his eyelids flutter at the contact.
“You keep touching me and I’ll keep getting distracted,” he says, pressing a kiss to the pad of my thumb.
I feel the press of his lips all the way to my heart.
Will feel it for days to come. Years, even.
We pull away, just now noticing the older man behind the counter, his glasses perched on his nose, his eyebrows raised.
“Can I help you?” he asks, and Quinn smiles widely.
“Looking at the artwork,” he says, gesturing to a wall full of paintings. I hadn’t even noticed them when we stepped through, my eyes solely on Quinn.
“Local?” he asks, and the man nods.
“Yep, made by people born and raised here.”
Quinn moves toward the wall, pulling me with him and then we just stand and stare at it, splashes of color across canvas. I don’t know what I’m looking at, but Quinn certainly does, his eyes alight with something beautiful.
I want to see him, one day, in a gallery of his own, surrounded by his art.
Maybe, in a different life, we could move here and he could run this place. Turn it into something of his own.
In another life…
“Isn’t this fucking wonderful?” he asks me, his voice full of awe.
I take him in, absorbing everything that is Quinn.
“Yeah. It fucking is.”
ChapterFifteen
Quinn
Grey seems lighter here, as if the farther away from home we get, the freer and younger he feels. I’d bring him all the way to California if he’d let me. I want to watch him be twenty-one again.