Free The Best Part of Me by Jamie Hollins Page B

eventually you’ll want more. A commitment. A promise. Something that would tie us together. I don’t do commitments, I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let any woman tie me down.”
    She stared at him with her mouth open. She wanted to call him a coward. Tell him he was an ass. How dare he be so arrogant as to think he knew anything about her type ? About what she wanted?
    What she wanted was for people to stop telling her what was best for her. For the past year, people had been telling her what to do and how to feel. She was sick of it.
    She tilted her chin up and stepped around him before yanking the door open.
    She paused and looked back. “Suit yourself. Your loss.”
    Then she walked out and slammed the door behind her.
    ###
    Ewan crouched down and swept the last of the broken glass into a dustpan. It had taken him a little over an hour with Sean and Jenny’s help to clean up the place. Overall, the damage wasn’t all that bad. Several broken glasses, a few broken liquor bottles, and one busted barstool. All things considered, it was almost an average night.
    Keith Hardy and his boys had gotten what was coming to them. Although nothing more serious than a bloody nose or a split lip. It was a wonder any of them still had jobs with the Madigan Family since none of them could fight worth shit.
    Sean and Jenny started pulling the chairs off the tables and back onto the floor. Whenever something like this happened, it majorly disrupted the evening. Most people left and didn’t come back that night. Some regular patrons who wouldn’t know what else to do with themselves if they weren’t at the pub would wander back in after cleanup was over.
    Ewan ran his hands over his face. Normally something like this would not have escalated into a fight. But it had been the look on Hardy’s face when he saw Quinn that had set Ewan off. That leech had stared Quinn down like she was a piece of meat.
    Ewan’s protective instincts had kicked in, and all he’d thought about was getting Quinn out of there. His possessiveness had reared its ugly head, and if anyone had hurt her, he would have ripped their arms off. He’d been seeing red at that point and could’ve taken the entire pub on if he had to.
    He ran his tongue along his lower lip and swore he could still taste the sweetness of Quinn’s mouth. Her lips were so soft, and she was seriously skilled in the art of kissing. Fuck, if that’s what she could do with her mouth, it might be worth the trouble to see what she could do in the bedroom.
    Jesus, get a grip. Let it go.
    But no matter how much he tried to wash it from his mind, he couldn’t.
    After he had come upstairs with Quinn, he was breathless, anxious. He was so rattled by what had almost happened to her that he’d hidden in the kitchen. He’d had a swallow of whiskey that had done nothing to calm his nerves like he’d hoped.
    Alcohol was a last resort for him. As volatile as he was, throwing alcohol into the mix was a bad idea. He saw what it did to people on a regular basis. He usually chose to stay away.
    When he’d seen Quinn standing in the doorway of the kitchen, he’d lost it. Lust had been flowing out of him in waves. He’d wanted to devour her, to greedily take her lips and run his hands all over her body until she begged him to fuck her. And when she’d rocked her hips against him, it’d taken everything in him to break their kiss.
    Quinn was different. The women he’d gone for in the past were quick and easy lays. He didn’t want anything from them, even if they wanted more from him. But Quinn… She wasn’t the type of woman you just fucked. Her spirit was alive and bright, and her innocence was too pure to destroy.
    She was a nice girl who probably dated nice guys.
    They would show up at her house in blazers and khakis or whatever those