Insatiable (20 page)

“I was smiling about going away tomorrow. Getting you all to myself for all those days and nights,” I said.

Quinn relaxed on the couch, her eyes closed and her head back against the cushion. She didn’t have to do any speaking at the junket, of course. But she’d been in anxious knots over the first official screenings of her ads.

It had gone well, of course. She was good at her job. That junior partner position was hers any time she wanted it, from what I understood.

She made a satisfied sound in her throat. “That sounds
so
nice right now.”

That sound sent tingles through my body. Electric ones that set my heart pumping. I took in the way her hair fell around her head, the way her lips parted slightly when she sighed.

I couldn’t help myself. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her onto my lap so that she faced me. This close, I could smell her. That made me want her more.

“You are insatiable!” she said, smiling, her eyes glinting.

“Are you saying that you aren’t? I thought you found me hot and irresistible?”

“I do. It’s just that you still surprise me with it.”

I put my hands on her hips and squeezed, just enough so that she knew I meant business. “I like surprising you.”

“So you say.” She wet her lips. Her body pushed against mine, coming into sync.

“Come here and kiss me,” I replied.

She did. She put her hands on my chest, pushing her fingernails into my pectorals. I’d found myself thinking over the past little while that sometimes the kissing was so good we didn’t actually need to go any further.

Of course, I always went further. But it was a thought.

It was the kind of kissing that left both of us breathless, left our mouths throbbing and raw from the force of it.

She pulled back from me, and I took the opportunity to start on the top buttons of her blouse. I wanted to reveal every inch of her skin nice and slow. Give her a good tease. The purple bruise across my knuckles had mostly faded by now, I saw. And there had been no more trouble from Archer.

Then she took my hands in hers, halting my progress. “What?” I asked, giving her fingers a gentle but insistent squeeze.

“Did you know that it’s been more than a month since we met?”

“Really?” I said. Then I grinned, “Ah, yes. The hotel. You couldn’t keep your eyes off me. I remember that.”

Her eyebrows climbed up her forehead, “Excuse me? You were in your underwear! I tried looking everywhere
but
at you. You’re the one who insisted that I come in and wait for you to shower and get ready.”

I shrugged and this earned me a playful slap on the shoulder. “Don’t deny it. You wanted me right away.”

“I think you’re confusing me with yourself, mister ‘
What would you do if I kissed you right now?
’”

“Oh, yeah...” I said, nodding. Then I used her hold on my hands to pull her close and kiss her again. She giggled and pulled back once more. I loved it when she giggled. The sound went so well with those freckles on her cheeks.

“You keep distracting me!” she said, wrinkling her nose at me.

“Okay, fine, I promise I won’t...” Then I pulled her in for another kiss. This time I got my hands free and I grabbed her at the small of the back, pushing her hips down against mine.

I almost had her there, too. I could feel her melting against me, ready to give in. But then—and I have no idea where she got the willpower from—she pushed away from me again.

“Let me finish,” she said.

I held my hands up, then shoved them down between my back and the couch. I nodded at her.

She put her hands on my chest and then slid them up to my shoulders. She sighed once, then twice.

I smiled at her. “What is it?”
What could possibly be so difficult for her to say?

Whatever it was, my heart started thumping. My smile started to falter, but I forced it back into place.

“This sort of thing is difficult for me to say. It’s that whole being protective of my feelings thing...” Quinn started. She straightened the collar of my shirt as though it were the most important task in the world. Then she looked me in the eye.

She continued. “It’s been more than a month now, like I said. And we’ve been spending a lot of time together. And since we started all this, I’ve learned a lot about myself. And...” her eyes fell down again.

“And, what?” I said. Pressure started in the small of my back. I realized that I had clenched all those muscles.

“
And
, I really do want to go with you tomorrow. Because I’m pretty sure that I’m falling for you.” She blinked a lot and bit her bottom lip. I knew that had been difficult for her to say.

She kept looking at me, waiting for me to respond. I knew that I should. I knew I needed to.

A cold and nervous feeling swam in the pit of my stomach. I pulled my hands out from behind me and let them spread out on the couch cushions.

“Vaughn?” she said, her fingers pushing against my chest.

I swallowed and found that I could look anywhere but at her. That damn countdown in my head finally revealed itself. It hadn’t disappeared like I thought it might have. And it had reached zero.

“You do know what I just told you, right?” Quinn said. Her body began going rigid. Her eyes searched my face with more and more desperation.

It tore me up inside, and I still couldn’t face it. “I know.”

“I’m glad you know. Do you feel the same way, maybe? When someone reveals that sort of thing, they’re usually hoping for a bit of reciprocation.”

“I... don’t know,” I said, the words ringing in my ears. I felt disconnected from myself. Like I was watching all this from somewhere just above our heads, screaming down to stop being such a fool.

Quinn climbed off my lap. She paced between the couch and the wingback chair. “How can you not know how you feel?” she asked, stopping in front of me, her hands held out, palms up.

Something about her attitude irritated me and I let that irritation seep into my voice. “I like you. You know that. I know that. Can’t we just leave it at that for now?”

She crossed her arms and her jaw started working. I wanted to take back what I said, but couldn’t.

“I can’t believe you. You
know
that things like that aren’t easy for me to say. I know you feel the same way about me, Vaughn. Can’t you just admit that?”

Just the thought of saying what she wanted me to say, letting myself feel what she wanted me to feel, twisted me up inside. My hands squeezed into fists against the cushions. I looked up at her and shook my head.

“This is all a part of that impostor stuff from before,” she continued. “I thought you’d moved past that. Can’t you see that you do deserve your success? That it all didn’t happen by accident? People aren’t going to suddenly realize you’re a fraud one day, because you aren’t.”

“Don’t you think if it was that easy I would have done it already?” I snapped, once more immediately regretting the tone in my voice. I could tell I was hurting her. I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. “Things were going great the way they were. Let’s go back to that.”

Quinn turned away from me, one arm still clutched around her ribs, the other covering her mouth as though to try and keep any sobs from coming out. Her shoulders hunched.

“Quinn...” I said. I reached up and touched her elbow and she recoiled.

“Why do you push everyone away?” she said, her voice muffled by her hand.

I slumped back against the couch. “Because it’s easier that way.”

We stayed like that for a long time, her standing there facing away from me, me sitting on the couch, waiting for her to say something. I wished so desperately that I could rewind things. Go back just a few minutes.

I could feel inside that we’d crossed some invisible point where I couldn’t just take everything back.

Besides, even if there was a way to turn back the clock I would probably say the same things.

“Quinn,” I said again, unable to bear the waiting any longer.

“Stop talking. Just stop talking,” she said. From where I sat, I could see how her face had flushed and how she trembled just a little. And how she tried to hide all that from me.

The silence pushed in on me, tension laden in the air. It was strange to think that just a few minutes earlier we’d been on the verge of making love. That moment seemed years distant, then.

“I think you should go by yourself tomorrow,” Quinn said, so quiet that even in the previous silence I had trouble making out the words. I had no trouble understanding their meaning, however.

“I don’t want to go without you,” I said. I stood up, meaning to hold her. She stepped back from me, flinching like some animal too often abused by its master. That stung inside.

“Then I guess you’re going to be disappointed. I’m leaving now, Vaughn,” she said. She started towards the stairs, making sure to keep the chair between us as she went.

“Don’t go,” I said.

“Too late,” she replied.

“Can I see you later? Can we talk?” I said. I could feel her slipping away and I didn’t know how to pull her back.

She stopped at the top of the stairs, her hand on the banister. She still wouldn’t turn around to look at me. “I don’t know, Vaughn. I just don’t know.”

Q
UINN

I sat at my desk in the C&M office. I looked at my monitor, but didn’t see it. My eyes refused to focus. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, but I couldn’t bring myself to tap any words out.

How could he do that?

I was a husk. Empty and singed on the inside, devoid of anything but a sort of constant, low-grade anger.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Stacey and Alisha, about the way they’d both looked at me. For so long I’d thought they were looks of dismissal and disregard. But I realized now that they were actually looks of pity.

They knew about him. They knew how he plays with other people’s hearts. And they knew what he would do to me, because he did it to them.

I guess somewhere I knew that. Especially after Ward’s confession about his feelings. I guess that I thought that I was different, somehow. That I could and did fix him.

But who was I kidding? I wasn’t a swimsuit model or an actress, rich and famous. If he could do that sort of thing to those types of women, how could I possibly think that I could? I was just an office worker. Nothing special about me.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to sweep my keyboard and my monitor off my desk and then use my chair to smash them into little bits. I didn’t know who I was more angry with: Ward for doing that to me, or me for being willing to give myself to someone like that.

It wasn’t a good time for Trish to show up. She’d been a sore loser ever since Ward told her what she was and where to go. I guess she somehow sensed that I was vulnerable and that he wasn’t around to protect me.

She was like a shark, attracted by the smell of blood in the water.

And that made me sneer.
Protect me? The only thing he’s interested in guarding are his own feelings.

“So,” Trish said, leaning up against the false wall, “I guess you’re moving up in the world. No accounting for good taste, I suppose.”

“Not right now, Trish,” I said, giving politeness one shot. Even that required a Herculean effort on my part.

It made her raise her eyebrows in mock shock. “Not right now? I guess you have an even bigger ego than I thought you did.”

That low-grade anger smoldering inside me flared up into outright rage, suffusing every muscle in my body with trembling heat. I stood up. Then I grabbed my keyboard and slammed it down on my desk hard enough for a few of the keys to pop out.

Trish’s eyes widened for a second before she brought herself back under control and pasted a haughty smile to her lips. “What? Junior partner not good enough for you or something? I know, maybe your rich jerk boyfriend told you he wants you to start going to the gym. Not a bad request, if you ask me.”

It was the type of anger that brought tears to my eyes. I looked at her slightly blurry face. “What is your problem? I’ve tried being nice to you. I’ve tried helping you. I’ve always
tried
to be polite to you...”

“Hey, I’m not the one with the problem...” she started.

“Keep your mouth shut for once. Women like you are what makes it hard to get people to respect us in the office. You are your own worst enemy. You want to know why they give all the important jobs to me? Because they know I could get them done! All they want from you is what you’re oh-so-willing to give. And they don’t respect you for it. They laugh about you, Trish.
You’re a joke.
But for some reason the punch line always goes over your head. And that’s sad. You are sad and I pity you.”

I was yelling by the end of it, my shoulders heaving and my whole body hot. The rest of the floor had gone silent, and I could feel people watching me from their cubicles.

Trish’s face went from red to white. She looked around and saw everyone looking at us.

“What? Nothing to say for once?” I said.

And then she shocked me again by turning and walking away. Around then I noticed the people watching me and their looks began working their way through my anger, making me realize what I just did.

“Whoa, that was pretty intense. I didn’t think it was possible for that much blood to drain from Trish’s face. What’s wrong? Did something happen?” Anne said, making me jump.

“How long have you been standing there?” I asked.

“Since,
‘Women like you...’
Pretty crazy, by the way. Do you want to go somewhere so that we can talk?” she said.

The anger banked itself inside me, cooling to embers. And then the self-conscious embarrassment began. “That might be nice.”

Before we could go the phone on my desk rang. I picked up, spoke for a few moments, and then put it back down. “Sorry, Ms. Spencer wants to see me right away.”

Anne sucked a breath in through her teeth, giving me a commiserating look. “Good luck.”

I started up to her office. She hadn’t said why she wanted to speak to me, only that she wanted me up there right away. There was no way she’d heard about my little blowup already, was there?