Strong, Silent Type (8 page)

***

Darkness enveloped the big, bold Wyoming sky by the time Libby heard the porch screen slam. The table was set and ready, but supper had gone cold. Would Quinn fight with her? Or pull that silent macho crap and ignore her? At this point she didn’t know which she’d prefer.

Wrong. She wanted his fire. His anger. His honest reaction. Because his words spurred her to take a longer, deeper look at her actions and inactions over the last few years and she hadn’t liked what she’d seen.

Consequently, she’d been staring out the kitchen window, nursing a glass of whiskey for the better part of an hour. She didn’t turn around when he entered the kitchen.

The silence between them was absolute.

Who would be the first to break it?

Quinn said, “I’m—” at the same time she said, “I didn’t—”

They both laughed, but it was forced laughter.

Quinn approached her. Her heart sped up.

Slipping his arms around her waist, he rubbed his face in her hair. “Sorry.”

“I’m sorry too.”

“We probably oughta talk about it, huh?”

“Or we could just get drunk.”

He chuckled. “There is that option. Might be less painful initially, but guaranteed we’d pay for it in the mornin’.”

“True.”

“Where do we start?”

“Where we left off.” Libby drained the last of her whiskey. “Where the problems began. Jilly warned me about bringing up the baby issue, or lack thereof.”

“Jilly? What’s she have to do with it?”

“She called and offered me some free advice.”

“Then take it for what it’s worth. Nuthin’. Besides, I’m the one who brought it up. And not in a nice way neither.”

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“I don’t think there is a nice way to tell me that I seriously screwed up everything with my quest for a baby.”

“Libby—”

“Just let me get this out, okay?” Would this confession be easier if she wasn’t looking into his all-knowing eyes? Probably not.

“I’m not gonna pretend that I was aware that I was driving you away when I became obsessed with getting pregnant. After you stormed away a couple hours ago, it was like a light bulb went off in my head and I saw everything in a whole different light. I didn’t like what I saw.

“It was all about me. My body. What I wanted. What I needed.” Tears gathered in her eyes when she considered how selfish she’d been. How much she’d hurt him and without knowing it.

“And?” he prompted.

Suck it up. You made the bed, you can lie in it.

“And the truth is you were one hundred percent right when you said I cared only about your sperm, not about sex. Making love with you or to you didn’t cross my mind if it didn’t have…purpose. Sad to admit that mindset would’ve stayed even if I
had
gotten pregnant, because I would’ve focused all my attention on the baby. You suffered either way. God, Quinn, what kind of horrible, self-centered wife does that make me? And yet, I justified my attitude because I blamed you for not being interested in whether we got pregnant or not.”

“I just didn’t see the big rush, Libby. It wasn’t like we were too old then or even now. It’s just…well…”

“What?”

“Part of me wondered if you were in some sort of competition with your sister. She popped out four babies with no trouble. Then every time she came over with the kids, it was like she was rubbing them in your face. Jilly always was hinting around maybe one or both of us had problems with our, um, plumbing, so to speak.”

How much weight had Libby given to Jilly’s suggestions regarding fertility issues? A lot. After all, with four pregnancies under her belt, Jilly was an expert. She just wanted to help. Why had Libby confided her fears to her sister instead of her husband? God. She’d been such an idiot on so many levels.

“Libby?”

She couldn’t face him when she blurted, “I spent years feeling like a failure as a woman because I couldn’t pop out a little McKay.”

“It ain’t like the McKay name is gonna die out with the way my cousins are reproducing like rabbits.”

“True. But I was constantly fielding questions from relatives about when you and I were going to start a family since we’ve been married a while. If I hedged, then they asked if we were having marriage problems or reproductive issues. It was a stick poking an open wound you didn’t even know I had.”

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Libby felt him wince.

“I’m so damn sorry. To be honest, it hurt that you wanted a kid more than you wanted me. Part of the reason I refused the fertility tests was I was afraid you’d leave me if I was the reason you weren’t pregnant.

Sounds selfish, don’t it?”

No more selfish than what she’d done.

He sighed. “Jesus, Libby. I’m such a prick. Not talkin’ to you. Lettin’ you think the worst of yourself, makin’ you handle all that family shit alone, when I didn’t know the half of it. No wonder you booted my ass.”

The resentment she should’ve felt was strangely absent. It felt good—freeing—to be brutally honest, to air all their dirty laundry. They had nothing else to lose, because they were damn close to losing it all.

“Look. We both were wrong. We both made mistakes. We both closed down and dealt with our issues separately, rather than together. We didn’t have fidelity, financial or substance abuse issues, but our issues were big enough to cause a rift in our marriage.”

Quinn didn’t say anything, which wasn’t surprising. He’d said more than she’d expected.

Still, she’d been carrying the burden for quite some time, so she might as well get it all off her chest.

“When I realized I probably wouldn’t ever get pregnant, I created a new me—Libby McKay 2.0. I fixed up the house, jazzed up the meals, pursued new interests and stopped thinking about babies entirely. I thought if I wasn’t a frumpy, chubby, boring ranch wife, you’d want me again.”

Quinn spun her around so fast spots danced in front of her eyes. “Want you again? I’ve always wanted you. Jesus. You think
that’s
how I see you? Frumpy? Chubby? Boring?” He shook her slightly. “Dammit. I see
you
, Libby, not a fuckin’ brood mare! You are the smart, funny, sexy, hard-workin’ girl that knocked me for a loop when I was a dumb kid of sixteen. A woman I’ve always known is too good for the likes of me. A woman I pledged my life, heart and soul to. A woman I love with every goddamn bone and breath in my body. What don’t you understand about that?”

“Quinn—”

“Just shut up. We’re done talkin’.” His mouth crashed down on hers and he kissed the living daylights out of her.

Arms, legs, hands, fingers clashed and collided as they tried to touch each other everywhere, all at once. The wet, hot kiss overwhelmed her until she could only cling to him and experience the spectacle of her calm, cool and collected husband totally out of control.

Quinn ripped his lips from hers. “Now. Goddammit. I need to prove…to show you how much I—”

“It’s okay.”

“I want you right now.”

“Where?”

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“Table.” He untied the belt on her robe, pushed it to the floor and groaned satisfaction she was still naked.

“But the dishes—”

“Fuck the dishes.” Quinn turned, jerked the corners of the tablecloth until all the plates and silverware crashed together and rolled to the opposite end of the table. “Problem solved.”

Libby grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him, needing that connection as he lifted her on the kitchen table.

***

The woman absolutely pushed his limits of restraint today…and he’d never been happier in his frustration.

Quinn needed to get inside her.
Now now now
pounded in cadence with the blood throbbing in his cock.

Libby twisted her hand in his T-shirt, stopping him. “This gone. I wanna feel your skin on mine.”

Yank.
Off it went. He latched onto her hips and pulled until her legs hung off the table. He jerked his sweatpants to the tops of his boots and his cock went
sproing
like it was spring-loaded. He circled the opening to her pussy once and plunged inside to the root.

She hissed. Her upper body bowed up and she slid up half a foot from the force of his thrusts.

He scooted her back down. “Grab onto the edge. Hands above your head. Like that. Oh hell, yeah, exactly like that.”

“You’re watching my tits bounce, aren’t you?”

Quinn laughed and drove into her hard. “Uh-huh. Goddamn that’s sexy.”

“Just as long as you aren’t so busy watching you forget what you’re supposed to be doing.”

“And what is that, darlin’ wife?”

“Fucking me until I scream.”

The noise leaving his throat was half-grunt, half-snarl and all possessive male. He obliged her with thrusts that rocked the table and his legs quaked from the strain.

“Yes. Don’t stop.”

He gave her everything he had. A heart-thumping, sweat-inducing, hip-pounding, teeth-grinding, primal mating. As he anchored her hips, his avid gaze moved from the steady bounce of her breasts to where they were joined. It was hot as sin to see the wet proof of her excitement coating his dick as he pulled out, then feeling the tight clasp as he slammed home. Again and again and again. Every thrust seemed to bring him deeper into her.

When he noticed Libby biting her lip, he leaned over her. “You okay? Too much?”

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“No.” She arched into him. “Your chest hair on my nipples drives me crazy. And God, you’re hitting the exact spot pressed against me like that.”

“Like this?”

“Yes.”

“Harder?”

“No.”

“Faster?”

“Yeah.”

Quinn clasped their hands together so they were matched palm to palm. “Fly apart for me.” He added a little grind at the end of his upstroke and she gasped.

“Good?”

“Uh-huh, more—
yes!
”

His hips began to piston, each stroke brought forth more sweat and more labored breaths and a more desperate race to the finish. When Libby squeezed his hands and cried out, Quinn felt that deep, rhythmic pulsing of her body sucking at his cock like a separate mouth.

Closing his eyes, he let himself fall into the moment. As his cock emptied, he was reminded how perfect it felt being with Libby, naked in body and soul. Quinn buried his face in her neck and clutched her tightly, silently swearing to never let her get so far out of his reach again. “God, I love you. Don’t ever leave me…I can’t…”

“Ssh. I know. It’s okay. I’m here. We’re both here.”

After they’d leveled their breathing and their heart rates returned to normal, she shuddered beneath him. He raised his head to peer into her eyes. “Cold?”

“With two hundred pounds of hot rancher on top of me? Hardly.”

“Am I too heavy?”

Libby shook her head.

He kissed each nipple and pushed upright. Studying her face for signs of pain, he slowly pulled out.

“Sore?”

“No. And even if I was, I wouldn’t mind. Because you just fulfilled one of my fantasies.”

“Really? On the kitchen table?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Well, hot damn.” After Quinn tugged his sweatpants in place, he helped her sit up and noticed her eyes darted to the pile of dishes beneath the rumpled tablecloth. “Sorry I ruined supper.”

“Don’t be. Being with you, having you look at me like that…”

“Like what?”

“Like you used to. Like I was everything.”

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Quinn rested his forehead to hers. “You are everything to me. You always have been. I’m sorry it got to the point where you ever doubted that.”

“Me too.”

The moment, while brief, seemed to reinforce a connection between them Quinn hadn’t realized was broken.

Libby’s stomach rumbled.

“Since I wrecked supper, and you’re clearly starving, can I take you out?”

“Good Lord, I’m a mess. By the time I get myself cleaned up, every place within thirty miles will be closed.”

“You do look kinda mussed. But it’s a well-fucked, well-kissed kinda mussed.”

“Quinn McKay!”

He loved that indignant tone, mostly because it was all for show. “Tell you what. Let’s go to the Tasty Treat Drive-in. We don’t have to get out. I can sneak a couple kisses between feeding you curly fries. Like we used to.” He nibbled on her lips. “And we might finally christen the damn truck after six years.”

Libby leaned back. “We’ve had sex in your truck.”

“No, we haven’t.”

“Yes, we have.”

“When?”

She appeared to be thinking. “Shoot. I thought after some big McKay bash you and I…” Libby looked him expectantly.

“We did. But that was my old red Dodge years ago, not this one.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Just remembering the first time we had sex in your pickup.”

He cringed. “I’m surprised you ever had sex with me again.”

“It wasn’t
that
horrible.”

“Well, it sure as hell wasn’t romantic. Woulda been better if we’d waited and done it in my bed rather than on a pickup bench seat in the middle of a damn pasture. You deserved better.”

“I didn’t care. I just wanted to be with you.” A wistful look crossed her face. “Sometimes I think we’ve come so far…and then I look at you and still feel like that unsure sixteen-year-old girl.”

That jarred him. “Unsure about me?”

“No, unsure on why you picked
me
.”

“Why?”

“The McKay boys’ reputation for preferring wild girls. I’ve never been wild.”

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“I ain’t ever been like my cousins when it comes to skirt chasin’. Didn’t interest me.” He allowed a small grin. “On the other hand, I’m likin’ that you’re finally gettin’ wild with me.”

“But, you could’ve had any girl.”

“Don’t matter. I didn’t want any other girl besides you, Libby. Then or now.”

Libby’s gaze roamed his face. “What are we doing?”

Quinn knew she wasn’t referring to their supper plans. A temporary break from the issues would do them both good, so he deliberately misunderstood her. “Soon as you slip on some clothes, we’re headed to the Tasty Treat.”