Sweet Stuff (19 page)

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Authors: Donna Kauffman

BOOK: Sweet Stuff
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She held his gaze steadily, for what felt like an eternity.
Until, finally, he let go of her hand. “This isn’t fair to you. You’ve told me what you want.”
“No,” she said, suddenly finding her voice. “I told you what I can handle. Or, more to the point, what I can’t.” She took his hand back in hers. “I never told you what I want.”
His heart started pounding hard. He’d never reacted like this to anyone, had never felt such a simultaneous wrench of anticipation and abject fear. His characters had ... but not him. He realized he hadn’t come close to doing that feeling justice when he’d described it. He’d sure as hell be able to now. “What”—he had to stop and clear his throat—“what
do
you want, Riley?”
Her lips, the very ones he was dying for, curved slowly, followed by the wink of one dimple, then the other. The warmth of her smile infused her skin, and reached all the way to the very depths of her deep, brown eyes. “What I want, Quinn Brannigan ... is that do-over.”
“Riley—”
She put her fingers—trembling fingers, he noted—across his lips. “Just kiss me and put us both out of our misery, will you? We’ll plot the next scene when this one is done.”
“Well, when you put it like that ...”
Chapter 12
R
iley closed her eyes. How was it she’d ended up on a long, quiet stretch of beach, standing under an Indian summer sun ... and asking Quinn Brannigan to please kiss her?
“Riley?”
She blinked her eyes open.
Oh, right ... he hasn’t actually kissed me yet.
And all of her bravado fled. “I knew it,” she whispered. Not accusatorily, more dispiritedly.
The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled, and she wanted to think that was affection she saw in those blue eyes, sweetly concerned affection. For her. But what were the chances of that? She should have run when she had the chance.
“Knew what?”
“I’m either dreaming this, and right now is when I’m going to wake up, because that would so be my luck, or you’re about to tell me some really good reason why you changed your mind.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because this doesn’t happen for me. I mean, once upon a time, a long time ago, it happened for me, but I didn’t know then what I do now. Granted, I haven’t been trying, or willing to even give it a chance to happen again. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of a disaster, so what were really my chances anyway? I mean, what guy really wants someone who lives on a borrowed houseboat, and at any given moment is sporting at least three bruises and two Band-Aids, has a dog who, even though he means well, is kind of a one-person wrecking crew, and—”
“This guy.” He cut her off by taking her face in his hands, and kissing her. Really ... kissing her.
At first she just stood there, hands out at her sides, stunned into inaction, simply letting him.
Then he lifted his mouth just slightly from hers, enough to look her in the eyes. His still had those endearing smile crinkles at the corners. And there really truly was affection there ... for her. “The reason I stopped before was because I didn’t want you hiding behind closed eyes when we kissed for the first time. Now, kiss me back.” He urged her arms around his shoulders, then pulled her fully into his own.
“Oh,” she gasped in surprise. When their bodies finally made contact, she breathed a much softer, “Oh.”
“Exactly.” Easing his mouth back onto hers, he said against her lips, “Kiss me, Riley,”
So ... she did. She hadn’t kissed anyone since Jeremy—a lifetime ago. So long ago she had no other point of reference from before him. She had no sense of what it would be like when and if she ever kissed someone again.
She’d been head over heels in love with the last man she’d kissed, at the time she’d kissed him, and had felt loved every bit as much in return. And that had all been a lie.
When Quinn tucked her more firmly against his body, all big and dry and warm from the sun, and coaxed her lips apart, then groaned in the back of his throat like a long, satisfied growl as he slid his tongue into her mouth, she could never have anticipated it would be anything like this. Because she hadn’t known there were kisses like this.
Quinn’s kiss was slow, and unhurried, exploratory and, well ... fun. He kissed her like he had all the time in the world, and planned to take every advantage of it. What pulled at her, what tugged someplace deep she didn’t know she had, was that it wasn’t artful seduction. The sounds he made, the way he encouraged her to kiss him back, then took such clear pleasure in it when she did, told her he wasn’t in any more control of how this made him feel than she was. It was heady and intoxicating.
Her body flamed, and muscles long out of use clenched and tightened in that blissful, achy way, as slow and steady need began to build. It felt good to know she wasn’t broken. She’d certainly felt that way. Empty, switched off.
Everything was switched on now ... and it all worked just fine. If she hadn’t been so caught up in kissing him back, she’d have let out a little shout of triumph. Her own little hoot and holler of relief. If she’d felt empty before ... a few of Quinn’s kisses were doing a pretty good job of filling her right back up.
She slid her fingers into his hair, and urged him to go deeper. She was purely in the moment. She had no past, and didn’t care about the future. Just that exact moment. She would be quite happy to stay in that moment forever. She wanted to remember everything about this.
Quinn lifted his mouth from hers, then kissed the side of her jaw, then her temple, and pulled her into his arms, tucking her head under his chin. “That was ...” He didn’t finish, but the way his heart pounded under her cheek said it all.
Riley smiled against his chest. “It sure was,” she agreed. She closed her eyes with the intent of going back over each delicious moment in her mind, willing it to permanent memory—the look in his eyes when he told her he wanted to kiss her, the taste of his mouth, the shape of his lips, the way he’d kissed her like tomorrow would never come. She wanted to remember every sensation, every feeling, to be relived whenever she desired.
Would there be others to store away? She had no idea, and Quinn had admitted he didn’t, either. He’d admitted he didn’t usually get involved, or get serious, or even know why he’d been interested in her. So, she’d take the one memory they had made, and hold it close. It felt good to have a sweet, wonderful memory to think about, and remember with nothing but joy. And that was enough.
A start, a first step up and out. Something.
Quinn tipped her chin up, shifting back so he could look into her eyes. “Thank you.”
Surprised, she said, “For?”
“The do-over.” They laughed. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.” She liked—a lot—that he hadn’t let her go. Staying like this, half wrapped around him, now that the mindlessness of their kiss was over, was ... comforting. Like they wanted to linger in the moment a little while longer ... before whatever happened next, happened.
That was nice. Really, really nice.
“Earlier, when you were releasing me from my apparently misguided desire to kiss you, you said a guy like me wouldn’t normally choose you.” He caressed her cheek as he said it.
She smiled up at him. “If you recall, you agreed.”
“Much to my shame, if you also recall.” He grinned then. “And which, I believe, we’ve now aptly disproved.”
She liked that grin. It started that fluttery business all over again in her stomach. “Well, it’s possible it felt like you might have, you know, enjoyed it,” She teased him back, then smiled. “A little.”
“So ... let me ask you this. Strictly in the fair’s fair category, when you kissed me back, were you kissing that successful guy on the back of the book covers? Or were you kissing me?”
She’d had no idea where he’d been headed, but that definitely wasn’t it. In fact, the question surprised her. Greatly. Because he wasn’t just teasing, or flirting. He was serious. She knew him well enough to know that—which, more or less, answered the question. She just wasn’t sure how to explain that to him. “Well, it wouldn’t be completely honest of me to say there isn’t a certain surreal factor to all of this, because I have looked at your picture many times, and probably all of your readers feel some kind of connection to you from reading your books. It’s an intimate act, in some ways, peeking into your mind like that, though one-sided since you don’t get to peek back. And you telling me you wanted to kiss me ... some part of me had a bit of a dork-out moment. Okay, a big dork-out moment. I’m human.”
His lips twitched, but he was still serious when he said, “Riley—”
“No, wait, let me finish. I am a dork, at heart. We both know that. And that’s just it. Straight off, you knew that about me. It’s pretty much the only part of me that’s been on display every time we’ve crossed paths. I never had a chance to show myself in a better light. So, when you kissed me, I had no doubt you knew exactly who you were kissing. I might not have believed you’d want to, but when you did ... I knew it was honest, and real.
“You’re exactly right. Fair’s fair. You deserve to know what’s honest and what’s real, too. Unlike with me, initially what I had to go on with you was the book jacket guy, and book jacket guy always struck me as someone completely at ease with himself, who knows exactly who he is, is very comfortable in his own skin. Meeting you didn’t change that impression. If anything, you enhanced it. So, at first, sure, I probably was superimposing the book jacket guy onto the actual guy. And if you’d kissed me the day we met, yes, I’d have been starstruck. I wouldn’t have been able to help it. That’s all I knew of you, all you were to me.”
“But?” Quinn looked partly amused, but more curious ... and maybe a little uncertain. “I can hear the
but
.”
“Don’t worry, it’s a good one. Well, it is to me. The day we talked on the houseboat, and again at the bakery, I felt I had gotten to know a little more about you, but it wasn’t until today, walking on the beach, talking, that I felt I was meeting the real you. The uninhibited you, the writer, the man who is passionate about his work, focused, worried about it. Your work fascinates me. I could be ten dead cats and a dozen curious monkeys about it and still just scratch the surface. But that’s more about me being a reader, a lover of your work.
“When
you
talk about your work, though ... suddenly you’re not polished and effortlessly charming guy, you’re ... I don’t know, more real. Vulnerable, unsure. When you shared your frustration about the story, and how you’ve been agonizing over it, you’re ... well, it turns out you’re a lot like me. You worry, you think too much, you spend a lot of time in your head, and you’re way more concerned with doing something the way it should be done because that’s what is satisfying to you, than just making everyone happy. I can’t tell you how many photographers I drove absolutely bonkers with my insistence on getting the food styled and displayed just so for a camera shot. I had this idea in my head and I knew it would be the most tantalizing, mouth-watering presentation, and it mattered that I achieved the image in my head, or as close to it as I could. I’m the same way now with staging houses.”
She smiled and shook her head. “So ... you’re kind of geeky about your work, like I am about mine. Beneath all the success and polish, good looks and charm ... you’re just a writer guy struggling to tell a story, a little off the beaten path, maybe a bit nerdy about it—which is great. I totally get that guy. And that guy, I might even believe, gets me, too. That guy I can almost believe would want to kiss dorky ol’ me.” She felt her cheeks warm a bit, but she said the rest of what she wanted to say. “So, when I kissed you back just now? That’s who I kissed. That guy. You.”
His expression was one of surprise, maybe even a little shock, and she was afraid maybe she’d insulted him. “I think that might be the best thing anyone has ever said about me. And it’s good to know you like that guy”—he pulled her close again, so she had to tip her head way back to look into his eyes—“because that guy does get you, and he is exactly the guy who wants to kiss you. And maybe now I get that, too.”
When he took her mouth, it wasn’t gentle, or coaxing, or exploratory. It was that ardent, passionate kiss she’d thought about the first day they’d met, the one up on the big screen that happened when someone finally made that move, in that moment. Only way—way—better.
He didn’t kiss and coax, he claimed. Even then, he wouldn’t simply take. He wanted her to take him back, challenging her to a duel of tongues, of heat, trading his groan for her gasp, until she was close to begging him to just pull her down on the sand and get on with it already. Those newly invigorated muscles had long since gone from clenching to aching, and her fingers were digging into his chest, grasping at his shirt, wanting nothing more than to pull it off so she could feel the heat of his skin directly under her touch. She wanted to taste him, lick the salt from his skin, she wanted—“Oof!”
A split second later, they were sprawled in the sand, but not in an amorous tangle of arms and legs as she’d hoped ... more in a heap of tangled limbs courtesy of Brutus, who had his front paws planted on Quinn’s chest and arms, so he could stare him down ... and drool on him.
“Holy Cr—Brutus!” Riley called to the dog, when she got her wits back enough to realize what had happened. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He’s not the protective type. He’s never—Brutus! Get down! Off!”
She started to scramble to her knees, intent on dragging him off Quinn if she had to, when Brutus leaned his big old head down ... and gave Quinn a huge swipe of his tongue, right across his face.
“Gah,” Quinn sputtered, but pinned as he was, by Brutus and Riley, he couldn’t do much about it.
Riley sputtered, too, but with laughter.
“Easy for you,” Quinn said, still spitting. “You’re not the one that just got slimed.”
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” Riley scrambled off Quinn as best she could without adding injury to insult, though he did groan a few times as she managed it. “But it is kind of funny.”
“He’s probably jealous,” Quinn forced out from lungs half crushed by the weight of the dog’s paws. “I get it.”
“Get off him, Brutus,” Riley said, breathless from her efforts and the laughter that kept spluttering out. “He’s jealous, but not
of
you. I think he just wanted some loving, too.” She, grinned as she tugged on Brutus’s collar. “Come on, big guy. It’s okay. Quinn likes you, too. Let’s go find your stick.”

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