Authors: Donna Kauffman
Sweet Stuff (23 page)
She sniffled. “I know, I know. No one can.”
He tipped back just enough to nudge her chin until he could look into her eyes. His heart teetered and squeezed, as big fat tears rolled down her cheeks. “But I can make you a promise. No matter what role we play in each other’s lives I will always be honest with you. Even if it hurts. You’ll always know where I stand, what I feel. And if you don’t, ask me. You can trust me, Riley. Today, tomorrow, and every day after that. I can’t promise I’ll never hurt you, because it happens. It happened on the beach to me, and I know you didn’t want to hurt me. But you were being honest, and that’s what I need to be able to count on. I won’t play you, I won’t lie to you, I won’t disrespect you. You have my word on that. Those are the guarantees I can make.”
She nodded, tears still gathered at the corners of her eyes, her body still shuddering a bit in his arms. “Thank you,” she whispered.
That single sentiment sounded so damn ... grateful, he felt the hot sting in his own eyes. She deserved so much more than to feel freaking grateful because someone was going to treat her the way she should automatically be treated right from the get-go. What the hell kind of number had that guy done on her?
Quinn tucked her close again, his heart pounding; then relief flooded through him when she tentatively slid her arms around his waist. When he instinctively tightened his own hold, she did the same, as if she were holding on for dear life.
And maybe she was. Because he sure as hell considered her life dear to him.
Slowly, the trembling ebbed, as did her sniffles. He stroked her hair, soothed a hand up and down her spine, and just ... held on.
“I wish I had the answers,” he said quietly, gently. “I don’t. I’ve never been where you are. I don’t know how you reach out a second time. Or a third, or a fourth. I was half scared to death trying to figure out how to do it for the first time.”
Against his shirt, he heard her say, “How did you get yourself to do it?”
“Same as you did. I was honest about all of it.” He smiled briefly against her soft curls. “Then I just up and kissed the girl.” His smile faded. “And, turns out, I made her cry.”
Riley pulled her head back at that, and lifted damp cheeks and wet eyes to his. “No, you didn’t. It wasn’t you who made me cry.”
“Point is ... I might. Someday. Won’t mean to, but I’ll hate having added to any tears that came before. Maybe you’ve cried enough. But for all the fear, and the being scared, and the chance of feeling the way I do right now, which is hurt, angry at the fates, at your ex, and missing you more than I thought it was possible to miss a person ... I know I’d do it all over again.”
“Why?”
“Because I made you laugh, too. And you made me feel like the cleverest guy in the room, every time you did. Because of the way you looked at me, whether it was the dry smile, the avid listener, the curious monkey, or even the eye roll of I-can’t-believe-he-just-said-that. Because of that single, amazing first kiss.” He smiled. “And the second one. And the hope I felt, getting a gift like that, like anything is possible after all.” He looked down at her upturned face, and smoothed the hair clinging to her damp cheeks. “Maybe that’s it right there. I’d do it all again, because you gave me hope I could someday have it all. I’ve never once felt that, but I’ve always wanted to.”
Riley stared into his eyes almost helplessly, then finally lowered her head and pressed her cheek hard against his chest. He could feel her shake her head.
“What?” he asked.
“I just ... wish I was worthy of all that.”
He tilted her head back again, and for the first time, he felt a sliver of irritation with her. “You don’t get to judge that. I do. And saying you’re not worthy of my affection, or interest, or any other damn thing I want to feel about you, is a pretty big slap at me, don’t you think?”
She looked shocked by his retort, and immediately remorseful. “That—that’s not what I meant.”
“But it is what you said. You may not value youself, but that doesn’t mean I don’t. Or can’t. Maybe you can’t see it because you are convinced it’s not there. But I can see it. And so do all your friends. How many people are going to have to value you before you stop judging yourself by the one selfish bastard who didn’t?”
Her eyes widened at that, but rather than look hurt, or stung, or even insulted, she looked ... thoughtful.
“Is that what I’m doing?” she asked, the words a hushed whisper.
“Only you can say. But ... it sure seems that way.”
“Well, it’s not what I meant.” Her voice grew steadily stronger. She looked like she was getting a little mad, too.
He didn’t mind that at all. That was the Riley he knew, that was the Riley he’d thought he’d be getting to know better. And he was so damn thankful to see that Riley finally step up to the damn plate.
“I know I have value. I know I’m good at what I do. And I know I’m a good friend. I know I’m good to my dog. And I know I have value to all of those people, and to myself. The only thing I don’t know—the only thing—is whether I’m a good partner. I thought I was.” She looked at him, holding his gaze evenly, steadily. “And I was wrong. So, that’s the place where I don’t feel like I know anything, where I question what you see in me, where I question if I have what you think I have.”
“I believe you do,” he said. “I wish you did, too.”
She looked disgusted, whether it was at him for provoking her, or herself for realizing how far down the rabbit hole she’d let herself sink, he didn’t know. But when she looked at him, there was a fire there, one he couldn’t ever recall seeing.
But one he responded to, with every fiber of his being.
“Well,” she said, “I guess you’re right. There is only one way to find out.”
“How is that?”
“Lay it all on the line. Then just kiss the boy.”
And so she did.
Chapter 16
Q
uinn went still for approximately two earth-shattering seconds. Then he gripped the back of her head and kissed her back.
uinn went still for approximately two earth-shattering seconds. Then he gripped the back of her head and kissed her back.
He groaned against her mouth, and Riley gripped his head, slanted her mouth on his ... and jumped right off the cliff.
Quinn grinned against her open mouth. “Dead cat.”
“What?”
“Dead cat.” He kissed and nipped along her bottom lip, her jaw, making her tip her head back in thrilling wanton abandon, of which he took immediate and full advantage. “We should have known all along.” He punctuated the words with kisses, his hands very—very—busy. “We’re both too curious, by nature. . . not to find out.”
“Find out what?”
He turned and neatly backed her up against the wall. “This.” He dove straight back in, kissing her like a man not set on claiming, or languidly exploring, but going for every bit of gusto the two of them could muster.
She wanted to laugh, she wanted to howl at the moon, but most of all, she wanted him. “I’m still terrified,” she told him, gasping when he flicked the tip of his tongue over a sensitive spot on the side of her neck, moaning when he nipped the same spot, her body jerking in response to the sweetness in him ... and even more so to the savory. Or maybe that was the unsavory, she thought, riding a giddy high as his hands slid up her waist, his thumbs pressed against the center of her torso, his palms splayed wide, coming to stop just below the weight of her breasts.
“Join the club,” he readily agreed. “Better to not be alone in the dark, though, right?” He nudged the shoulder of her camp shirt open, and continued his seductive tyranny along her collarbone.
“Right.” The single word ended up a long, satisfied groan when he finally slid his thumbs up just a little higher, then dragged them across her painfully hard nipples.
She moaned in the back of her throat, and opened for him as he slid his tongue past her lips. The moan continued, long, low, almost a growl, as he rolled one nipple gently between his fingers. “I want these bared. I want to feel them, lick them, taste them.”
She shuddered—hard—against him, and he pushed up against her, making them groan when the rigid length of him pressed into all the softness of her.
He hiked her up on the wall, and she slid her knees up the outside of his thighs, to his hips, pressing tight. She whimpered when his fingers left her swollen nipples so he could slide his hand between the wall and the small of her back. That whimper turned to a grunt of raw heat when he arched her back and slid himself more fully between her thighs.
He made that growling noise again, and her hips bucked against him of their own volition. But he was too tall, and she couldn’t grip him tightly enough with her thighs to gain any real leverage to shift herself higher, to get herself where she most needed to be.
God, there was such a glorious freedom to be found in simply giving herself permission to stop thinking and only feel. Thinking had gotten her into panicked trouble, whereas feeling was getting her into rhapsodic amounts of pleasure. It wasn’t hard to do the math.
Now that she’d opened the floodgates, the hunger, the need, was voracious. She wanted to submerge herself in it, wallow, revel, swamp, drown. From everything he was doing and the sounds he was making, he was quite willing to let her pull him under with her.
“I can’t—reach—” She bucked against him.
He broke away from her mouth long enough to say, “Hold on to me.” The command was rough, but coated with all that warm honey, his accent having strengthened from the moment he’d pulled her into his arms.
She couldn’t let herself think about that. She couldn’t let herself think about anything. The only way she was going to scale that giant wall she’d spent two years so cautiously and thoroughly erecting was to go sailing over it on the wings of lust, and want, and need. And trust, not just him ... but herself. She’d either crash and burn all over again ... or hit the ground running.
She wrapped her legs around him without hesitation and thought,
I guess you’re going to find out!
I guess you’re going to find out!
He lifted her from the wall and kept her wrapped around his big, hard body. As it had before, the way he swept her up so effortlessly thrilled her straight down to her toes. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth back to hers.
He grunted in surprise, but when she started to pull back, he halted their progress long enough to turn his head, and take her mouth in a hot, hard kiss. “Remember where we left off,” he said, then tucked her against him and started for the stairs.
His foot had just hit the first riser when a knock came at the front door.
They froze, wobbling badly as Quinn turned them back around, Riley still wrapped around him.
The knock came again. “Yoo-hoo. It’s just me!”
Riley and Quinn looked a bit wildly at each other. “Alva?” Riley hissed. “Oh crap!” How had they forgotten all about the meeting? Well, she knew exactly how. “Put me down,” she told him, flustered to the extreme as she struggled to straighten her clothes and make a half-assed effort with her hair, which had to be totally wild. “Baxter and the crew should have been here ages ago.”
“I didn’t know Alva was coming,” Quinn said, straightening his own clothes, raking a hand through his hair, looking a bit wild and undone himself for a change.
“I’m sure I look like I’ve been ravaged—”
“And liked it,” he said with a grin.
She swatted at him, but her grin matched his.
“Why don’t you duck into the guest bathroom off the hall and I’ll find out what Our Lady of Untimely Interruptions wants?”
“Not untimely,” she corrected him. “Baxter and company should have already been here. If she hadn’t come by when she did, they could have walked in and found us—”
“Right.” Quinn’s eyes flashed all over again, and Riley had to fight the urge to fling herself at him and to hell with the rest.
“I’m going to need more than whatever is in the guest bathroom, but I’ll work with what I’ve got.”
Quinn wiggled his eyebrows as he slid a hot gaze over her. “Then you’ll be more than fine.”
The doorbell rang this time. “Hello? Anyone home?” Alva pressed the buzzer again.
Riley silently went through an entire string of swearwords. “Stall her, for at least a minute or two. And keep a lookout for the production trucks. Big white vans, three of them.”
“I think I can manage that.” He snagged her arm as she went to dash off, spinning her neatly around right back up against him. He planted a sizzling hot, very short, but incredibly intent kiss on her mouth.
When he lifted his head, she dazedly asked, “What was that for?”
“We’re not done with this ... conversation. No ducking back behind barriers and stuff.”
She surprised him, and herself, by smiling right back at him. “Like that’s going to keep you out anyway. I don’t know why I bothered trying.”
His smile curved slowly into a deep, incredibly sexy grin. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. Just a couple of dead cats.”
She swatted him again, then tugged him down by his shirtfront for a fast, hard kiss of her own. Then she did something completely out of character for her, but hell ... fair was fair. He’d put his hands all over her, hadn’t he? Before she lost her nerve, she impulsively ran a hand down his chest ... resting it on his belt buckle as her thumb caressed just below. His body twitched, and he jerked her against him. She slid her tongue in his mouth, and pushed it and her hips against him at the same time, before releasing him and stepping back.
“Get the door, smart guy,” she said, panting as hard as he was, enjoying immensely the somewhat stunned, glazed look in his eyes. She knew the feeling. “And give me two minutes.”
She ducked out, but heard him say quite clearly, “Oh, I’m pretty sure you’re going to get all the time from me that you need.”
“What in the hell did you just do, Riley Brown?” she murmured on a breathless laugh as she swung into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. “What in the
hell
did you just go and do?” But she was grinning like a loon when she said it.
hell
did you just go and do?” But she was grinning like a loon when she said it.
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