Chapter Seven
Lark drew her knees up to her chest and looked out the window. She was sitting on her bed, sleepless, and pouting like a child. Over her own actions.
Guilt was like a wild animal, eating at her. She’d never experienced anything like it before. Not on this level. Vague guilt over doing the wrong things as child. A little bit of silly, adult guilt over her sexy chat time online.
But not this. Not this intense, unending pain that made her feel heavy, tired and yet unable to sleep.
So she was just sitting there, in bed, wide awake and angry. At Quinn, at herself. Because she still wanted him. She wanted more of what they’d shared, more of the fire and need and lust that burned so hot she was sure it had left scorch marks on the bottoms of her shoes. But it was impossible.
She hated that she wanted it. She hated that she couldn’t have it.
She was just unhappy in general.
She scooted to the edge of the bed and planted her feet on the floor, a heavy sigh escaping her lips. She was such a mess. She stood and crossed the room, hesitating at the door before turning the knob and walking out into the hall. There was no one around. Cole and Cade’s doors were firmly closed and the lights were off downstairs.
She sighed and went down the stairs, not sure why she was doing this instead of playing a video game until she passed out. Maybe because stupid Quinn had made her conscious of the fact that she did so much inside. Maybe because he’d made her hungry for different tastes, different textures. For touch.
At least outside the air would be sweet like hay, and the breeze would blow across her skin. Maybe that would take some of the intense pressure off of her chest. Maybe it would make her feel less restless. Bring her some satisfaction. She doubted it, but it was worth a shot.
She pushed open the front door and walked out onto the porch, breathing in the cool air. Nope. It didn’t do a thing to satisfy the ache inside her. Didn’t give her the sensory experience she was seeking.
The porch swing creaked, and Lark whipped her head around. There was a pale, person-shaped shadow sitting there that she couldn’t place.
“Kelsey?”
“No, sorry. Jill.”
“Oh,” Lark said.
“I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just . . . I’m hiding, so it’s best to be quiet when you’re hiding, right?”
“Who are you hiding from?” she asked.
She heard the other woman shifting. “My husband, actually.”
“Oh.” Lark leaned over and flipped a switch by the wall that turned on a string of rope lights that lined the perimeter of the porch. “Sorry, I know you’re hiding, but it would be easier if we could see each other.”
“That’s okay.” She smiled—a thin smile, like all the smiles Lark had seen on her face.
“So . . . why are you hiding from your husband?”
“We had a fight. Last night. We’ve been avoiding each other all day, and I was in the mood to keep up with the avoidance.”
Lark sighed and sat in a chair opposite the porch swing. “I’m trying to hide from me, but unfortunately, it’s not really working.”
Jill laughed. “Now that you mention it, I think I’d rather hide from me than from Sam, but like you, I’m stuck with me, so it can’t happen.”
“Why do you want to hide from you?”
“You first. I already confessed I’m hiding from my husband of twenty-three years. Next embarrassing confession is all you.”
“I kissed a man I shouldn’t have kissed,” she said, her heart thundering in her ears. “And it can’t happen again. But I want it to happen again. I can’t stop thinking about him, but I should.”
“Why is he a wrong choice? Is he married or dating someone else?”
“No.”
“Then what’s wrong with him?”
“It’s . . . my brothers wouldn’t approve. At all. In fact, I can kind of see it ruining my relationship with them, and I don’t want that. It’s . . . complicated.”
“Do you love him?”
“No,” Lark shook her head. “No. I just . . . want him. And maybe that’s wrong. I don’t even know if I like him.”
“But you want him?”
“Yes,” she said, her face getting hot. “And I’ve never . . . I don’t have experience with this. With men. With wanting men. I don’t understand how I can want him when I know I shouldn’t. When I know I don’t like him.”
Jill let out a long sigh. “Love is complicated. It’s not magic. Not a thing you just fall into and stay in forever because you felt it once. It’s something you have to work at. It’s something you have to remind yourself to do, because it’s not just a feeling, it’s an action. But . . . sex is magic. It can be. Sometimes you meet someone and there’s a spark, and it doesn’t matter if you like them or even know them. The man you want isn’t always the man you should want. Sometimes sex brings people together and sometimes it tears them apart. It’s one of the strongest connections two people can have. And when it’s not there, it can start . . . breaking down everything else.”
Lark got the feeling Jill was mainly talking to herself, but in there, she heard words she needed to hear. Sex was a force that was bigger than reason.
“Is there a man you want that you shouldn’t?” Lark asked.
Jill shook her head. “No. There was. About twenty-five years ago. A cowboy. And my mom warned me that he would break my heart. I was eighteen when I met him, and I didn’t know him, but I wanted him. With every bit of myself. We had nothing in common. Except that we couldn’t bear to be apart.”
“You married him though, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “Yeah. And that’s the moral of that story. Sex can make you fall in love, too.”
Lark recoiled. “I don’t want that.”
“That’s one of the hazards of good sex.”
“Well, maybe he’s not any good.”
Jill laughed. “Are you actually hoping he’s not?”
“I told you, I don’t want to fall in love.” She bit her lip. “Did you like Sam when you met him? More than just . . . sexually.”
Jill nodded slowly. “I didn’t at first. Because he was arrogant and dumb, and he drank beer from a Solo cup. But then he smiled at me and things changed. I thought the sun rose and set on that smile. And then . . . well, then I slept with him. My first time, incidentally. And my world felt . . . changed. I thought there had never been a funnier, more gentle man created. Well, then I liked him a lot.”
“Well, I don’t like . . . the man I kissed. So maybe my odds of falling for him are low.”
“Maybe.”
The corners of Jill’s mouth turned down, the lines that bracketed her lips deepening. Lark looked down at her hands. “I’ve never had anyone to talk to this stuff about, so I’m sorry I’m attacking you with my questions.”
“That’s fine. I have a daughter who’s about four years younger than you. And honestly, if she were asking me these questions, I’d put her in a turtleneck and send her to an all girl’s school, but . . . but with you maybe I see more of myself. And now . . . after being married as long as I have . . . I’d sort of kill for the chance to have a wild fling. But my fling days are over. My big fling turned into a husband who hogs the covers and thinks ‘New sweater?’ is a compliment.”
“Another point against love.”
“I’m sort of the Scrooge of love at the moment.” She grimaced. “Bah humbug, and things like that.”
“I’m Scroogey re: love, too,” Lark said. “I’m just . . . in the throes of that magical sexual attraction thing. Inconvenient.”
“Yeah, it can be. Love is a choice; attraction is like getting hit by a train. But you can ignore it if you have to.”
“And I have to.” Lark paused for a second. “So, Sam was your big fling, huh?”
“He was.”
“Do you mind telling me what happened? I mean . . . what happened to bring you to hiding on my porch swing near midnight.”
Jill shook her head. “The thing is, it wasn’t one thing that happened. I think . . . I think he stopped smiling as much. That smile that used to make me feel like he was holding my heart. And then I stopped looking for ways to make him smile.”
“Forgive me, because, frankly, virgin here. But sex made you fall in love, right?”
Jill laughed. “Um, yeah, it was a part of it.”
“And . . .”
“And we haven’t had it for a while. It’s been even longer since we’ve had magic sex.”
“Maybe you need magic sex?”
Jill stood up and stretched. “Maybe. But you don’t really want to jump a guy who doesn’t seem that interested anymore. And especially considering how pissed he was at me last night, I’m not getting any anytime soon.” She paused. “Thanks.”
“For?”
“For asking,” she said. “Not very many people want to talk to an old married lady about her problems. My friends back home certainly don’t. They just want to pretend they don’t see my problems. Because if they did, they might see theirs in there somewhere.”
“Thank you for talking to me.”
“No problem, Lark. Good night.” Jill headed down the porch steps and disappeared into the darkness, and Lark stayed in the chair on the deck.
Sometimes you meet someone and there’s a spark, and it doesn’t matter if you like them or even know them.
Yep, that’s exactly how it was with Quinn. It was that little touch of magic that transcended common sense. Damn man and his magic hands. And lips. And body. That was why. He was just too hot to be real. And she had a bad case of lust.
But unlike Jill had been, she wasn’t eighteen. She wasn’t naive. Not completely. Sure, she was a virgin, but only physically. She’d really steamed up the computer monitor with Aaron. She knew stuff. Desire, and orgasms and stuff.
She hadn’t fallen for Aaron. She had, in fact, been quite annoyed with his trying to make small talk when all she’d wanted was a little bit of an illicit thrill. So there. She’d sort of technically already used a man for only sex.
Her brain replayed the day’s kiss in her mind, a heady reminder of just how different, how much more intense, a simple kiss had been in comparison to a virtual shag.
She stood and let out her breath in one big gust. Didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to do anything about it. And she wasn’t going to feel guilty either. She was just a victim of the magic of sexual attraction, that was all.
Like Jill had said, she couldn’t help that she’d been hit by it, but she didn’t have to chase after it. So she wouldn’t. She could ignore it. She could keep on working with Quinn like it had never happened.
Maybe. Probably.
Definitely. Because there was no other choice. She was still locked into a contract, and there was no way in hell she was ever, ever, ever kissing him again.
***
Jill opened the door to the cabin and closed it quietly, just in case Sam was asleep. She flipped on the lamp that was on the desk and started taking her sweater off.
“Hey.”
She looked up at the sound of her husband’s voice, rough, loud in the silence of the room. He was sitting in the chair by the bed, full dressed, still in his boots and hat.
“Hi,” she said, straightening.
“I have something I need to say to you.”
She felt the world tilt under her feet, felt like reality was breaking into little pieces and falling away slowly. And she knew that in a moment there would be nothing left to hold her up, because in that moment, that long moment of silence, she guessed what his next words would be.
He wanted a divorce.
Her worst fear. The reason she’d never confessed how bad it was for her. The real reason she’d never wanted to talk about their problems. For fear he would decide they were just too big. For fear it would make him want to give up.
And it was about to happen.
“What?” she asked, her lips cold.
“You are so f*cking sexy.”
“What?” She’d never once heard her husband say something like that before. Ever.
“It’s the honest truth,” he continued, “I don’t know how I missed telling you that, every day, from the moment I met you. But I did. One day, honey, I forgot to tell you. And then I just kept on forgetting, and even though I thought it, even though I never thought differently, I didn’t tell you. So I’m telling you now, because I’ve made a damn mess of this. Of our life. And I want to try and clean it up.”
“Sam . . .”
He stood up and crossed the room to where she was standing, his slate-gray eyes burning into hers. And she saw, not the boy she’d fallen in love with, but the man he’d become. The man she hadn’t looked at closely in years.
If she met this man in a bar, she wouldn’t be able to say no to him. In that way, she hadn’t changed. Not since she was eighteen.
“No, I have to say it. You need to know. You need to know that I regret the distance between us. That when I’m on the road I lie awake at night hard as hell thinking about you, about being in your arms. And being where we’ve been the past couple of years? With this distance between us even when we’re in the same room? It’s like an endless hell. To come home to you and still not be with you.”
“Y . . . you . . . I didn’t know . . . how come you didn’t—”
He pulled her up against him and kissed her. Deep and hard. Thorough. The kind of kiss that she’d consigned to a box of memories. It was so full of longing, of regret, of intense, dark need.
And she fought against it. Because they weren’t this close anymore. Because it had been so long. Because she didn’t know him anymore.
“Kiss me, baby,” he said, his voice rough. He cupped her face, tracing the lines around her mouth with his thumbs. “Kiss me like you mean it.”
She closed her eyes tight, tears leaking out and rolling down her cheeks, and kissed him back. Kissed him with all the truth he was asking for. With all of her anger and frustration, all of her desire.
And when they parted, she was breathing hard, shaking. “Shouldn’t we talk first?”
“We can talk,” he said. “We can talk about how beautiful you look. How hard you make me. How much I want to see you naked, suck on those gorgeous breasts of yours.”
She blushed. She honest to goodness blushed in front of her husband. “People . . . people like us don’t say things like that.”
“Maybe that’s the problem. Because damn it, woman, you thought I didn’t want you. You had to get your compliments from another man. When I’m done, you’ll know how much I want you. And his emails won’t mean anything.”
“Is that what this is about?”
“Hell. Yes. No other man is going to say that stuff to you. Because you’re mine.”
And for some reason, that simple statement, the one that should have offended her, made her want to cling to him and weep. Because he did want her. Still. He wasn’t indifferent.
“See what you do to me?” He took her hand and put it against the hard ridge of his cock, and a thrill shot through her.
“I do.” She squeezed him, pressed her palm against his heavy length. And then she forgot to be angry, or worry about all the baggage.
“Look at me,” he said. And she did. She felt like she was seeing him for the first time in years. His face, changed by years, lines around his eyes, his expression one of complete hunger and need. For her.
“Always,” she said.
“I’m an ass,” he said. “And I’m sorry. But otherwise, we’re done talking for now.”
He swept her up into his arms and carried her to the bed, setting her down in the center of it. He took his hat off and put it on the nightstand, and tugged his shirt up over his head. He was still in great shape, still the kind of man who took her breath away. It was more than abs, though he still had them. It was just him. The raw masculinity, the strength. The kind that came from inside.
And she should tell him. Because what had she done for his ego lately? Nothing. She’d been too wrapped up in her own little world of hurt that she’d refused to share with him. That she’d refused to help him fix.
“You’re still the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. You made me lose my head when I was eighteen, and you’re making me lose my head right now.”
He joined her on the bed and pressed his forehead to hers, kissing her on the lips. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that, baby.”
“And I can’t remember the last time you called me baby.”
“Do you like it?” She nodded. “Good.”
He kissed her lips, her neck, his hand working the button on her jeans and drifting down, inside her panties, stroking her slick skin. “Oh . . . Sam.”
“That’s right. Don’t forget that it’s me, Jill.”
“Sam,” she said again, and he increased his pace, stroking her, taking her to heaven. Because he knew just how to touch her, this man who, in some ways, seemed like a stranger, but knew her body better than she did.
“That’s right. You’re my wife,” he said, his voice rough, his hand firm and sure. “Mine.”
“Yes,” she said.
He stripped their clothes off of them, the desperation in his movements exciting, new. Something she hadn’t experienced in years. And it was with her husband. And he’d been here the whole time. She just hadn’t seen his desire. And he hadn’t seen hers.
He thrust into her, hard. She gasped and he covered her mouth with his, his pace demanding, intense, and she did her very best to match him. Lust, desire, rose up inside of her, along with a feeling of connection, of love, so bittersweet, so filled with imperfection and desperation, so overpowering it made her want to weep.
“Sam,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say. She said it over and over again as he moved inside of her, as she kissed his face, his mouth.
“Yes, baby,” he said, his voice rough. “Yes.”
And for the first time in two years, they were on the same page. They rode the wave together and went over the edge into oblivion.
***
It was a freaking embarrassment. Quinn Parker was lying awake in bed with the hard-on from hell, and it was all Lark Mitchell’s fault. Lark Mitchell and her clumsy kisses that spoke of a woman who had less experience than he’d initially imagined.
A woman who might be more easily wounded than he’d imagined. A woman who, inexplicably, in spite of her fumbling, seemed to have a power over him he couldn’t harness or define.
Damn.
She’d seemed shocked when he’d slipped his tongue between her lips. And then she’d melted into him. Clung to him. Kissed him back with an enthusiasm that was so raw and genuine it had nearly brought him to his knees.
Hell, in the end she had brought him to his knees. He’d been ready to strip their clothes off then and there.
He swallowed and cursed his dry throat. Another discomfort to add to the ones he was already struggling with. The woman was a menace. She should come with a list of side effects tattooed to her forehead. Lark Mitchell: Known to cause sweating, dizziness, erections lasting longer than four hours and dry mouth.
Even then, he had a feeling he would have ignored them. And he’d be in the same hell he was in now.
After another hour, he gave up and consigned himself to the inevitable. If he couldn’t have Lark with him in bed for real, he would have her in his fantasies.
His last hazy thought as he wrapped his hand around his cock, before losing himself completely in arousal, was that this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He wasn’t supposed to want her like this.
That wasn’t what this kind of seduction was about. It was about giving himself another weapon. Giving himself more power.
But as he shuddered out his release with her name on his lips, he didn’t feel like he had more power. He felt wholly unmanned. And so satisfied he would wait until morning to feel any regret.