Chapter Eight
Lark was determined not to seem affected the next time she saw Quinn. Because he didn’t deserve her blushes. He didn’t deserve her wanton fantasies and desires. And yeah, he had them, but as she’d discussed with Jill, sometimes that sort of thing just happened.
But she was going to make a conscious decision to make sure it didn’t just keep happening anymore. Because one kiss was enough. More than enough.
Had it only been one kiss? It had seemed like a lot more. Did you count kisses in the amount of times a man leaned in? Or did you count it by length of the kiss? Did each thirty seconds roll over into a new one? She had no idea.
But, even with her limited knowledge on the subject she was determined to be cool. Which was why she could have cussed a blue streak when she saw him the next day and felt her face get hotter than blazes.
All intentions of playing it cool were totally not noted and followed by her body. Little slutty betrayer. Her body was in full-on skank mode, and no matter how much she scolded it, it just shook its tushie and kept on with the lurid thoughts.
She hadn’t known her inner hussy was so intense.
“Mornin’, Lark.” Quinn rested his hand on one of the desks, an infuriating grin on his face. Infuriating, because he was doing the “playing it cool” thing, and she was sure she was brighter than a road flare.
“Good morning, Quinn,” she said, schooling her voice so that it came out level and calm instead of shaky and filled with all her inner flail.
“And how is your Great Firewall shaping up?”
“Great,” she said. In spite of yesterday’s interruptions. “Things are starting to form. We’ll be ready for the boys soon, I think.”
“Great. And when you’re done with that, it’s time to start working on setting up the staff stuff.”
“Joy.”
“Beyond that, you think you’re up for doing basic computer things with the boys?”
“Didn’t I tell you I know all about men? Guess what? Teenage boys aren’t any different.”
“Is that what you think?”
She tapped her temple. “That’s what I know.”
“Tell me what you know,” he said, crossing his arms over his broad chest, leaning back against one of the desks.
She put her hand flat on the desk she was nearest to and leaned against it, trying to look casual. She had a feeling she was walking right into a trap, but she was too stubborn to back down. “I told you yesterday that men are predictable. And then you proved to be predictable.” Oh, that’s a nice bear trap there, why don’t I just walk right into it?
“I was predictable?” He arched a brow. “Women have called me a lot of things, baby, but predictable isn’t one of them. Except for yesterday—you called me that yesterday. But no other women have.”
“Maybe because they care about your ego and I don’t?”
“Possibly. Continue.”
“Well, you went for the obvious. You went for the physical. That’s how men are. It’s how they are from the time they’re thirteen and they never change. I was raised by my older brothers, like I said. And that means I’ve seen a whole lot of that ‘male’ thing. And I’m neither intimidated by it nor impressed by it.”
“But you are turned on by it.”
She sputtered, then recovered and tried to affect a casual posture. “Eh . . . pffft. Whatever. Not . . . no.”
“I didn’t turn you on yesterday when I kissed you?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“So you put your tongue in my mouth for fun?”
“Well . . .” She pushed off from the desk and put her hands on her hips, trying to ignore her burning cheeks. “It’s not . . . it’s a . . . biology . . . thing. And . . . just like men are programmed to look at boobs and go for the kiss, women are programmed to respond to the kiss. And yes, be . . . turned on, if you will, but it’s not anything to pitch a tent over, Parker. Nothing flattering.”
He chuckled. “You’re edging into protesting too much, Mitchell.”
“Just don’t get all chest beat-y over the fact that I kissed you back for, like, a flipping minute. It’s just that natural man-woman thing and you know full well it can’t happen again and why.”
“You really want to hate me, don’t you?” he asked.
“Well, yeah.”
“But you don’t.”
She turned to face the computer she’d been working on and tapped mindlessly on the keys, ignoring his statement.
“Careful, Lark, I might take your lack of stating you hate me with a fiery passion as a compliment.”
“I hate you,” she said, fully aware there was no venom in her voice.
“Once more, with feeling.”
“I hate you, you jackass. Now can I get back to work?”
“In a minute.”
She tapped her fingers on the desk and shot Quinn the evil eye, while trying to keep him out of focus so she wouldn’t be assaulted by his good looks. “Is there something I’m not doing to your satisfaction?”
“No, I’m just enjoying talking with you.”
“Why? I’m insulting you and generally being a jerk. You should want to leave.”
“But I don’t. That could be because I’m predictably male and enjoying the way your ass looks when you bend over the desks.”
She whipped around to face him fully, her eyes wide. “That’s it. Inappropriate times a billion. Not okay. Did I not make it totally, and completely clear that you were never, ever, to kiss me again?”
“Did I kiss you?”
“No! But you said things. And you know that that’s off-limits, because the only reason for you to say anything would be so that you could kiss me again.”
“If that’s what you think . . .”
“What? You’re going to try and say I’m full of myself?”
“No, I was going to say your imagination is sadly lacking if all you think I’m after is a kiss.”
Her mouth opened, then snapped back shut. She couldn’t think of what to say. “You know?” she said finally. “I am attracted to you. Fine. So I admitted it. Great. I am attracted to you. But I have the decency to keep it to myself, rather than bleeding it all over you.”
“Maybe I want it all over me.”
“But I don’t!” she said. “And you know why.”
“Because you think the worst about me.”
“Because no matter what you did, my brother would see it as a betrayal if I were with you. And frankly, I don’t want to be with a man who might have done the things he thinks you did. Or the man who did the things you freely admit to. So there.”
“You have a lot of opinions about who I am.”
“Yes. I do.”
“Are any of them based in reality?”
“Um . . . yeah. Yeah, they are. You told me you’ve done bad things. And I believe your assessment of that. So now, in addition to that, I know you tricked me into taking a contract with you. And then not only did you do that, you’re one grope away from a sexual harassment lawsuit, and also . . . you’re . . . you’re . . .”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Stuff. I don’t like you. I just don’t.”
His eyes traced her figure, so noticeably she felt it like a physical touch. “You look at me a lot for a woman who doesn’t like me.”
“Your looks aren’t as disagreeable as your disposition,” she said, sniffing.
“Nice to know,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “But I’m disagreeable?”
“Yes. For all of the aforementioned reasons—and plus, we’re not compatible.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
He shifted and rubbed his chin with his hand. “I’ll take a list of reasons why.”
“Fine. You . . . you don’t look at relationships the same way I do.”
“How so?”
“Well, are you even going to pretend you haven’t gotten off with every buckle bunny who ever batted her lashes at you?”
“Nope. Not for a second.”
“See, there’s my point. I don’t do sex for the sake of sex.” She felt her cheeks burn, because the statement was misleading on many counts. The first being that she’d never had actual sex, the second being that she’d had cybersex simply for the sake of getting off, so she was a fake prude and a hypocrite.
“Really? Never?”
She shook her head, digging her heels right into her lie. “No.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” she said. “Because . . . because I just don’t behave that way.”
“Why not?”
“Unlike some people, I don’t go around looking for rewards via bad behavior, okay?”
A grin turned up the corners of his mouth. “Is that so?” He pushed off from the desk and started to walk away from her, heading toward the exit. Then he paused and turned back to her. “Well, let me know if you’re ever looking for a reward for bad behavior. Because if you give me about fifteen minutes . . . I bet I could reward your bad behavior twice. Maybe even three times.”
Her face went up in flames. “You think awfully highly of yourself,” she said.
He shook his head. “Nope. I’m just sure of the chemistry we have between us.”
“Chemistry?”
“You know, like when you put baking soda and vinegar in one of those papier-maché volcanoes?”
“Yes.”
“That’s you and me, baby.”
“You’d be the vinegar.”
“Sure,” he said. “But that’s beside the point. We’re . . .”
“Combustible.” She finished his sentence without thinking.
“Glad you agree.”
“I . . . I . . .”
He tipped his hat and stepped out the door. “See you later.”
“I don’t agree!” she shouted, even though he wasn’t there anymore. “I was just finishing the thought on your lame metaphor.”
She turned back around and face the computer, grumbling and blushing furiously. Well, this had not gone at all well. Nope. Not well at all.
So much for playing it cool. In her defense, it was too hard to play it cool when the guy was so darn hot.
She blew out an exasperated breath. She just had to get over it. Stick her head in a bucket of ice or whatever she had to do in order to ignore it.
Because ignore it she would. Yes, she would.
***
It was getting dark when Lark emerged from the computer lab again, and there was no one around. The kitchen was empty, the other parts of the school were empty. The cabins were empty. She could just leave. She didn’t have to go and let anyone know she was heading out.
And so she wouldn’t. So there. Problem solved.
She walked down the path and toward the parking area and stopped, frozen. There was a tractor parked in front of her car, and a truck parked behind it.
“Awww, man.” She grimaced and looked around. There was no one out there. No one around at all. She knew the truck belong to Kevin, one of the work hands, but she hadn’t seen him anywhere.
And she had no idea who was responsible for the big-ass tractor.
She looked around again, feeling helpless and annoyed. She was blocked in, and there was no one readily on hand. And that meant she would be taking a trek to the big house. To see the boss man. Who she badly wanted to avoid because, gosh darnit, he was driving her insane with his smirks and his knowing looks and his sexy pecs, which she was so freaking aware of, even when he wore a shirt.
That image of him on that first day, half naked with his muscles so very, very there, and his tattoo, so enticing and only serving to enhance the look of his bicep, was burned into her brain, and she couldn’t seem to excise it.
No. In fact, it had become a watermark over her vision. So that when she was looking at Quinn, even while fully clothed, that was what she saw. Hell, when she was looking at other things entirely it seemed to be what she saw, and the whole thing was driving her insane.
She was a traitor of the most epic proportions.
She forced all erotic Quinn-based images aside and stalked toward the main house, praying that someone who wasn’t Quinn would be around, and that they would be the one to answer the door.
She took a deep breath and knocked, waiting, her stomach tightening more and more. Each passing second injecting her with more adrenaline, more ridiculous nervousness—she wouldn’t call it excitement—over who was going to answer the door.
And when the door did swing open, and it was Quinn, shirtless and in low-slung jeans that showed those lines, whatever they were called, the ones that formed into an arrow, pointing right down to a point of extreme interest, the lines that turned smart girls stupid. Yep, those lines. And then, beyond them, abs. That chest.
And she suddenly forgot how to talk when she came to the tattoo again. The tattoo that seemed to be the embodiment of him. A horse. Its mane flowing in the wind, the expression on its face one of terrible fury. It was anger, and wildness. It was Quinn.
And when she looked into his eyes, she saw all of that and more.
“I . . . I’m blocked in,” she said finally, wondering how much time had passed between when he’d opened the door and when she’d finally spoken.
He looked her over quickly. “You don’t look blocked in.”
“Not me,” she said. “My car. I can’t go anywhere because there’s a truck parked in my way.”
“Whose truck?”
“Kevin’s.”
“I thought he left a long time ago. After dinner. About the same time as Sandy.” A smile crossed his face. “Yeah, I’m betting they not so sneakily left together.”
“Argh! Well, what am I supposed to do? What about the tractor?”
He arched a brow. “What tractor?”
“The one that’s in front of me. My car is the meat in a hillbilly sandwich. I’ve got Ford behind me and John Deere in front, and I can’t go anywhere.”
“I probably have the keys for the tractor.”
“Well, can you move it so I can leave?”
“I could.” He stood there still, a big wall of muscle, unmoving.
“Well, will you?”
He smiled. “Sure, darlin’. Come on in while I get the keys.”
“Darlin’, my ass,” she muttered as she waited for him to move away from the door, then stepped inside the house.
It was truly a thing of beauty. There was some furniture in it now, a big sectional with slatted wooden details on the side that matched the beams on the walls and the vaulted ceiling.
She stood with her hands behind her while Quinn went down the hall and rummaged around for a while.
“The place looks nice,” she said, feeling the need to fill the silence so it wouldn’t get all full of awkward.
“Thanks,” he called back. “It’s starting to shape up, anyway.” He came back from where he was and into the kitchen. “I won’t be living here, not once things get going. I’ll be hiring someone to live here full-time. Oversee, caretake. But not just yet.”
“It looks like the kind of place you would live,” she said.
“You think?” he asked.
He was still shirtless. And it was all distracting.
“Well, yeah. It’s rugged and . . . outdoorsy.”
His lips quirked up into a half smile. “You think I’m rugged and outdoorsy?”
“It’s not a compliment, it’s an observation. Stop looking so thrilled with yourself.”
“I took it as a compliment. It’s a positive observation, so it seems like it counts.”
“Doesn’t.”
“Well, I’m going to go and move the tractor.”
“Great. Thanks.”
“Wait in the warmth,” he said, walking out the front door, shirtless still, leaving her standing there in the entry by herself.
She paced from there into the living area and looked out the windows, mainly seeing her reflection in the glass. She was still feeling weirdly buzzed, like she’d started feeling when she’d knocked on the door.
Or, if she was honest, like she’d been feeling since he kissed her yesterday.
It was just a whole bunch of hard-up virgin nonsense. She’d left it too long. But there was seriously no guy in town she wanted to get freaky with. There had been Tyler. She’d thought she had a chance with him, not for marriage and babies, but at least for sex. And then he’d gone and gotten his stupid head married to another woman.
This was all Tyler’s fault.
Okay, kind of a stretch to blame yesterday’s ill-advised make-out session on a guy who didn’t even live in town anymore, but whatever. It was so much easier than blaming herself.
The front door opened again and Quinn came in. “Won’t start.”
“What?”
“It won’t start. Actually, per the note on the dash, that’s why it’s there. It needs to be serviced. Sorry.”
She flung her hands into the air. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Call your brother to have him come and pick you up?”
“No,” she said. “No.”
“Have me drop you off?”
She pictured Cade or Cole walking out and catching her with Quinn. “Probably not.”
“Your brothers still don’t know I’m your boss, do they?”
“No.”
“How about this, I’ll drop you off, but I’ll do it far from the house. Will that work?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“As much as I would love to be there when your brother finds out you’re working for me, I’m not in the mood to get punched in the face.”
Quinn honestly didn’t know how he was going to play this. She was trapped. Which made him feel the urge to twirl a mustache he didn’t have. He could drive her home and make sure her brother saw them. But that would shatter things a little bit earlier than he intended.
Because she wasn’t seduced yet.
And then there was the option of getting her to stay here. But there was no way to pose that scenario without sounding completely lascivious and generally untrustworthy.
He was both, which also made it difficult to sound like anything else.
“Figure it out, baby. It’s either bunking down with me or taking a ride.” She lifted her thumb to her lips and started gnawing on the nail. “Third option, you can hitchhike and hope you don’t get eaten by wolves,” he added, his tone dry.
“Oh . . . wow. The wolves are tempting.”
“Oh really?”
“Less dangerous.”
“They have big teeth,” he said.
“So do you.”
He looked at her, at the slow blush spreading over her pale skin. “All the better to eat you with.”
And he pictured it. Tasting her. Spreading her thighs and savoring her flavor, delving deep. He took a step toward her, and he was sure every one of his graphic fantasies was written on his face.
She gasped, which turned into a choke, and gave some validity to that thought. “Yes. The wolves. I think I’ll hitchhike. If I get eaten, tell everyone I fought valiantly and kept my dignity.”
“You are not hitchhiking,” he said. The image of her, out there in the dark all by herself, made him nervous and edgy. It surprised him. Surprised him that it made him feel anything. That he cared at all. But he did. “I’ll take you back to your brother’s house, and I’ll drop you off and make sure he doesn’t know it’s me. Okay?”
“And how will I get to work in the morning?”
“I can pick you up in the same spot I drop you off at.”
“And what will I say happened to my car?”
“The truth. Hillbilly sandwich. Coworkers who are so busy screwing each other they don’t realize when they do things like leave their trucks somewhere they might be blocking people in.”
“Fine,” she said. “But he’s going to think it’s weird if you don’t come in to talk to him, won’t he?”
“No, I think it’s weird he would need me to. You’re a grown woman.”
She looked down, then back up. “Yeah, I know.”
“You don’t have to ask his permission, and you don’t need him to meet your employer, right?”
“Right.”
“Trust me, he’ll like it better than you getting eaten by wolves.”
She held up her hand and made a small measurement with her thumb and forefinger. “Marginally, if he knew who was driving me. All right. Let’s go. And put a shirt on, for heaven’s sake.”
“You don’t want me to drive you home shirtless?” he asked.
Lark rolled her eyes. “Could you be more redneck?”
“I reckon.”
“Oh, go put a shirt on.”
Her gaze drifted to his chest. He liked that. She was not very subtle when it came to checking him out, and that made him hot. All over. He was used to women who gave coy glances and looked at him with hooded eyes. All very much a game.
But Lark wasn’t playing a game. She didn’t want to look at him, but she did. She didn’t want him to notice, and yet she was so obvious, so unpracticed, he couldn’t help but notice that she was.
He walked into the kitchen and grabbed his black t-shirt from the bar stool and shrugged it over his head. When he looked back at her, she was watching him again. And she whipped her head away quickly, as if that would somehow make him think she’d been staring at the front door the whole time.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.” He grabbed his keys from the wall and opened the door, following her outside and leading the way down to where his truck was parked.
Lark didn’t wait for him to open the door for her, she just jerked it open herself and climbed in, buckling and staring straight ahead, her hands in her lap, her jaw set.
He got in the driver’s side and started the engine. The close confines of the truck affected him a lot more than he’d imagined. He was used to picking up women. At rodeos, bars, whatever. And often he drove them to the hotels where they had their one-night stand, but he didn’t remember the cab of his truck ever feeling like this.
Like all the air had been sucked out of it.
The truck was the kind that had a bench seat. He used it for ranch work, and it was older, not like the newer truck he had back in Texas. Until now, he’d missed his more plush ride with its leather interior and engine that didn’t growl like a feral beast. Right now he didn’t miss it so much, because right now he was fantasizing about all kinds of ways a bench seat could be used.
It made his palms sweat. Made him hard. Make him shake. What was it about Lark Mitchell that turned him into the horny, insecure high school boy he’d never been?
He’d never been the kind of guy to sweat over a woman. He’d attracted them from the time he’d first started growing facial hair. Women who were older. Who liked a bad attitude and a dirty mouth. Never a woman like Lark, with her air of innocence and sweetness.
Not that she was all sweet. Hell no. She was sweet and tart, which made her way more enticing.
She wasn’t pure innocence either. There was an edge of earthiness to her. One that he badly wanted to see more of. He wondered how much of it she’d discovered? Wondered if a man had ever really taken the time to awaken all the passion he knew she had simmering under the surface.
Immediately, he hated any man who’d ever tried and left her unsatisfied. But then, if he’d found out there’d been a man who’d satisfied her completely, he would have hated him too.
He would have cheerfully wrapped his hands around that man’s neck and squeezed.
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel in response and maneuvered the truck onto the road.
“So . . . things going well?” she asked. “Things getting . . . set up and stuff?”
“Yes. This is terrible small talk. It’s small talk we’ve already had, in fact,” he said.
“Oh. Well, should I say something else?”
“Yeah, why don’t you say something real?”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged his shoulders, his hands still on the wheel. “I don’t know. You don’t like me, right?” He thought he might check in case it had changed.
“Right.”
“So, how about this. There’s nothing you could say that would ruin our relationship. Because you already know I won’t fire you. You don’t like me, you don’t care if I like you. Seems like we’re in a good position to have some honesty between us.”
The irony of that statement, considering his plans, wasn’t lost on him. And he wasn’t sure why he even wanted her to tell him something. To build closeness? As part of the seduction? Maybe, but that wasn’t why he’d asked. He had no idea why he’d asked. He just had.
“So what? This is like a cone of silence?”
“Yeah, why not? Who would I tell?”
“And why are we doing this?”
“Because it’s better than this meaningless, bland garbage. I’ve had my tongue in your mouth. It seems stupid with that considered.”
“What, so I somehow owe you honesty because I acted like an idiot and kissed you?”
“Just thought you might like a chance to say something.”
She hesitated. “Fine. I love my brothers. I love my life at Elk Haven and I’m not ready to leave it. Because the world scares me. With that in mind, I know a lot of what I’m going to say next seems hypocritical and ungrateful, but we don’t like each other already, so who cares if you know?” She tapped her fingers on the window. “I feel like I’m suffocating there sometimes. There are too many ghosts. Cade and Cole mean well, but I can’t do anything without them butting in. It’s a lot of work trying to keep them happy. I spend so much time trying to keep them happy that I’m not exactly sure what might make me happy. I do stuff on the computer, and that’s all me. It’s secret and it’s mine. But that’s the only place I don’t . . . I don’t worry about what they think.”
He chuckled. “That’s funny. I spent a long time trying so hard to piss my family off that I didn’t know what I liked either. I just did things to make them mad, because I wanted the result. A lot more than I wanted what I was doing specifically. Either way, doing things for other people is stupid.”
“Life advice, Quinn? Really?”
“Why not? Cone of silence, right? And I’m older than you. I’ve done more than you. Probably made a hell of a lot more mistakes than you, so trust me, living for other people, no matter the reasoning, isn’t the way to live.”
“But you did all that because you were mad at them. I do it because I love them. Because I’m grateful.”
“So your entire life has to be one big thank-you?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know . . . I don’t know how to want something else, but I’m not totally happy with what I’m doing. So how’s that for stupid?”
“Sounds about right.”
“What? Stupid?”
“No, just what you said, it sounds like life to me.”
“Turn left,” she said, and he steered the truck onto a long dirt driveway. “You make me feel almost normal.”
“Well, I don’t know how you got that out of the conversation, woman, you’re weird as hell.”
She laughed so hard she snorted, and that made him laugh too. Which was the strangest thing of all. The way that she affected him. That she affected him at all. He wasn’t used to a woman affecting much more than his dick.
He didn’t have a lot of friends. He didn’t really have any, apart from Sam, who was paid to stick with him. People in general made him feel very little. Except anger.
But Lark Mitchell made him laugh.
“Can you pull over up here?” she asked.
“Sure.” He put his truck in park and left the engine running. “You’re sure you can walk from here?”
“It’s not far.”
“I really would rather if you weren’t eaten by wolves.”
Lark looked at Quinn in the dark, at the lines of his face, highlighted by the moon, and she tried to stop her heart from speeding up. But it was impossible. She felt . . . she didn’t know what she felt. He was now the only man she’d thoroughly kissed. And he was the only person on earth who knew how she felt about life. About her brothers. About what she wanted, or rather, the depth to which she was confused about what she wanted.
It made her feel like a bond was slowly forming between them. More than chemistry. More than anger. And it was unsettling, to say the least.
“Well, unsurprisingly, I don’t want me to get eaten by them either.”
“All right. I’ll pick you up here tomorrow.”
“Great.”
Except she didn’t get out of the truck. Because that bond-thing seemed to be holding her there. Seemed to be compelling her to stay. And more than that, it seemed to be compelling her to move closer to him, rather than scrambling for the door.
Her heart was beating so fast and hard she could hear it echoing in her head, the only sound in the truck cab besides the dim rumble of the engine and their breathing, which she didn’t think she was imagining was getting heavier with each passing second.
Even as she leaned in closer to him, she questioned her sanity. She asked herself what she was doing. But she kept hearing her own words, over and over again, and they were louder than the warnings.
I spend so much time trying to keep them happy that I’m not exactly sure what might make me happy.
Right now, she was wondering if Quinn’s lips against hers might make her happy. And right now, it seemed like that might be more important than anything else. It was so dark in the truck, its engine keeping out the normal night sounds. It felt like something different. Something out of time and reality.
It seemed safe. And incredibly dangerous.
She lifted her hand and touched his face. His skin was warm, and rough, thanks to the end-of-day stubble. And right then, she knew what she wanted. Nothing deeper than the physical, nothing longer-term than the next few seconds.
But right then she wanted to kiss Quinn Parker more than she wanted to keep on breathing.
So she did.
The touch of his lips to hers was like fire, burning through her, savaging her, flame streaking along her veins, leaving nothing untouched, nothing spared.
He growled and forked his fingers in her hair, parting her lips with his tongue and delving deep. She opened to him, responded to him, to the desperation in his actions. This was different than the kiss they’d shared on the mountaintop. There was no restraint here. They weren’t in the wide open spaces with the sun shining on them.
They were in the dark. They were in a space only inhabited by them. Close and secluded. It was only them. Their breath. Their lips. His hands roaming over his body now, and hers all over his.
He kissed her neck, down to her collarbone, the press of his mouth on her skin hot, wet, so freaking arousing. She felt completely desperate for more. For everything.
She grabbed the hem of his shirt and tugged it up over his head, letting her hands roam over his bare skin, the hard muscles of his back. He shifted his hands, cupped her breasts, then undid the first button on her top, kissing the exposed wedge of skin.
He continued down, undoing buttons, tasting bare skin, until her shirt was opened all the way. He looked at her in the dark, his eyes glittering. She was crossing new lines with him. Doing new things she’d never done. Reaching new heights of intimacy.
And it felt too good to stop. Too good to let nerves take over. Too good to do anything but let him continue on.
He reached his hand around to her back, then cocked his head to the side. “Front clasp,” he said. Then he moved his hand back in front of her and with one deft motion, undid the catch on her bra, leaving her truly exposed to him.
She knew who it was. She knew who was making her feel like this. On the edge of losing her sanity, on the edge of climax. It was Quinn Parker. And she knew being with him like this was wrong.
But the wrong made it more exciting. Or maybe it didn’t. She wouldn’t know. She’d never been in this position before.
He leaned down and kissed her neck, then her collarbone. And down to the curve of her breast. He continued lower, swept the flat of his tongue over her nipple before blowing lightly on her damp skin.
A sharp ache shot through her, coupling with pleasure so intense she couldn’t keep herself from making a sound. She sounded like a bad porn, even to herself, but Quinn didn’t seem to mind.
Instead, he turned his attention to her other breast, repeating the action there before sucking her nipple deep into his mouth.
She grabbed on to his shoulders, digging her nails into his skin, not caring at all.
He chuckled, his breath hot on her skin. “See, Lark? Being bad can be awfully good. I like you as a bad girl.” He flicked open the button of her jeans and lowered the zipper, sliding his hand down beneath the denim, beneath her panties, his fingers sliding through her slick folds. “Oh, yeah, you’re definitely a bad girl. And you want me, don’t you?”
She could nod. She was way past words now. Way past logical thought. There was nothing more than burning need, white-hot pleasure and Quinn Parker. Everything else was irrelevant.
He drew his finger upward, working it over her *oris. She threw her arm over her eyes, not bothering to suppress her sounds of pleasure, not caring about anything but she felt. How good he made her feel.
Suddenly, he sat up.
“What?” she asked, feeling dizzy, disoriented and so turned on it was painful.
“What I have planned requires more room.” He opened the driver’s side door and stepped out of the truck, standing facing her. He pulled her shoes off and let them fall to the ground.Then he reached in and tugged her jeans and underwear down her legs, balling them up and throwing them into the truck behind her.
Then he gripped her hips and pulled her forward, raising her butt off the seat of the truck, his eyes intent on her. So intent that, even with how dark it was, she fought the urge to cover herself up.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, his voice rough. “Oh, Lark . . .” He leaned in, pressed a kiss to her inner thigh. “What did I tell you? All the better to eat you with.”
A hot flash of embarrassment burned through her, just as his tongue touched her. And then everything went white behind her eyes, a flash of light, of fire, so intense she couldn’t breathe through it, couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything but feel.
He tasted her, deep, long. She should be horrified. To have him do this, something so intimate, something she’d never even gotten around to fantasizing about. But she wasn’t. It felt perfect. Indulgent. Amazing.
His tongue was wet, the slick friction sending crackling flame through her, coiling low in her stomach and settling there, burning steadily. Building. Growing. Threatening to rage out of control.
He shifted his weight, wrapping his arm around her so that his forearm was supporting her weight, and then he took his other hand and stroked her, gently, just enough to add fuel to the flames.
Then he pushed one finger inside of her. And the fire exploded. She was consumed by it. Burning up, completely and totally. And she welcomed it, bathed in it. Heat and pleasure so far beyond what she’d imagined possible.
She’d had orgasms before, but not like this. She had no control here. She had nothing more than complete and total surrender. And she reveled in it.
Slowly the flames receded. Slowly, she started finding her breath. And then suddenly, it all dropped away.
And she realized she was flat on her back in Quinn Parker’s truck, in the middle of her driveway, albeit her secluded driveway, with the door wide open and her legs spread.
And she’d just done a whole lot more than kiss him.
She blinked and then jerked out of his hold, moving into a sitting position and scrambling madly for her jeans.
Shit. She was going to cry. She was going to cry like a little girl who wanted her mommy. Because she felt like one. And she did. She wanted someone to hold her and tell her it was okay, and there was no one to do that.
Because it wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay.
With shaking hands she tugged her jeans on, stuffing the panties in her pocket. She stumbled out the passenger’s side door and went around to the driver’s side. “Shoes,” she said, her throat dry.
“Lark . . .”
“Shoes.” He bent and picked her shoes up, handing them to her. She jammed her feet into them, her stomach pitching.
“Are you going to walk off all pissed again like I did something horrible to you?” he asked, his voice low, deadly.
“No,” she said. “You didn’t . . . I did . . . I did it. I . . . I don’t know what I’m doing.” She wrapped her arms around herself and started walking away from Quinn’s truck.
“Lark.” She heard the door slam shut behind her. “Lark. Dammit, stop.”
She whirled around to face him. “No. I can’t. I can’t do this with you.”
“But you want to,” he said, his voice rough.
“So what? So what?”
“Doesn’t what you want matter?”
“Not in this case, Quinn. No, it doesn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to want you!”
“But you do.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“So what? You get off with me, even though you can’t stand me? And now you’re going to run off, sick to your stomach because you wanted me, and because you indulged that want? Because I disgust you that much?”
“Yes!” she shouted.
For a second, she thought the moonlight revealed a flash of pain in his eyes. But just as quickly as she saw it, it disappeared again.
He shrugged. “Then you should be even more disgusted with yourself. Because no matter what you think you want, baby, I can make you come. Easy. Think about what that says about you.”
“Believe me,” she said, wiping at her dry eyes. “I have thought about it. I don’t like myself very much right now either.”
“Join the club.”
“I’m not coming in tomorrow.”
“Suit yourself. I’m docking a day’s pay off your contract.”
She flung her arms wide. “Freaking spiffy, Quinn, do what you have to. Please yourself.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Sure I do.”
“No, you don’t. Because pleasing myself involves getting you naked again.” He smiled and laughed, but there was nothing happy or humorous about either expression. “I wonder what that says about me?”
He jerked open the door of the truck and then pulled the passenger door shut before starting the engine. Lark turned away from him and started walking down the driveway, toward her house, her entire body numb straight down to her soul.
When Quinn had been touching her, she’d never felt so alive. And now that reality had hit, she’d never felt so empty.
Quinn Parker was a very inconvenient paradox. She’d never had a better reason to hate a man. But there had never been a man in her life that she’d craved so much.