by Anne Harper
“Well, whatever you said definitely weren’t the words of a gentleman.” Keith shook his head with mock pity. “And to Mrs. McMurray of all people. She’s one of the most beloved members of this fine town. So that, my friend, is strike two for you. I’d watch out for the third if I were you.”
Quinn doubted Mrs. McMurray was beloved, more like feared, but he skated over the damage he’d already done to the woman herself and went for the weasel in front of him.
“I’m assuming you’re counting strike one as the time I punched you?”
Keith stiffened. He tipped up his chin.
“Yes. You sucker punching me for doing my job isn’t the type of contribution this town wants or needs.”
Quinn took a small step forward. He’d be a damn liar if he said seeing the man flinch didn’t feel good.
“Wouldn’t it be poetic if that was my third strike, too? Full circle.” He smiled. Keith held his ground, though he’d lost some cockiness along the way.
“I don’t think you’d make that mistake again. No. I think your strike three will be your questionable work ethics.” Keith doubled down as he clearly looked over Quinn’s shoulder. “I’ve noticed that you seem to be keeping pretty close company with Miss Bennett over there since coming to town. I’m starting to wonder if there’s more there. If, you know, you’ve set your sights on an employee who’s—what?—a decade younger than you? And after your predecessor did nearly the same exact thing?”
He was sneering again. Quinn wanted to knock the expression right off of his face. Keith dropped his voice to a mocking whisper.
“But surely the defender of women wouldn’t be that slimy, right? Just like the woman who’d sworn off all men wouldn’t be fraternizing in another inappropriate work scandal?”
The reaction was immediate. Quinn’s hand fisted.
It sure was looking like he was going to have a matching strike one and strike three.
I’ve already stepped on it today, might as well spread it now.
“Everything okay, Boss?”
This time the man’s voice at his shoulder belonged to a friendlier face. Jones stopped at his shoulder and adjusted his gaze to the faux reporter.
Keith’s sneer dissolved. He shrugged.
“Just telling Quinn here that there’s no hard feelings anymore. I’ve moved on from his assaulting me to something a lot juicier.”
And that was it. Keith went back to his girlfriend and they disappeared inside of the restaurant.
Jones nodded in their direction.
“Something tells me men like him don’t move on. That was a bold-faced lie.”
“It definitely wasn’t the bold-faced truth.”
“Well,” Jones said. “If he starts trouble, just know I’m not that great in a fight but I’m really good at creating distractions. You just say the word, Boss man.”
Quinn was oddly touched by the show of support. He said as much.
“I think it’ll be better for all of us if we go back to pretending that that man doesn’t exist, but I appreciate the backup.”
“Hey, like you said, we’re family. That’s what we do.”
Quinn knew those were his words, which had actually been Nell’s to begin with, but they still surprised him. Mostly because he’d meant them. He might not have known too much about Tally and Jones, but he couldn’t deny he was fond of them.
And Nell…
Well, maybe he didn’t know much about her, either.
She had been ready to marry Greg less than two months ago. The first day Quinn had met her… Had her eyes been swollen from crying over her hopes of marrying Greg being dashed?
And what if Greg hadn’t broken up with her?
Quinn found he didn’t like that idea.
But did he think Nell was a flirt who refused to settle?
No. He didn’t.
Yet the new information about Greg had taken hold and wasn’t letting go. Keith’s reminder of his age and position only made everything worse. All within a two-minute span.
And Keith didn’t even know about Heart in Hand’s upcoming sale.
Quinn hoped he had a solid poker face for his crowd of three. If he didn’t, he couldn’t tell based on Nell’s. She gave him a barely there smile.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” Quinn said in greeting. “I…shouldn’t have done that. Especially with Donavon’s ultimatum to get Dweller’s Cove. I’m sorry.”
Tally shook her head. Jones laughed. He was the first to respond.
“I stand by what you said.”
“And I don’t want you to apologize for a word you said,” Tally added. “Though it’s probably a good idea if we leave now.” She glanced back at the restaurant. Quinn had picked up on the fact that Tally wasn’t a fan of confrontation. “But maybe it would be nice to meet up at Cassidy’s Place for a drink later tonight?”
“I could do a drink,” Jones was quick to answer. He turned to Quinn. “Considering I was stressed in the van, I gotta believe a drink might do you good, too. What do you say?”
The offer caught him off guard.
“I thought you’d all be pissed at me. I mean, you did hear what I said to her, right? There’s no way she’s going to give her house to Heart in Hand now.”
“Oh, we heard,” Tally piped in. Jones’s smile grew.
“And we approve.”
Nell nodded but there was a slowness to it.
“It was her loss,” she said.
“But that doesn’t mean we should hang around here waiting for her or Keith to come back out,” Tally added. “So drinks later?”
Quinn was ready to say yes—it was the least he could do—but then Nell surprised him with an apologetic look for her friend.
“I’m down for a drink but it’ll have to be some other time. Sorry.”
Tally made a noise.
“Oh yeah! Your date with Wren!”
Nell averted her gaze from all three of them. Which was good because Quinn wasn’t a fan of the topic. In all the hubbub during the last few hours, he’d forgotten about Wren Blocker.
“It’s not a date,” she corrected. “It’s a friendly hangout. That’s all.”
Jones laughed.
“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
Nell rolled her eyes but didn’t offer a comment.
Quinn cleared his throat.
“I’m going to have to rain check, too. I need to do some things at the house. But how about I take everyone out to lunch come Monday?”
That seemed to satisfy Tally and Jones. Quinn couldn’t read Nell. She seemed to be looking at everyone and everything but him. When she said goodbye, it was like an afterthought.
She was upset at him. Why wouldn’t she be?
Quinn watched her leave.
“Thank you.”
Tally was outside of the van, letting Jones take the driver’s seat. Her voice was soft.
“I didn’t hear what Mrs. McMurray said but I could tell it hurt Nell,” she explained. “So thank you for standing up for her. Since that video went viral, a lot of people have said really mean things about her. It was nice to finally hear someone say something really nice about her instead.”
Quinn shrugged. “I only told the truth.”
It was hard not to watch Nell drive off.
To her “date.”
To someone who wasn’t him.
He didn’t like it.
Yet it was what he’d wanted.
Friends only.
Right?
…
Nell was a glass-half-full kind of gal. An optimistic person who saw a rainbow and got all warm and fuzzy about it. Someone who believed in the magic of everyday things and paying it forward and that watching cute cat videos before falling asleep in bed was good for t
he soul, even if it wasn’t technically good for your brain.
It was all about perspective.
And hope.
You had to have hope to be an optimist. Sometimes even when things definitely weren’t going that great. But that’s who Nell was. A grabber of silver linings and gripper of the hope that things were going to work out the way you wanted them to work out.
Which was 100 percent why she ran upstairs to her bedroom like God himself had reached down and personally kicked her booty into gear. She was going so fast that she nearly broke the handle on her dresser as she yanked it open and tore through her underwear drawer.
Looking for something extremely important.
Looking for it.
The breaker of banks.
The push-up to make him shut up.
The bra of all bras.
Nell wrapped her hand around the lace and pulled it out like it was the damn Holy Grail. She imagined birds and angels singing its praises in a chorus over her bed.
“Let’s make you worth every penny.”
She did her interpretation of a backstage costume change, refreshed her lipstick, and let her hair go wild. She was in the car before she could allow reason to talk her out of her hope and out again in what was an absolute blur of time and space.
When she was knocking on the front door at her destination, she was damn near a rubber band. One that was being pulled taut. Vibrating with energy and anticipation. Ready to snap. Ready to take whoever was near her along for the ride. When the door opened and the man with the alarming jaw and gray eyes was standing in its frame, eyebrow deliciously arched, she hoped that person was Quinn Hannigan.
The way he looked her up and down, she was willing to bet he’d at least entertain the idea.
“Can I come in?”
Her voice cracked. Actually cracked.
Was she hitting puberty or something?
Quinn stepped aside. “Yeah. Sure thing.”
Nell had been shocked at how small the house was earlier that day, but now it felt like she’d just squeezed into the building equivalent of a pair of Spanx. She could feel his body heat radiating off of him, teasing her.
Or maybe it was just her hormones warning her that things were about to go down.
Way down if she got her way.
Quinn shut the door, unaware that he was chum in the waters and Nell was the only shark for miles, and moved around to the couch just off of the kitchen. He was still in his suit and still smelled like spice and pine and L-U-S-T.
He sighed. It made his beautiful broad shoulders drop a little.
“Listen, I’m sorry about what happened,” he said. “I should have just powered through the lunch. You did warn me about Mrs. McMurray, and I really tried to brush off all the things she said, but then she started in on you and I just—”
The snap of the Nell rubber band happened before he’d started talking. Quinn just had no clue yet.
All the emotions that had been dancing around inside of Nell could no longer be contained.
The cork was out of the bottle.
The lid was so far-flung from the jar that there was no hope for it to be closed again.
The line between employee and boss?
Well, damn if Nell could remember the last time she’d seen it.
She closed the space between them and interrupted the man with a kiss that had been powering up since he’d given Mrs. McMurray a piece of his mind.
Since he’d defended her.
Since he’d complimented her.
Since he’d admitted he truly cared.
And this was where things got dicey for Nell.
This was where hope lived or died.
Would Quinn accept the kiss? Would he want more? Or would he push her away?
Was this a fantasy come true or an embarrassing nightmare she would cringe about later while lying awake in bed?
Was this a mistake?
Would she stop even if she knew for a fact that it was?
For a moment, hands on his chest to steady her and chin tilted up to meet him, Nell had no answer to any of her questions. Quinn didn’t move a muscle.
She’d crossed the line.
She’d betrayed her own stance on men.
She’d let her emotions throw caution away.
And now she was going to have to fumble through an apology and live through the fallout after.
Yet no sooner had the air touched her bare lips than Quinn’s lips were covering hers again. Relief and desire and a myriad of other emotions she didn’t have the focus to decode or analyze poured through Nell.
Her glass-half-full was filling up fast.
Just wait until he sees this fucking bra.
Chapter Twenty
Holy guacamole.
Quinn might not have been a star pupil when it came to socializing but hot diggity damn if the man couldn’t work a woman’s body.
Nell’s role as instigator was nothing compared to Quinn’s role as reciprocator.
Where she’d thrown herself against him, he’d upped the action and taken her by the waist. His hands, warm and strong and big, had gripped her waist and spun her around. If there had been an open wall, Nell had every reason to believe she would have been pressed against it.
But tiny houses weren’t conducive to big lust, so Quinn stopped her at the couch instead. Then her calves were the only thing between them and the possibility of going horizontal.
And who were her calves to make such an important decision for her and Quinn?
Nell had never watched wrestling a day in her life but she understood the appeal as soon as she used her hold around his neck to effectively sling him around and push him down onto the couch.
She might have been small, but the power of a fancy push-up bra and weeks of mounting sexual tension finally coming to a head had made her strong. Sex strong.
The movement jarred them apart enough for Quinn to laugh in surprise. Apparently he was a fan of the new strength.
“Have you been working out?” he teased.
His lips were already dark red. Crimson Fire, to be specific. One of Nell’s favorite shades of lipsticks.
She stood in front of him, for once a bit taller. She gave him a wry smile she hoped mirrored her excitement.
“Have you been wearing lipstick?” she asked, breathy even to her own ears. Maybe wearing something that wiped off so easily might not have been the best idea. Then again, it was oddly turning her on even more. Like she’d marked him as hers with the help of Revlon.
Quinn’s brow arched. He touched his lips and brought back some of the color on his fingertips. Nell took the same hand and put it on her hip. She pulled his gaze back to hers.
“Don’t worry about trying to wipe it off yet,” she said. “I have a feeling that you’re about to have it all over you.”
Quinn gripped her hips and pulled her down on top of his lap in a flash. Her knees hit the back of the couch with a soft thud. Quinn snaked an arm up and along her back, giving her support as their lips found each other again. This time, the kiss was more impatient. Hungrier. Ready for exploration. Yet the hardness beneath her was the real star of the show. Nell couldn’t help but shift against it.
When Quinn let out a guttural sound at the move, Nell knew there was more work to be done.
And she’d rather do it sooner than later.
She broke their kiss and pulled at the bottom of his shirt until he got the hint. He threw his shirt off to show a body she’d already seen but still wanted to celebrate with fireworks or a parade. His eyes were hooded as he looked at her with an expectant expression.
It was time.
The unveiling.
Nell grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it off like a kid with the wrapping paper around a long-awaited present. Where the
shirt went after that, Nell didn’t know. She was all eyes on Quinn.
Who was all eyes on the bra she now knew in hindsight she’d absolutely bought in the hopes that he’d see it one day. Her no-more-men plan be damned.
When he spoke next, his words were gravel. The sound rubbed against every part of her that was craving being rubbed.
“That is a fantastic bra,” he breathed. Then his expression changed to absolutely make your libido scream. That alarming jaw shifted as he smirked. “Too bad it’s going to spend the rest of the night on the floor.”
He pressed his lips back to hers like he hadn’t just lit the warning beacons of Gondor with his words and then moved them down her neck and collarbone to her chest. When he moved the cup of her bra aside, she could have squealed in delight.
When his lips found her nipple, puckered and waiting, she could have screamed.
But when his tongue flicked out and he lightly bit the skin?
Dear goodness.
Nell nearly came on the spot.
Worth every fucking penny.
…
Quinn loved the simplicity of tiny house living. No wasted space, no room for clutter. Just function and sensible choices.
At least that’s how Quinn felt before Nell had come over and brought his fantasies to life. Now it was limiting. And, apparently, concerning to his guest.
“We c-can’t tip this thing over, c-can we?”
There was panic in her panting. She motioned to the room around them. A stimulating sight considering she was down to only a pair of lacy red underthings. Quinn’s next item on his to-take-off list. He was still in his boxers, but the way Nell had been after them before they’d decided to switch locations, he doubted they’d last long.
“What? You mean the house?”
Nell narrowed her eyes, a stern expression taking over.
“Don’t you say it in that tone. I refuse to go viral because I banged a tiny house over.”
Quinn threw the condom he’d gotten during their move onto the sheets next to them. He lowered himself on top of her with a smirk.
“I feel like there’s a compliment somewhere in there.”
Nell rolled her eyes and tried not to smile but failed. Quinn dropped a slow, deep kiss against her lips. She sighed when he broke it.