A Stranger's Touch

by Tori Carrington

  Only, she suspected elephants wouldn’t have the same heart-thumping, thigh-quivering effect on her.

  God, but Quinn looked good. Too good. Opposite to Brad in every way.

  And that was bad.

  No, she was bad. Because despite everything going on on the other side of that door, she wanted to thrust her hands up Quinn’s T-shirt and touch those fabulous abs and grind her hips against his to feel the strength of his erection against her stomach.

  “You, um, needed some air, too?” she asked, wondering why there was suddenly a lack of it.

  A shadow of a smile, though his eyes remained steadfastly on her face. “You could say that.”

  “I just did.”

  “I know.”

  Dulcy pushed away from the wall and made a beeline for one of the two stalls. She had no intention of using the bathroom while he was in there, but she figured it was the safest place for her, with him in such close proximity. She ducked inside and slid the lock home.

  She instantly felt better. Contained. In control.

  She sat down on the commode and wrapped her arms around herself.

  Slow, easy footsteps sounded on the tiled floor, then stopped right in front of the stall. She could see his well-worn black cowboy boots and jeans up to mid-shin and wondered why it was that she found attractive even the little she could see of him.

  “Here, have a look at this—”

  One of those marvelously sinful hands appeared under the stall door. She reached out and took the ball of paper from it, careful not to make contact. She smoothed the paper out on her lap and her heart started hammering for an entirely different reason.

  We have Bradley Wheeler III. One million for his return. You will be contacted with a time and place.

  “Oh God.”

  She heard a long exhale, then, “You can say that again.”

  The boots shifted, one crossing over the other. She could envision Quinn leaning against the door. She eyed the lock. One small move and he would tumble right in and on top of her. She ran her tongue along the length of her bottom lip.

  “I found it in Brad’s garbage can in his office,” he said.

  “Garbage?” Dulcy repeated, focusing again on the paper.

  “Uh-huh. Balled up like that.”

  “Did you find another note?”

  “Nope.”

  She thought of Beatrix and Bruno in the next room. “What are you doing with it?”

  “I found it. Don’t worry, Beatrix has seen it.”

  “Ah,” she said, as if his answer made perfect sense.

  For several moments she sat staring at the note. Weren’t ransom notes typically spelled with letters cut out from random newspapers and magazines? This one was block-printed in blue ink. She turned the plain piece of white paper over, then back again.

  “Dee—”

  “Don’t call me that,” she whispered.

  There was silence.

  Dulcy balled the paper back up, then poked at the legs on the other side of the stall door. The hand appeared, and she virtually tossed the paper into the air to avoid making contact.

  A soft chuckle. “This would be a lot easier if you came out of there, you know.”

  “Easier for whom?”

  “For both of us.”

  The boots stepped out of sight. Dulcy leaned forward to peek underneath. God, but he looked killer in a pair of jeans. The soft, faded denim hugged his tush to perfection, the material tugging and pulling as he walked.

  He turned around, and she jerked back.

  “You know, the way I figure it, I have just as much to lose as you do, if anyone finds out about the other night.”

  Dulcy raised her brows and spoke to the door. “Oh? And how’s that?”

  “You mean aside from Brad being my best friend?” A pause. “The way I see it, you put the two of us together the same night Brad disappeared and, well, there’s no longer one suspect but two.”

  “You suspect me?”

  “No.”

  Dulcy slumped in relief.

  “But Beatrix and Bruno do. And you have to admit, putting the two of us together looks worse yet.” An exasperated sigh. “Do you mind coming out of there? What are you afraid of, that I’m going to maul you?”

  It’s not you I’m afraid of.

  “I think I can manage to keep my hands to myself for five minutes,” he said.

  “I don’t know if I can.” Dulcy’s eyes bulged as she realized she’d said the words aloud.

  “Then, I’ll make sure I don’t react.”

  God, she was so very bad at this.

  She stood up and slowly opened the stall door. Quinn stood with his arms crossed over his impressive chest, his eyes dark and unreadable. Dulcy straightened and stepped from the stall.

  “That’s better,” he said.

  Dulcy automatically walked to the sinks, switched on a faucet and began washing her hands.

  “So,” Quinn asked over the sound of the water. “Do you know where Brad might have gone?”

  Dulcy met his gaze in the mirror. “I thought the note you found said he’s been kidnapped.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not ruling out anything.”

  She swiveled to face him, hands dripping both soap and water. “Are you saying he might have gone voluntarily?”

  “I’m saying it’s possible Brad caught on to the kidnapping plan and is one step ahead of his captors.”

  Dulcy wasn’t sure who made the first move, but later her best guess was that she did. One moment she was afraid he was suggesting Brad had run away from her; the next she looked at his mouth as though she wanted to devour it. The next, well, she was devouring it.

  What was it about dark, dangerous men with full lips? Warm, wet, full lips that knew just how to move against hers. And, naturally, with the moving of mouths came the movement of other body parts. More specifically, her hands. First they combed through all that dark hair, tugging it from the leather strap that held it back, then they trailed down his back and finally grabbed that terrific tush, tugging his hips nearer to hers.

  She’d be a liar if she said she hadn’t thought about doing just this every waking moment, and most of her sleeping moments, since they had parted Saturday morning. So she wasn’t going to lie. Not now. Not when he was inching her skirt up to cup her bottom in his hot hands, his fingers diving toward areas that even now begged for his expert attention. He backed her against the sinks, she balked and backed him toward the stalls. He groaned, then swiveled her toward the closed bathroom door. Moments later she was flat up against it, as if in a replay of the elevator scene.

  “Damn, but you feel good,” Quinn muttered between hungry assaults on her mouth.

  Dulcy wasn’t even going to attempt to put into words how she felt. Like heaven. Like hell. Like she was tempting the devil himself and loving every minute of it.

  There was the sound of material ripping, and Dulcy found herself without panties. Before she could think to protest, the thick tip of his finger found her damp heat. She gasped, tilting her hips forward to guide his hot hand toward her waiting threshold.

  She decided the word good didn’t begin to describe how she felt….

  Quinn tugged his mouth from hers. Dulcy whimpered in response and tried to pull him back, but failed. He slid down to one knee in front of her. She nearly died when he folded up her skirt hem until her blond curls sprang free. With his knee, he edged her feet farther apart, baring more of the area to his intense gaze. Dulcy ran her hands restlessly down, then back up, skimming over her own aroused nipples. She squeezed her eyes shut as he skillfully began to part the swollen flesh between her legs, then fastened his hot, wet mouth on her most sensitive of parts.

  Dulcy collapsed against the door, little more than a boneless rag doll as he stroked her with his tongue. Quinn cupped her bottom in his hands, then urged one of her legs over his shoulder, then the other, until Dulcy was completely supported between him and the door. Ecstasy, pure and sweet and
so seductive, swept over her, in her, turning her inside out as his mouth worked its magic. Wild spasms began in her stomach. Then the tip of a naughty finger found its way inside her dripping depths and the spasms became a roaring earthquake.

  The door supporting her moved.

  Dulcy moaned and thrust her hips more urgently against Quinn’s decadent mouth. His finger slid inside her, and she clenched her slick muscles around it, Quinn drawing out her climax with the finesse of a man who not only knew what he was doing, but loved doing it.

  The door moved inward again. Only, this time it was followed by an exasperated sigh. “Dulcy?” Marie’s voice filtered through the wood. “Are you crying?”

  Quinn’s mouth still firmly attached to her delicate flesh, Dulcy’s eyelids flew open and she stared into the same questioning expression on his face.

  Instantly, his hot mouth was gone along with the finger, her skirt was straightened, and Quinn stood across the room from her looking like he wanted to start over again.

  “Wait,” he whispered, holding the door closed when she would have opened it. Then he kissed her, deeply, passionately, with the promise that what they had just begun wasn’t finished, by any stretch of the imagination.

  Dulcy watched him disappear into the last stall and close the door, then his boots disappeared from sight.

  Dulcy took long, gulping breaths and pulled open the door.

  Marie passed her. “I’m sorry to intrude. I know you probably need some time to yourself right now, but I have to use the toilet.”

  Dulcy grabbed her friend’s arm, swinging her back toward the door. “I think we should get back.”

  Marie frowned at her. “I’ll just be a second.”

  She headed for the first stall and closed the door, and soon the sound of tinkling filled the room. Dulcy nearly shrieked when Quinn’s head popped up over the top of the last stall. He gave her a grin of pure wickedness. She glared at him. Then Marie was done, and Quinn’s handsome head disappeared again.

  “There. Happy?” Marie asked.

  Dulcy tried to force air into her lungs as she watched her friend wash her hands. Paper towel still in her grasp, Dulcy maneuvered Marie toward the door and out into the hall. Only when they were almost back in the conference room did Dulcy realize she was minus a pair of panties.

  QUINN HAD NEVER ONCE in the two decades he and Brad had been friends, envied a single thing his best friend had. He rubbed the silky purple material of Dulcy’s panties between thumb and finger. Not until now, anyway. The way he saw it, life usually had a way of evening things out. Brad might have been born with tremendous financial resources, but was broke when it came to any true nurturing or emotional wealth. Beatrix Wheeler was as icy as they came. And so had been Brad’s father before he died five years ago. No, Quinn hadn’t known his own Caucasian father. But no matter how hard his mother, grandmother, aunts and uncles had had it, they never made him feel that he lacked for anything, or made him feel unwanted. And he took great pride in his Hopi heritage, even if he didn’t participate in any official way in the community.

  Looking around the bathroom for a place to stash the sexy underwear, he instead stuffed them into his front jeans pocket next to the discarded ransom note. They barely made a bulge. Unlike certain parts of his anatomy that seemed forever on high alert whenever he was within breathing distance of one provocative, delicious Dulcy Ferris.

  Hell, what was it about the woman that he couldn’t keep his hands off her? Even after learning of her very permanent connection to his best friend, and that same best friend’s recent disappearance, he’d been obsessed with the need to hear her restless whimpers. He’d gone down on her like a starving man in need of sustenance only she could provide.

  Quinn clenched his fists. This train of thought wasn’t going to improve his condition any.

  A reasonable inner voice told him part of the appeal might be the lack of availability. Or it could even be a latent sense of wanting what Brad had, stored up over the years to spend on this one indulgence. But that didn’t explain the chemistry that had existed between him and Dulcy on Friday night when he hadn’t known who she was. He’d wanted her just as much then.

  As a man who prided himself on his self-control when it came to the opposite sex, he was notably out of control whenever he was near Dulcy. So much so that he’d risked discovery by Beatrix Wheeler, by making out with Dulcy in the ladies’ john. The old battle-ax had never liked him. She’d take great pleasure in locking him out of any search for Brad.

  And that’s who he should be focusing on one hundred percent right now. Brad. His friend was missing. Might be hurt. Or maybe even worse. The last thing he should be doing is lusting after Dulcy, especially now that he knew her true identity.

  Cautiously opening the door, he slid a glance one way and the other, then stepped out into the hall.

  What was Brad doing with a woman of Dulcy’s caliber, anyway? Oh sure, she was from a wealthy family—he’d learned that much from his friend—but she was sensual and earthy and fundamental, whereas Brad’s previous girlfriends had been cold as clams.

  Girlfriend. Dulcy wasn’t Brad’s girlfriend. She was his fiancée. The woman his best friend would marry in five short days.

  He strode back toward the conference room, only to find Beatrix and Dulcy’s partner Barry Lomax alone in an office adjacent to the conference room. Beatrix turned on her heel and stormed from the office, while Barry grinned after her. Quinn couldn’t be sure what had just passed between the two, but whatever it was had Beatrix on full throttle.

  “Let’s go,” she said to him and Bruno, who hovered nearby. “Obviously Miss Ferris and her associates have no intention of cooperating with us. We’re due at the private detective’s office in twenty minutes. Maybe he’ll be of more assistance.”

  Dulcy, Jena and Marie piled out of the conference room at the sound of Beatrix’s voice. If Dulcy’s cheeks looked a little too full of color, if her lips looked well kissed and if her legs seemed a little unsteady, Quinn was relatively sure he was the only one to notice.

  Dulcy made a motion with her hands, indicating his hair. He reached up and smoothed it back. In the middle of his palm was a dab of bubbles. He grimaced and wiped the dampness on his jeans, then fastened his hair back into its usual leather strap.

  “Call if you hear anything,” he said, handing Dulcy his business card.

  “Only if you promise the same,” she said. She patted her jacket pocket, just before Mona popped up and handed him one of her cards.

  Quinn’s gaze raked her face, his mouth itching with the desire to kiss her again. He purposely looked away when Jena tilted her head slightly to give him a better once-over.

  “Are you coming, Landis?” Beatrix fairly barked from the door.

  Quinn followed the old hell-bitch out, promising himself he wouldn’t call the very engaged Dulcy Ferris until his friend was found, and this entire mess was over and done with.

  6

  AN UNTOUCHED LUNCH SALAD and two hours later, Dulcy found that going on with life as usual wasn’t even a remote possibility. Not when her fiancé was missing and she was sitting in her office sans panties thanks to her missing fiancé’s best man.

  She shut her eyes and resisted the urge to bang her forehead against the desktop. But when she closed her eyes, Quinn’s very provocative mouth sprang forth. So she resisted closing her eyes.

  A quick intercom call to Mona had the capable secretary canceling her late-afternoon appointment, something Dulcy didn’t feel too guilty about since it was only one appointment and it was after three. Then she fished around in her middle desk drawer, looking for the key to Brad’s city condo. She found it tucked between a roll of antacids and a tampon. She stared at the simple gold-colored item in the palm of her hand. Brad had given it to her two weeks ago so she could start moving her personal belongings in. She flipped the key over with a flick of her thumb. Of course, she hadn’t done anything of the sort. Until they were married, she di
dn’t feel all that comfortable with the prospect of being in Brad’s condominium without him there. He might be old-fashioned when it came to sleeping together before the wedding; she was traditional when it came to claiming a spot that wasn’t hers.

  And the way things were progressing, it was a pretty safe bet that the condo might never be hers.

  She slid the key into her skirt pocket, grabbed her suit jacket and purse and headed for the door, glad that everyone in the office had gone back to their own lives and careers and didn’t question her leaving. Marie wasn’t a concern. The cute little redhead hadn’t a clue what had been going on in the bathroom before she entered it. And would probably die if she knew Quinn had been in there while she, um, attended to business.

  Jena, on the other hand, had openly scrutinized Dulcy the instant she scrambled back into the conference room, probably noticing every hair out of place, each telltale wrinkle in her clothing, and could likely even point to the burning in her cheeks as evidence of a recent climax. Jena was a pro when it came to matters of that nature. Her powers of observations had never bothered Dulcy much before. But now that she was the unlucky focus of that observation, her opinion made a quick one-eighty.

  Dulcy peeked into the waiting area to find Mona talking on the phone, more than likely rescheduling her appointment for the day. A further crane of her neck found Marie standing in front of her desk, packing her briefcase, probably heading back to the courthouse. And Jena…

  Dulcy jumped when Jena slowly swung her desk chair in the direction of her door, the telephone receiver glued to her ear. Her laser-sharp gaze instantly settled on Dulcy as if that had been her intention all along. Which, of course, was ridiculous. There was no way her friend could have known she was in the waiting room.

  Jena leaned forward, apparently putting her caller on hold. Dulcy quickly waggled her fingers at her, then made a mad dash for the door.

  “Dulcy, wait!” she called out.

  “Can’t. Got to go,” she responded, moving as fast as her heels would allow.