“No, I – just let me go!”
Quinn shook his head. “Uh-uh. You forgot the magic word.”
“Please,” she snapped.
“That wasn’t very nice.”
“And you are being nice?”
Another hotel door swung open. This one drew Ginnie’s attention. Her eyes flicked to their growing audience, then back to Quinn.
“I’ll scream,” she warned.
“Try it,” he countered, his eyes fixed on her lips. “See what happens.”
Hell. He wanted her to yell. He wanted an excuse to slam his lips into hers. He leaned in, daring her to make a sound. She returned his stare, her breathing getting quicker by the second, her pupils threatening to drown out the green of her eyes. When she did speak again, it wasn’t a scream. It was barely more than a whisper.
“People are staring.”
“Come back in the room then, Ginnie,” he suggested, bringing his arms closer together – close enough that any move on her part was going to initiate contact. “No one will have anything to stare at anymore.”
She sucked in another breath. “I can’t.”
“Can’t? Or just plain won’t?”
“I can’t, Quinn.” Her voice was almost ragged. “I can’t possibly live up to what a person like you expects.”
Something about her statement made Quinn draw back. “What kind of person do you think I am?”
“I have no idea,” she told him.
“I didn’t ask you if you knew…I asked you what you thought. I know you’ve got me pegged in some way in that head of yours or you wouldn’t be running away like this.”
“That’s not true,” she replied, the lie clear in her the deepening of her flush.
“You haven’t shoved me into one of those mental, black or white boxes of yours?”
“No.”
“So then how do you know what I’m expecting?”
“Because – ” She stopped, pulled her bottom lip between her teeth in a way that made Quinn want to growl, then exhaled and started again. “For starters, I’m not the kind of girl anyone calls baby.”
“You’re the kind of girl I call baby,” Quinn pointed out.
“I’m the kind of girl you think you want to call baby.”
“Are you trying to control my thoughts, baby?” he teased.
She didn’t laugh. “I don’t just want to control your thoughts. I want to control everything.”
“Now that…I see.”
“So why are we standing here, having this discussion?”
“Because you refuse to come back inside.”
“You don’t really want me to do that.”
“I always know what I want, Genevieve.”
Her color deepened. “That’s not what I meant.”
Quinn raised an eyebrow. “What then?”
“I was talking about me giving you the wrong impression.”
“Which impression is that? That I can call you baby?”
“That. And making you think I’m the kind of girl you should fantasize about in the bathtub,” she blurted.
At that, Quinn couldn’t hold in a chuckle. “What makes you think that’s what I was doing?”
There was blank silence for a second, and then Ginnie’s face went impossibly crimson, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I assumed…Just forget it.”
He let her squirm for another moment, then growled in a low voice, “I was doing exactly what you think I was doing. I was about to do exactly what you think I was about to do.”
“Quinn – ”
He cut her off. “I was thinking about how you’d feel, pushed against me like this. I was thinking about your lips. On my mouth. On me. How it would be if what happened between us on the plane was real.”
Ginnie gasped, but she still shook her head. “But it wasn’t. And I’m not the girl who does crazy things in airplane bathrooms and seeks revenge on her former – ex – husband.”
“I never thought you were that kind of girl.”
“So why the hell are you bothering with me?”
His hands slid down, then in, and he placed his palm in the small of her back. She arched into him, and her body fit his like a glove.
“Ginnie?”
“Mmph,” she mumbled back.
“You think you’ve got it all figured out, and you don’t. I want to show you that’s okay. Since the first second I saw you in that bar, all I’ve wanted is to get you here, like this. You’re the sexiest, most desirable woman I’ve ever met. And if you don’t come inside with me right this second, I’m going to prove it in front of all these people.”
Quinn bent down to seal the truth with a kiss, but paused as a tear leaked from first one of Ginnie’s eyes, then the other.
She was crying?
“Hey,” Quinn said, wiping a big, wet tear from her cheek. “I know that I kind of suck at this serious stuff, but I don’t think I’ve ever made a girl cry by calling her sexy.”
He wasn’t the kind of man who felt compelled to smooth out a woman’s insecurities, or the kind of man to shower a woman with compliments just to stroke her ego. But staring down at Ginnie’s face, he didn’t think either thing applied to her.
“I’m not sexy, Quinn,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “You just think that because you don’t know me.”
She sounded like she genuinely believed what she was saying. Truly thought that he was wrong to want her.
He fought the urge to tell her that he knew far more than he needed to form an accurate picture of who she was. That Jase had supplied him with a shitload of information – quirks, abandonment issues, favorite foods.
He knew admitting that right this second would send her running in the other direction. No way was he letting that happen.
He took the easier road – the safer one – and offered her a crooked smile. “You’re not Genevieve formerly-known-as-Michaels?”
“I mean the person inside.”
Quinn opened his mouth, but she beat him to the punch.
“Don’t you dare say something about what should or shouldn’t be inside me.”
“Would I do that?” he replied innocently.
“Yes!”
“Okay. I would,” he conceded. “But I won’t right this second.”
“Thank you.”
“Only because I still need to convince you that you’re sexy as all hell.”
She made an exasperated noise. “If I were sexy…My husband wouldn’t have left me and cited my lack of ability in the bedroom as the primary reason for the annulment.”
Quinn went very still. “He did what?”
“He said we weren’t compatible in the bedroom. That I wasn’t capable. He told a roomful of lawyers that I was – and I quote – unfuckable.”
“Ginnie, that’s he most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” he said it slowly and quietly, but a tirade raged through his mind.
What kind asshole was this guy? Doctor Fucking Lawrence Michaels. What was he the doctor of? Douchebaggery? Who the hell took a girl with a history like Ginnie’s and then crushed her like that? Based on a pack of flaming bullshit no less. Quinn had been forced to work alongside criminals for years. He’d befriended them as part of his job. Drug dealers and thieves. During his undercover time at the prison, he’d even been temporarily housed with an accused murderer. But for some reason this…this filled him with a fury like no other. He hated people who knowingly honed in on others’ weaknesses. Who manipulated them.
“Quinn?”
Vaguely, he heard the worried tremor in Ginnie’s voice, but it couldn’t quite cut through the anger surging through Quinn’s veins. He’d dropped his hands from the wall and balled up both into fists. In fact, his whole body was tense with fury. He breathed in and out, trying to even out his mind along with his inhales and exhales.
Sneaky, underhanded, self-centered, soul-sucking sonofabitch.
If Quinn ran into the man again – ever –
he wasn’t going to give him a phony high five. He was going to throw a fist straight into his face.
“Quinn.”
This time, Ginnie’s call was a little louder, a little firmer, and it managed to bring his attention back to the moment. Back to the emerald eyes, full of concern. For him.
Oh, hell.
It was supposed to be the other way around. He was supposed to be looking out for her. And Quinn knew exactly how he wanted to do that. To show this girl just how wrong she was about herself.
Anger morphed into passionate need.
With a growl, Quinn reached down, gripped her ass, and lifted her to his waist. He pushed her against the wall, hard.
Ginnie’s legs closed on his hips, and she tipped her head up, her eyes already half-closed in anticipation, and Quinn allowed himself a moment to peruse her face, devouring her features with his gaze. Graceful neck. So supple, so delectable. Arched cheeks, beautiful and highlighted with that perma-blush. And those lips.
Oh, fuck. Those lips.
He had to taste them. To claim them. Now.
As he leaned down, a door somewhere up the hall slammed, and her eyes flew open.
Goddammit.
Ginnie opened her mouth, and Quinn braced himself for another protest.
“Please,” she said. “Please take me back to the bedroom, Quinn.”
He’d never been happier to hear the magic word in his life.
Fifteen
Coherent thought had left Ginnie’s brain, and Quinn had taken up residence instead. She wasn’t sure what it was that pushed her over the edge – if it was the fierce look in his eyes before he swooped her from the ground, or the raw sexuality in every move he made, or the easy way he tossed out sly smiles and clever banter. All she knew was that he filled her senses and still she wanted more.
Hurry, she thought as he carried her to their hotel room.
Their room.
Yes. It solved the dilemma around whose it was. It could belong to both of them.
The realization sent further tendrils of warmth through her already aching body. Her thighs tightened on Quinn. She loved the way he felt between her legs; she hated the fabric that separated them. She shifted, trying to push aside the denim of his jeans and the pleats of her skirt. Quinn drew in a hissing breath as Ginnie succeeded just enough to feel the bare flesh of her inner thigh graze the skin of his hips.
Why was five feet of hallway taking so long?
“Hurry,” she urged, this time out loud.
“Bag,” he replied with a grunt.
“Not mine,” Ginnie murmured automatically.
But Quinn ignored her, and paused to grab the suitcase. And she forgot about her protest, because when he bent to pick up the bag, she slid down his body and straight into his erection. For a dizzying second, Ginnie got a glimpse of how the real thing was going to feel. Her head spun. Her lips tingled. Her pulse throbbed. And all of it drove an incredible awareness, right between her thighs.
She heard Quinn’s remembered voice in her mind. How’d you get so wet anyway?
She wanted to cry out, You. You make made me this wet.
She bit down on her lip to keep from doing it. They were at the door now, and Quinn shouldered it open – thank God it wasn’t one that closed and locked automatically – then used his bare foot to kick it shut behind them.
The bed was just steps away.
And thank God for that, too.
“Baby.”
The word was a throaty rumble, like it had been drawn not just from Quinn’s mouth, but from his whole chest. Or maybe even deeper. From his gut. From his entire being.
Ginnie shivered.
“Please, Quinn,” she said, not sure how exactly to ask for what she wanted. What she needed.
“Yes,” he replied, like he knew anyway.
Then he loosened his grip on her bag, and it fell to the ground. The soft-sided suitcase landed with a thud, followed by a decisive pop. A satiny pair of panties, tag still attached, flew upwards, then floated down again and landed on the edge of the bed. And suddenly the whole floor was littered with lingerie. Lace and leather and slips of fabric that were far too small to cover anything.
The plastic badge.
And the handcuffs.
Why, oh why, hadn’t she tossed those away?
Then something rolled – thump, thump, thump – along the floor.
Oh no.
The blood drained from Ginnie’s face as she watched Quinn look down, puzzlement furrowing his brow. In slow motion, Ginnie aligned her stare with his, stared at what it was that made him bite down on that lip ring of his.
A big. Shiny. Purple. Dildo.
There was no mistaking what it was, no mistaking its all-too-real shape resting on top of Quinn’s toes. His quizzical gaze lifted to meet Ginnie’s horrified one.
Good job, she thought. You just invented an entirely new level of embarrassment.
And every ounce of abandonment faded.
“This has got to be a sign,” she muttered.
“A sign?” Quinn echoed.
“That this is a mistake.”
“Ginnie…”
“Oh, come on,” she said, then realized it would be hard to take her seriously while she was still wrapped around him and added, “Can you put me down?”
He set her very gently on the floor. “This isn’t a mistake.”
But being on solid ground stabilized Ginnie’s thoughts even further, and they came tumbling out. “We pretended to have sex on a plane. The plane had to make an emergency landing. We kissed on that plane. I got taken into custody. We do this and…” She trailed off and waved her hand around the room. “The universe is telling us to stop.”
Quinn looked around the room again. “You think that the universe used your underwear to tell us not to have sex?”
“That’s not my stuff.”
“Oh. You’re just holding it for a friend?”
“Not exactly. Just – Never mind.” Ginnie sighed. “That stupid bag is what got me detained at the airport.”
“So which is it?”
“Which is what?”
“Is it this bag that made Gilligan stop you, or the universe?”
“It’s the same thing!”
Quinn crossed his arms over his bare chest, and his jeans slipped down, and Ginnie had to forcibly keep her eyes on his face. Especially when he took a step closer and she could see every detail of his tattoos over every detail of his muscles.
“Ginnie,” he said. “The snowstorm wrecked our flight, that bag got you stopped, and as far as sexy panties flying around the room go…Not what I’d call a turnoff on my end.”
Ginnie felt like her stomach was going to cave it. “But they’re not my sexy underwear.”
“You were serious about that?”
“Somehow, my bag – which is the Dr. Lawrence Michaels special, apparently – got mixed up with this one. Which must belong to the girl he’s with.” Ginnie sank down on the bed and added bitterly, “On the plus side…At least now I know what I was lacking in the bedroom.”
Anger flashed across Quinn’s face. “You’re not lacking anything in the bedroom.”
“Except imagination.”
Ginnie felt ridiculous, arguing with him about it when the proof was spread out across the room. She sank down to the edge of the bed, then began to shake. Without the heat of desire dancing through her, she was freezing.
In a heartbeat, Quinn was at her side, drawing the quilt up from the bed and wrapping it around her shoulders.
“Did he tell you that, too?” Quinn’s voice had an edge that conflicted heavily with his tender actions.
“N-n-no,” Ginnie replied through chattering teeth. “He d-d-didn’t even t-t-tell me about th-th-this.”
“He didn’t tell you about his fantasies?”
“N-n-no.”
“So he didn’t even give you a chance.”
Quinn muttered it so quietly that Ginnie wasn’t even sure he i
ntended her to hear it. She answered anyway.
“It d-d-doesn’t matter,” she said.
“Of course it matters.”
Quinn slid backwards on the bed, then pulled Ginnie back, too. When she resisted, he sighed loudly.
“Don’t fight with me,” he said. “I’m just trying to stop you from getting hypothermia.”
“R-r-right.”
“It’s a choice between cuddling like this and stripping down and using body heat, Ginnie. You pick.”
Her face warmed. “N-n-not much of a ch-ch-choice.”
“C’mon, Ginnie” he cajoled. “You’re wrapped in a grandma-blanket and telling me about your former husband’s fantasies. I can’t think of anything less sexy. I should be able to control myself.”
Ginnie opened her mouth, then closed it. He’d done that thing again. The one where anything she said could – and would – be used against her.
“F-f-fine,” she conceded, and slid a little closer.
“Let’s not leave hypothermia to chance,” Quinn said, then dragged her up between his thighs, cocooned her in the blanket, and slid her arms around her body. “Better?”
She wished she could lie and say no, but the second her back molded into his chest, her teeth stopped banging together and warmth seeped into her body.
“Much,” she admitted, then added – just to show that she could be adult about him being right, “Thank you, Quinn.”
“You’re welcome.” He gave her a firm squeeze. “See how a little communication goes a long way? You can’t just keep your needs to yourself and expect someone to guess what you want.”
“Easy for you to say. Since you always know what you want, apparently,” she grumbled.
“Are you going to try to convince me that you’re shy about what you want? Because I’m not gonna believe it.”
“I thought we were talking about Lawrence,” Ginnie replied.
“Were we?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm. Tell me then… How could you know what he wanted if he didn’t tell you? Maybe you would’ve come through.”
“That might be true. If you happened to be talking about anything other than cops-and-robbers in the bedroom.”
Quinn chuckled. “If he had shared his little fantasy with you…What would you have done?”
Mile High Weekend (Opposites Attract Book 1) Page 11