She didn’t look at him when she said, “Actually, I’m pretty anxious to get back to my life.”
“Really?” He tilted his head, trying to get a bead on her.
“Yeah. This”—she waved around the room, then at him—“this has been amazing, but I know it’s just fantasy. I’m a bookseller in Smyrna Springs, Georgia. I don’t hook up with sexy bikers and have hot sex and—”
“Stop.” Quinn moved, taking Kellie with him, pushing her against the wall, pressing his body into hers. He felt her breasts against him with each breath she took, and he watched her heartbeat flutter in her throat.
She stared up at him, wide-eyed, trusting, lips slightly parted. Waiting.
“This has been the most real thing I’ve felt in a long, long time. Maybe forever. You—you and your crazy romantic world—you make me feel things I never thought I’d feel—and I’m saying shit I never thought I’d say.”
She shook her head. “But it’s not real. I’m leaving tomorrow. You’ll call me a few times, then get busy, meet someone more interesting, and forget about me. This can’t be real.”
“Fuck if it’s not.”
…
Quinn was every ounce the vengeful biker god that she’d met a few days ago. But now she knew him to be so much more. Good sport, supportive friend, hurt child, hard worker, caring lover…
Big, strong, intimidating—and threatening to shred her heart. She didn’t fear his anger—he was hurt because she was trying to reject him and not because she’d turned him down for sex. And that made it that much worse.
She didn’t have time to catch her breath before Quinn’s mouth covered hers. He nipped at her lips, then pressed his tongue between her teeth where it tangled with her own, slipping through her mouth.
Before she had adjusted to the rhythm of his kiss he moved on and trailed his lips over her cheek to her ear and along her neck, kissing, sucking nibbles down the side of her throat to her shoulder.
He ran his hands along her sides, up to cup her breasts, which swelled to meet him. When he pinched one nipple through her catsuit, she cried out with arousal that was half pleasure and half pain.
His shoulders were hard and tight under her hands as she wrapped one leg around his, trying to press her lower body closer to his, needing to feel him. He was hard against her, his cock straining between the fabric of his pants and her leotard.
He shoved one hand between her back and the wall, reaching behind her, ripping at the nylon between her legs as she fought with his belt buckle, unfastening the leather and metal as fast as her fingers allowed.
She felt a snap and heard a curse. Cool air soothed the hot flesh between her legs before his fingers slid between her legs, forward, slipping into her slick folds. The need to feel him inside her was all-consuming. His shuddering breath told her he felt the same way.
Finally she had him free, was shoving his waistband down, rising on her toes, trying to—
With a quick motion, she was lifted in his big hands, and she wrapped both legs around his waist, arching and moving so that he could enter her.
The first couple of inches slid inside and felt like heaven, like—
“Condom!” He froze—they both froze—midstroke. That is, everything but their complementary parts stopped moving. His penis pulsed, enough that neither one of them dared to twitch.
Until the side of his mouth rose, just a hair.
And she snuffed out a mini laugh.
“Kellie…” he warned, finding a free hand to smack her on the butt.
The sting from the slap, surprisingly, made it all feel even hotter. She’d have to think about that later, when she could actually think. “We’ve got to stop—”
“One, two…”
On three, their bodies parted and her feet hit the ground. She sprinted for the toiletry bag on the desk and leaned over to grab a foil packet from the pouch. Quinn skidded into her backside, stopping short of impaling her.
She looked up into the mirror and saw him staring down at her, a hand on each hip, his cheeks flushed. Without a word she reached back and handed him the condom.
Holding her gaze in the mirror, he tore the package open, and stroked himself before he rolled on protection.
Kellie’s knees weakened at the sight of him touching himself like that. She wanted to turn and take him in her own hands, get him to show her exactly how to do what he liked, but then his hands were back on her, tearing her catsuit even further. With a tilt of hips, he pushed forward, sliding into her from behind, stretching her in a way that sent tingles through her entire body.
“Can you see?” Quinn murmured. “You need to see what I see.” He angled her so that she was holding on to the side of the desk, but still in front of the mirror, staring at the way their bodies moved together. She tried not to think about how she’d never get to see this again, never get to feel this—oh, God, this—again.
He began to thrust. Slowly, painstakingly, the ache inside her built. Then he picked up the pace.
“This is us. You and me. This is real, baby. This is me fucking you silly. If I’m making you feel half of what I feel, then it’s real.”
He took one of her hands and moved it under her.
“Touch yourself, make yourself come around me.”
One of his hands rose to caress her breast, alternately caressing and squeezing. Her fingers slid over her clit, finding a rhythm, stroking a tension that built with his thrusts, rising and tightening, and heating her body from scalp to toes.
“God, Quinn, I can’t, I have to, I—” She didn’t know what she needed. She was close, so close. Afraid to go over, afraid not to.
“Come on, baby. You’re the wordsmith. Tell me.” He panted and thrust as he touched her, stroked her, made her whole body shake.
But she couldn’t say it, couldn’t tell him what she felt, because then she’d never be able to take the words back. If she said, “I’m falling for you. I’m going to miss you so much,” it would be true. And real.
Quinn began to mutter… “Tell me you don’t love this, don’t love what I’m doing…”
And Kellie’s brain began to shut down as her reflexes took over, as an orgasm swamped every nerve ending with white-hot light.
Quinn gasped, his own pace stuttering, but kept up his dialogue. “Tell me you don’t love it, don’t need this as bad as I do, that this isn’t everything to you…that you’re going to leave me and never look back.”
There was something in there that Kellie should pay attention to, but then he groaned and began to fuck into her hard, fast, causing another orgasm, impossibly stronger than the last one to wring every bit of sense out of her until he, too, stilled, sagging over her back, supporting himself on shaking arms surrounding hers on the dresser.
There was silence, except for heavy breathing, which took a long time to slow down.
Chapter Fifteen
Quinn pulled Kellie into his arms when he collapsed backward in the vicinity of the bed. Mercifully, he landed them on the mattress—but it didn’t really matter; she was with him.
He laughed.
“What’s so funny?” She snuggled against him, pulling the bedspread over their cooling bodies.
“Just laughing at myself,” he said.
“Come on, spill.”
“Well, I started off this weekend with a mission—to convince you to give your writing dreams a chance.”
“How noble of you.” Her dry tone was belied by the little wiggle she gave against his side.
“Yeah. I had no intention of trying to convince you to give me a chance. I think I got sidetracked.”
She stiffened, silent now.
Damn. He’d chased her back into her cave. Best try to stay on safer ground for now. “So are you going to keep writing?”
She relaxed fractionally. “I don’t know.”
Ah, hell. “What? Why? You love this.”
She sighed. “I do, but I just can’t let it be more than a hobby. I can’t afford
to take that chance. Even with Brae’s job offer—”
“What job offer?”
“She wants me to work as her personal assistant. She says she’ll pay me a living wage, provide room and board, and give me plenty of time to write, but I can’t leave the shop.”
He felt his mission slipping away from him. She was giving up on herself. He rolled to his side and pinned her with his gaze. “You can’t give up on this. You’ve got to take a chance. Take some risk.”
She sat up, clutching the blanket. “My whole life is a risk. I run a financially failing bookstore that half the neighborhood hates and the landlord wants closed. I have an assistant I can’t afford.”
“So close it down. Take Brae’s job.”
She stared at him, horror etched across her features, and he knew he’d screwed the pooch. “If I left the shop, the kids wouldn’t have anyone to feed their imaginations. To the rest of the world, they’re already statistics waiting for their numbers to come up. If I close the store, they have one less reason to want an education.”
If she said anything after that, Quinn didn’t hear her. He understood what she was saying. He felt the same way about Quinn’s Customs. It wasn’t just about the shop, about the bikes, but about the guys. They needed him. He hadn’t served in the military, but he was damned sure going to help Darryl and Darryl, his two veterans—two great guys who probably couldn’t hold a regular job—keep a job that was essential to their self-esteem.
He stroked her hair, quiet for a few minutes, enjoying the feel of Kellie’s body against his. She made him feel so much. Good, strong, capable. Cared for. And he understood why she’d been avoiding his question about seeing each other after this weekend. It would never work, because neither of them could ever leave their soul behind. Because that’s what it would mean, for one of them to give up their business to be together. And they could pretend to try to have a part-time casual cross-country affair, but…nope. He was already head over heels.
Rising, he fastened his pants and turned to look at Kellie, who was a beautiful, rumpled mess.
“Quinn?”
“I’ve got to go.”
She nodded. “I know.”
He couldn’t just walk out. He sat down and took her hand. Looking at her, at that silky brown hair, her gorgeous green eyes, and that creamy skin, the woman with the big sense of humor and bigger heart, he knew he wasn’t walking away from this without some scars.
“I had a great time pretending to be your boyfriend this weekend, babe. I dunno if you’ll be leaving everything that happened in Vegas here or not, but I’m sure glad I got to be part of it.”
With that, he kissed her soft lips, trying not to linger, but ultimately pulled away. As he got to the door, he heard her say, “Don’t go yet…” but he had to get out of there before he stayed and begged her not to leave, or asked her to take him and his fucking law degree with her.
The door opened behind him as he got to the elevators, but he didn’t look back, and she didn’t call out again. Fortunately, he didn’t have long to wait before the doors opened.
Toby and Brae came out, wrapped in each other’s arms and as in love and happy as ever they could be.
“Hey, buddy,” Quinn said, pulling his wallet from his pocket and extracting a card. “I forgot to give this to you. It’s my brother’s card. He’s a lawyer and can probably take a look at that contract if you want to get out of that deal. See if he can find you any loopholes.”
“I thought you were a lawyer,” Brae said, giving Quinn the evil eye, the only way best friends can do.
“Nope. Just a bike mechanic,” he said, waving as the elevator doors slid shut on him, leaving his heart behind.
…
No way.
Call her crazy, but Kellie’s mind changed the instant that door closed behind Quinn. “No fucking way,” she said. She’d just broken her no-cussing rule and there’d been no one there to hear it.
So she cussed again. “Hell no!” No way was she letting him go without taking her phone number, email address, and Twitter handle with him. It might make her miserable at some point down the road, but she had to give it a try. He was so completely worth it.
She pulled off the rest of her shredded costume. Forgoing panties, she dragged a pair of jeans up her legs and over her bare butt, threw on a sweatshirt, and shoved on a pair of flip-flops. She grabbed her key card before she ran to the elevator, ignoring Brae and Toby when they called out to her.
Quinn couldn’t walk out on her. He’d made her cuss, for God’s sake.
On the way to the lobby, she went over everything that had happened in the past hour. She’d known he was going to suggest a long-distance relationship for hours. And she’d avoided that conversation for hours. She’d been down that road before, gotten the T-shirt, had it shrink and shred on her, sent it to Goodwill.
But then there had been dancing. And sex. Not just sex. Mind-blowing, earth-shattering, making-love type sex—if she wasn’t mistaken. It felt like that to her, even as it had been as fast and dirty as she’d ever experienced. God, he’d talked to her all the way through it.
But then they’d talked about her life back in Georgia. Her beloved bookstore. The reason she couldn’t let it go. She couldn’t have a writing career—and still keep the business afloat. Maybe in her spare time she’d write sweet—or even filthy dirty—little romances to entertain herself. But she couldn’t spend the time and energy it would take to market herself.
And she sure couldn’t have a romance hero boyfriend. Not an imaginary time-traveling Greek god, or a real-life artist biker rebel.
So when the elevator doors finally slid open on a lobby, Kellie halfheartedly made her way to the front doors. She reached the inside of the double glass doors just in time to hear the roar of a motorcycle engine over the convention crowd behind her. She saw Quinn ride into the night, through her own pathetic reflection, and waved, even though she knew he didn’t see her.
She went back upstairs and approached her hotel room door. Alone. Not quite ready to face the rumpled, Quinn-scented sheets, she dug her key card out, anyway.
“Kellie!”
Brae and Toby stuck their heads out of their room, like nonidentical conjoined twins, as though their past day’s drama had never happened.
“What happened with Quinn?” Brae asked, her blue eyes wide and sympathetic.
“He’s gone. I guess…I guess it just wasn’t our time.”
From the corner of her eye, Kellie saw Toby take out his phone and fade back. Chicken.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. He had so much…potential. But if he’s determined to be a motorcycle repairman and not a lawyer, I supposed you’re better off without him. It’s just too risky to be with someone like that, no matter how sexy he is. Or heck…maybe because of how sexy he is.”
Huh?
Kellie tooked at Toby, with his blond, all-American, prep-school good looks. He didn’t really do it for Kellie, but certainly a large segment of the female population liked him, or he wouldn’t be Mr. Lustful Lover.
“Toby’s different,” Brae said, waving in his direction. “We’re different. You’d be worried about Quinn all the time if you were with him. I mean, who wouldn’t? Rhonda Responsible and a big bad biker?”
Kellie just stared. Is that how Brae thought of her? Rhonda Responsible?
“So anyway, it’s just as well. Now you have one less barrier to coming to work for me, right? What do you say?”
“I—”
“Oh, we’re going to have so much fun. You’ll love it… You’ll only have to beta read and edit stuff for me half the day, then after you take care of all of my correspondence, you’re free to do whatever writey stuff you want to play with.” She started to list the projects she wanted to work on, but Kellie was done.
She straightened to her full five two, flip-flop soles included.
Her friend wound down, realizing that Kellie wasn’t with her.
“No.”
“W
hat?” Brae’s eyes clouded, and Kellie glimpsed the lonely girl she’d befriended all those years ago. “What do you mean, ‘no’? Why not?”
Kellie took a breath. Let it out. “I mean, no. I’m your friend, Brae, and I love you to death. But I’m not going to come and work for you. I’m not going to help you write your books. I wrote so much of the last one that I put my own work on a back burner, and I’m not going to do that again.”
“I thought you loved working on Lustful Lovers.”
“I did. But it’s your book—that I rewrote and rewrote for you until it was readable.” Kellie couldn’t believe that had come out of her mouth. But honestly, it felt pretty good.
Brae stomped her foot, squishing any hope Kellie had that the diva she’d become would let her former self—the best friend—survive. “You probably spent so much time on it because your own ideas aren’t good enough to hold your attention, much less an agent or editor’s.”
Kellie gasped, but then…maybe Brae was right. Probably, she was right. She was the one with the big book and movie deal, wasn’t she?
“Thanks. You know what? I came here to decide if I was done with romance, and I think I’ve made up my mind. I wish you the best of luck, though.”
Brae gaped.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to pack.” She turned and let herself into her room with as much dignity as she could muster, ignoring the “Kellieeeeee…” that followed her inside.
Forty minutes later, she shoved her stuff into the back of the little car she’d rented and headed for the airport.
She got through security before she remembered that her flight wasn’t for another eight hours. Crap. She really needed to keep her mind occupied, because she was having fantasies of Quinn climbing over the heads of other travelers to get to her so he could tell her he loved her.
Neither the free books she’d picked up at the conference nor her own work-in-progress interested her. She tried to watch the news in the little restaurant and bar near her gate, but couldn’t focus.
Accidentally in Love With the Biker (What Happens in Vegas) Page 12