by Janie Crouch
He yanked her closer so they were once again slow dancing even though the music had a faster beat.
“Do you know what you look like right now?”
She automatically reached up to touch her hair like he’d known she would. He slipped his fingers over hers and removed the last of the bobby pins that had been holding her hair in the bun. Now it was just a straight high ponytail. “I look like a mess,” she said.
He eased back so he could look her in the eye. “You do look like a mess, and it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
He’d expected her to argue with him, but instead, she reached back and pulled the elastic out of her hair so that it fell around her shoulders, straight and dark. He would’ve thought it was curly the way those little pieces had always tried to curl and escape the restriction.
“Better?” she asked.
He wrapped his arm lower around her hips and pulled her to him. “Hair up or down, you’re still the sexiest woman in here.”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to say stuff like that, you know.”
“I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t the truth.”
“Then, why don’t you tell me what it is about my dress that’s upsetting you, since you’re telling the truth.”
“There’s not a damn thing about that dress that’s upsetting me. What it’s doing is driving me crazy.”
A knowing look came over her face. “Because you know all I have to do is pull on one tie and it’s going to fall open?”
This woman was dangerous. She might not have a lot of experience, but that didn’t make her naïve, and it certainly didn’t make her dumb.
“You wore it on purpose.”
Her smile was all woman. “I wasn’t sure I was going to see you tonight when I first put this on. And there was no guarantee you’d understand exactly what type of dress this was if I did see you.”
“Oh, I understand.” His voice was so guttural he barely recognized it.
“Good.” She leaned closer to his ear. “Can I ask you a question then?”
“Sure.”
“Will you take me home? I didn’t drive, Girl Riley gave me a ride.”
He sucked in a breath. “You do know that if we leave here together everyone is going to assume that we’re leaving here together.”
At this point the girls’ night out had broken down more into couples, almost everyone paired with someone.
“Is it okay with you if everyone knows we’re leaving together?” she asked. “My understanding is that you haven’t been taking women home lately.”
“Who told you that?” He swayed them softly and gently to the slower music.
She raised an eyebrow. “Are you denying it?”
“No. I just hadn’t realized it was common knowledge.” More than likely Wavy. His sister was probably the one who’d come closest to figuring out the truth about him. “Maybe I’ve made it a practice to only take home beautiful women in certain types of dresses.”
She stopped their swaying, arms wrapped around his neck. “Then I’m doubly glad I wore the dress. Take me home.”
He reached deep inside himself for a level of self-control he wasn’t certain he had. “You know I’ll give you a ride, Cupcake. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that. I don’t want you to feel pressured into—”
He stopped as her fingers pressed against his lips. “Let me rephrase. Take me home because I want to see if this dress comes off as quickly and easily as I think it can.”
He would be very happy to help the little professor with this experiment.
“Let’s go. I walked here since I only live a couple blocks away in the apartment over the garage. We’ll grab my truck.”
“Your place is closer? Then let’s stay there.”
She’d worked at Harvard for a reason.
Baby tugged at her hand to get her to walk faster as they rushed down the sidewalk toward his apartment. He’d been right. There’d been a lot of knowing grins as they’d left together. She’d avoided her brother’s eyes altogether, although Girl Riley had given her a huge wink.
The fact that Baby wasn’t saying much and was all but running them down the sidewalk actually made her feel better. His sole focus was on getting her to his place.
To his bed.
She liked the thought that someone like Baby, someone so outgoing and friendly and...sexy could be so captivated by her.
He kept them moving at a rapid pace, his fingers entwined with hers, until they reached the stairs at the side of the garage that led up to his apartment. She was breathing a little heavy but couldn’t be sure if it was because of the pace or because she was so excited. She’d never done anything like this before, and damned if it didn’t feel perfectly right.
He glanced over at her then ran his hand through his thick brown hair. “Jesus. You must think I’m a lunatic. I swear I usually have more couth than this—I don’t drag women through the street to my lair. I need to slow down, be more classy.”
She stepped onto the first step so they were eye to eye. “Actually, I’m completely turned on by the fact that you are in such a hurry to get me here.”
Something in his eyes flared, and she realized she might be poking a wild beast. Baby seemed like a man on the edge of losing control.
Because of her. That was making her hot...giddy.
“You deserve considerate and tender,” he said, leaning his forehead against hers. “I’m willing to bet you haven’t been with a lot of men since your divorce. It’s not in your nature.”
She hadn’t been with anyone since her divorce, and she and Peter had barely had sex at all the last year of their marriage.
“You deserve hours of slow, sexy foreplay,” he whispered.
He was battling with himself. And she appreciated that he wanted to give her all of that.
But not tonight.
She reached up and cupped his face, running her nails against his trimmed beard. She smiled when he shuddered.
“Quinn...”
“Rain check on that. I do want all the slow and gentle and classy. But right now, I want the passion. You make me feel things I’ve never felt before, Baby. You make my body come alive in ways I didn’t think I was capable of. The man who had us rushing over here, almost running because he couldn’t wait to get me into his bed? That’s what I want. That’s who I want—”
His lips slammed over hers, his tongue thrusting deep into her mouth.
She gasped as he bent his knees slightly so he could reach his hands under the hem of her dress where it fell at her knees and slide them all the way up the back of her thighs, until he had his hands full of her ass. A second later, he was lifting her up. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, and her legs twined around his hips.
He didn’t stop kissing her as he made his way up the stairs, not even breathing hard despite carrying her weight.
She gasped and then laughed when he slammed her back against the door frame so he could use one hand to open the door.
She sucked on his tongue as it thrust into her mouth once again, moaning.
God, yes. This. How had she made it this far into her life without feeling this? Without feeling like she was about to lose every shred of control and not caring a bit. She moaned, gripped his hair in her fist, and pulled him closer, grinding against him.
“Cupcake, that’s going to get you fucked right against this door if you’re not careful.”
She wasn’t sure which part he meant—grinding, hair-pulling, moaning—but she didn’t care. She gripped his hair again and pulled him closer, nipping gently at his bottom lip.
He growled, and it was the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard.
Keeping one arm tucked under her hip he got them inside, kicking the door shut then slamming her up against it. Her leg slid to the ground as he eased himself back, immediately going for the tie of her dress. His breath hissed out as he pulled at the bow, and the dress slid open, working the way it was supposed to.
His low curse held such reverence it made her feel more beautiful than any romantic words that she’d ever heard.
He made quick work of her bra, then peeled her underwear down her legs, crouching in front of her, kissing as he went.
She stood in front of him naked except for her high-heeled shoes. She should feel self-conscious, especially since he was still completely dressed, but she didn’t. She felt beautiful and powerful and passionate.
Her head fell back against the door as he kissed his way back up her body, taking extra time on her most sensitive parts. They were both breathing heavily by the time his face made it back up to hers, and he took her lips in a kiss.
“I can’t wait. I can’t wait anymore,” he muttered.
“Then don’t.” She couldn’t wait either. “Take me right here. Just like you are.”
She reached down to unbutton his jeans. He grabbed a condom out of his wallet and ripped the package open with his teeth. She pushed down on his pants and boxer-briefs, watching in fascination as he slid the condom on.
Technically, they probably didn’t need it. She’d been on the pill for ten years. But watching him ease the condom over his length sent a primal sort of electricity through her.
But not nearly as primal as when he hooked her leg with his hand, opening her, and began sliding slowly inside.
She thumped her head back against the door as he stretched her, the burn both delicious and a little painful. He eased back out before pressing forward once again. Her fingers gripped at his shoulders. She wasn’t sure if she was pulling him closer or pushing him away.
He slid forward and she stiffened.
Oh no.
She wasn’t sure she could do this. Maybe her body didn’t work this way after all.
“Hey,” he whispered. “Stay with me, Cupcake. No thinking, just feeling.”
He kept her leg up on his hip as he eased his other hand between their bodies, his fingers rubbing away the pain of his gentle thrusts, leaving only delicious pleasure. She relaxed, softened, melted into him.
“Yes. There you go. So damned sexy.” His deep voice rasped in her ear, hoarse from the effort this slow pace was costing him.
His fingers continued their magic as his thrusts became easier. And harder. Now when she clutched at him it wasn’t because of pain, it was because she had to have him closer. Her hips rose to meet each push.
He hiked her leg higher, opening her wider, then grabbed her other leg, wrapping it around his hips, pinning her body against the door as he slammed into her over and over again.
All she could do was hold on to him.
And feel more alive than she’d ever felt before.
Chapter Twenty-One
Quinn sat staring at her computer in her TSC office. The damn thing wasn’t working right again. It had been on the fritz all day as she’d been using it in class.
Every slide she’d tried to pull up had been backward or out of order. It had been a huge pain in her ass.
But she was still smiling at it. She couldn’t seem to stop smiling.
Maybe it was because class had gone so well, despite her computer acting up. When the slides hadn’t worked, she’d shut the thing down. Then she and the class had really dug into their writing—what was going wrong, what was going right, and how to address some basic paragraph structure issues.
It was a far cry from the master thesis and doctoral dissertations she’d worked on at Harvard. Those tended to be complicated because complicated tended to be equated with intellectual, at least in those circles.
There was nothing complicated about what she was teaching at TSC now. Basic composition. Fundamentals of writing and understanding literature.
But the course involved important life skills. What she was teaching would make a difference in the emails her students sent to their bosses requesting a raise. Or there would be subject and verb agreement in the introductory letters they sent to a prospective employer. Or when they watched a movie or TV show, they’d be able to understand some of the deeper themes and appeals and think about them more critically for themselves.
Concentrating on these things were new to her. They definitely hadn’t been her focus back East. And yes, they were simpler and more basic. But in a lot of ways, so much more important than, say, The Literary Transnationalism Through Poetic Representations of Ethics in the Renaissance—an actual doctoral dissertation committee she’d been a part of.
She liked teaching. Liked helping students learn the fundamentals that would help them every single day of their lives. So yeah, she was smiling.
She leaned back in her chair. Who was she kidding? She wasn’t grinning because of her newfound love of teaching...or not only because of her newfound love of teaching.
She was grinning because of the past three days. And the way she’d been with Baby.
They’d spent every night together at his place. Making love in ways and positions and on surfaces she’d never considered.
Who knew a coffee table with a pillow on the edge would turn her so wanton? Her face burned at the memory of how she’d begged him to take her harder as her fingers gripped the sides of the table.
He had. Until she was sobbing his name.
But the lovemaking hadn’t all been frenzied and frantic. There had been times when she’d woken him up by seeing how much she could get away with before he opened those green eyes. He was generous and adventurous in his lovemaking, and she’d soaked it all up.
The other intimacy had been a little harder for her.
Especially the morning after the first night. She’d taken a shower, alone this time, and realized when she’d come out that she didn’t have any of her stuff with her.
Stuff that was important when you were thirty-nine. Her skin and hair couldn’t get away with au naturel like a woman in her mid-twenties might be able to.
As the steam faded from the bathroom, she stood there staring into the mirror. A face scrubbed clean of makeup, which meant every flaw and patch of red and bags under her eyes were clearly visible.
And her hair... She could admit that she’d actually checked to see if, by some miracle, Baby had a straightening iron left over from some previous woman. Nope. He didn’t even have a blow dryer.
Her nerves felt like jagged rocks in her stomach as she finally forced herself to leave the bathroom and walk to the kitchen.
“There you are.” He was at the stove. “I was going to come look for you, but I knew if I caught you naked it would be at least another hour before we ate, and I’m starving.”
She was standing there in his T-shirt that fell mid-thigh on her, fingers nervously playing with the hem, waiting for him to really get a good look at her.
He set the plates of eggs and bacon on the table, then walked over and reached down to kiss the side of her neck.
“Mmmm. You’re wearing my shirt, and you smell like my soap. That’s an addictive combination. Sit down and eat before I go all caveman on you again.”
She kept her eyes trained on her plate. “You don’t have to pretend.”
“Pretend what? That I’m debating on whether my body can go another round with you before I get calories into it? That’s definitely going on in my mind.”
She took a step back from him, shaking her head. “I know how I look. I don’t have any of my stuff—my makeup, my hair products. We should’ve gone to my house, then you wouldn’t have to see me like this.” She waved a dismissive hand around her face.
“You do realize that most of your makeup was gone by the end of round number two in the shower last night, right? And that I’d taken all the pins out of your hair by the time we’d left the Eagle’s Nest.”
She felt like the walls were closing in on her. “But it’s not the same. I know it’s not the same. Don’t act like I’m one of the twenty-five-year-olds that you bring here. I know what I look like.”
Baby crossed his arms over his chest. She had to force herself not to look at those delicious muscles.
“Well, now you’re being a little bit of a snob, aren’t you Professor Harrison?”
Her eyes snapped to his. “What?”
He cocked an eyebrow at her, mirroring her expression. “Making assumptions and judging what you think is happening based on stereotypes?”
“No, I meant—”
“Meant to imply that because I’m in my twenties, I’d be put off by how a woman looks without makeup?” He leaned back against the counter.
She couldn’t deny that was part of it.
She sighed. “You’re right, and that was unfair. I’m sorry. But look at me, Baby. I don’t look anything like the woman you brought home last night. Are you telling me that doesn’t bother you at all?”
He took a breath then reached over to pull the chair out for her to sit down at the table. “I see one of us is going to have to be the adult here.”
That rankled. But before she could figure out how to respond, she found Baby’s face right in front of hers. “Can I tell you something about what I find attractive?”
He put a finger over her lips so she couldn’t answer if she’d wanted to. “A sense of humor. Someone who can carry on a conversation. Someone who is kind to others and willing to try new things, even when it’s out of their comfort zone—like going on a date with me. You’re beautiful, whether you’re wearing makeup or not.”
He removed his finger and sat down in the seat next to her at the table. “That hair of yours, though...that caught me off guard.”
Her hand flew up to her hair. “What about it?”
“It’s curly.” He reached over and grabbed a strand, pulling on it gently. “No wonder it’s always trying to escape its bun.”
“I have to spend an hour straightening it every day to get it to behave.”
He took a bite of his food and winked at her. “Some things aren’t meant to be tamed.”
It hadn’t been long after that they’d been back in bed, Quinn’s concerns about how she looked long forgotten under the heat of his gaze.
He’d stopped by every lunch shift she’d worked, and they’d had dinner together every night for the past three nights. Last night they ate with Boy Riley and Girl Riley.