“Yes. He’s not as fragile as you think.”
And I’m not as strong, she silently added.
“I hope you’re right,” her mother replied before she disconnected.
Amazing. Quinn blinked at her now-dormant phone, sitting on the counter looking harmless. Yet, somehow, in the course of a single transmission from the seemingly innocuous device, she’d managed to become solely responsible in the event Callum opted not to stick with Foundations.
The unfairness of it ate at her. She’d been the one to call him on using again. She’d been the one to perform the intervention. She’d been the one to herd him into rehab, and still had the scars to prove it. She was the one who enrolled him in the best facility available, and she was the one hustling to pay the bills. The only thing she couldn’t do was complete the damn program for him. But by refusing to help him leave, she’d assumed all the risk of his failure in the eyes of their family.
Somehow, she’d also managed to open the bag of coconut chips and pour herself a handful. Her stomach rumbled in anticipation.
One little bite. Just one.
The Dirty Games producers would never know. Eddie would never know. Willpower slipped through her fingers like sand. Luke would never know.
You’ll know. Just like you know you’ll finish the whole bag, and probably the other one, too. Do you really want to sabotage yourself for a moment of…of…?
Holy shit.
She dumped the chips on the counter and picked up her phone. Her wallpaper—a collage of the God-awful “Before” pictures Luke had taken the first day—disappeared as her fingers flew across the screen, dialing a number she’d never called but knew by heart. A deep voice picked up after the first ring.
“Quinn?”
“I…um…I know why I ate the cookies.”
“Tell me.”
“For comfort.” To her horror, the reply came out on a sob.
“Do you need comfort now?” he asked quickly.
Jesus. She ought to say no and let him off the hook. If not for the sake of her pride, then because any other man with a hysterical woman on the other end of the line would run for the hills. “Y-yes.”
“I’ll be right there.”
…
Quinn answered the door wearing a silky white Playground at Paradise Bay bathrobe and a wrecked expression. He stepped inside, pulling her into his arms at the same time he kicked the door shut. She buried her tear-streaked face against his chest and clung to him while sobs shook her petite frame. This wasn’t an act, or an attempt to manipulate him in some way. This was real heartache.
I miss you, too…
Ah, shit. His heart started to pound, even as his body reacted in the usual ways to the feel of her pressed against him. He felt every line of her through the thin robe. He lifted her into his arms and carried her into the villa, past the chip-strewn kitchen island, and on through to the living area with its oversize, white furniture and view of the dusky courtyard. At the foot of the sofa, he set her on her feet, and then, because he couldn’t help himself, he ran a hand over her hair as he murmured, “Shhh. Stop crying.”
Whoever he is, he’s not worth it.
“I-I can’t.” She coughed the words out, and he heard the utter despair in them.
The door holding back every jealous impulse, every dangerous urge, every complicated emotion he harbored toward this woman groaned to contain them. He cupped her head and eased it away from his chest, then smoothed her hair back from her face. “Yes, you can. Come on. You’re all right.”
Tears continued their steady stream down her damp cheeks. Her wet lips trembled apart on a harsh, semi-hysterical noise somewhere between a laugh and a cry. “I am not all right. You knew as much as soon as Eddie contacted you.”
“That’s not true. Stop crying, Quinn, for both our sakes.” He’d overestimated himself. The robe swam on her, and somewhere between her crying jag, and his carrying her inside, the tie at her waist had turned to a loose knot. The front gaped a little more every time she took a shuddery breath, and the slippery fabric slid like a lover over her breasts, outlining her defined nipples. The fact that she wasn’t trying to entice him didn’t stop his mind from racing. In less than a second, he could have the edge flicked aside to bare those perfect breasts, take one tight peak into his mouth and comfort her until she forgot all about some fuckwit who had the power to make her cry from thousands of miles away.
“It is true.” She punctuated the remark with a watery sniff. “You wanted nothing to do with me.”
Restraint always came easy, except with her. The hinges on his self-control snapped. He spun her around and bent her over the back of the overstuffed white upholstered chair that still bore the imprint of her body. A script was tossed on the matching ottoman. “You think you know what I want?”
Her quick inhale didn’t quite cover the rasp of his zipper as he tore at the front of his jeans. She angled her head so she could look at him. Her eyes were round in her tearstained face as she watched him dig a condom out of his wallet and tear it open. “Luke?”
“Do you?” He rolled the condom on, and then wrapped a fist around his cock and shoved the back of her robe up to her waist. “You think you know what I wanted to do with you as soon as I heard that precise, go-fuck-yourself voice on the other end of a phone?”
She parted her legs and rose up onto her toes. “Do it now.”
“Stop crying, and I’ll do anything you ask.” Don’t think about anyone else while I’m inside you.
“Help me stop.”
The plea barely passed her lips before he drove into her—so deep, he jostled a low, grateful cry from her as she reared up to meet the thrust. He drew back just enough to get a view of how brutally thick he looked lodged inside her smaller, far more delicate body, and then he thrust again, trying to temper the force this time, but still pushing her hips higher over the top of the chair. Her mouth fell open, then slowly closed on a moan as she lowered her head to the cushion.
“You need comfort?” He growled the question.
“Yes,” she gasped, her cheek brushing the upholstery as she nodded.
Every reason why this was wrong faded. He could justify anything, because her tears had stopped. “Take it. Take what you need.”
Use me.
He forced himself to still, and watched her slowly circle her hips, pulling away at the zenith and then sliding back. When she brought her ass close, despite his best intentions to let her do what she chose, he gave in to the imperative to move, slamming their bodies together and sending her scrambling to stabilize herself. She hadn’t quite managed when he thrust into her again. Her toes left the ground. The robe pooled around her shoulders as her body tipped forward. The angle pinned her head and arms to the seat of the chair, and her opportunity for taking ended. This position foreclosed any ability on her part to be an active participant. She could only receive. Whatever comfort he chose to give, in whatever manner he chose to give it. Recipient.
Quinn being Quinn, the limitation didn’t stop her from trying to assert control. “Hard, and fast. I don’t want to think. I don’t want to feel anything but this.”
His body accepted the challenge and he proceeded to give her exactly what she asked for, keeping the pace furious, even when her breath hitched, and her body stiffened. Even when an orgasm squeezed every part of her until she sagged into the chair, panting and wrung out.
More.
That’s all he could think. Give her more. Make her take more. They’d crossed the line. There was no coming back from this, and he needed to make sure she understood where they stood now. Make sure she looked him in the eye and whimpered his name in acknowledgment the next time she came, so she had no room to maneuver when he asked her the tough questions she’d been evading for weeks. No backpedaling. No throwing up shields. No walking away.
Concentrating on the look-him-in-the-eye part of the plan, he pulled out of her. The abrupt move splashed hot, damp remnants of her orgasm o
nto her thighs. Her shocked gasp held a note of betrayal, and he felt the sting of it along every inch of his cock.
Prolonged suffering wasn’t part of his plan, for either of them, so he hauled her off the chair, spun her around, and braced her high against the wall. Then, knees bent, he slid into her again. His penetration sent a shiver through her. Her post-orgasmic flush deepened, staining her cheekbones almost the same shade as her lips. Dark-blond lashes sank low over dazed eyes, and her thick sigh of pleasure misted his face.
“Look at me,” he managed to say through the crippling chaos of his own need. And then, he simply closed one hand along the side of her head, the other along her jaw, and tipped her face to his. The mouth he’d been dreaming of hovered less than an inch from his. His lips ached to close the distance. His tongue tingled with anticipation of finally exploring the sweet recess his cock had usurped the honor of entering first. “What did you need tonight, Quinn?”
“Comfort.” She squirmed her hips as she said it, clearly seeking more. “Something to take away the ache.”
He leaned in, offering her more, bringing their mouths infinitesimally closer. “Does this comfort you?” He rocked his hips.
“Yessss.”
Her head tried to fall back, but he kept it forward. Kept their eyes locked. “Good.” He rocked again, giving her a quick, shallow stir, and then let her chase his retreating cock, so they’d both appreciate the honesty of her response.
“Yes.”
The first orgasm had left her sensitive. One hard grind was all she could stand before she dug her heels into his calves for leverage, and lifted.
This time he pursued, pinning her hips to the wall and burying himself high inside her—hilt to clit. She fought it a little, battling the intensity, but then relaxed as he eased back. Her forehead rested against his. Her soft moan assured him that while he might have inflicted more than he thought she could withstand, it worked for her. “When you need comfort, you come to me. Understand? If you feel empty, don’t sabotage yourself to fill the void. Don’t reach for quick fixes that are going to fail you in the long run. You reach for me, Quinn, because I’m never going to fail you. Say it.”
“You. I reach for you.”
He rewarded that breakthrough with a surge of his hips. Her lips were a hairsbreadth from his. He could almost feel them. Almost taste them. “That’s right. I’ll fill every void. Take away every ache. All you have to do is call for me.” He needed to see it. See her lips forming his name.
“Luke. Lu—”
And that was it. More than he could take. After struggling for an eternity to deny himself, the war ended here. He captured those lips while his name still lingered on them. Her mouth moved under his, as demanding, and giving as he’d known it would be. He delved deep. She sealed her lips around his tongue, and speared her fingers into his hair, holding him there as if she honestly feared he could abandon the kiss. She’d learn. He tightened his hold on her jaw and lunged into her again, claiming her everywhere. Claiming everything. Giving everything.
Her hands rushed over him—down his back, under his T-shirt, along his spine—urging him on. A blunt but steady thumping alerted some distant part of his brain that he was buffeting her between the wall and his body, driving into her with more energy than finesse. Fingernails raked his skin.
Too rough. He was being way too rough.
He got a hand under her, supporting her, his fingers sinking into the divide between her ass cheeks. She ripped her mouth from his and whimpered his name as she quivered on the brink of another orgasm.
He buried his face in the curve of her neck, and shot them both over the edge, groaning in surrender as something far too annihilating to be relief shuddered through him.
Chapter Thirteen
“Comfort comes at a price, Quinn. Pay up. Talk to me.”
She didn’t remember sliding down the wall, but somehow she’d ended up on Luke’s lap, her legs slung around his hips, her arms clinging to shoulders, and her head crashed on his chest. Her body suffered a thousand tender spots, but right now, before they exchanged any serious words, her heart wasn’t one of them. All the aches were deeply satisfying, like sore muscles after a good workout. Talking would ruin the rarified state. She raised her head and gave him her brassiest smile. “I think we pretty much covered everything worth discussing.”
Not even a ghost of a smile greeted her. “Think again.”
Retreat seemed like her next best option. She made a move to crawl off his lap, only to find big hands banded around her arms. “Think again,” he repeated.
She opened her mouth to tell him to…what, she wasn’t sure…but the disaster comprising the last six months of her life started dribbling out in a halting, unrehearsed order—tonight’s call with her mother segued into her brother’s long friendship with coke, and her failed effort to help him relaunch his life after his last attempt at getting clean. The more she talked, the more impossible it became to stem the flow of words. Like a dam with a hairline crack, each escaping detail weakened the wall behind which she held everything at bay. It crumbled slowly at first, and then quickly, in a rush that sounded disjointed even to her. Poor Luke didn’t have a chance in hell of following every stream of her rambling explanation, but he didn’t interrupt with questions or attempt to bring order to the information. He just let her talk. And she did, unable to stop even as the bitter truth about her knee sprain spewed out.
“Jesus.” She shut her eyes and pressed her hand to her mouth, but it was too late. “Nobody knows that,” she added quickly. “Not my parents. Not Eddie. I don’t want anyone to know. Please, don’t tell anyone.”
“Shhh.” Something touched her face. His thumb, sweeping away more tears she hadn’t realized escaped. “Like everything you tell me, this stays between us. You can trust me. You did the right thing by telling me.”
She took over the job of mopping her face, but still didn’t look at him. “I don’t feel right. I feel like a fucking train wreck. I’m not supposed to come apart like this. Callum’s the one prone to shatter. I’m supposed to be the strong one. My mother thinks I should let him come. My brother thinks—”
“I don’t give a goddamn what either of them think. It’s off the table.”
Now she did look at him, taking in his steely eyes and set jaw. His edict, and the arrogance with which he’d delivered it, should have pissed her off, but it didn’t. He made her feel…protected. Especially when he added, “If you need someone else to point to for reasons, point to me, because if he comes anywhere near you, I’m kicking his ass.”
He took a breath and visibly banked his temper, while her heart slid a little farther out of her grasp. As a rule, she didn’t inspire protective instincts in…well…anybody. There were reasons she played the kind of roles she did. She was tough. Her family expected it. Her profession demanded it. Seeing Luke’s tightly reined temper rise on her behalf hit squarely in some soft underbelly of her emotional armor she tried her best to keep hidden.
“You don’t owe him any favors, Quinn. You did him a big one by not pressing charges, and putting him in a program instead of a jail cell.”
Defending her brother came automatically. “He didn’t mean to hurt me. He just…couldn’t stay on his feet. He couldn’t control himself.”
“And as long as he’s battling an addiction, he’s not in control. He’s in a world of hurt. His request tells me he’s desperate for a way out of his situation, and not above manipulating the people who love him to find one. Desperate people get careless and mean. Don’t put yourself in harm’s way again. Keep your distance until you’re both sure of his motives. Make him earn your trust.”
“Is that an order?”
She immediately regretted the bristly retort. His support eased the guilt and uncertainty clawing at her. This once, she wanted someone she could trust to tell her what to do. And she trusted him.
Apparently he realized as much, even if she lacked the good grace to say it out loud. He
squeezed her fingers before releasing her hand. “A strict order.”
He can read you like a comic book.
A frightening thought, when she really considered it. Could he see everything, like how far gone she was where he was concerned? And just how the hell did he feel? Yes, he’d just fucked her blind, but she knew better than to read anything into that. She’d used sex like a weapon from day one, to balance the scales, get under his skin, and, at times, just prove to herself he wasn’t immune to her. He’d already proved he wasn’t above engaging in some sexual brinksmanship of his own.
And no, she wasn’t playing anymore. Over the past weeks, things had changed for her. But for him? Unlikely. If anything, her breakdown tonight probably cemented his opinion of her as a head case. She busied herself straightening and securing her robe—rebuilding her smooth facade—and mustered up some actual manners. “I’m sorry I interrupted your evening with my personal drama. Thank you for dropping everything and coming over to…” Fuck me? “…comfort me.”
“You call. I come. That was always part of the deal.”
She snuck a look at him from under her lashes. “Am I so predictable? You knew it was only a matter of time before a neurotic narcissist like me needed even more attention?”
He ran his index finger down the front of her robe, edging the fabric aside to bare her breast. “You are definitely not predictable. Quinn, I think you know the rest of what occurred tonight wasn’t part of our deal. It wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Exactly what a girl wanted to hear from the man who’d just made her come so hard, she’d seen stars. Her nipple tightened under his gaze as if to dispute him, even as a dull throb settled in her chest. “Because I’m a client?”
“That’s what you’re supposed to be, according to the contract we both signed. But that’s only part of the reason.”
“Sounds like you’ve got a whole list.” She drew back and attempted to cover herself and get her feet under her at the same time. Listening to a rundown of her shortcomings was more than she could handle right now.
Dirty Games (Tropical Temptation Book 4) Page 13