Quentin scowled. “Don’t tell your brother. I don’t feel like hearing his damn mouth.”
“Your secret’s safe with me. But just out of curiosity, what’d you do this time?”
“For once,” Quentin grumbled morosely, “not a damn thing.”
Marcus gave him a long, assessing look. “I believe you.”
“Gee, thanks, Wolf.”
“No, I’m serious. I know what it’s like to be presumed guilty until proven innocent, and it’s no picnic.” He paused, his expression turning thoughtful. “You know, Lexi reminds me a lot of Samara.”
“In what way?”
“Tough, headstrong, vulnerable. They both went through a lot with their mothers. And they both have daddy issues, which, unfortunately, makes it hard for them to trust the men who genuinely care about them.”
Marcus wasn’t saying anything Quentin didn’t already know. But considering that Marcus had successfully weathered the storm and gained Samara’s love and trust, Quentin figured the man probably knew what he was talking about.
“So what’s your advice, Confucius?”
Marcus smiled cryptically. “Don’t get caught kissing any supermodels.”
Remembering Lexi’s accusations about Giselle, Quentin swore colorfully under his breath.
Marcus laughed. “See you at ten-thirty.”
Shortly after he’d left the office, Byron stuck his head through the doorway. “You wanted to see me, boss?”
“Yeah.” Quentin waved him inside.
As soon as Byron sat in one of the leather visitor chairs across from his desk, Quentin said without preamble, “When you asked me for dating advice yesterday, I didn’t know you were going out with Lexi.”
Byron flushed. “I was trying to be discreet. I know you guys are best friends. I wasn’t sure if she’d want you to know that, uh, we were, ah—”
Impatient, Quentin cut him off. “No more dates with Lexi. Got that?”
Byron looked confused. “I—I don’t understand.”
“Look—” The lawyer in Quentin reminded him to tread with caution. Byron was his employee, and this was a personal matter. He couldn’t give him the impression that there’d be some sort of workplace retaliation if the kid didn’t comply with his demand.
Quentin knew all that—but he didn’t give a damn. “All you need to know is that Lexi is off-limits. I like you, kid, but if you insist on seeing her again, you and I are gonna have a serious problem. Feel me?”
Stunned, Byron gaped at him for several moments, then swallowed hard and nodded.
“Good.” Quentin smiled, leaning back in his chair to defuse some of the tension between them. “Whatever happened to that cute little hairstylist you were seeing a while ago?”
“Diamond?” Byron made a face. “Didn’t work out. Besides, she’s nothing like—” He broke off, but Quentin knew what he’d been about to say. She’s nothing like Lexi.
He wondered if he, too, would forever judge other women by that standard.
“Lexi and I had a good time last night.” Byron smiled wryly. “That is, after I got rid of my butterflies.”
Quentin narrowed his eyes. “Define ‘good time.’”
Byron met his gaze, correctly interpreted what he was asking and let out a nervous little laugh. “That’s kind of a personal question, boss.”
Quentin was already measuring the width of the massive desk, mentally calculating whether it’d be quicker to go over it or around it to get his hands on his young associate.
Seeing the leashed violence in his eyes, Byron got quickly to his feet. “If we’re done here, I, uh, have some client phone calls to make.”
“Go,” Quentin snarled, a dismissal and a warning. Temper simmering, he shoved to his feet and paced to the windows.
Pausing at the door, Byron said tentatively, “There’s just one thing. What am I supposed to do about tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah. I’m, uh, supposed to see Lexi again. She was going to make dinner for me.”
The words slashed through Quentin’s heart like the blade of a well-honed dagger. He turned his head with eerie slowness and stared at Byron. “What did you just say?” he asked in a chillingly soft voice.
Byron visibly gulped. “Lexi offered to cook dinner for me.”
Red swam before Quentin’s eyes.
A moment later he was storming across the room with an expression of such lethal fury that Byron actually cowered against the door. As Quentin stalked past him, he growled, “I suggest you make other dinner plans, kid, or you’re gonna starve.”
Chapter 14
When Lexi glanced up from the menu she’d been finalizing and saw Quentin bearing down on her, an analogy of a raging bull was the first thing that came to mind.
She froze, her mouth drying to dust and her knees quaking as she stared at him.
Really, who wouldn’t have trembled at the sight of a six-foot-five, two-hundred-forty-pound man with bright, flashing eyes and a positively ferocious expression charging toward them? She’d never seen Quentin so furious. So she did what any sane, self-respecting person in her shoes would have done: she turned and fled.
“Yeah, you’d better run,” came his growled taunt behind her.
Her options, of course, were woefully limited. The only escape route was the swinging door through which Quentin had just erupted. So she ducked inside the large kitchen pantry. She realized her mistake at the same time Quentin laughed darkly and muttered, “That’s even better.”
He followed her into the pantry and yanked the door closed behind them. As Lexi retreated from him, he stalked her step for step until he’d backed her up against the wall, successfully trapping her.
Fighting to ignore the erratic pounding of her heart, she stared up at him. “Wh-what’re you doing here, Quentin? I have class in twenty minutes.”
Planting his hands on either side of her head, he lowered his face to hers until she could see that his irises were, fittingly, as dark and ominous as storm clouds. The heat from his body scorched her, spiking her own temperature until she thought they’d both burst into flames. When her students came looking for her, all they’d find was a pile of smoldering ashes.
“How long are you going to keep fighting what’s between us?” Quentin spoke in a deceptively soft voice that belied the dangerous tension radiating from his body.
Lexi swallowed convulsively. “I’m not fight—”
“Wrong answer. Try again.”
Her temper flared. “How can you say I’m fighting? I slept with you—”
“That’s right. You did. And it was absolutely amazing. But the next day you got cold feet. So you cut and ran.”
“I did not! That woman kept texting—”
“Bullshit!” Quentin roared, slamming his fist on the wall beside her head and making her jump. “I’ve already told you nothing happened between us. And you know that’s the truth. But even if she hadn’t sent those pictures, you would’ve found a reason to bail that morning. Because deep down inside you’re afraid to believe that maybe, just maybe, this thing between us is real.”
“No. No.” Lexi shook her head, even as his words reached into the deepest corners of her soul and threatened to expose her darkest secrets and fears. “Don’t try to turn the tables on me. I have every reason to have doubts about you, Quentin, and you know it.”
“What I know,” he growled savagely, “is that I’m crazy about you. I want to be with you, damn it, and I’m gonna do everything in my power to make it happen.”
Lexi squeezed her eyes shut. She was trembling uncontrollably, a potent combination of anger, adrenaline, fear and arousal speeding through her veins. “This isn’t a good time, Quentin,” she said in a shaky voice. “I’m at work.”
“Yeah? Well, you shoulda thought about that before you decided to stop taking my damn calls.”
A heartbeat later his mouth was grinding against hers. She inhaled sharply as a wave of pleasure crashed through he
r. Her hands slid up his chest and curved around his neck as if they had a mind of their own. She could feel the hard bulge of his erection pressed against her belly, an unholy temptation.
He lifted her off the floor, grabbing her legs and drawing them around his waist. Even as she mentally cursed her decision to wear a skirt to work that day, her body quivered at the brush of his fingers dragging the material up to her hips, pushing it out of the way. When he reached between her thighs and discovered that she wore a thong, he crooned in wicked satisfaction.
“Mmm.” He nudged aside the damp strip of silk. “You must have known I was coming for you today, Alexis.”
She shivered and groaned as he stroked the slick, swollen lips that sheathed her clitoris. “You’re trying to get me fired,” she whimpered.
“And you’re trying to get me disbarred and sent to prison.”
“Am not!” she choked out as he slid a long finger inside her.
“Are too. When Byron told me you were cooking for him tonight, I almost lost my damn mind. Are you trying to get that boy killed?” he demanded, his fierce, glittering gaze sweeping across her face as he eased a second finger into her. “Do you know what it did to me when I thought of you cooking for another man?”
“It’s just dinner,” Lexi countered weakly.
“Wrong,” he snarled. “It’s more than dinner. It’s about you sharing yourself with him the way you do with me. It’s never just about the food, and you damn well know it.”
She did. Heaven help her, she did. And maybe that was why she’d offered to cook for Byron. Some small, perverse part of her had wanted to spite Quentin. And now he’d come to mete out her punishment.
He kissed her roughly and possessively, his tongue sliding in and out of her mouth in time to his thrusting fingers. A wave of contractions rippled through her belly. Beneath her starched chef’s jacket, her breasts throbbed and her nipples had grown painfully hard. She was burning everywhere, helpless against the onslaught of her desire. A desire unlike anything she’d ever imagined or experienced before.
Removing his fingers from her body, Quentin reached down and unzipped his pants.
Lexi gasped, realizing, too late, that she’d let things go too far. “Quentin, no! Not here! My students—”
His expression darkened. “I don’t want you cooking for any other man.”
Raw need stabbed through her groin as he rubbed the thick head of his penis against her engorged clitoris, his precome mingling erotically with the wetness that coated her sex. “Do you understand me? Say you won’t ever do that again.”
Even as ecstasy beckoned on the horizon, Lexi balked at the possessive command. “Quentin—”
Without warning he drove into her, wrenching a broken cry from her throat. “Say it.”
“I won’t cook for any other man,” she sobbed out helplessly.
He flashed a dark, feral smile. “Good.”
His slow, deep thrusts sent tremors of sensation tearing down her spine, convulsing her womb. As she moaned, his hands caressed her hips and curved underneath to grasp her butt, kneading and massaging.
“You have no idea the hell you put me through last night,” he uttered in a low, rasping voice. “Or maybe you do. Strolling into the restaurant on another man’s arm. Wearing that sexy as hell dress. Forcing me to sit there and do nothing while my friends undressed you with their eyes. You had to know what you were doing to me. You had to know how much it killed me to watch you and Byron together the whole night.”
Lexi could only groan, her world centered on the single exquisite spot where their bodies were joined. Each deep, gliding thrust intensified the burning ache between her thighs, driving her toward that cataclysmic release only he could give her.
Leaning down, he nuzzled the side of her throat, finding the sensitive hollow beneath her ear that made her shiver. “Promise me you won’t see Byron again.”
She clung to his upper arms, feeling the thick muscles bunch and flex as his strokes deepened, lifting her up and down against the wall.
“Promise me.”
Shuddering, she panted, “I promise.”
But he wasn’t finished with his demands.
Cradling her face between his hands, he feathered a line of slow, soft kisses from her forehead to her mouth, his intense hazel eyes boring into hers. “Give me a chance to prove to you that I’m ready for a relationship, Lex. No walls, no barriers, no ghosts from the past. Just you and me.”
Her heart raced, and she had to struggle to answer. Could she really trust him? Was she ready to stop running, as he’d accused her of doing? Was she ready to take the plunge and fly with him? And if they crashed and burned, would she lose his friendship forever?
“Quentin, I—”
Just then the first batch of her students arrived, the sound of their laughter and voices echoing around the large, industrial kitchen.
Lexi’s eyes flew wide. Seized by panic, she stared up at Quentin. The wicked amusement in his eyes only heightened her alarm. He had her at his complete mercy, and he knew it. If her students caught her having sex in the pantry, she’d not only lose her job; she could pretty much forget about teaching at any other respectable culinary school.
Watching her face, Quentin slid out of her with excruciating slowness, stopping just at the tip. A scream rose in her throat, threatening to explode from her lips.
“Say yes,” he whispered.
Yes! she mouthed desperately.
He brought his cheek next to hers, sucking her earlobe, murmuring at her ear, “What was that, sweetness? I couldn’t hear you.”
Ruthless cad!
“Yes,” she hissed into his ear.
A slow, satisfied smile curved his mouth.
“I have to go,” she whispered frantically, circling her hips against his, begging him to finish what he’d started.
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
Holding her gaze, he eased all the way back into her, inch by inch, so that she could feel the slow slide of her juices as her body sheathed him. She nearly came right then, and had to bite her lip hard to suppress a mewling cry of ecstasy.
Eyes glinting devilishly, Quentin began thrusting into her as more voices entered the kitchen. Lexi grabbed his taut, round butt, urging him to go harder and faster. Thankfully, he was so aroused that he cooperated. Soon their coupling grew frenzied, both fueled by the knowledge that they could be discovered at any moment.
When Quentin finally whispered, “Now,” Lexi’s inner muscles tightened around him, clenching and spasming as pleasure tore through her.
Quentin slanted his mouth over hers, smothering the wild cry she’d been unable to hold back. A moment later he shuddered deeply, coming in a rush of scalding heat that flooded her womb. Locked together, chests heaving, bodies trembling, they stared at each other.
From outside the door, one of the students speculated, “Maybe we’re not supposed to be in the kitchen today.”
“I could have sworn we were,” another voice spoke up. “But maybe not. The holiday break’s still throwing us off.”
“Let’s go see if she’s in the classroom.”
Lexi held her breath, waiting to see if any stragglers would remain behind. When the room grew mercifully silent, she exhaled a deep sigh of relief and whispered a prayer of undying gratitude.
Chuckling softly, Quentin gave her a quick kiss, then unwrapped her legs from his waist and set her back down on the floor.
As they hurriedly fixed their clothes, Lexi shot him a dark glance. “I am so gonna kill you for this,” she hissed.
“Why? You didn’t get caught.”
“I could have!”
“But you didn’t.” He grinned. “It’s a sign.”
“Of what?”
“That we’re meant to be together.”
She scowled, yanking down her chef’s jacket. “Because we didn’t get caught having sex at my workplace?”
“Exactly.” His eyes glimmered with mischief. “It als
o means we can make this a new Friday ritual.”
“I don’t think so!”
Quentin laughed, dark and wicked.
Without conscious thought Lexi reached up to straighten his silk tie. He ran a hand over her hair, smoothing down the disheveled strands as he smiled into her eyes. “What time is dinner tonight?”
Her lips twitched. “Don’t push your luck.”
Grabbing his hand, she tugged him toward the door. She opened it a crack and peeked out just to make sure the coast was really clear. Seeing the empty kitchen, she crept out of the pantry with Quentin in tow.
“Now get out of here before my students come back,” she told him, trying to shoo him out the door.
He didn’t budge.
“What now, Quentin?” she whined in exasperation.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“About what?”
“Dinner.”
She heaved a resigned sigh. “Fine. Be at my house at seven.”
Leaning down, he captured her lips in a deep, lingering kiss that liquefied her bones. As she sighed and swayed into him, he drew back and winked at her. “I’ll be there at six.”
And then he turned and sauntered out the door, whistling so cheerfully that Lexi could only shake her head and laugh.
Chapter 15
That night, sated from a lavish dinner and two hours of passionate lovemaking, Lexi and Quentin lay spooned together under a blanket on the living room floor. A cozy fire crackled in the hearth, and soft, romantic ballads serenaded them from the CD player.
Lexi had made coq au vin and opened a bottle of wine. Instead of eating in the formal dining room, they’d headed to the living room and spread a big, thick quilt across the floor. And then they’d fed each other, sharing kisses between bites and sipping from the same glass.
Wrapped in Quentin’s strong arms, cocooned in heat and steel, Lexi thought she could get very used to nights like this.
“What’re you thinking about?” Quentin murmured, nuzzling the nape of her neck.
She sighed, a soft, dreamy sigh. “Fate.”
“Fate?”
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