by Joss Wood
Mac’s words penetrated Quinn’s fog and he snapped his head up to glare at his friend. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s one of your tells,” Mac informed him. “You get glassy-eyed and we know that you’re considering doing something crazy.”
“I’m not going to do anything.” Quinn pushed the words out. He wanted to. He wanted to burn some of this excess energy off. But he wouldn’t. Not today anyway.
“Don’t mess up, Rayne. Please don’t jeopardize our hard work.” Kade’s words felt like bullets from a machine gun.
Ben is studying, Quinn. Don’t disturb Jack.
Try to be more considerate, Quinn.
Why can’t you toe the line, Quinn? Be more like your brothers, Quinn? Why do you have to be so much trouble, Quinn?
It was stupid and crazy and childish, but statements like don’t rock the boat, Quinn and be good, Quinn just made him want to do the opposite. He loathed being told what to do. Quinn bit the inside of his lip and jammed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket so his friends couldn’t see his clenched fists.
He wasn’t in control of his own life and he despised it and, yes, Kade was right—he did want to run.
It’s not for long, Quinn told himself for the umpteenth time. In six months he could start, to a certain extent, living life on his own terms again.
“Sit your ass down, Rayne, and let’s get to work,” Kade told him and it took Quinn a moment, or twenty, to obey.
* * *
The Adam Foundation’s masquerade ball was touted as “A sexy, masked Venetian affair” and Quinn thought most of the guests were taking the suggestion that they come disguised a little too far.
Elaborate wigs and masks effectively hid identities, allowing their wearers the anonymous freedom to indulge in some hard-core flirting and, if they wanted to, to go beyond flirting in the dark corners of the lamp-lit room.
It was behavior he excelled at, reveled in. Behavior he couldn’t indulge in because, hell, he was married. And finding his wife in this packed ballroom was like looking for a particular piece of hay in a haystack. Full-face masks were the norm and he hoped that Cal hadn’t bothered with a wig. Her red hair would be a great way to identify her. Damn, he thought as he turned in a slow circle, he should’ve insisted on knowing exactly what she intended to wear.
But, in his defense, he was still amazed that he’d been able to carry on any type of conversation that morning on the deck. Cal’s tiny barely there shirt and tight shorts just skimming the top of her thighs put his brain in neutral. He’d removed every type of lingerie imaginable—from silky negligees to crotchless panties—from a lot willing female bodies, and her plain, white pajamas hadn’t been anything extraordinary. But her in them? Dynamite.
Quinn shook his head. This was Cal he was thinking about. Stop it!
You’re only thinking about her, like that, Quinn rationalized, because you’re a red-blooded man and she was wearing next to nothing. And, because you haven’t been laid for nearly six weeks, pretty much any woman will do. Even Cal. It’s normal. It didn’t mean anything. He had a fake wife; their marriage was a con they were pulling on the world. Nothing between them would change.
Ever.
Quinn adjusted his mask and did another scan of the ballroom. With so many people here, he’d probably only find Cal after they were allowed to remove their masks around midnight. Quinn looked at his watch. Two and a half hours to go.
Hell.
He noticed a bar at the far end of the room and was about to head in that direction when he saw two of his favorite women standing to the left of him. Rory’s mask barely covered her eyes and Brodie’s huge stomach made identifying them easy.
Making his excuses, he walked over and quickly dropped a kiss on each of their cheeks and he briefly touched Brodie’s pronounced baby bump.
“Ladies, you both are looking spectacular,” he said, his compliment absolutely heartfelt. He genuinely liked the women his friends were in love with.
“How is my favorite girl?” he asked Rory.
Rory smiled, her eyes softening. Both she and Mac doted on their baby daughter, Rosie, as did they all. “She’s fine, at home. Troy is babysitting.”
“Good man, Troy,” Quinn said, meaning it. He really liked Rory’s best friend and the fact that a super-qualified nurse was looking after their precious Rosie made them all feel more at ease. He turned to Brodie and looked down at her bump.
“You look like you’ve swallowed a bowling ball, Brodes.”
“I feel like I’ve swallowed a bowling ball,” Brodie replied, reaching up to touch his smooth jaw. She lifted his mask and sighed before dropping the mask back onto his face. “But let’s talk about you, sexy guy. We didn’t recognize you until you spoke. Looking hot, Quinn. I very much like the new look.”
Oh, yeah, that. Cutting his hair and shaving off his beard had been an impulsive decision. There was a salon next to his dry cleaners and when he’d picked up his tux, he’d popped his head in and saw that the place was empty. He’d intended to trim his hair, shorten his beard, but the stylist, who turned out to be young, pretty and very persuasive, charmed him into going short. He’d agreed, partly because she was cute but also because everything else seemed to be changing in his life so he thought he might as well change his looks too.
In for a penny and all that.
“What prompted the makeover?” Rory asked.
Quinn frowned at her. A makeover? He’d had a haircut and shaved his beard off. Why was she busting his chops? She’d obviously been hanging around Mac for far too long. “It’s not a makeover.”
“It’s a dramatic change—long hair to short and spiky, no beard. When you end up looking ten times better—which, I have to point out, should be illegal in your case—it’s a makeover.” Rory started to lift his mask again, but Quinn gently pushed her hand away. “Those lips, that jaw.”
“Those eyes,” Brodie added.
Quinn felt the tips of his ears growing hot. He ran a finger around the edge of his collar. “Will you two stop? Please?” he begged.
“Yeah, please stop,” Mac said as he joined them, his arms instantly going around Rory’s waist. “I think I might gag.”
“He just looks so different,” Rory explained. “This new you is, well, hot.” She fanned herself.
“Okay, honey, enough now,” Mac said, an edge creeping into his voice.
Kade walked up to them with three glasses of champagne and ignored Brodie’s dark look when he handed Rory and Kade a glass each and kept one for himself. “Hi, Quinn. Sorry, I didn’t know you were here. I’ve ordered you a sparkling water, honey.”
Brodie’s frown deepened. “Oh, joy. Can I have a sip of champagne, at least?”
Quinn hid his smile as Kade monitored just how big a sip of alcohol Brodie was taking. When she went in for a second sip, Kade yanked the glass away. “That’s enough.”
Quinn smiled at Kade’s protectiveness. His friends adored their women and Quinn was thrilled that they were so happy. Yet he also felt a little like a third wheel, a thought that would horrify them all. But it wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling. In his parents’ house he’d always felt on the outside looking in. Despite his ability to shoot the breeze, to charm blood out of a rock, or the panties off nuns, he’d seldom connected on an emotional level with people and shared very little of himself, even with his friends. Not because he didn’t trust them—he did—it was just a habit he’d cultivated when he was a kid and one that still served him well.
He wasn’t a talker, preferring to work his inner world out on his own. Cal was only the person he’d opened up to as a kid...
Quinn felt the energy in the room change, heard the low buzz of voices that indicated something was happening. He slowly turned and looked toward the door to see a woman walking into t
he ballroom.
Her dress left him—and every other male in the room—in no doubt as to how close to perfect her body was. If he could actually call what she was wearing a dress. The word dress implied fabric and there was little of that. It could only be designer and, like three quarters of the dresses in the room, it was black. Unlike the other dresses, it was ridiculously sexy.
The best way Quinn could think to describe it was that someone had painted her torso with fabric swirls. One started at her neck and covered a breast, while another ran under her arm and across her other breast and covered some of her stomach, meeting in a perfect point at her hip. A slit revealed a long, toned leg ending in a strappy, sky-high black-and-silver sandal. Quinn forced his eyes up and took in the blunt-cut, chin-length, jet-black bob. He could see little of her face beneath the complex gold mask made from feathers, chains, beads and fake gemstones. Gorgeous skin, a pointed chin and lips painted a bright, siren, sexy red completed the picture.
She was exactly his type: sophisticated, sexy, mysterious. Hot enough to melt glass. Yet, she was missing...something.
Quinn looked at Mac and then at Kade, deeply amused that their mouths were open and that their eyes had glazed over. He watched, laughing quietly, as Brodie and Rory exchanged eye rolls.
He understood, intellectually, that she was the sexiest thing on two feet and, yeah, if he was single and acting like himself, he definitely would not say no if she suggested a little bed-based fun, but...
The memory of Cal, dressed in her simple white pajamas, sporting a messy head of red curls and sleepy, dark eyes, was infinitely more tempting and so much sexier than the smokin’ body in a barely-there dress.
It was official—along with his long hair and his beard, he’d also lost his mind. No, Cal was not sexier than this babe. Cal was not sexy at all. She was his friend! Friends and sexy did not go together.
“I so need a drink,” Quinn muttered. Or a brain transplant.
He barely felt Brodie’s hand on his arm, didn’t realize that she was trying to get his attention until her nails dug into his skin.
“I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed meeting Callahan,” Brodie said, her expression sincere. “She’s so down-to-earth.”
Oh, yeah, right. He remembered hearing something about Rory and Brodie inviting Cal to lunch last week. Quinn flicked another glance at the hot woman—she was definitely worth another look—before answering. “She always has been. Despite their wealth, her parents are too. Well, her dad is. Her mom passed away a long time ago.”
“And you’ve known each other all your lives?” Rory asked.
Quinn nodded. “I met her when I was eight. She lived a few doors down from me. For the next decade I treated her home like mine.”
Rory sipped her wine, interested. She looked around, made sure that no one outside the group could hear her question. “And there’s never been anything between you?”
Quinn tossed his hands up, frustrated. “You’ve definitely been living with Mac for too long. We’re friends. We’ve always been friends. Why does everyone keep asking that?”
Rory, the meddler, just smiled at his heated response. “Maybe, my darling Quinn, it’s because it’s a question that always gets a heated reaction from you.”
“I definitely need a drink,” Quinn growled. He leaned forward and dropped his voice. “Fake marriage. Friends. Nothing has changed. Status quo. What else can I say to convince you? Should I go over and flirt with Miss Swirls over there to prove it to you?”
Quinn flicked a look across the room and noticed that her back was to him. That view was almost as luscious as the front, just acres of creamy skin from the base of her neck to low on her buttocks. Whoever designed that dress had to have a degree in engineering because Quinn hadn’t the foggiest idea how it was attached to her body. When he went over to talk to her, to flirt with her—he was still allowed to flirt, wasn’t he?—he’d try to work out how it all stayed tidy.
Kade’s laugh rolled over him. “Sure, go ahead if that’s what you want to do. But maybe, possibly, it’s not us you’re trying to convince.”
Four
Her husband had stood her up, Cal realized, standing in the shadows on the terrace, taking a break from the busy ballroom. It was past eleven and she’d yet to find Quinn.
Okay, there were two hundred men at the ball, but it wasn’t like Quinn, masked or not, would be hard to find. Long hair, heavy beard, taller and broader than most. She hoped he made an appearance by midnight. People would be expecting him to stand at her side when she thanked her guests for attending, when she called for their masks to be removed. If he wasn’t, then there would be questions—questions neither of them needed, especially since the world seemed to be buying their fake marriage and the interest in their personal lives seemed to be waning.
From the shadows, Cal had an unrestricted view of the ballroom and she scanned the room, idly noticing that the dance floor was packed. Nope, couldn’t see him... Dammit, Rayne!
She did another slow scan of the room, ostensibly to look for Quinn but knowing that she wouldn’t mind taking another long look at the guy she’d been trading glances with all evening. She first noticed him early in the evening, soon after she arrived, and while she couldn’t really make out his features—damn these masks!—she instinctively knew that he was six foot something of coiled power, radiating testosterone, heat and... God, sex.
Hot, messy, slow, dirty, sexy sex.
The kind of sex she’d never experienced since all her lovers had been more of the this-is-about-me-not-you type. And Toby had been their king.
Jerk...
Anyway, she was just so grateful that she felt sexually attracted to someone besides Quinn. That proved to her that her long dormant libido had come out of hibernation and she was attracted to good-looking men in general and not Quinn in particular. Her lust wasn’t directed at Quinn specifically so that was a relief.
Such a relief.
Cal inhaled the gently fragranced night air. She’d escaped to the balcony partly because she needed a time-out but mostly because she’d felt Hot Guy’s eyes on her at various times during the evening. It started with a prickle between her shoulder blades and then heat traveled from her coccyx up her spine and she knew that HG was looking at her, that he was the reason for the sudden bump of her heart, the fact that the air had disappeared from the room. She’d turn and, yeah, as she suspected, he’d been looking at her. Yet he never made a move to approach her; he’d just kept his brooding, intense gaze on her.
Animal magnetism—she suddenly understood that concept. Totally, absolutely, innately. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t seen his face, heard him speak—those details were inconsequential. All she knew was that she wanted to get her hands on that body, to explore that wide chest, those big shoulders, the muscles of those long, long legs.
Her attraction to him and, she supposed, to Quinn made her feel happy. The throb between her legs and the flutter in her stomach made her feel normal again. For the first time in Vancouver, in nearly a decade, she felt strong and confident and in control. During her marriage, events like this had felt like minefields and she’d tiptoed her way through the evening, fumbling her way to the end. She constantly monitored her words, checked her responses, made sure that nothing she did or said could cause offense.
Amazing what a few years and being Toby-free could do, Cal thought. She was wearing a dress that Toby would never have allowed her to wear, had slapped on siren-red lipstick that he would’ve hated and she’d spent the evening gently flirting with every man who’d approached her. She’d had fun.
Cal heard the beat from the band and as the vocalist belted out the first line of a new song, she shimmied her hips, lifting her shoulders in a sensuous roll.
Dancing alone, in the moonlight, Callahan?
She heard Toby’s sneer
ing voice in her head and smiled as she raised her arms over her head and did a slow, sexy, shimmery twirl.
Yep. It’s my ball and I can dance if I want to...
Big hands landed on her waist and spun her around. She sucked in an astounded breath but didn’t resist when Hot Guy walked backward, stopping when her back rested against the cool wall behind her.
Cal’s eyes widened as his long form pushed her into the stone and blocked out all the light in this already dark corner. She could taste his breath—whiskey and peppermint—and her heart threatened to climb out of her chest. She should be scared, she thought, but she wasn’t. She was just utterly, comprehensively turned on.
“You smell like wildflowers...ah, crap!”
God, she recognized that voice; she knew that voice as well as she knew her own. “Quinn?”
So Hot Guy was Quinn and her libido, dammit, was still only attracted to one guy, the wrong guy.
Quinn’s curse flew over her head, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want to think about who he was, what he was. His hands on her hips made her heart race; his thigh between her legs made her hot. She’d never wanted anyone’s lips over hers as much as she wanted his, here on this terrace with four hundred people inside dancing and chatting.
The moment hung, heavy with expectation, vibrating with intensity. Caught up in passion and in the fantasy of the moment, she put her fingers on his lips and shook her head, not wanting the fantasy to evaporate.
They were both masked and they could pretend... God, she needed to pretend.
“Kiss me.”
Cal couldn’t see his expression beneath his mask and it was too dark to see the emotion in his eyes. She felt his hesitation and worried that he would back off, that he’d yank them back to reality, to their lives. When his mouth softened and his thumb drifted over her ribs, she knew that he was as tempted as she was, that she wasn’t the only one wanting to visit Fantasy Land.
He finally ducked his head and his mouth hovered over hers, teasing, tempting. She waited, knowing he would get to it, in his own time. He wasn’t a man who could be rushed and she didn’t want him to. She wanted the anticipation, the headiness, the bubble, the fizz. She wanted it all.