Quinn's Woman

by Susan Mallery

“Bummer. The stamps are the best part of traveling.”

  Her easy acceptance relaxed him as much as it made him curious. “Why aren’t you involved with someone?”

  “I’m not an idiot. I don’t need a testosterone-filled male dominating my life. What’s in it for me? More work? More financial obligations? I don’t think so.”

  Her answer made him chuckle. “What about kids?”

  She smiled. “I would like children.” She made a show of glancing around the restaurant, then she leaned close. “What with you being out of the country and all, you may not have heard. Marriage isn’t required for children anymore.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope. Isn’t modern science amazing?”

  The waiter arrived with their entrees. As they were served, Quinn watched D.J. There was a reason she was so against marriage in general and men in particular. Someone, somewhere had hurt her. Who had done it and how? He knew there was no way she would tell him, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to know.

  * * *

  When they arrived in the parking lot of his hotel, D.J. gave Quinn a pointed look. He knew she expected him to say good-night and climb right out of her car, but he didn’t plan to make things that easy for her.

  “Why don’t you pull into a parking space for a few minutes?” he asked.

  She sighed heavily, as if this was a major inconvenience, then steered the SUV into a parking place and turned off the engine.

  He was amused by her insistence at driving back from the restaurant. She’d said it would be so much easier to just drop him off. The implication being that she wasn’t about to go up to his room. Just as well, he hadn’t planned on asking her. Not yet.

  “What time do you want to start tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Mornings are best for me.”

  “That’s fine. Your place had all the equipment we’ll need. You did a good job outfitting it.”

  “Thanks. It’s part of my work. I hold weekly classes there for women.”

  “Not men?”

  She shrugged. “They’re welcome to attend, but they never do. Guys don’t have the same issues. While there are some unprovoked attacks in the animal world, humans are the only species where the females instinctively fear unfamiliar males. No man walking down a dark street at night thinks anything about seeing a lone woman, but that same woman is aware of every man around her.”

  He’d never thought of it in those terms. “I guess you’re right,” he said.

  The lights in the parking lot illuminated her face enough for him to see her roll her eyes.

  “Gee, thanks.”

  He held in a grin. “You don’t strike me as the type of woman who is often afraid.”

  “I’m not, but I take care of myself. I know how to fight and when to get out of the way. I don’t put myself into dangerous situations.”

  He leaned toward her. “I’m dangerous.”

  “You’re a known danger, and I’m prepared.”

  “Not possible.”

  “Want to bet?”

  She was bluffing. They both knew that he could take her easily. Yet she faced him fearlessly.

  “Tough as nails,” he murmured. “It’s one of the things I like best about you.”

  Her eyes widened and her mouth parted. She looked stunned by his statement. Stunned and maybe a little pleased? He couldn’t tell.

  Tension flared between them, and he took it as a good sign. Awareness was only one step removed from arousal, and he sure wanted her plenty aroused.

  He braced one hand on the dashboard and leaned toward her. But before he’d moved more than a couple of inches, she stiffened. The reaction was subtle, something he felt rather than saw. He stilled instantly, then relaxed back into his seat.

  Another man might have been discouraged or figured she wasn’t worth the effort. Quinn knew better. There was something to be said for a woman who was—to quote Shakespeare—“not so quickly won.”

  He rubbed his eyes. Shakespeare? He was quoting Shakespeare? Damn, but he had it bad.

  “We’re going to have to figure out how many lessons dinner was worth,” he said casually.

  She turned her head to glare at him. “A dinner I paid for,” she snapped.

  He stared out the front window and faked a yawn. “I offered. You insisted.” He’d backed off because an instinct had told him that was the better strategy. “The dress was great. And those shoes—pure fantasy material.”

  “Five lessons,” she told him.

  “Two.”

  “Three.”

  “Deal.”

  He put his right arm on the door by the window and rested his left on the console between their seats. “Okay. You can kiss me now, but I want you to really put some effort into it. It needs to be better than that last kiss.”

  If D.J. had had a weapon at her disposal, she would have killed him. Right there in her vehicle, knowing it was going to mess up her leather seats. Fury roared through her. She wanted to scream, to kick, to grind his bones into dust, then bake them into bread and leave it out for the crows.

  How dare he? She could kiss him? The nerve. The absolute, unadulterated nerve of his pompous, egotistical, self-centered—

  “I can hear you sputtering,” Quinn said mildly, his eyes half-closed. He turned toward her. “Afraid?”

  He nailed her with that one word. Damn him, he’d probably known it would work. She found it amazingly difficult not to rise to a challenge.

  She clamped down on the knee-jerk response and forced herself to smile casually. “Not interested.”

  “Of course you are. Just come get what you want, D.J. I’m all yours.”

  She wanted to slap him. Worse, she wanted to do what he said and kiss him. She hated that he was right—that she was interested. Why did he get to her? She didn’t want to be interested. Not in him. She hated that her stomach got all tight and her toes curled and, yes, that more than once during dinner she’d thought about them kissing and, well, maybe doing more.

  It was crazy. She knew the danger of getting involved. Of caring and being vulnerable. She simply didn’t let it happen. Not ever.

  There was only one solution, she told herself. She had to bring Quinn to his knees and not get involved herself. That would teach him to mess with her.

  She drew in a deep breath, then slid closer. The console was between them, so she had to lean over to reach his mouth. She braced herself for the embrace that was sure to follow. His arms would close around her and she would want to bolt. But he didn’t try to hold her at all. Instead his hands stayed where they were and she was free to stretch until her mouth touched his.

  The second they kissed she was assaulted on several levels. The heat of him. The firm softness of his lips. The scent of his body and how the male fragrance teased at her. Awareness melted through her, making her muscles relax and her thighs clench. Wanting, she thought, both aroused and dismayed. She wanted him.

  Fear battled with the need to prove herself, and his challenge won. She brushed her lips against his, discovering the shape, the edges, before tilting her head slightly and parting her mouth.

  He accepted her invitation with a quick stroke of his tongue against her bottom lip. Tiny jolts of need zapped through her body. She had to shift her weight so she could get closer, all the while ignoring the sudden sensitivity of her breasts.

  When his tongue slipped inside her mouth, she touched it with her own. The heat surprised her, as did the sweet taste and growing need. She was melting. Disappearing into the passion. Against her will, one of her hands crept up to settle on his chest. She could feel the warmth of him, even through his suit jacket. She wanted him to take it off, that and his shirt. She wanted to feel bare skin. To feel him.

  Even as her body surrendered, her mind went on alert. She told herself this was not a good idea. That men were inherently dangerous, and none more so than Quinn. The hunger had to be controlled. Sex was a weapon, not something she could risk enjoying. Not ever.


  Her throat felt tight. She swallowed against sudden dryness. Funny that her throat was so dry when other parts of her were so very wet.

  One of Quinn’s hands settled lightly on her back. She braced herself against the need to escape, only it never came. She didn’t want to run away; she wasn’t afraid. She was hungry. Starving. She wanted him to touch her more. Everywhere. She wanted to be naked, with him inside of her. She wanted his hands on her body. She wanted to hear the screams of her own surrender.

  The image of them making love filled her brain. It was so real, so vivid, that she half expected to feel the thrust of his penetration. It was so immediate that fear swamped her. She straightened in her seat and tried to keep him from seeing that she was shaking.

  “It’s late,” she said abruptly. She stared straight ahead, not wanting to look at his face and know what he was thinking.

  There were several heartbeats of silence. “I’ll see you about nine in the morning,” he said.

  She was afraid if she spoke anymore her voice would crack, so she only nodded. He opened the car door and climbed out.

  * * *

  After changing into sweats, D.J. paced the length of her cottage house. Usually the small rooms were a sanctuary, but tonight the space was cramped and confining. She felt restless and knew the cause.

  Quinn.

  Hunger burned in her. Hunger and wanting and need and all those dark emotions she avoided. Now she knew why. They kept her body from being a tool. They made her edgy, vulnerable.

  Why had she kissed him? She shook her head. Silly question. She’d kissed him because she’d wanted to, and now she paid the price. He’d aroused her, but more than that, he’d touched something inside. He made her weak, and she knew what that meant. Weakness meant danger was close. Very close. The strong crushed the weak. Broke them into pieces and left them for dead.

  CHAPTER 7

  Quinn stepped into the small diner at seven the next morning. Travis had left a message at his hotel, inviting Quinn to join him for breakfast.

  He saw the other man at a booth by the front window and nodded at the hostess as he made his way back.

  “Morning,” he said as he approached.

  Travis set down the paper he’d been reading and poured coffee from a carafe left on the table. “How’s it going? I wasn’t sure you’d want to get up this early.”

  Quinn shrugged. “I don’t sleep much.”

  A job hazard, he thought. Years of not being able to relax meant that sleep was hard to come by. Last night he’d added sexual frustration to his list of reasons he couldn’t doze off. Kissing D.J. had left him hard and more than ready to have his way with her. Talk about a hell of a kiss. Still, it had been worth every sleepless toss and turn.

  Travis glanced at his watch. “My brothers and Hannah have an open invitation to join me, but they know if they’re not here by five after seven, I go ahead and order without them. I guess it’s just you and me this morning.”

  Quinn drank some of the black, steamy coffee and leaned back in the booth. “Not a problem. How’s the sheriff business?”

  “We’re having a quiet summer, which is good. In another month the high school kids will start to get restless. They’ll get involved in petty stuff.” His dark gaze settled on Quinn. “Nothing like what you’re used to.”

  Quinn shrugged. He knew that Gage would have mentioned what he did, but only in the most general terms. “Small towns have their advantages. You don’t have to watch your back so much.”

  “Good point.” Travis smiled. “So how was dinner?”

  Quinn wasn’t surprised that news traveled fast, although he doubted D.J. would be amused to know they’d been the subject of gossip.

  “Good. The company was better.”

  “I was surprised to hear you and D.J. were going out.”

  “Because she doesn’t date much?”

  Travis hesitated. “She’s a private person.”

  Nice save, Quinn thought. He appreciated that Travis was trying to protect someone he cared about, and he liked that D.J. wasn’t as alone as she pretended.

  “She’s a complex woman,” Quinn said.

  “Aren’t they all?”

  “I don’t claim to understand them,” Quinn admitted. D.J. less than most. There was something in her past that had her on the run. Not physically, but emotionally. While she’d easily offered him sex in exchange for him teaching her what he knew, last night she’d completely panicked in the middle of a kiss. He had enough ego to want to believe she’d been blown away by his great technique, but he had to admit there was more on the line than that. Something had scared her, and he wanted to know what.

  “What’s going on between the two of you?” Travis asked bluntly.

  “She’s hired me to teach her a few moves.”

  “I have an idea about what you do, more from what your brother didn’t say than what he did,” Travis told him. “You beat D.J. at the games, which no one has done before, so I understand why she would want to learn from you. But that doesn’t explain dinner.”

  Quinn wasn’t sure he was willing to admit that D.J. having dinner with him had been his payment for three lessons.

  “She’s a beautiful woman,” Quinn said by way of stalling.

  “Most guys can’t get past how tough she is to notice.”

  “I noticed.”

  Travis smiled. “I want to ask what you plan to do about it and I don’t have the right.”

  “Don’t sweat it. I like knowing D.J. has someone looking out for her.”

  “Yeah? Don’t tell her about it. She’ll bite my head off.”

  “After she breaks your legs,” Quinn agreed with a grin.

  “Am I too late?”

  Quinn turned toward the speaker, a tall man with long, dark hair and an earring. Travis moved over to make room.

  “Austin. You’re up early.”

  The other man nodded and slid into the booth. When he was settled, he stretched his hand across the table.

  “Austin Lucas.”

  “Quinn Reynolds.”

  They shook hands.

  Quinn took in the too-long hair, the cool, gray eyes and the sharp, intelligent gaze. He recognized the signs of another loner.

  “Austin is an honorary Haynes,” Travis said, handing his friend his menu. “We’ve been hanging out since we were kids.”

  “I’ve met your brother, Gage,” Austin said. “He’s a good man.”

  “I agree.”

  The waitress appeared then and took their orders. She replaced the empty carafe with a full one, brought another mug for Austin, then left them alone.

  “We were talking about D.J.,” Travis said. “Quinn had dinner with her last night.”

  “I’m surprised,” Austin said. “Normally she likes to chew men up and spit them out before breakfast.”

  His knowledge implied a level of intimacy that made Quinn uneasy. He tried to define the tightness he felt inside. Annoyance? Jealousy?

  He studied the man across from him, and Austin met his gaze. Apparently Austin read the concern there because he said, “D.J. is good friends with my wife. They couldn’t be more different, but Rebecca says that’s what makes the relationship interesting.”

  “D.J.’s an interesting woman,” Quinn said.

  Austin glanced at Travis. “Should we be worried?”

  “Not about me. I’m one of the good guys,” Quinn said.

  “Are you?” Austin sounded surprised.

  Quinn supposed it was a fair question. There were almost no circumstances under which he would describe himself that way. Except for this one. He had agreed to give D.J. what she wanted, and he would. In the process he was unlikely to damage her heart.

  Travis leaned forward. “Quinn, you’re family now, and we all look out for each other. The thing is, we look out for D.J., too. I guess we’re going to have to trust you to respect that. Fair enough?”

  “Sure.”

  Quinn agreed easily,
but he had a bad feeling that life had just taken a turn for the complicated.

  * * *

  By morning D.J. had herself under control. She’d put the kiss and her reaction to it in perspective and decided she would forget it ever happened. Yes, she’d reacted to the man, but so what? Her life had very specific priorities, and being the best was the primary one. Quinn had information she wanted and she was going to get it. End of story.

  As for payment for future lessons, they would have to negotiate that when the time came. She was opposed to any more dates. They were—

  The front door to her office opened, and the man in question strolled in. Whatever she’d been thinking flew from her mind, like a flock of sparrows frightened by a stalking cat.

  But the mental hiccup wasn’t nearly as annoying as her visceral reaction to his large, male presence. The second he walked in, her mouth went dry, her palms went wet and her thighs caught fire. It was damned annoying.

  “Morning,” he said cheerfully, as he shut the door behind him. “You know what they say—‘When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.’ Here I am. You’d better be ready.”

  She tried to smile at his humor, but she was too caught up in how tall and broad he looked. The shorts he wore emphasized his long, powerful legs. His T-shirt stretched over muscles that could probably bench-press the weight of half a cheerleading squad.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she said, lying through her teeth.

  He looked calm and rested, as if he hadn’t been bothered by their kiss. Fine. If he could play that game, so could she. Better than him in fact.

  He crossed to stand next to her, then put his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  “Fine by me.”

  As she turned toward the back, she casually shrugged off his touch and raced into the workout room. She hated the heat that lingered on her skin and the heaviness she felt low in her belly. The irony of the situation was that she was far more worried about her sexual reaction to him than by his potential to physically hurt her. Most women, if they knew the truth about what he did, would have been terrified to simply be in the same room with him. D.J. could trust his professionalism while they worked out. It was his guyness and sensual appeal that made her sweat.