“Ryan and I were together nearly three years. We were engaged for four months, but we never lived together. I was twenty-seven and had an apartment above my parents’ garage.” Looking rueful, she quickly explained, “It was a detached garage at the back of the property, and I had my own driveway coming in off the alley, and I paid rent, so it wasn’t really like I was living at home. Honestly. Not at twenty-seven. When he broke up with me, I spent all the money I’d saved living there and bought the condo.”
“How did you date him for three years and not know he was a jerk?” Looking back, he’d known everything there was to know about Linny within the first three months. Not little things like favorite colors, pork or beef barbecue, beer or wine, but the important things. That she was an honorable person. That she was smarter than she was pretty. That she had compassion and manners and liked kids and old folks and respected everyone in between. That he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
Of course, Linny had been a normal person with a normal ego, and she was as open and honest as anyone he’d ever met. She’d had no secret quirks, no hidden flaws.
Like JJ.
“It wasn’t that he was a jerk, so much.”
Quint undid the laces on his boots, then toed them off before propping his feet on the middle cushion. “He ended your engagement because you got promoted and he didn’t. That’s a jerk.”
“Well...yeah. I knew he always expected things to go his way, but that was because they always had. He never had to exert himself. In school, other kids spent hours studying while he got everything the first time through. Other kids practiced their passes or their pitches or their strategy, and Ryan just did them, and did them better. He was a natural at everything he tried. It never occurred to him that I could get promoted—that anyone could get promoted—before him. I honestly think it was the first time that he ever didn’t get something he wanted. It wasn’t the way his life was supposed to go.”
Linny had done that sort of thing—looked for the reasons someone behaved like a jackass. It wasn’t Quint’s job to excuse anyone’s behavior. He just stopped them when they strayed too far out of line.
“So he dealt with it by pushing the woman he loved out of his life and leaving town.” Quint couldn’t filter out his derision for the man. “He was a jerk, and you’re better off without him.”
“You’re right. I am. I lost someone I would have eventually had to kill and gained a brand-new home all my own. Couldn’t beat a deal like that.” Then she gestured around the room. “Though compared to this place, my condo falls more in the sparse, spare, spartan style of living. It’s a place to spend time. This is a place to live.”
It was, Quint agreed. He and Linny had done a lot of living here, just like the couple they’d bought it from. He’d thought for a long time that living was over, but he’d been wrong. There was a lot more to be done, and it was up to him how he did it: full of misery and self-pity or choosing to live again. Sinking deeper into the bleakness or moving forward.
It was scary, and it was hard, but he wanted to move forward. He’d been afraid before. He’d taken up residence in hard. Now...
He took a long look at JJ, curled on the sofa, relaxed and easy and pretty and tempting. Now, he wanted more.
* * *
When her yawns started making her eyes water, JJ sighed deeply, stood up and stretched her arms high above her head. In her own shirt, the move would have exposed her flat, pale stomach. In Quint’s T-shirt, it didn’t bare anything at all. She wondered how much he valued the shirt. It had been one of a half dozen in various shades of dark fabric folded on that closet shelf. The brand stamped inside the neckline was faded, but it was a common, inexpensive one. It was, in fact, probably one from that five-year-old six-pack his niece Lia had teased him about. That made her feel a little better about her plans to not return it tomorrow. Or ever. She wanted a souvenir that reminded her of how he felt and looked and smelled, and what better than a scruffy shirt?
“I should go.” She glanced around for Chica and found her curled in a tiny ball behind the sofa, eyes closed. “Let sleeping dogs lie,” she murmured, heading toward the door in a route that didn’t take her past the dog. “I learned that lesson with Tako, my sheepdog. His alertness factor when he was wide-awake was somewhere close to comatose for human beings, but he had a startle reflex when he was sleeping that was impressive. Given that he weighed about ninety pounds, and his most favorite place in the world when he was scared was in my arms, I never, ever disturbed his sleep if I could avoid it.”
“Tako’s not a respectable name for a sheepdog,” Quint chided, taking her coat from the front closet and holding it while she slipped her arms into it.
“No, Shep is not a respectable name for a sheepdog. That’s what his original owner named him.” She rolled her eyes. “I called him Tako, which is Japanese for octopus, because when he got hold of something he wasn’t supposed to have, he held on like he had eight arms with suction cups. His original owner sold him because the only creatures he ever wanted to herd were kids. I discovered that, oddly, city moms didn’t like their kids being herded by a dog two to three times their size.”
“Not his fault the herding instinct was wonky.”
She smiled at the memory of the big fuzzy baby. “One day he got out of the yard and came home with four of the neighbors’ kids. Another time, during the summer of Maura, she and I were taking a walk, so we stopped by the house and got him. Maura loved dogs and thought he was the coolest thing ever. She had his leash, and everything was fine until we got to the edge of the park. He heard the kids on the playground, shot off and yanked Maura off her feet. Her fingers got caught in the leash, and two of them were broken, and the mothers were screaming because Tako had gathered the kids in the middle of the playground and wouldn’t let them go.
“I was horrified. Mr. and Mrs. Evans had trusted me with their daughter, and my dog had broken her and traumatized half the young kids in town along with their mothers.” She heaved a dramatic sigh. “I just wanted to climb high into the nearest oak and hide until it was all over.”
“But the Evanses didn’t have you shot, Maura recovered, Tako went on to herd other small humans and you survived.” He reached out then, to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. It was an easy movement, but she would bet he hadn’t done it or anything similar in sixteen months. Bet he hadn’t touched anyone in any way that might even hint of intimacy.
And she would have won that bet, because his hand, when he drew it back, was trembling the tiniest bit. Inside, she was trembling a whole lot. She was suddenly warm and fluttery, and her lungs were getting tight and her heart was patting only once for every two pits.
What if she touched him back? Brushed her hand through his hair? Rubbed the backs of her fingers across the beard stubble that darkened his cheek? Cupped his face in both her hands and pulled him down and planted a greedy hungry kiss right on his oh-so-very-kissable mouth? Would he be tempted, the way he’d been with Maura, or appalled that JJ had somehow gotten the wrong idea?
His blue eyes were serious, intense—the norm for him. Their depths were too shadowy to identify anything else. Desire, arousal. Surprise, revulsion. Embarrassment. Delight. She did see a muscle twitch at the corner of his mouth. She felt the tension humming in the air between them, a big, warm, indecisive, nerves-on-edge sort of tension.
She really wanted to grab him anyway.
But she also really wanted a sign from him, like maybe him grabbing her and planting one on her. She needed him to want her as much as she wanted him.
With an inward sigh of regret, she wrapped her fingers around the doorknob and opened the door. Cold air raced inside, backed by a wind from the south. Behind them, Chica gave a tiny whimper, but she didn’t waken. “Thank you for dinner. And for taking Chica. I really, really do appreciate it.”
She was poised to go outside and hustle to her car
, but at the last instant, she swung back, rose onto her toes and pressed as innocent a kiss as she could summon to his jaw. A flush rolled across his face, and his breath caught, and for just a moment she felt downright giddy with sensation. A smile bubbled up and spread across her face as she darted back and turned to walk outside.
Just as suddenly as the door had swung open, it shut with a decisive click. Quint’s hand rested flat on the wood above JJ’s head as he reached around her and secured the lock with his other hand. She stood frozen, all the nerves in her body doing fancy zips and twirls, her breath shallow and rapid, a puny accompaniment to his slow, steady, even breathing a few inches behind her.
She huddled there for five or twenty or sixty seconds, unsure what to do next, and then his body pressed against hers from behind, solid and warm, and his mouth brushed her temple, soft and wicked. Her hair stirred. Her heart stirred, gaining strength and speed with each beat. Instinctively, she tilted her head to the left, exposing more of her face to him, and then she closed her eyes so she could concentrate her whole being on this moment.
Quint was taller, broader, sturdier, the kind of guy who made her feel a hundred percent safe, the kind of guy who would protect her or help her out if she needed it. She rarely needed it, but she still appreciated that he could. That he would. After so many years of being the one who did the protecting and the serving and the helping, it was a lovely feeling to know she could abdicate the responsibility if she wanted.
On rare occasions, when she was feeling really girly, she wanted. For a bit.
He was in no rush, finally reaching her ear and making her shiver with delight. She loved discovering erogenous zones, hers and his, like a new experience every time, and she delighted again when his teeth lightly nipped the lobe of her ear before he continued moving lower, lower.
At this pace, it might take all night to reach the bits of her that were really erogenous. Hours and hours of pure sensual pleasure...
She shifted restlessly, torn between staying exactly as she was and savoring every single muscle-tightening second of his exploration, and turning to face him so she could do some exploration of her own. Savoring lost to need. She twisted in the small space between his body and the door, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him again.
This time it didn’t involve his jaw. It didn’t exist in the same universe as innocence. This time it was eager and demanding and so needy that it sent tremors through her. She rose onto her toes, pushed harder, held him tighter, tried to fuse her body to his so she could have a part of him, be a part of him, forever.
From somewhere came a whimper. Chica? JJ thought blankly, then felt rather than heard the sound again. It came from her, deep in her throat, a wordless plea for more heat, more sensation, more needing, more wanting, more everything and now, right now.
And an answer, deeper in tone, nearly a growl, from Quint, too. She pulled free of his mouth and opened her eyes and saw him staring at her, the same stark look she was sure was on her face, and she wondered—no, prayed—he hadn’t suddenly decided she was too poor a substitute for Belinda.
The fear stirred by the possibility was small but very real. Before it had time to coalesce into insecurity and rejection, he brushed his lips across hers, then stayed so close that she felt each movement, each tiny puff of air, as he whispered, “You are so...” Trailing off, he nuzzled her cheek with bristly beard and soft lips, then finished the thought. “Bright.”
Bright. Another tremor flirted through her, this time making her eyes damp. She’d been called a lot of things at times like this: pretty, beautiful, sexy, hot, even gorgeous. But bright almost brought her to her knees. He had mourned so deeply. He’d immersed himself in such a dark lonely place, spiritually and emotionally, that he’d lost touch with everything that was good and light.
And she was bright.
It was the sweetest compliment she’d ever been given. And the sexiest. And she was torn in that moment between how much she wanted him and how very much she didn’t want to hurt him. A fling...that was all she’d been after when she met him. A night or three of great sex, no strings attached, no emotions attached, and some excellent memories for the future.
But she hadn’t known his story then. Hadn’t known him. She hadn’t known how quickly she would fall for him. She didn’t want just a fling anymore. She wanted strings and emotions and complications and great sex and more, endless hours more, of those slow lazy kisses, and she hoped—thought—he did, too, and she didn’t want the fact that she was leaving soon to hurt him in any way. He’d had too much hurt already.
The intensity in his gaze sharpened, and he bent his head until their foreheads touched, until the tip of his nose touched the tip of hers. “Don’t you dare.”
The places where their skin was in contact sizzled, and she briefly wished he’d left the door open to let the cold in. She was positive steam would rise from her entire body if he had. “Don’t what?”
“Decide what’s best for me. That I can’t handle this. That I’m still not over Linny, that I’m not ready, that I can’t have you. I’ll never be over Linny. I’ll always love her. But that doesn’t mean I can’t want you. I’ve been broken a long time, JJ, and you make me feel...” His eyes closed, and he dragged in a raspy breath. “You give me hope, and if that’s all I come out of this with, it’s still a hell of a lot more than I had before. I want you. Tonight. Tomorrow. For as long as I can have you. Don’t break my heart for my own good.”
Her heart hurt. Her lungs refused to expand, and her muscles felt as if she’d just finished a twenty-mile run in sand: weak, quivery, jerky. She hadn’t expected how quickly she’d fallen for Quint, nor had she guessed how deeply until that very moment. Who’d have known words could affect her so thoroughly?
She summoned a smile, unsure if it was a mischievous or naughty one, seductive or just damned happy, and she pressed a kiss to his mouth before shrugging out of her coat, taking his hand and turning toward the stairs. The sight of Chica, sprawled on her back, snoring with her legs propped against the sofa, stopped her. “Better put Chica in her cell.”
This time she knew her smile was the wicked one. “We don’t want to traumatize the baby.”
* * *
Though he hadn’t chosen anything in the bedroom, it had always been Quint’s favorite room in the house. Walking through the door was pretty much guaranteed to lower his blood pressure, ease the tension in his muscles and quiet the chaos outside its four walls. Most nights.
Tonight, watching chaos on two legs stroll into the room, the first two benefits flip-flopped. His heart was pounding, and his muscles were strung tight enough to hum, but it was still easy to put everything else in the world out of his mind. Tonight—for a few nights—the only things that mattered were in this room: JJ and him.
The only light came from the moon, nearly full in the sky, and the hall light. Standing in the doorway, he considered flipping the switch beside him so he could see every detail, but he decided he preferred the intimacy of the shadows. She was bright enough all on her own to dispel the dark.
She stood near the bed. Balancing gracefully, she bent one knee, undid the zip on her boot and pulled it off, then switched positions and removed the other. Instead of dropping them, the way he would if he hadn’t taken off his own boots earlier, she set them side by side against the wall, out of the way of virtually anything that might happen in the room.
“I’ve always found undressing to be the least romantic part of sex,” she said, her hands sliding underneath the baggy shirt of his that she wore. Her tone was casual, but there was nothing casual about the huskiness in her voice. Regardless of the words she was saying, that voice was an invitation all on its own. “Unless I’ve dressed for that specific moment. You know, like a formal event where I wear a dress and very little, if anything, else. But regular clothes...buttons, belts, zippers, shoes, jeans... There’s just so many o
pportunities for awkwardness and clumsiness, and I really prefer most of the time to just cut to the chase.”
She pushed, bent, did a little wiggle, and removed her jeans. She handled them carefully, the belt still in its loops, the Taser and her pistol holstered on either side of the waistband. She folded the jeans with the weapons on top and set them on the chair in the corner, tossed her socks there, too, then barefooted, bare-legged, she slowly approached him.
“Those are my thoughts on undressing,” she said as she came nearer. “You, of course, are entitled to your own preferences.” Stopping so near he felt the heat radiating from her, she toyed with the hem of his shirt. “I can undress you. I can help you undress yourself. I can lie back and enjoy the view while you undress yourself, or you can—”
He tugged the fabric gently from her fingers, then pulled the shirt over his head. “Make that offer again in a few hours.” His own voice was husky, his throat closing off just from looking at her in the too-big shirt that ended mid–muscular thighs, that led to muscular calves, that led to delicately arched feet. She looked innocent and tempting and teasing and sultry. Put her in a dress that was fitted and sexy with very little underneath, and damn, his heart would stop. It was already stuttering in his chest.
His weapons were already on the nightstand, so there were no holsters to dally with. He shucked his jeans in a couple seconds flat, taking his boxers with them, peeling off his socks at the same time. He was nothing if not efficient.
He stood there naked in the room he’d shared so many nights with Linny, erection straining, heart thudding, nerves quivering, all for another woman. For JJ. He waited for some sense of shame, guilt, some little whisper that this was wrong, but none came, and he knew why: because it wasn’t wrong. It was the rightest thing he’d done in far too long.
He stepped forward, invading her space but not yet touching her. He could hear her breathing, feel the soft puffs, see the rise and fall of her chest. Her offer a moment ago had been careless, but there was nothing casual or easy about her now. Her heart was pounding, too. Her skin was also feverish. Her arousal was throbbing, rising, and anticipation danced like a wild spirit along her veins, making standing still impossible.
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