Moving Target

by Desiree Holt

  She opened her eyes wider, looking around at an unfamiliar room. Sunlight poured in through a wall of French doors, casting shadows on cream-colored walls. The high ceiling gave the room an additional feeling of spaciousness. Across from the bed was a wall of bookshelves with a built-in entertainment center. This was a room for a man who liked his comforts.

  Where was she and who’s room was she in? Whose bed? Wearing only her night shirt, for god’s sake. And totally naked beneath it. But when she tried to shift her body, the arm around her tightened.

  “Mornin’,” a warm male voice said behind her, soft breath tickling her hair.

  And it all came flooding back. The car. The rain. The motel. The two men. Quinn. And that godawful breakdown.

  She should move. Get up. Be embarrassed that she’d fallen apart so completely, that she’d taken comfort in a stranger’s arms. Spent the night wrapped up with him in what was apparently his bed. But it felt so good where she was, wrapped up in his strength. So right. So safe!

  “So…how goes it this morning?” he asked. “Feel better?”

  Images and sensations of her gigantic meltdown flooded her again, and the heat of embarrassment bloomed on her cheeks. She was glad her back was to him as every detail replayed itself in stark clarity.

  She cleared her throat self-consciously. “How did I get here? I mean, I know how I got to your house, but how did I end up in bed with you?”

  “You pretty much came apart last night. It was the only thing that calmed you down and made you relax. Fall asleep.”

  Her cheeks turned even hotter. If only she could block her entire performance out of her mind. “I guess I pretty much made a fool of myself.”

  “No.” He kissed her temple, a wisp of a contact that sent unexpected shivers through her. “My guess is you’re just exhausted running from whatever is chasing you—and please don’t try to tell me nothing. I’d say it’s pretty bad, enough to string out your nerves to the raw edge.” She hadn’t moved, and his head was right next to hers, the nearness of it warming her. “I’d say you probably needed the emotional release. I was just trying to keep you from totally self-destructing.”

  The smart thing would be to jump out of the bed as fast as she could, but it was impossible to think with his body molded so closely to hers. The feel of him was so good, his lips brushing against her neck teasing her, and there was certainly no mistaking his hot, hard, and obvious erection. Or the unexpected spikes of pleasure it drove through her.

  Okay, any minute now, he would slide away from her, they’d get past the initial awkwardness, and she could try to figure out what to do next. Right?

  Wrong.

  Then another thought stabbed at her. Had they already… “Listen, Quinn. Did we… I mean, last night… That is…”

  Why couldn’t she just get the stupid words out? Because she didn’t want to know the answer?

  “If you’re asking if we had sex, the answer is no. You were hurting and vulnerable. You needed some…human contact. But not sex. Just…holding. You were pretty much a mess.” He gave a rough chuckle. “Besides, I’d like to think I have a little more class than that.”

  “Ohmigod.” She wanted to hide under the covers. “I am so mortified. I can’t…I don’t…”

  “Shh.” His voice with its soft Texas drawl was so soothing. “It’s all right, Kate. Whatever it is, I promise I can help make it all right.”

  She buried her face in the pillow, trying to shut out the mess that was her life. “You can’t imagine how not all right everything is. Or ever will be again.”

  “Maybe if you tell me about it, we can figure out a way to fix it.”

  If only.

  The warmth of his body was seeping into hers, chasing away the cold that lay inside her like a block of ice. The same sense of cold living inside her since the night she fled Peter’s office. What would it be like to just say the hell with everything and let this man take away her pain?

  She shifted slightly. The arm holding her tightened even more, and she couldn’t mistake his body’s response. Well.

  “Quinn?” She had to ask. Had to make sure she was misinterpreting this. “What are we doing here?”

  He sighed, his chest rising and falling against her back. “Damned if I know.”

  “I was hoping maybe one of us did,” she told him, her breathing unsteady.

  Get up, Kate. Move away. Don’t do anything stupid.

  “Kate?” Fingers stroked her rib cage.

  “Yes?”

  “I haven’t wanted a woman in four years, and we haven’t known each other long enough to even have a meal together. I don’t know if it’s the circumstances or what, but if you don’t want to get us both in trouble, you’d better get up. Quick.”

  Wetting her suddenly dry lips with her tongue, she tried to find what was left of her brain. This was so not like her. At least not like Kathryn Burke. She hadn’t been Kate Griffin long enough to make judgments.

  She drew in a shuddering breath. “And if I don’t want to move?”

  “Then I think we both know what’s coming. Crazy as it seems.”

  “Do we?”

  “Please don’t panic and leap out of bed when I tell you something, because this is completely out of character for me. But Kate? You don’t know how much I want to make you feel better. A lot better. I want to chase away those shadows I see in your eyes if you’ll let me. But more than that, I promise you, if I don’t move right now, my brain is going on vacation.”

  And would that be so wrong? So maybe she didn’t do this kind of thing. Maybe she knew diddly squat about this man. But she did know he’d helped her when he didn’t have to and he hadn’t turned her over to Peter.

  In answer, she pressed back against his body. One big hand moved tentatively to cup her breast, and his mouth pressed against her ear. Oh god, it felt so good. When she didn’t move away his hand tightened. A feathery kiss sent tremors skittering through her, straight to the spot between her thighs that seemed to get wetter by the minute. And for once, she wasn’t thinking of Peter or anyone connected with him.

  Quinn brushed her hair behind her ear in a gesture so tender it made her throat close. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched her in such a way.

  His thumb barely brushed her nipple. Even with such a faint touch, it plumped and beaded, threads of heat streaking to that hot spot between her thighs where her pussy suddenly throbbed.

  Mistake! Mistake!

  But in the next moment, her pulses went haywire and moisture seeped embarrassingly onto her thighs.

  “I want you,” he said, affirming his actions.

  “I want you, too.” Her words were barely a whisper.

  This was so not her style. She had always been reserved sexually, but maybe that was because she’d never been with a man who lit up all her nerve endings like Quinn did.

  I need this. So badly. Whatever happens next, happens. If I’m dead, none of this will matter anyway.

  He kissed the tip of her ear, his hand kneading her breast with a gentle motion, and he buried his face in her hair. “Kate, listen to me a minute. There’s something I have to tell you first.”

  Oh, God. Now what? Did he have something wrong with him? “Is…Is there a physical problem I should be aware of?”

  “No. But I haven’t…been with a woman in a long time. A very long time. You’re the first one I’ve even had any desire for. It’s a long story, one I’d rather we not get into right now. I’m only telling you because I’m afraid my technique is a little rusty.”

  She closed her eyes, tiny pinpricks of sensation spreading outward from where he was again working her nipples. “I’m not sure I’d know the difference,” she told him in a tremulous voice, her painfully unexciting history flashing through her brain.

  “Then we should make a good pair.” His voice dropped, low and heated.

  His essence, so clean and masculine, surrounded her like a tranquilizing aroma. His strength wrappe
d around her, bringing every nerve in her body to life. There was something so impossibly erotic about Quinn, the dark knight, that made her throw away all her inhibitions and safeguards, made her body respond with so little prompting.

  Pushing away any lingering reservations, she wriggled back against him. His shaft hardened even more, pressing firmly against her buttocks.

  Just get on with it before I explode.

  Quinn rolled her over to face him. He looked even better this morning, sleep rumpled with a day’s growth of beard, than he had the night before. No man should be allowed to look this sexy, she thought, just before he softly trailed his lips down to her mouth.

  He stroked her hair, his eyes devouring her face, before he bent his head and touched his lips to hers. Feathery kisses that were both tentative and firm, searching, as if, like he’d said, he’d been out of practice for a long time and was relearning what to do and how to do it.

  When he pressed his rough silk lips more firmly to hers, the kiss that began as a gentle connection soon turned heated and drugging. They were like desert refugees who could never satisfy their thirst. His mouth was hard and demanding as he pressed his tongue against the seam of her lips. She opened for him, inviting the intrusion, savoring the taste of him. He probed her mouth with a tongue that parried and thrust like a rapier, exploring, feeding. Heat swelled to every part of her body.

  Time slowed as he traced the line of her cheeks and eyelids with fingers that trembled slightly. Moving his mouth from hers he nibbled at her ear, licked the very sensitive spot behind her ear, and nipped at her ear lobe. Her breathing hitched, and her beaded nipples ached for his mouth.

  She was liquid against him, resistance gone like a wisp of smoke. He cupped her ass, pulling her tight against him, pressing his cock against her with sudden desperation. It was so obvious he was hungry for the feel of her, wanting nothing more than to be inside her. And wherever he touched her, flames ignited, spreading directly her clit.

  “I want to see you naked,” he whispered, pushing the nightshirt over her head.

  She was self-conscious at first, spread out for him like a meal before a starving man, his eyes devouring her naked body. But the heat and appreciation she saw in them wiped any misgivings away. And made her flame even hotter. Her pussy throbbed with need, the scent of her musk so strong it drifted on the air.

  Fuck me, she wanted to shout, wondering where that word had even come from.

  Then he whispered, as if he’d heard her words “I’m going to fuck you, Kate, hard and deep.”

  His hands drifted over her body, cupping her breasts, cradling them in his palms. He pinched each nipple in turn between thumb and forefinger, squeezing and tugging. Tiny shards of pleasurable pain streaking directly to her pussy where more of her cream slicked the tissues of her inner walls. He bent his head and took one darkened nipple into his mouth, sucking on it, grazing it gently with his teeth.

  “Ohh!”

  The exclamation whispered from her mouth as she arched up to him, threading her fingers through the soft strands of his hair to anchor his head in place. With every pull of his mouth, every little bite of his teeth, the pulse in her inner walls beat harder and more demandingly. The scruff on his face abraded her skin like some sensuous brush, making every nerve ending tingle and stoking the hunger flashing within her. Heat sizzled, snapping everywhere in her body, melting what was left of her brain as well as any reservations she might have had.

  “You’re so soft,” he murmured, his voice thick with desire. “Your skin feels like satin.”

  His touch was like magic, drawing responses from her in places she’d never thought of as erogenous zones. She was floating on a cloud, her body both pliable and demanding, driven by his erotic touches. He laved and sucked until she was sure she would lose her mind. When he stopped, she moaned a protest, but then he shifted so he could take her mouth in a kiss of ravenous hunger.

  When her lips were swollen from the kiss, when his tongue had scoured every inch inside her mouth, he cupped her head with his hands and trailed hot kisses from her chin down her neck and between her breasts. He stopped to swirl the tip of his tongue in the indentation of her navel before using it to draw a line to her mound.

  She never thought to resist him when he bent her legs and spread them wide to give him unimpeded access. His thumbs, on the outer lips of her pussy, opened her, his breath making her flesh quiver with need. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to an intimacy that for whatever reason did not seem out of place with this man.

  “So wet. Jesus, Kate. I have to taste you.”

  Again, he put his very clever tongue to work, lightly tracing her inner lips, then drawing a line the length of her slit. Up and down, up and down until she wanted to scream for more. He tormented her clit with his teeth and his tongue, now lightly, now harder. And when at last he slid one finger into her tight channel, it slipped in so easily she had to be soaked.

  “Drenched,” Quinn said as if he’d heard her thought. “Nice and slick. I love it.” He placed a hot kiss right on the tip of her clit. “Jesus, Kate. It’s been so long. Please tell me if I do anything wrong.”

  “So far you’re doing it all right,” she told him in a strangled voice.

  He added a second finger and began working them in and out, the tips circling to scrape along her inner walls, hitting her sweet spot. Each time he touched her there, it set off a fresh wave of tremors inside her vaginal walls. Each time he withdrew and pushed in again, each time he pulled hard on her clit with his mouth, another wave of tremors overtook her until, without any warning at all, a climax roared through her like an onrushing wave.

  She arched up to his mouth, pushing against the bed with the soles of her feet, shuddering at the wave of spasms rocking her. Her heart stuttered and her breath cut choppily into the air as the intensity of the orgasm eased. Kate lay there, trying to regain some sort of balance, but Quinn didn’t seem about to let up.

  She wondered hysterically if indeed he’d been without for so long he was trying to make up for it all in one night. He lapped slowly at her sex, slow languid swipes of his tongue against her very sensitive flesh. With his thumbs, he held her open while he took his time devouring her. The low moaning sound she heard was hers, shocking her that it came from her mouth.

  Kate didn’t know how long it had been since Quinn had sex, but for her, it was far longer than she wanted to admit, even to herself. Apparently her starving body was gripped by a voracious hunger. How else could she explain that she’d lost all her inhibitions with a man she’d just met?

  The caresses with his tongue made her already sensitized nerves snap and crackle with need. Her inner walls pulsed and quivered, and she was almost embarrassed at how wet she was. Then she forgot all about being self-conscious as yet another orgasm rolled through her that quickly, just mere seconds after Quinn resumed his erotic caresses. The spasms were milder this time but no less gripping. She lay back on the pillow, panting, trying to pull the grayed edges of her brain together.

  Quinn slid upward on her body, placing a kiss in the valley between her breasts. She felt the muscles of his cheeks pull as a smile curved his lips.

  “I guess I’m not as out of practice as I thought,” he joked. “And we’re not even half done.”

  Your turn, she wanted to say. But she couldn’t make her mouth form words. Instead, she tugged him upward and pushed at him until he lay flat on his back.

  “I can’t do what I want in this position,” he protested.

  “But I can,” she told him, feeling more wicked than she ever had before and wondering where this nymph had come from.

  She smoothed her hand over his chest, brushing against the thick, springy curls sprinkled over the hard wall of muscle. When her fingertips coasted over his hard male nipples, it drew a hiss of breath from him. Tracing the line of soft hair down his hard, flat abdomen, she slipped her finger beneath the waistband of his boxers until she reached the rich nest of curls at his gr
oin and the thick, hard shaft rising from it.

  Just touching him this way spiked her pleasure. She’d never wanted to feel every bit of a man the way she did with him. Whatever chemistry had ignited between them was beyond incendiary, threatening to combust and consume them completely.

  He lay there, letting her explore him with her fingers, but she could tell the effort at control he was making. A muscle ticked in his jaw and his hands were clenched at his side.

  “I’d love to tell you to take your time,” he told her in a strangled voice, “but I think I’m getting close to the danger zone.”

  “You got to have your fun,” she pointed out, amazed again at how bold and free she felt with him.

  “And you’ll get yours,” he promised. “But darlin’, you better have it real quick.”

  Wrapping her fingers around the thick stalk of his shaft, she slid them up and down, stroking the silky soft skin covering the steel length of him. Beneath her touch, the pulse of blood raced through the thick vein that roped around it. Impulsively, she lowered her head and swiped her tongue across the velvet head, lapping up the tiny bead of fluid that sat on the slit. This wasn’t something she’d ever enjoyed doing before, but with Quinn, the stranger who seemed more familiar than people she’d known longer, it seemed so natural.

  He lay there, body rigid, while she explored and tasted him until suddenly his fingers clamped around her wrist and he tugged her hand away. She tensed, wondering if she was doing it wrong or if he’d decided he didn’t like it.

  “What—”

  His smile was dark and ravenous. “I’m at my limit, Kate. I haven’t been this aroused in I can’t remember how long.” He shifted her aside and swung his legs off the bed. “Don’t move. Stay right where you are.”