“Not all the time. But close.”
“Did you like it there?”
I sat back and studied the castle for a long second. “When I was little, I did. I was close to my parents and my brother and sisters.”
“But not now?”
I shrugged. “I did something I shouldn’t have, so my friends and family don’t really want me around anymore.”
“What did you do?”
“Olivia,” Quinn said softly, a clear warning in her voice.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek a little.
“Sometimes people do things that they don’t really mean, but then someone gets hurt and you can’t take it back. You know?”
“Like when I called Lizzie a brat?”
I coughed to hide a chuckle. “Yeah. Something like that.”
“Lizzie still won’t talk to me. But now Sara’s my friend, so it’s okay.”
“That’s the way it works sometimes, Olivia.”
She nodded. “Your family is mad at you, but now you have Mommy and me.”
I glanced at Quinn. She was watching us, but her face was in shadow so I couldn’t see her expression.
“That’s right.”
“It’s good that we’re your family, too. We’ll always be friends.”
A twinge of sadness moved through me. But I couldn’t tell this little girl that she was being a little too optimistic.
“Sure, Olivia. You’re right about that.”
“I’m right a lot of the time. That’s another reason why Lizzie doesn’t like me. She says I’m too smart for my own good.”
“Well, Lizzie certainly is an opinionated young lady.”
“She is. She wants to be the one who knows everything.”
“There are lots of people like that in the world. But don’t ever let anyone convince you that it’s better to pretend to be dumber than you are. Because it’s not.”
Olivia looked up at me, quite seriously. “Okay. I won’t.”
“Time for your bath, Olivia,” Quinn called. “It’s getting cold.”
Olivia immediately stood and brushed sand off her backside. “Thanks, Vincent,” she said, leaning down to kiss my cheek lightly. Then she ran up to the house with Quinn.
I went inside and cleaned myself up, thinking about the last time I’d been to the beach. I used to live on the beach. My friends and I spent every Friday and Saturday night there, hanging out, listening to music, and basically being stupid teenagers there. That’s where I met Sydney. She went to a different high school, so our paths had never passed until a friend of a friend invited her to one of our little get-togethers. From the moment I set eyes on her, I knew she was going to play an important role in my life. I just had no idea where that role would take us.
We were at the beach that night. But I wasn’t going to let myself think about that just now.
I grilled the steaks on the gas grill out on the back deck while Quinn and Olivia chopped up vegetables for a salad. Then we settled back and ate a lovely dinner with the scent of the ocean all around us. The stars were incredibly bright, the silence refreshing after months in the city. I didn’t realize how much I missed the beach until tonight.
“Can you read me a bedtime story, Vincent?” Olivia asked, tugging at my hand, as Quinn urged her to go inside the house.
“Of course.”
Quinn shot me a look that was filled with caution. I chose to ignore it, swinging Olivia up into my arms and carrying her into the bedroom.
“What do we want to read?”
“We didn’t bring any of your books,” Quinn said.
“Surely Megan has something here,” I said.
“Who’s Megan?” Olivia wanted to know.
I glanced at Quinn. She cleared her throat, her arms crossed over her chest like she was pissed off.
“A friend.”
“Who’s friend?”
“She’s the sister of a guy I was in the military with.”
It was the truth.
I found a couple of books on a shelf in the closet. We ended up reading Cinderella. Olivia might have been ten, but she still got a kick out of the different voices I made as I read.
She was exhausted, already drifting off to sleep when I came to the end. I slipped out of the room while Quinn said her goodnights, wandering into the kitchen to straighten the mess we’d made over dinner. I found a bottle of scotch hidden in a cabinet. I grabbed it and a couple of glasses, deciding I deserved a little bit of a treat.
It was too cold to sit outside, but not quite cold enough to light a fire. I settled back on the couch, watching the waves in the dim light cast onto the beach. The scotch burned as it went down. I hadn’t had a strong drink since the last time I was at the beach and I swore I wouldn’t again. But this night had been a little surreal.
“I’m sorry about last night,” Quinn said as she came into the room.
I poured her a swallow of the scotch and held the glass out to her. She seemed reluctant to take it, but she finally did, settling on the couch beside me, but careful to leave a good amount of space between us.
“This is a temporary situation,” she continued as though there was no interruption. “I shouldn’t have given the impression that I didn’t understand that.”
“Is that what that was?”
“It was me dealing with the bullshit that has become my life.”
I stared into my glass for a long second, nodding just slightly. “That’s fair enough.”
“I know you’re going to be out of our life in a few days or a so. But she doesn’t.”
“Do you want me to be mean to her? To ignore her requests?”
“No. But I don’t want her to get too attached.”
“Kids get attached. But they’re also fairly resilient. She’ll forget all about me in a few weeks.”
“I don’t know. She’s never had a man in her life before.”
“Never?”
Quinn shook her head. “It’s always been just her and I.”
“That sucks.”
She laughed, clearly caught off guard by my response. And then she nodded as she lifted her glass to her lips, taking a long sip. “It does, actually.”
“I get it,” I said after a minute. “I’ve been on my own for a long time, too. Sometimes it’s easier to avoid other people after you’ve been hurt. But you also have to realize that just because you’re a strong, independent person, that doesn’t mean that you don’t need other people from time to time.”
“Temporarily?”
“If that’s what you want.”
She looked at me, her eyes moving slowly over the length of me. She reminded me of Sydney, the way she seemed to see what I tried to hide behind my walls. Sydney was always looking at me like I wasn’t fooling her no matter how hard I tried to pretend that I was. Maybe that was what drew me to her. There were so many similarities…but so many differences, too.
Sydney was tall, dark. Her hair was like the night sky, so dark that it was almost blue. And her eyes were a golden brown with these teeny flecks of green in them. She was built like a model, but she could out wrestle anybody who was brave enough to dare her. Thin, lithe, with teeny wine-glass-sized breasts that fit perfectly in the palm of my hands. She looked nothing like petite, curvy Quinn. But they had the same spirit, the same determination.
This was my job. I was fucking stupid to consider placing it at risk because it was all I had now. But I hadn’t felt this alive since Sydney died.
That’s why I didn’t push her away when she put down her glass and climbed into my lap, watching me carefully as she positioned herself on top of me as she had the night before. There was caution in the brushing of her lips on mine. But then I wrapped her ponytail around my hand and tugged her closer to me, burying myself inside of her as I captured her lips, her mouth, exploring her with all the energy and the need that had built inside of me from the moment I first set eyes on her.
Her caution melted away. She wrapped her arm
s around my neck, pressing her hands hard against my skull, pulling me closer and closer. When my hands slipped under her t-shirt, she didn’t try to push them away. And when I lifted her shirt, she raised her arms, let me tug the thin material from her body, heat in her hooded eyes as she stared down at me for the second it took to remove the shirt. I bit her throat, nibbled at the soft skin that led down to her collarbone, my body aching to touch her, to taste her, everywhere.
Her bra was no obstacle, slipping from her breasts the moment the last hook was removed. Her nipple, hard and elongated, rolled perfectly between my tongue and teeth, making her moan softly. Her breasts were so full. They were beautiful breasts that were made to be touched, to be suckled, to be loved. I took my time, enjoying the taste and feel of them. Loving the soft sounds that fell from her lips.
And then I slowly began to make my way down the length of her, kissing her soft, rounded belly, teasing her navel with little licks of my tongue. She ran her fingers over my head, tugging at the back of my shirt, trying to lift it even as she lost herself in the pleasure my touch was sending through the length of her perfect body.
I lay her down against the couch cushions, tearing my shirt off my body as I lay with her, stealing her lips again. She welcomed me, her body wrapping around mine like a glove on a hand. I tugged at her pants, slipping a hand down the front of her tight little shorts, searching for her beautifully shaved cunt, the memory of it burned in my mind. Not many men could say their first sight of their woman was of her naked body sprawled on a huge bed with a camera capturing every movement. That was a sight I would never forget.
Was that why I wanted her so badly? Because I’d seen her that way? Because there was something in the back of my mind that felt the need to take what a whole demographic of men wanted but couldn’t have? Did it matter?
She lifted her hips, giving me access to her erotic body, moaning again when my fingertip brushed against her puffy lips. Her clit was so swollen, so thick, sticking out from her labia like the tip of a pencil eraser. I rolled it between my fingers and she cried out, arching hard up against me. I let it go in favor of sliding two fingers inside of her, pressing the ball of my hand against the gorgeous clit. She broke our kiss, breathing so hard that I thought for a minute she might come just from that simple touch.
She was pushing me toward that cliff, the one that tips men past their limit of control. I’d needed her before, but now it was a brush fire that was consuming everything inside of me. Being inside of her was my only focus now. I tugged at her shorts and tried to pull them out of the way, but they fit her curves a little too closely, a little too tightly. They wouldn’t budge.
“Slow,” she whispered, pressing a finger against my lips.
“You’re driving me crazy.”
She smiled, just briefly. There was something dark in that smile that put just a little bit of the fire out. I pulled back, sitting up again.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.” She climbed into my lap, her hands moving almost affectionately over my face. “Please don’t apologize.”
She lifted her arms and tugged the elastic from her hair, letting her long hair fall around her face. It bounced like a yo-yo at the end of its string. I ran my fingers through it, careful not to tangle them in the curls. She smiled a more genuine smile, her fingers brushing my lips.
“Why you?” she asked, her thumb tracing the line of my bottom lip. “Why me?”
“I don’t know.” I tugged her down to me. “But I want you.”
“Me? Or that woman you saw in the studio?”
I could have lied. I could have told her what she wanted to hear. But I knew instinctively that that wasn’t what she wanted.
“Both.”
She looked me in the eye for a long second, then she kissed me again, biting my lip almost painfully.
“Then you’ll get both.”
She climbed off my lap and tugged her shorts from her hips, pushing them with this erotic little shimmy of her hips until they were sliding down her shapely thighs. And then her panties, these lacy, barely there, panties. In just a moment, she stood before me completely naked, her eyes turned away as she allowed me a few minutes to take in every inch.
I stood and took her face between my hands.
“You’re so beautiful,” I said, forcing her to look at me. “So fucking perfect.”
She tried to shake her head, but I wouldn’t let her.
“I don’t care about the past. I don’t care what you had to do to survive. All I care about is this moment. All I want is the woman who’s standing in front of me right now.”
I lifted her up and carried her down the hall to the bedroom she chose as her own. We fell to the bed, and I kissed her again, taking my sweet time, exploring every inch of her lovely mouth. Then I worked my way slowly down her body, running my fingertips over her ribs, her hips, urging her thighs apart and touching her clit, making her arch her back again. She tasted like honey, like vanilla and every other sweet, warm taste I’d ever had the pleasure of running over my tongue. She moved her hips and encouraged me to touch all the places that offered her the most, those deep places that made her groan deep in her throat. When her orgasm was close, when her fingers were buried against my skull, when her body was as tight as a string on a guitar, I slid up the length of her and pressed my hard cock against her sweet opening. She immediately loosened her hips, welcoming me to her like an old friend come for a long overdue visit.
She was tight…so much tighter than I’d expected. Her body took me in, her moisture helping with the friction, but there was so much friction. I had to close my eyes and count to ten, grasping for control with fingers that were quickly losing the ability to grasp. She lifted her hips and…oh, hell!
We lay still for a long moment. I don’t know who began to move first, but I was rocking my hips, and she was moaning, and it was intense. I lifted her ass to my hips and we rocked, finding a quick, easy rhythm. She wrapped her legs around me, her fingers digging into my flesh. We were both lost in the waves of pleasure that rushed through our bodies. I knew the instant she jumped, the moment she went over the cliff. Her movements stopped and her body stiffened, a silent scream slipping from her lips. Her cunt wrapped itself tight around me, her muscles moving in this slow, easy stroke that was almost more than my overtaxed mind could take. I lost it, exploding inside of her before I could catch my breath.
She buried her face against my shoulder as we both floated back to earth the way a feather falls from the sky. I felt the moisture of her tears, but I didn’t try to console her, and I didn’t ask what it was all about. I knew what it was about. And I knew—maybe I’d known all along—that this wasn’t temporary for her. This was new. It was an experience she’d never known before, the beginning of something better.
I smoothed my hand over her forehead and kissed her, stealing her lips again with less determination than before. But then the heat ignited again and the passion came back. She tightened her hold on me, her hands exploring the length of my back. We found our rhythm again, never speaking a single word to each other, never wondering if this was the right thing to do. It was right for now—and that was all that mattered.
We’d deal with the consequences later.
Chapter 9
Quinn
I woke to the sound of Olivia’s laughter. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard her laugh like that. I wanted to surround myself in the sound, but stay in the cocoon of the bed, Vincent’s smell still surrounding me, his fingerprints still on my skin.
This was what happiness must feel like.
I rolled over and stared at the ceiling, watching the sun chase the shadows across the room. My body was sore in places that had been sore before, but a dark sort of sore. This…this was a good kind of sore. This was the memory of pleasure like I’d never known before. The way his hands moved over my skin. The way his lips seemed to worship my flesh. No one had ever taken their time with me like that before. No one had e
ver cared about my pleasure the way he had. This…finally I understood why women wanted this. Why they waited for their prince to come.
I knew Vincent wasn’t my prince. I wasn’t going to let one night of the unimaginable delude me into thinking he would be more than temporary. But at least I had a little taste of what existed outside of my little world of sex and lies and fetishes.
I slowly dragged myself out of bed and took a quick shower, regret rushing through me as his scent was replaced by the vanilla of my bodywash. I dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, tugging my hair back into a loose braid. When I stepped out onto the back deck, I saw that Vincent and Olivia were playing in the ocean, dancing with the waves that were washing over their ankles.
“Hey!”
Olivia waved, a huge grin on her face. Vincent paused to look at me, his hand lifted in a greeting that seemed hesitant. But then Olivia splashed him, and he went back to chasing her through the water.
There was fruit and coffee set out on the glass-topped table. I poured myself a cup and sat back, watching them play, pretending for a minute that we were a family and this was the way it was supposed to be. Maybe someday I might actually find a man I could introduce to Olivia. Maybe we could be a family someday.
Maybe.
Vincent left his cellphone on the table, and it began to ring. I reached for it, but then pulled my hand away like it was radioactive and I’d just realized it. There was a woman’s face smiling on the screen, a beautiful brunette with dark eyes fringed by long, thick lashes. Callie calling, the phone announced.
Who was Callie?
Was I really jealous? I was. He’d been in my bed not three hours ago. I think I had a little bit of a right to be jealous.
The phone stopped ringing. I didn’t bother to call to him and let him know it had rung at all. But then it rang again and Megan’s face filled the screen. I picked it up and walked to the railing.
“Megan Bradford!”
Vincent untangled himself from Olivia and ran up to the railing, touching my fingers when he slipped the phone from my hand.
“Vulture,” I heard him say as he walked away, slipping around the side of the house.
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