by Penny Reid
“Janie.”
My eyes remained closed but I gave him a slight, evasive, closed mouth smile.
“What are you thinking?”
I swallowed but didn’t answer. My heart was racing. I wanted to tell him I was thinking about the fiber content in stain-resistant carpet, but that would have been a lie. Even if I wanted to, and I did want to, I couldn’t seem to distract myself from the reality of being with him and all the irrepressible terror and hunger that accompanied it.
“Why are you so afraid?”
“Because I’m not thinking about the fiber content in stain-resistant carpet.” My eyes remained stubbornly shut.
“What does that mean?”
“It means…” I lifted my lids and found him surveying me with simple curiosity. I swallowed a new thickness in my throat, knowing that I needed to tell him the truth. “It means my brain finds you more interesting than all the really interesting trivial facts I could be contemplating or researching at present.”
His answering smile was leisurely and measured. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
I returned his smile even though I felt suddenly sober; my eyes were inexplicably watery. “Quinn…” I took a deep, steadying breath. “Quinn, you need to be a good guy. I need you to be a good guy.”
He nodded, his expression reacting to and echoing my sudden seriousness. “I know. I want to be.” Quinn licked his lips as his eyes moved to my mouth. “I will be for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
We left work shortly after 4:00 p.m.—together.
Quinn reached for and grabbed my hand. He flashed me a smile and gently held it as we walked down the hallway past a gaping Keira and onto the elevator within plain view of the security desk and its inhabitants, then straight to the lobby. As we walked, fingers threaded together, Quinn caressed the wrinkles of my knuckles with the pad of his thumb and spoke of the dilemma with the corporate client in Las Vegas.
At first, I was fairly preoccupied by our public display of physical contact and managed only single-syllable responses. However, once we were settled in a large black limo, I tried to focus on his words rather than the predictably astonished glances from my coworkers.
But then we sat close together on the bench seat; he lifted my legs so that they were positioned across his, and he fiddled distractedly with my collar, his eyes on the buttons of my business shirt.
I was watching his lips as he spoke. I tried to find my place in the conversation, but the way he looked at me, the closeness of him, the feel of his hands—one on my thigh, one brushing against my neck—made me feel fuzzy-headed and unfocused.
“Janie?”
I blinked, saw his mouth form my name before I heard the word. My eyes widened then met his.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Are you…did you hear what I said?”
“No,” I answered truthfully, my attention moving to his mouth again, which, at the moment, was an attention-hogging lodestone.
Quinn squeezed my leg. “Am I boring you?”
“No.” I sighed, allowed my head to rest against his arm behind me, still focused on the bottom half of his face. “I was just thinking about your mouth.”
He licked his lips and, to my surprise, his neck and cheeks tinted slightly hot. “What were you thinking about my mouth?”
“I like it.”
“What do you like about it?”
Without hesitating, I responded, “Everything: the shape of it, how big your lips are, your tubercle, the curve of your philtrum. Did you know that in traditional Chinese medicine, the shape and color of the philtrum, also called the medial cleft, is supposed to be have direct correlation to the health of a person’s reproductive system?”
I noticed his eyes flicker to the space between my nose and mouth, seemingly without his expressed consent, and then quickly back to my eyes. “How about that.”
I nodded. “There are a lot of fascinating and unusual studies out there that link the shape of a person’s mouth to other parts of the human anatomy and its abilities or proclivities.”
I noticed his breathing had changed. He swallowed. “Like what?”
I traced my finger over the top of his lip, enjoying the fact that I was actually using my knowledge of random facts as some sort of brainy, academic foreplay, and that Quinn seemed to like it and respond to it.
“Like the Cupid’s bow, the double curve of the upper lip. A study out of Scotland reported that women with a prominent cupid’s bow are more likely to experience orgasm during sex.”
Quinn’s attention once again affixed to my lips and then he promptly groaned. “You shouldn’t say things like that when I can’t do anything about it.”
I enjoyed the tortured sound he made and once again met his gaze, which had darkened considerably.
I tried to keep my face straight.
“Then there is the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic musculature of the tongue.”
“You need to stop talking.” Quinn grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back, claiming my mouth with his, and ending my involuntary bubble of laughter.
When he lifted his mouth, I whispered, “Most of the tongue’s blood supply comes from the lingual artery.”
He kissed me again and again.
If I’d been listening to our ensuing kiss-sloppy conversation, been an observer rather than a participant, I might have rolled my eyes in judgmental exasperation. Admittedly, it was improbable that peer-reviewed medical research citations and correlative studies of human anatomy could get a person, let alone two people, hot and bothered. But there we were, pawing each other with mounting urgency as I recounted theories linking the amount of hair on earlobes and genital arousal.
By the time the limo stopped, we were half dressed, and the buttons of my shirt were scattered all over the floor. Naturally, Quinn had ripped the shirt open with a growl when I mentioned mammary glands.
I frantically pulled away and grasped the useless edges of my shirt. “Oh shit!”
Quinn was still somewhat lost in a fog of lust and moved his hand further up my inner thigh, his mouth seeking mine again. I swatted him away despite the fact that everywhere he touched me protested in delicious agony. Nonsensically, I tried to smooth my hair, tsking when my shirt opened again.
“What am I going to do?”
Quinn, finally drawing away from me, pulled a sweater over his bare chest with not a trace of hurry. He lifted a single eyebrow as he adjusted his pants and zipped his fly. The sound made my back stiffen, and I realized how close we’d just been to copulating in the back of a car.
“I think you look good just like that.”
I stared at him for two seconds before I smacked him on his infuriatingly well-muscled shoulder.
“My shirt is ripped open, and…” I frantically twisted in my seat and may have shrieked. “Where is my underwear?”
There was no amusement in his voice when he responded, “Someplace safe.”
My eyes widened further, and I knew that my mouth was hanging open dumbfounded. I was about to lose my mind.
“Give them back.”
“You don’t need them.”
“Give them back to me right now.”
“You should try new things.”
“I am not leaving this limo while commando!”
The passenger door on Quinn’s side opened, and I yanked the skirt I was wearing back to mid-calf. I didn’t miss his dark smile when it was clear that I was not likely to push the underwear issue further until we were in private. By then, it likely wouldn’t matter.
Quinn reached for his leather jacket and draped it around my shoulders, zipping the front up to my neck. I swam in the largeness of it, but at least I wasn’t going to be walking around with my shirt hanging open. He exited the limo, then held his hand out to me at the threshold. I moved and stood as demurely as possible. When he cleared his throat, I met his gaze and he winked at me, surreptitiously ye
t suggestively licking his lips.
I followed where he led.
Sometime later, near midnight, Quinn gave me my underwear back on the promise that I would wear only underwear until sunrise. The only other option was my birthday suit as he’d confiscated all my other clothes and hidden them somewhere within the massive penthouse he called home.
Of course, he lived in the penthouse.
It was the same building where the boss had purchased five floors for Cypher Systems staff. At first, when we arrived, I thought we were headed to the apartment he’d shown me before. My imagination filled with images of us together in the giant bathtub.
Quinn’s tub, as it turned out, was far superior, as was the view and the kitchen, and the bedrooms were more spacious.
The apartment was nearly as sparsely decorated as the unfurnished and unfinished apartment downstairs that we’d toured weeks ago. There was no couch and no chairs in the living room, no table in the dining room, and only a single dresser and bed in the bedroom. The box spring and mattress were on the floor; there was no bedframe. There were no pictures either.
I had a sheet wrapped around myself and, turning away from him, I glanced down at my underwear. They were white cotton and, as I contemplated it, not at all sexy. Most of my undergarments were chosen for comfort, cost, and practicality. I eyeballed him as I pulled on the granny panties, keeping the sheet in place to nonsensically preserve my modesty.
“Why did you hijack my underwear?”
Quinn was lying on his back, his long form stretched on the unmade bed, his hands behind his head, watching me.
He was completely naked. No sheet for him. Nope. No modesty for Quinn. He appeared to be entirely, mindlessly at ease in his own skin. I envied his unabashed ability just to be naked.
I also appreciated it.
“I hate them.” His gaze swept from where the sheet covered my bottom to my bare shoulder then back to my hidden thighs; the way he perused my body made me shiver.
I snapped the elastic at my waist beneath the sheet. “Is it because they lack frill?”
He shook his head lazily. “No. I don’t care what they look like. I hate all your underwear.”
I frowned. “So you’re an equal opportunity underwear hater?”
“Only your underwear.”
“Underwear serves a critical purpose.”
“I don’t want to know.”
He sat up, swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and reached for me by moving aside the edges of the sheet and hooking a finger in the band of the much-discussed panties. He brought me to his lap, encouraged me to straddle him, and then he peeled the sheet from under my arms. He kept his eyes on mine while he extracted the material, crumpled it, and tossed it away from us. I shivered. He wrapped his arms around my middle so that his arms crossed behind me and his hands warmed the skin of my sides and stomach and brought my front against his.
“You’re staying with me tonight. No escape.”
I spread my palms over his bare biceps. “You haven’t given me much of a choice; you’ve even taken my sheet. I can’t go home clothed only in granny panties. It’s supposed to be cold tonight.”
He nuzzled my neck and tightened his grip, pressing our chests together. Although I was thoroughly mussed and mollified from our evening of marathon lovemaking, my heart skipped at the contact.
“It’s supposed to be cold tomorrow, too. Why did you leave your coat at work?” He asked the words against my skin, kissing a path across my collarbone then biting my shoulder.
I was really and truly enjoying physical contact to the point of craving it, yet I did not allow myself to wonder at this inexplicable transformation. My spoken reply was an automatic, thoughtless, breathy sigh. “I didn’t. Jem took it.”
Quinn immediately stiffened, and his movements stilled. Abruptly his hands moved to my forearms and he pulled away even as he held me in place. “You saw Jem?”
I met his astonished glare, and my mouth struggled to make sound. I squeaked once or twice before I managed to respond, “Yes.”
His eyes seared and scorched, and pinned me with an accusatory stare. “When? Where?”
“I-I-I saw her last night. She was at my…she was waiting for me at my apartment.”
“Damn.” Quinn clenched his teeth, his jaw and temple ticking, and pulled me abruptly against him in a fierce hug. “Damn it, Janie. You should have called me.”
“She didn’t stay long.” I held on to him tightly even though I didn’t precisely understand the ferocity of his reaction.
We held each other for a long moment. My encounter with Jem had been weighing on me like a squatting Sumo wrestler all the previous night and through the morning; but I hadn’t thought about her since Quinn showed up in my office with his greasy lunch offering.
I moved my hand in a slow circle over his bare back, a motion I hoped would sooth the unexpected shift in mood. I kissed his temple and whispered, “I don’t understand why you are so upset.”
“Because Jem is dangerous.” I felt his chest expand; he sucked in a capacious breath as though greedy for air. “I don’t want her anywhere near you.”
I leaned back and forced him to meet my gaze. “She would never hurt me.”
His eyes only narrowed. “You’re wrong. She would.” His voice was like steel. “I really think you should move into this building.”
I pressed my lips together but didn’t respond.
His hands moved to my face, giant palms cupping my cheeks, long fingers pushing into my hair behind my ears and at my temples. “Please. You don’t have to stay here forever. Just please show Elizabeth the apartment and think about it. Think about staying until this Jem business is resolved.”
“Quinn, I…” My hands moved up his biceps and settled lightly on his forearms. “You are my boss. You are also the guy I am dating, and now you want to be my landlord?”
He winced then gritted his teeth. “It’s not like that.”
“Just one of those things—relationships—can complicate, does complicate interactions between two people. You can’t be everything to me. I have to stand on my own.”
He studied me, his stare turning hawkish. “You could move in with me.”
I smiled even though my heart felt heavy. “We’ve been dating less than a month, and besides, I can’t afford even one-tenth of the rent on this penthouse.”
“I own this place. There is no rent.”
“Quinn…”
He cut me off with a kiss and turned us in one fluid movement so that I was lying under him on the bed.
“Just don’t say no.” He kissed me again. “Not yet.” He kissed my neck, and his words and breath were hot and urgent. “I’ll give you the key and the code to the building. Promise me you’ll show Elizabeth the apartment.” He nibbled on my ear and whispered, “And promise me that you’ll think about moving in with me.”
I nodded, but not mindlessly. I wanted to pacify him so we could get to the good stuff.
He pulled away and his eyes surveyed me. “Promise me.”
I nodded again and lifted my hand to tousle his hair. “I promise.”
At some point in the last forty-eight hours, Quinn had brought my bag from the Vegas trip to his apartment. Therefore, and thankfully, I was able to dress in fresh clothes, ones with buttons, before heading to work.
I learned a bit more about Quinn as a consequence of spending the night at his place; he doesn’t really sleep, he exercises every morning, he eats pastries for breakfast. Quinn was up by five and back from a long run by six thirty.
After his shower, he woke me up in the most pleasant way imaginable.
Yes. That way.
I was standing at his kitchen counter drinking a really delicious latte from one of those marvels of modern mechanics one-touch espresso makers and eating a cherry and cheese Danish by 7:20 a.m. At 7:40 a.m., we were walking to work, a short six-block stroll, holding hands and talking about the day ahead.
Since I had tutor
ing on Thursdays, we made arrangements to go out again Friday night. He kissed me goodbye at the entrance to the building, leaving me wobbly headed and kneed, at 7:58 a.m. I was in the elevator at eight o’clock on the dot.
What a difference a day makes.
I was still smiling dazedly as I walked down the hall to my office, not really noticing anyone or anything. I sat behind my desk and mindlessly shuffled through the folders. I didn’t yet want to lose myself in spreadsheets, so I opted to read through the pile of memos threatening to spill off my desk. It would allow me to continue to revel in all the warm and silky feelings from the previous night and morning.
The first ten or so were actually about my new billing software. The last memo suggested moving the conversation to email. This was typical. Most conversations were initiated via hard-copy memo. After they were determined to be benign in nature, they were moved to email. All memos were to be shredded after they were read.
As he was responsible for the private clients, most of Steven’s internal correspondence was hard copy. Since I was responsible for the corporate clients, most of mine was electronic.
I sifted through the correspondence quickly, but then my attention was abruptly ensnared when I spied both my name and Quinn’s listed together in a printed copy of an email. I’d never received a printed copy of an email before, and my gaze moved to the email address of the sender. I recognized it as one of the French Tweedle Dee lawyers I’d met on my second day. At first, I skimmed the email, but then after the second sentence, I forced myself to start at the beginning and really, truly read it:
Hi Betty,
Per Mr. Sullivan’s request and as discussed during our phone conversation, Jean and I have consulted on the matter of Ms. Morris at length. It is our opinion that Mr. Sullivan’s best course of action would be to terminate Ms. Morris’s employment as soon as is feasible (without interrupting operations). In such cases as these, it is not unusual or unwarranted to offer a large severance package and release her from the non-compete agreement she signed on initiation of the position.