Bringing Delaney Home (Cates Brothers #1) (26 page)

He loved her. If he had had any doubts, they disappeared with each word that crossed Delaney’s lips. His chest tightened as he stood with his arms wrapped around her. He was in awe of her strength, but also damn glad she had finally leaned on him, since, to her mind, he had blown the only other time she’d asked him for help.

“Do you have a case of déjà vu?” Her sobs now settled to sniffles, Delaney pulled back from the circle of his arms, her face tear-streaked and blotchy. “I’m sorry for slobbering all over you again. This is where we started.”

He bent down to look directly into her eyes. “How are you feeling?”

“Empty.”

He reached out for her hands and squeezed. “Are you done here?”

Her face wobbled a bit and her eyes started tearing up again, but she clenched her jaw and gave him a nod.

“Let’s go.” The sun was down now, tucked behind the horizon, and around them, the sky was bleeding into midnight blue. He led her across to his truck and helped her in on the driver’s side, climbing in after her. As soon as they were buckled in, he drove farther out of town, over to Copper Lake.

“What happened to your face?” Quinn glanced down at Delaney as her head rested on his shoulder, a feeling he could become addicted to. “Please tell me you and Barbara weren’t hanging out again.”

“I fell. Does it look bad?”

“It looks like it hurts. No more falling.” He pulled into the field next to the lake and parked under the wide open sky, which was filled with so many stars it was as if someone had tossed them across the heavens like in a game of jacks. It was a school night, so they had the field to themselves. Except for the time of year, this was pretty much how it had been the last time they’d been up here together. The time she’d asked him for help. The time she’d asked him to make love to her and he’d turned her down.

Delaney sat up and glanced around, still looking turned all inside out. “Whoa, we’ve been here before.”

“Hey, it helped the last time I held you in my arms.”

“What?” Her head turned up to his in the shadowed interior. The moon shone brightly down, but couldn’t reach inside the dim cab of the truck. “Are you talking about a do-over?”

Was she trying to make it hard for him to play the gentleman? He exited the truck, sliding Delaney out his side and grabbing a wool blanket from the back seat of his extended cab. Holding her hand, he walked them around to the bed of the truck, lowered the gate, and rolled out the blanket. “I thought we could just lie here under the stars and let the world slide by.”

He placed his hands around her slim waist and lifted her onto the tailgate before jumping up himself. They stretched out next to each other, his arm behind her with her head on his shoulder. She was about as relaxed as a store mannequin.

Her hand reached across his body and clutched at his. “Do you ever wonder what might have happened if things had been different?”

“You mean if your parents were different?”

She rolled into him, tucking her face onto his chest. “God no, I stopped torturing myself with that years ago. I mean if you’d said yes in the back seat of your car.”

“Oh, that. Hell, yes, I’ve imagined that a million different times. But, my gut tells me it would’ve been ‘good-bye, Quinn’ after the first night if I’d said yes, instead of holding you in my arms that whole week.” He lifted his hand and stroked it through her long blond hair, loving the silken feel between his fingers. “You know, I don’t think I was even a blip on your radar back then. How did you pick me to ask?”

“Well, Greer trusted you, so I thought maybe I could. And, um . . . I heard you were pretty good.”

“You heard I was good in bed? How the hell did you hear that?”

“It’s Climax. How do you think I heard? People talk. Girls especially.”

“Huh. Funny, I never heard any talk about you and Trey.”

She shrugged against him. “Nothing to talk about.”

“What? You and Trey didn’t . . . ?”

“Nope.”

He groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Are you saying I would have been your first?”

“Yep.”

“You did not just tell me that.” He threw his forearm across his eyes while he digested that news. After counting to ten, he uncovered his eyes and stared up at the pinpricked sky. The silence between them drew out as he sucked in a lungful of cool fall air. “There’s not a chance you’re still waiting for me, is there?”

“Nope.”

“It’s official. I am an idiot. And I could have gone my whole life not knowing that.” He stroked his fingers up her arm in silence.

“Quinn? About that do-over . . .” Delaney rolled her body toward his, lifting her head to gaze into his eyes. “How about another truce? Make love to me. Please?”

Chapter Twenty-six

“D
amn, Delaney, it took you long enough. I was afraid you weren’t going to ask.” And then he rolled her body all the way on top of his, cupped his hands around her head, and kissed her. He took it slow, pressing his lips to hers in a long, plundering kiss. A gentle nibble on her bottom lip before sliding his tongue into her sweet mouth. As his lips worshipped hers, he ran a hand along the soft skin of her neck, across her shoulder, and down her rib cage. He grinned under her lips at her moan when he brushed his hand by her breast before moving past. “Relax, Laney. I’ll get there.”

As slow as molasses in the winter, he stripped her out of her top, kissing each inch of skin he exposed. Next went her bra, as he worshipped her breasts in the moonlight. When her hips ground against his, he rolled her under him and helped her remove her jeans.

“Hurry, Quinn.”

He got side-tracked, letting his mouth and hands caress along the way. Planting a kiss on newly exposed hip bone, he refocused on her jeans. When her pant leg stuck on her prosthetic, he kissed along her thigh while he tried tugging the jeans from a different angle. They didn’t move an inch. He only had one other option, but he didn’t want her self-conscious so he distracted her with his mouth and hands first before he said, “Laney, I think I need to take your foot off to get you naked.”

“Quinn, I’d let you remove my arms if it means you’ll put your hands and mouth back on me.”

He grinned up at her as he fumbled with her prosthesis. “I can’t get it off. Is there a strap to unhook?”

Delaney sat up to help. “No, you just have to press the button—”

“You have no patience. I’ll get to that, but we need to take care of this first.”

She laughed and brushed his hands aside to take care of it. “I got it.”

“Wait, show me. I’ll need to know for next time.”

Her body froze. Damn, he shouldn’t have said that. Leaning into her, he kissed her deep, playing his tongue along hers until her hands were gripping him tight again and her eyes glazed over with desire. He did not want her overthinking this, coming up with a no. He needed to get her back to horizontal and do things to her that had her crying
yes, yes, yes
.

“There’s a release button on the side. Yeah, push that in. Hold it down and pull off the prosthesis. Then roll down the gel liner.”

“Got it,” he said, placing it carefully to the side. Then he turned back and took care of her jeans, panties, and his own clothes quicker than a pit stop at the Indy 500. “All right, gorgeous woman, now I’ll take care of that other button.”

He touched her everywhere, needing to so badly while he made her moan, and whimper, and pant. He made her lose her breath and took her so high she screamed with the descent. They lay twined together under their own private light show in the back of his truck like they were the only two people in the world.

“I want to be inside you. Deep.”

“Yes.”

He pressed into her, amazed at how good she felt. How good they felt together. Slow but firm strokes fanned the desire swirling in his gut.

“Never stop,” she whispered in his ear. “Make this last forever.”

He tried. He honest to God tried. But the sweet glide of his body into hers took them both so high and close to the edge, he knew he’d be lucky if he lasted five minutes. Closing his eyes, he paused, then slowed his thrusts down even more. A slow move into her heat, pausing there as he bent to suck her nipple into his mouth. Her fingers tugged his hair as he moved his hips against her, grazing her in just the right places until her fingers scratched down his back. Nerve endings shot electricity through his limbs, and he thrust harder and faster while he held tight to his own urges.

“Quinn!” she groaned as she came and sighed like she’d seen heaven.

Her sigh tipped him over the edge and he followed her, riding the same wave, ripping swift and powerful through his body and soul. Wrapping her tight in his arms, he rolled her back on top, where she lay sprawled out on his chest, relaxed and grinning.

“Wow.”

“You can say that again.” Quinn ran his hands along her back and perfect ass, memorizing every curve and sinew of her lean body. “Was that okay? That we took your prosthesis off? I mean, we’re just figuring all this out.”

Delaney looked down at their legs. “Honestly, it didn’t bother me. Not with that thing you were doing with your hand. And your mouth.”

“You like that, huh? Stick with me, little girl. I’ve got a couple more tricks like that up my sleeve.” Her body tensed and she rolled off him and away, withdrawing back into her solitude. Damn. The stars still winked brightly down at him as if his world hadn’t just grown darker. He knew he needed to play this cool. She needed time. Time was his friend. The moon was bright enough to find their clothes easily. Once they were both dressed, Delaney sat on the tailgate and attached her prosthesis with stiff, awkward movements. “Hey, are you doing okay?”

“Thanks to you.” One side of her lips tilted up at the corner. “And your talented hands and mouth.”

“No, I meant from over at the cemetery.” It was too dark to read her eyes, but his gut clenched to see her smile wobble.

“Oh. I . . .” Her lips lost the gentle curve. “I don’t know if okay is in my cards. Please don’t worry about me, Quinn. I’m in a better place than I started. Maybe when I get back to D.C. I can look at things in a new way.”

There she was, twisting that knife again. “You don’t have to go back to D.C.”

“You’re a good man, Quinn Cates. You shouldn’t settle for someone like me. You deserve so much better.” She tugged her jeans down over her prosthesis with an aggression that didn’t match her calm voice. “And I refuse to take advantage of your kindness.”

“Kindness?” He jumped off the tailgate and paced two steps away, then whipped around to face her. “You think what just happened in the bed of this truck was an act of kindness?”

“Are you denying that it didn’t cross your mind that this was closure for what
didn’t
happen in the back seat of your car back in high school?”

Well, hell. It wasn’t the way she was making it sound, but he’d be damned if he’d lie to her either. He ran his hand across the back of his neck and huffed out a breath. “I’m not going to deny it, but you know it was more than that.”

“No. It can’t be. I told you all along this couldn’t be anything.”

His heartbeat pounded in his head like the tick of a clock. He was running out of time. Time
wasn’t
his friend; it was stabbing him in the back. Once Delaney escaped back to D.C., he was sure she’d rebuild the walls he’d dismantled. She was too damn strong for her own good.

“Quinn, it’s okay.”

Holy hell, he was running out of ideas. He’d used every weapon in his arsenal to enact his battle plans. His last desperate option was to withdraw and give her space. Because it wasn’t okay. You couldn’t rip someone’s heart out and expect him to be okay.

Chapter Twenty-seven

D
elaney barely saw Quinn at all the next week, but that was fine, because it meant Quinn had listened to her when she’d told him what was between them couldn’t be anything. Sure, it had been special. It had helped them both move on, right? Quinn had gotten past his high school crush on her, and she was finally ready to head back to her life in D.C. and make real plans for the first time in almost a year. She was having a bit of trouble picturing herself back there, but she was sure that was because of the crazy mess she’d been when she’d left.

She couldn’t believe she was thinking this, but her time in Climax had been good for her. She had a split second of thinking maybe, just maybe, she could stay. Then she remembered there was one more shoe to drop. If her missing memory returned, she wasn’t sure what the fallout would be. She also never had told Greer about the nightmares, and she didn’t see the point now that she was this close to leaving. Especially when she pictured Greer’s laughing and relaxed face lately. Nope, she didn’t want to mess that up.

Which was probably for the best, since walking down the sidewalk or into a local shop and seeing two heads ducked together to talk in quiet whispers still tangled her gut in a knot. Burying the memory of her parents had helped, but it was hard to set aside how alone she’d been, how she’d always been judged because of her father’s behavior.

So she spent some of her week making plans and phone calls. Dr. Evans said the whole rehab team was chomping at the bit to get her working again. She’d also thought a lot about her career in the Army and had decided to get out and try nursing on the civilian side of life. She had a call in to an old nursing classmate. Nursing was still a little way off, but knowing there was a job waiting for her would give her something else to work toward.

As plans for her life in D.C. took shape, her life in Climax flowed with a newfound rhythm. She wasn’t sure how it had happened, but her solitary life had begun weaving into the fabric of Climax. After her morning therapy session, she stopped by Lonnie’s Bait Shop to share coffee with the old-timers.

She had gone in the day after instigating the Great Knot Debate, for a new hook (since Quinn had cut hers off) and to apologize for the ruckus. The next thing she knew, she was heading there every morning since the men had decided to right a great wrong in her education and thus began her knot lessons.