“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “That’s life. Sometimes you get dealt a rotten hand.”
“Quinn.” Her voice wrapped around him like a fuzzy blanket. “I’d like to know what really happened.”
There it was again, the honesty that made him
want
to tell her, made him want to make her understand why he hated his mother so much. That and the alcohol floating in his bloodstream propelled him to speak. “I thought we were just a normal family growing up in a small town, you know, everybody related to everybody else, nobody locking doors at night. Evie was from Philadelphia. She and her mother were driving through on their way to Niagara on the Lake when her mother’s appendix ruptured. She died in the local hospital. Evie was all alone. I never heard anything about a father. My father’s mother was a nurse and she took her home. That’s pretty much the end of the story. They got married, had me and Annie. Life was grand.”
“But not really.” Danielle stroked his knuckles, her touch encouraging.
“Hell no, but who knew? I was so involved in sketching and painting, I didn’t see anything. I should’ve though. If I’d been looking, I would’ve seen it.”
“You can’t blame yourself for what happened.”
“I know that, but still, I might’ve been able to do something to prevent it.”
“You were just a child.”
“That didn’t stop her from leaving. My father was never the same afterwards. He worshipped her and she killed him.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“He waited in that damn chair year after year, believing she’d make her way back to him,
believing
nothing could keep her away.” He blew out a long breath, and said, “Guess he never realized how strong free will could be.”
“You knew leaving was her choice?”
“I knew.”
Eight little composition notebooks worth of knowing.
“How?”
“That’s a good one. When she first disappeared, I used to sit in her studio in the attic for hours, trying to figure out how I was going to keep everything going with my father coming apart and Annie crying all the time. Going there made me feel close to her, like maybe she’d give me the answers and she certainly did that. I found eight notebooks in the bottom of a trunk, my old notebooks if you want a bit of irony. They told the real story, how she couldn’t stand her life anymore, how she was suffocating, you get the drift, and how, of course, she loved us all, but needed to leave so she could find the life she was meant to live through her painting.”
“Oh, Quinn.”
“She didn’t actually blame us for holding her down, but it didn’t take an Einstein to figure it out. We were baggage and she unloaded us.”
Danielle squeezed his fingers and murmured, “It must have been horrible you.”
He shrugged. “I took the notebooks and a painting she’d done of her apartment in Philly and I burned them until every single piece turned to ash.”
“No one else knew?”
“No. How do you tell a man who worships his wife that she’s tired of washing his muddy socks? And what about Annie? Should I have told her that her mother chose a paintbrush over her?”
“What a horrible burden for you.”
“My father died never knowing.”
“And Annie still has no idea?”
“No, and she’s not going to find out.”
“I would never say anything.”
He lifted his head and got lost in her blue eyes. “I’m not worried about you. My mother’s the one who can’t be trusted.”
“You really think she’d tell Annie?”
“She’ll do anything to get what she wants.” He wouldn’t tell her about Pete Muldaney and the blackmail.
“But surely not this.”
“Surely, not? I’ve been buying Annie’s paintings since she put them in Ian’s gallery three years ago. Don’t look at me like I just told you my picture’s on the back of a milk carton. I know it might not be exactly honest, but I only had my sister’s best interests at heart. Thanks to my conniving mother, Annie found out. Now she hates me.”
“Have you tried to explain?”
“Explain? She won’t talk to me. All I wanted to do was build my sister’s self-confidence and give her the financial boost she refused when I offered it outright. So, I bought a few paintings and gave them to friends and business associates hoping she’d get other buyers. Was that so wrong?”
“I don’t know, Quinn, but either way, the reason was pure.”
“Sure, it was so pure I might have lost the only person in the world who ever mattered to me.”
“Let her calm down and she’ll see you were just protecting her.”
“Evie’s got her right where she wants her and she’s going to use that against me.”
“Why would she do that?”
“She has her reasons.” One hundred twenty-five thousand of them and a stalker.
“Don’t listen to her. She’s still on the run.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say she’s not the one to be giving advice, right now. Okay?” He leaned further into the futon and touched her cheek. “I’m really done with this topic.”
“Thank you.”
He closed his eyes and let her soothing voice fill him. “Now you know all about my sad, screwed up childhood.”
“I guess I do. Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me.”
“Who said anything about trust? I always get talkative when I’m drunk.”
“Why do you always do that?”
“What?”
“Put up a wall when someone gets too close? You aren’t drunk. You’re just being honest and it makes you uncomfortable.”
“Did I tell you I hate psychologists?” Just because he’d told her about his mother didn’t mean she had the right to poke around and analyze the rest of his life.
“Arianna says you have horrible taste in women, but I think you intentionally choose the wrong ones so you’ll never get too close.”
“And psychiatrists, I hate them, too.”
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
He blinked his eyes open and stared at her. “You want the truth? I choose women who have no aspirations past a good screw and a few fancy dinners.”
His crudeness unsettled her and she tried to move away but Quinn grabbed her arm. He touched her hair, ran a hand along her cheek, traced her chin, her jaw. “Which is why being with you is such a bad idea.”
Her eyes turned dark, shiny. “I know.”
“So, why am I dying to touch you when I know it’s the last thing I should do?”
She leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on his mouth. “I don’t know.” Her words slid over him, pulling him closer.
“If I don’t leave right now, I won’t be leaving until morning.”
Her fingers traced his lips. “I know.”
Chapter 15
Did she realize what she was saying? Quinn brushed away a tear as it slipped down Danielle’s cheek. She was so soft and fragile and he wanted her so badly but part of him, the better part, wanted to protect her, even if it was from himself. “Tell me to leave.”
She hesitated, then said, “I can’t.”
“Danielle,” he breathed.
She opened her mouth and her tongue touched his, tentative at first, then bolder as she stroked against him. Quinn eased her down on the futon, his mouth still on hers, his hands stroking her neck, her arms, her thighs, his hardness pressed between her legs. The burn built inside, fueling the need to strip her naked and bury himself deep inside and the equally urgent need to protect her. He fingered a nipple through the thin cotton of her t-shirt, circling the peak until she moaned. This sudden conscience was killing him as Danielle worked him with her fingers, stroking his back, his thighs, his chest, lower,
God, yes
, lower. He eased the t-shirt up her body and cupped her small, full breasts, first one, then the other, enjoying the muffled whimpers that grew more desperate with each new touch.
He’d known it would be like this, even when he refused to let himself imagine it. Quinn lowered his head and flicked his tongue over a pink nipple, then began to gently suck. She squirmed and clasped his head with both hands, holding him to her.
“Oh, Quinn.”
He licked the peak again. “Hmmm.”
“What are you doing to me?” She worked her hands inside his pants, pressing his hips so he fit between her thighs.
“What are you doing to
me
?” he groaned, thrusting against her once, twice, then jerking back for fear he’d explode. He hadn’t worried about that in . . . he’d never worried about that.
“What’s wrong?”
He crouched over her, fighting to regain his composure. If he stayed with the same program he used on all of his women, he’d put a smile on Danielle’s face, enjoy lusty sex all night and never lose control. His detachment drove women wild, each hoping to break through to claim the raw sensuality of the man. And, to claim the man, of course. They’d all failed, but not for lack of very creative, very sexual, very
frequent
attempts.
“Quinn?” Her soft voice spilled over him like warm honey. “Let’s try to forget our pain, even if it’s only for a little while.” She reached for his belt and slowly unbuckled it.
“Danielle,” he groaned as she unfastened the button on his pants and slid the zipper down. He might have made it if she hadn’t looked at him with those big blue eyes and stroked him through his silk boxers. When she eased the boxers down and wrapped her fingers around him, reason exploded with her next touch, and he gave in. There was only need then, to strip away clothes and boundaries, push past before and after, reach up and into longing to a deep, needful joining that would leave them both filled and yet still yearning.
“I’ve got to be inside you,” he said, his voice raspy and desperate as he yanked off her pants. He paused to stroke the slim scrap of pink satin covering her hips. When she jerked, he let out a low laugh and inched the panties down.
“Make love to me.”
He smiled and placed a soft kiss on the inside of her right thigh. She moved toward the kiss and let out a tiny whimper.
“Is that what you want, sweetheart?” He ran his tongue along her thigh, inching closer to her sweet spot. Slowly, he circled with his tongue, sucking small sections of skin until he was a breath away from her sex. Then, he spread her legs and dove in with his tongue. She screamed with such intense pleasure he wanted to park himself there for the next hour just to hear her. He licked and sucked and nipped, stroking and circling as the screams faded to whimpers, then moans, then screams again until she exploded against his mouth.
“That’s it,” he murmured, as he yanked off his pants and boxers and positioned himself above her. “That’s exactly what you needed.” She was still quivering when he buried himself deep inside her naked body. “And this”—he thrust into her—”is exactly what I needed.” She wrapped her legs around his waist, convulsing against him each time he pumped into her. Good. She liked sex. He thrust harder, deeper, faster, his eyes on her as she thrashed her head from side to side, a half moan spilling from her lips. She met his gaze as he jerked against her, seconds before he began the free fall into the purest orgasm of his life. And it was here that he saw the truth. He could love this woman . . . if he let himself.
***
Quinn’s cell phone yanked him out of a deep sleep. He rolled over and swept his hand across the nightstand. Nothing. He opened his eyes and stared at the black comforter and the purple futon across the room. Vivid, erotic reminders of what he and Danielle had done there three, no four times, flashed before him. Where was she? A hollowness settled in his gut as he glanced at the empty space beside him. He needed to see her, touch her, find out if last night’s intensity was merely the result of alcohol and not the woman.
God
, he hoped so.
He couldn’t want somebody that much.
His cell phone rang again and Quinn jumped out of bed, grabbed his pants from the jumbled heap on the floor and fished his phone from his pocket. “Hello?”
“Mr. Burnes?”
“Speaking.”
“Butch Cooker here. Sorry to be calling so early but there have been some developments I thought you’d want to hear about.”
“That’s okay, Butch. What did you find out?”
“Well, it looks like our man is closing in on the Mrs. Weird thing is he’s not trying to hide it.”
“What do you mean?” Quinn kept his voice low in case Danielle was nearby.
“I traced two more credit card charges, one in Indiana and another in Ohio.”
“That close?”
“Yep. I think he wants us all to know it, too. Either this man is so hell-fire confident we can’t touch him or he’s trying to scare the devil out of his wife so she’ll just give up.”
“Estranged wife, Butch.” Quinn refused to analyze his need to correct the man. “Let him come. I’ll be waiting for him.”
“Be careful. There’s a streak in that man that’s not human. I finally located the laundry woman who came to the house the day after the shooting. Nice little Mexican lady, but not too willing to talk. That is, until her husband got after her and told her it was her duty as a United States citizen to tell the truth. That pretty much took care of it and she spilled the whole enchilada, said there was a trail of blood from the bedroom to the front hallway that took her three days to clean up.”