Breaking the kiss, he leaned back from her and stared at her, his eyes hard and bright and dark, his lips slightly parted. He was breathing hard.
“My God, I need you.”
Kate took his hand and led him to the hall. At the foot of the stairs, Quinn pulled her to him again for another kiss, still hotter and deeper, more urgent. He pressed her back against the wall. His hands caught the bottom of her black sweater and pulled it up between them, exposing her skin to the air, to his touch, giving him access to her breasts. She gasped as he pulled the cup of her bra aside and filled his hand with her. It didn't matter where they were. It didn't matter that anyone going by could have glimpsed them through the sidelights at her front door. That fast her desire for him outstripped all sense. There was only need, primal and fierce.
She gasped again as his mouth found her nipple. She cradled his head and arched into the contact. She lifted her hips away from the wall as he shoved her snug knit skirt up and stripped down her black tights. Suddenly there was no case, no past, nothing but the need and feel of his fingers exploring her, stroking her, finding her most sensitve flesh, sliding into her.
“John. Oh, God, John,” she breathed, her fingers digging into his shoulders. “I need you. I need you now.”
He straightened and kissed her quick and hard, twice, then looked up the stairs and back at her, then over his shoulder at the open door to her study, where the desk lamp cast an amber glow that just reached the old leather couch.
In the next moment they were beside the couch, Quinn stripping her sweater over her head, Kate impatiently pulling at his tie. In a few rough moves their clothes were off and abandoned on the floor. They sank down, tangled together on the couch, breath catching at the coldness of the leather. And then the sensation was forgotten, gone, burned away by the heat of their bodies and the heat of their passion.
Kate wrapped her long legs around him, took him into her body in one smooth stroke. He filled her perfectly, completely, physically and deep within her soul. They moved together like dancers, each body exquisitely complementing the other, the passion building like a powerful piece of music, building to a tremendous crescendo.
Then they were over the peak and free-falling, holding each other tight, murmuring words of comfort and assurance Kate already feared wouldn't hold up to the pressures of reality. But she didn't try to dispel the myth or break the promise of “everything will be all right.” She knew they both wanted to believe it, and they could in those few quiet moments before the real world came back to them.
She knew that John needed to give that promise. He had always had a strong compulsion to protect her. That had always touched her deeply—that he could see the vulnerabilities in her when no one else, not even her husband, could. They had always recognized the secret needs in each other, had always seen each other's secret heart, as if they had always been meant for each other.
“I haven't made out on this couch since I was seventeen,” she said softly, looking into his eyes in the glow of the lamplight. They lay on their sides, pressed close together, almost nose to nose.
Quinn smiled like a shark. “What was the guy's name—so I can go and kill him.”
“My caveman.”
“I am with you. I always was.”
Kate didn't comment, though she instantly called to mind the ugly scene of Steven confronting her and John in his office. Steven choosing the weapons he used best: cruel words and threats. Quinn taking it and taking it until Steven turned on her. A broken nose and some dental work later, her husband had taken the war to a new playing field and done his best to ruin both their careers.
Quinn caught a finger beneath her chin and brought her head up so he could look into her eyes. He knew exactly what she was remembering. She could see it in his face, in the lowered line of his brow. “Don't,” he warned.
“I know. The present is screwed up enough. Why dredge up the past?”
He stroked his hand down her cheek and kissed her softly, as if the gesture would seal off the door to those memories. “I love you. Now. Right now. In the present—even if it is screwed up.”
Kate burrowed her head under his chin and kissed the hollow at the base of his throat. There was that part of her that wanted to ask what they were going to do about it, but she kept her mouth shut for once. It didn't matter tonight.
“I'm sorry about your client,” Quinn said. “Kovac says she worked in an adult bookstore. That's probably the connection for Smokey Joe.”
“Probably, but it spooked me,” Kate admitted, absently stroking a hand down his bare back—all lean muscle and hard bone, too thin. He wasn't taking care of himself. “A week ago I didn't have anything to do with this case. Today I've lost two clients to it.”
“You can't blame yourself for this one, Kate.”
“Of course I can. I'm me.”
“Where there's a will there's a way.”
“I don't want to,” she protested. “I just wish I'd called Melanie on Monday, like I usually do. If I hadn't been so preoccupied with Angie, I would have been concerned that I hadn't heard from her. She'd become emotionally dependent on me. I seemed to be her sole support network.
“I know this sounds odd, but I wish I had at least worried about her. The thought of her being caught in a nightmare like that with no one waiting for her, wondering about her, concerned for her . . . It's too sad.”
Quinn hugged her close and kissed her hair, thinking she had a heart as soft as butter behind the armor. It was all the more precious to him because she tried so hard to hide it from everyone. He had seen it all along, from the first time he'd ever met her.
“You couldn't have prevented this from happening,” he said. “But you may be able to help her now.”
“In what way? By relieving my every conversation with her? Trying to pick out clues to a crime she couldn't have known would be committed against her? That's how I spent my afternoon. I would rather have spent the day poking myself in the eye with a needle.”
“You didn't get anything off the tapes.”
“Anxiety and depression, culminating with a row with Rob Marshall that could have me reading want ads soon.”
“You're pushing your luck there, Kate.”
“I know, but I can't seem to help it. He knows just how to punch my buttons. What do you have for me to do? Could I stretch it into a new career?”
“It's your old career. I brought you copies of the victimologies. I keep having the feeling that I'm looking right at the key we need and not seeing it. I need fresh eyes.”
“You have all of CASKU and Behavioral Sciences at your disposal. Why me?”
“Because you need to,” he said simply. “I know you, Kate. You need to do something, and you're as qualified as anyone in the Bureau. I've forwarded everything to Quantico, but you're right here, and I trust you. Will you take a look?”
“All right,” she answered, for exactly the reason he'd said: because she needed to. She'd lost Angie. She'd lost Melanie Hessler. If there was something she could do to try to balance that out, she would.
“Let me put some clothes on.” She pulled the chenille throw around her as she sat up.
Quinn scowled. “I knew there'd be a downside.”
Kate gave him a wry smile, then went to her desk, where the light was blinking on the answering machine. She was a vision in the amber glow of the desk lamp, her hair flame red, the curve of her back a sculptor's dream. It made him ache just to look at her. How incredibly lucky he was to get a second chance.