Laugh lines wrinkled the corners of his eyes as he looked at her over her fingers. “Cooking.” He pressed a kiss to the tingles on her wrist, just below the sleeve of her maroon sweater.
“I am a very good cook.” When she did cook.
“Good. I like to eat.” He lightly bit her palm.
The too-much-air feeling in Lucy’s stomach pressed upward into her heart. “What?” she asked past the constriction in her chest.
“What do I like to eat?”
“Yeah.”
“Blondes with blue eyes.”
Oh God. She pulled her hand from his. “Are you hungry?”
His gaze lowered to her mouth. “I could eat.”
Years of experience had taught Lucy to take it slow. Not to rush. Not to get too involved too soon. At least that’s what the rational part of her brain told her. Then he raised his gaze to hers once more, and there it was. That hot, hungry something that looked out at her from the depths of his dark eyes and blew rational all to hell. “I’ll order takeout,” she murmured as she quickly stood and walked into the kitchen before her brain shut down and she pulled him down on top of her. “Pizza, pasta, salad?” she asked as she picked up the phone on the counter.
“Whatever.” Quinn followed as far as the doorway. He leaned one shoulder into the frame and tapped the bottle against his thigh. “So, if you’re not a nurse, what do you do?”
Lucy pushed number five on her speed dial. “I’m a writer.”
“A writer?” His black brows lowered as if he didn’t quite believe her. “What do you write?”
“Mystery novels.”
He raised the bottle to his lips. “Have you sold any?” he asked before he took a drink.
“Yes. I’m writing my seventh book.” A person picked up on the other end of the line. “I want to order a medium combo and two Caesar salads for delivery,” she said. She gave her phone number and was told it would be half an hour to forty-five minutes.
“Under your own name?”
“Yep.” She pushed End and set the phone down.
“So I can go into a bookstore and buy one of your books? Or are you a writer like you were a nurse?”
“I’ll show you,” she said and headed toward the stairs to her office. She stopped on the bottom step and looked back over her shoulder at him. He still stood leaning against the doorway. “Come on.” She motioned to him with her hand. He pushed away, and Lucy continued upstairs to the loft.
She hadn’t planned on bringing Quinn to her office, and she wished she had dusted and maybe straightened her research books. But at least the writing hadn’t gotten so crazy that she’d started piling things on the floor around her chair. Not yet. It would. It always did.
From within the confines of her seventeen-inch flat-screen monitor, hungry sharks swam the blue waters of the Great Barrier Reef. Lucy walked to her desk and reached for the mouse. The shark screen saver disappeared and revealed the scene she’d been reworking in dead.com. She rolled the pointer to the top right and reduced the document to an icon in the lower left of the task bar. She glanced over her shoulder at Quinn as he glanced about her office. He looked at her big L-shaped desk, which took up half the wall to her left, before he glanced about at her printer, scanner, fax, and copier, which were placed around the room according to electric outlets.
Plaques and writing awards hung on the walls and lined the numerous shelves. Her starred Publishers Weekly reviews sat in frames next to photos of her family and friends. The gold star trophy her mother had given her when she’d sold her first book sat on top of a stack of her books that had been translated into foreign languages.
“This is where I spend most of my life,” she said, then pointed to two closed doors. “That’s a closet where I store paper, and that’s a bathroom I added about two years ago so I wouldn’t have to run up and down the stairs all day and night.”
Quinn moved to a shelf containing a row of her published hardbacks. As he studied her books, she studied the back of his dark head. Her gaze lowered to the short black hair on the back of his neck. His wide shoulders filled out his big sweatshirt, and she lowered her attention down his back to the behind of his Levi’s. He’d threaded an old brown belt through the loops low on his hips, and his wallet bulged one of the worn pockets hugging his butt. He was so tall, so completely masculine, that it was a little disconcerting to see him in her own personal space. He set his beer on a shelf, then reached for a book. He flipped it to the back and glanced at her photo on the dust cover. “This is a good picture.” He raised his gaze from the photograph to her. “But you’re better looking in person.”
The compliment filled her with more pleasure than it should have, and she felt a little embarrassed. “Thanks.” She scooted papers aside and sat on top of her desk. She folded her arms beneath her breasts and watched Quinn.
“You must be a good writer.”
“What makes you say that?”
He pointed with his thumb behind him. “All those plaques on your wall. I don’t imagine bad writers get plaques.”
“You’d be surprised.” She was surprised he’d noticed those. She’d had boyfriends whom she’d dated for years who hadn’t noticed any of her accomplishments out of bed. It was silly. Nothing really, but the fact that Quinn noticed something about her after knowing her a week made her like him a whole lot more. Which was dangerous, because she already liked him a whole lot.
He slid the book back into place and turned his attention to an eight-by-ten photo of Lucy and her friends taken a few winters ago in Cancun. He leaned in to take a closer look at the four women in bikini tops and shorts, sunburned skin and drunken grins. “Those are my friends,” she explained. “They’re writers, too.”
Quinn straightened and looked at her over his shoulder. “Mystery writers?”
“No. We all write in different genres. When we go out, it can get real interesting.”
“They all live in Boise?”
“Yep.”
“Wow, I didn’t know so many writers lived around here.”
“Well, you know what they say: Paris, London, New York, Boise.”
One corner of his mouth turned downward in a dubious smile. “Who says that?” he asked as he walked toward her, his loose stride reminding her of the first time she’d seen him in Starbucks.
“The T-shirt shop at the mall.”
He stopped in front of her. “Then it must be true.” So close that she had to look up. So close that she thought he might touch her. Instead he reached beside her and plucked a CD from her CD rack. As if in pain, he sucked in air through his teeth. “I don’t know if I can date a girl who listens to Phil Collins.”
Lucy took the CD from his hands and set it on her desk. “It was a gift from an old boyfriend.”
“Phil Collins sucks.”
“So did the old boyfriend.”
He chuckled, then of course he zeroed in on the fuzzy pink handcuffs sitting in front of a row of research books in the hutch above her monitor. He picked them up and held them with one finger. “Kinky.”
“They were a gift.”
“From a boyfriend?”
“No. From the Women of Mystery.”
His eyelids lowered and his voice got husky. “Now that’s twisted.”
Lucy laughed and grabbed the cuffs dangling from his finger. She placed them next to the CD on the desk. “The Women of Mystery is a group of local writers. About once a year, they ask me to speak at one of their meetings.”
“No one gets tied up?”
“No bondage of any kind.”
“Damn.” He shook his head. “I was hoping to hear something good.” He moved between her knees. His fingers brushed her ears, and he pushed her hair out of her face. “How kinky do you get?”
She didn’t. Not really. Well, not on a regular basis. After the phone call last night, she didn’t expect him to believe it, though. She placed her hands behind her on the desk and leaned back. “What’s your definition of kinky?”