She pressed a cool palm to her hot cheek and looked at herself in the mirror. She cared about him. Even more than she wanted to admit to herself, but it was too early in the relationship for a naked mission with Quinn. No matter how tempting. And she was tempted. She dropped her hand and opened the door. No doubt about it.
She found Quinn standing in the middle of the living room staring into the unlit fireplace. He looked up, and his dark gaze followed her as she walked across the room to the mantel. Across the distance, she felt his desire pulling at her. Threatening to suck her under. Maybe she should leave. Grab her purse and run before she did something stupid. Like forget she didn’t have sex with guys after knowing them for little over a week. No matter how much he made her ache. No matter that she was halfway in love with him, as ridiculous as that seemed.
“Who’s this?” she asked as she picked up a picture frame.
“Millie.”
She looked closer at the woman he’d married. Red curls framed her face, and big green eyes looked out from behind a pair of brown framed glasses. Millie had been cute in a healthy, runs-ten-miles-and-climbs-rocks sort of way. Whatever Lucy had expected his wife to look like, this wasn’t it.
Quinn moved behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “That was taken about a year before she died,” he informed her.
“How old was she then?”
He paused a moment, then said next to her left ear, “My age.”
Lucy set the photo back on the mantel. “She looks younger.”
“Yeah, she hated that.”
“Quinn?”
“Hmm.”
“I think…I don’t think…” She glanced up into his image, reflected in the mirror in front of her. “I don’t think we should have sex.”
His dark gaze stared into hers. “I don’t want to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.” His hands moved down her arms and came to rest on her waist. “You tell me when to stop.” Slowly, he slid his palms to her stomach and pulled her back against his chest. “Are you uncomfortable when I kiss you here?” He bent his dark head and placed his mouth on the side of her throat. She watched him brush his lips across her skin, and the fine hairs on the back of her neck tingled. She shook her head.
“That’s good. I like kissing you right here. Where your skin’s soft and your hair smells like flowers and looks like the sun.”
He hooked his thumbs inside the waistband of her skirt and slid them to her sides. The backs of his thumbs brushed her black hose.
She tilted her head to the right and he opened his hot, wet mouth and sucked her skin. The heat of his kiss spread outward, across her shoulder and down her chest. Her heart pounded and swelled, and her breasts grew heavy. She leaned back into the solid, warm comfort of his embrace and took a deep breath. The scent of him, his musky cologne and Quinn, filled her head. His gaze locked with hers as he slipped his fingers up beneath the edge of her sweater.
His heavy lids lowered to half mast, and there was no mistaking the desire burning in his eyes. No mistaking the long hard length of it pressed into her behind. He slipped his big hands beneath her sweater, and his fingers fanned across her bare stomach. She would stop him. Soon. But not when it felt so good. When everything about him, his gaze, his touch, the scent of his skin, made her want to sink back into him and stay there awhile. Her feelings for him seemed to expand beyond her control. Overpowering, like Quinn himself, and she felt as if she were in a free fall. A long, hot fall into Quinn McIntyre, and there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it.
His thumbs brushed the underwire of her bra, a lazy back and forth that drove her crazy before sliding up the swells of her breasts to press into her hard nipples. Her breath caught in her chest, and she knew that if she was going to stop him, she had to do it now. She opened her mouth, and he circled her nipples with his thumbs. She’d tell him in a minute. A heavy ache pooled between her thighs, and she instinctively squeezed her legs together. Her lids drifted shut as his hands slid up and cupped her breasts.
“Your nipples are hard,” he whispered into the side of her throat. “Like a woman who wants to make love.”
She looked at him in the mirror. At his gaze looking back at her with unconcealed lust burning in his eyes. He definitely looked like a man who wanted to make love, and Lucy turned and wrapped her arms around his neck. His hands slid to her back, and her breasts smashed into his chest. She kissed him full on the mouth. He slipped the fingers of one hand beneath the waistband of her skirt and pressed his warm palm into the small of her back, holding her against his rock-hard penis. His other hand moved up her spine and the kiss got hotter, turning into a maddening chase and follow, a slick advance and retreat of hot tongues and mouths.
His fingers continued to slide up and down her spine, his touch light and feathery, making her shudder and moan deep in her throat. Lust, hot and liquid, rushed through her veins, getting all mixed up and confused with the feelings deep in her soul. The last ounce of her self-control slipped away as Quinn rubbed against her and his hands slid over her body, touching everywhere, turning up the heat and taking control. Everything got hotter and dizzier, and somehow she lost her sweater. Before she knew quite how it happened, it was on the floor by her feet. Quinn took a step back, and his hooded gaze moved from her face, down her throat and shoulders, to her breasts.
His harsh breathing lifted his chest, as if he’d just jogged ten miles. Lucy knew the feeling.
“I love a woman in lace,” he whispered and lifted a hand to touch the lace edge of her bra with the tips of his fingers. “You’re so beautiful, you make me forget.”
She licked her lips and endeavored to control her breathing before she passed out. “Forget what?”
He glanced up at her, then returned his gaze to her nipples, which were making two distinct pebbles in the white cups of her bra. “That I should take it slow. That I don’t want to blow it by rushing things,” he answered even as he pressed his palms into her full breasts. “But it’s been so long.” The heat from his palms seeped through the satin material, and he pushed her breasts together as he bent forward and kissed her deep cleavage. “Why did you have to look like this?” he asked, his warm breath brushing across her flesh. “This would be easier if you weren’t so beautiful. If I didn’t want you so much that I can’t think of anything but getting you naked.”
Lucy knew that feeling, too. He lifted his face to hers once more and gave her a kiss that she felt clear to the soles of her feet. He ran his hands down her bottom to the backs of her thighs, and he lifted her. She didn’t hesitate to wrap her legs around his waist. He walked with her from the room, and she thought he would carry her to his bed.
They made it as far as the darker shadows of the hall before he pinned her back against the wall. He unhooked her bra and fastened his hot, wet mouth on her breast. He drew on her nipple as his hands shoved her skirt up around her waist. He slid his palms over her thighs then over her ribs and around to the small of her back.
Lucy ran her hands through his hair while he kissed and sucked her breasts as if he couldn’t get enough. He ground his incredibly hard penis into her through the thin fabric of her hose and panties, driving her toward the edge until she knew she’d either stop or embarrass herself.