“Not here,” he said. “Not safe.”
The realization that he had just nixed making love out in the open not because he was afraid someone might happen along but rather because he did not think it was safe made her catch her breath.
“Do you really think someone might be watching us?” she asked, glancing around.
“I can’t imagine Quinn sneaking up on us with a loaded gun, but I’d rather not take any chances. When I make love to you, I prefer to concentrate on the sex, not listening for footsteps.”
“When you put it like that—”
“And there’s always the potential problem of poison oak,” he added.
She laughed. “I never thought of that. You’re right. We definitely don’t want to do this kind of thing in the woods.”
He laughed, too, his masculine anticipation and triumph ringing in the clear, sun-warmed air. He caught her hand and ran with her through the trees to the cabin.
40
The exhilaration he felt knowing that in a few minutes he was going to be making love to Lucy set fire to his blood. They dashed up the stairs to his old room together. Lucy was a little breathless. Her eyes were brilliant with feminine mystery and desire.
He tumbled her onto her back on the bed and came down on top of her, bracing himself on his hands. He looked down at her, savoring the knowledge that, for now, at least, she was his. She wanted him, and that was the most intoxicating drug of all.
He used one hand to open the front of her shirt. Her bra was a sexy little scrap of black lace. He unsnapped the front clasp and freed her dainty br**sts.
“You are so lovely,” he marveled.
She smiled. “I don’t know about lovely, but when you look at me like that, I definitely feel hot.”
“That, too.” He kissed one pink nipple. “Very, very hot.”
“It’s your fault,” she said. She started to unfasten the buttons of his denim shirt. “Do you think that we might accidentally set fire to the sheets?”
“Who cares?” He opened the front of her trousers. “There are more where those came from.”
He got her out of her clothes and impatiently shed his own. He lowered himself back down onto her, inserting his leg between hers, separating her thighs. The scent of her arousal hardened every muscle in his body. He moved his hand down her hip and then to her hot, warm core.
He groaned, pulling on all of his willpower to keep himself from coming then and there.
He put his mouth on the soft skin of her shoulder and bit gently. “I love how you get so wet so fast for me.”
He stroked her, finding the trigger spots that he had learned in the course of their first night together. She clenched herself around the two fingers he had inside her. He probed gently, deliberately. She sucked in her breath. Her nails bit into his shoulders.
“There,” she got out. “Yes, there.”
He gave a hoarse laugh. “You learn fast.”
He used his mouth on her, starting with her br**sts and moving lower and lower until she gasped and clutched at his head, snagging her fingers in his hair.
“What are you doing?” she yelped. “No, wait, I’m not sure—”
But it was too late, she was already climaxing. He could feel the delicate waves shivering through her lower body, taste the essence of her. She shrieked.
“Mason.”
When it was over she collapsed, laughing, breathless, blushing.
“That was amazing,” she said, sounding and looking stunned. “Absolutely amazing. I’ve never wanted anyone to do that before. I wasn’t sure I wanted you to do it.”
“You are delicious,” he said. He kissed her shoulder. “Everywhere. I like it when you scream my name the way you did just then. I like it a lot.”
She used her palms to push him slightly away from her.
“Show me what you like,” she said.
Curiosity and determination illuminated her eyes.
He smiled slowly. “Trust me, I like everything you do to me.”
“I’m serious. I want to know what works for you—what really works.”
She slipped her palm down the front of his chest and captured him in her hand. She pumped him slowly, tightening her fingers until he thought he would go a little mad.
“That works,” he managed, his voice suddenly tight. “That definitely works.”
She giggled, rolled him onto his back and kissed his throat, his chest, and then she went lower. When he felt her tongue on him, he knew he had reached the breaking point.
“Now,” he said. “I need to be inside you right now.”
He caught hold of her arms and pulled her back up his body so that she sat astride him. He used one hand to guide himself into her, holding his breath while he strained violently against his own self-imposed control.
Then he was surging deep into her snug, wet heat. She tried to glide up and down on him, but he caught her hips, forcing her to let him set the rhythm. She tightened herself around him. So tight. Impossibly tight. He could not take any more.
His climax hit him in a shattering rush. He abandoned himself to the tide and let it sweep him out to sea.
41
It was all falling apart.
The carefully conceived plan was going to crash and burn, Quinn thought. Hell, his whole life had been going in the wrong direction since what he had come to think of as the Summer of Brinker.
It was as if he had been driving down a dark road for years and was now thoroughly lost. He had taken any number of wrong turns along the way, trying to find the right route, but each miscalculation had made things worse. He should have walked away from Colfax Inc. that summer when Brinker had swept into his life like a sorcerer—fascinating, dangerous and seemingly invincible, until the night Mason Fletcher had confronted him.
Brinker’s rage that night had been terrifying. Infuriated by his inability to lure Mason Fletcher into his web, he had vowed a long and horrible revenge. Quinn was certain that someone would die. And in the end, someone had died—Brinker.
But Brinker’s disappearance had not changed the course of his own life, Quinn thought. He had kept going in the wrong direction. Except for Jillian. She was the only right move he had ever made, and now he was going to lose her.
He swallowed some of the vodka and orange juice he had mixed for himself and went to stand at the window. He stared, unseeing, at the elegantly laid-out vineyards. He hated the winery, just as he loathed Colfax Inc. There had been a time in his life when he had believed that he would one day inherit the empire his father had built and go on to make it even larger and more powerful. He had clung to those dreams for years, desperately trying to please a father who could never be appeased, let alone pleased.