She rubbed her hands up and down her arms and wished he were there and they were talking the way they used to, that they were making love, and then she told herself that it wouldn’t make any difference if he were, she couldn’t make love here. If the BP was getting his knickers in a twist about Jason throwing longing glances her way—not to mention Meggy and Edie in the privacy of their own home—imagine what he’d do if he caught Nick throwing body parts her way.
She bent to pick up her bag, and it felt good to bend over, to stretch a little. She straightened and turned to press her back against the cool tiles of the stage wall, rolling her shoulders to ease the muscles in her back and shoulders, muscles that still ached from her week on crutches. It felt so good that she dropped the bag and kept stretching, pushing her arms up the wall over her head, flexing her calves, making her whole body feel the stretch and the cool, cool tile. She let her arms slide down the wall until her crossed wrists rested on top of her head, and closed her eyes and imagined how Nick would be the next night, strong beside her, under her, on top of her, doing things that threw her off balance and made her hot and then made her come. Just Nick, the pure pleasure of sliding against him, listening to his low laughter against her neck and the deep sigh of his breath as he moved inside her—
“What are you doing?” Nick said.
She almost let her arms drop when his voice came out of the darkness, but he didn’t sound amused, he sounded distracted, and as she gathered her scrambled thoughts, she realized that she must look pretty interesting with her arms above her head like that.
“I’m stretching,” she said. “Where are you?”
She heard his feet hit the floor—he must have been on the catwalk ladder—and then heard him walk toward her across the hardwood floor, finally coming into the pool of light cast by the last overhead lamp. The light made the planes of his face sharper, made his hair gleam black, and he looked tall and lanky and strong in his paint-stained T-shirt and jeans, the hottest thing she’d ever seen.
“You shouldn’t be here alone,” he said. “You know that. It’s dangerous,” and she said, “I’m not alone. You’re here.”
“That’s even worse.” He came closer to stand in front of her, not smiling.
Come and touch me, she thought.
And he came closer.
“Thank you for the daisies,” she told him, meeting his eyes. “They’re perfect. I don’t know how to thank you.”
Nick’s voice was husky in the dark. “Oh, yes, you do.” He took another step closer, until he was almost against her, his eyes black, casting her in the darkness of his shadow.
“I have no idea what you mean.” Quinn met his eyes and didn’t look away, lifting her chin when the staring match moved past comfortable and made her heart pound. Then he smiled, and she shivered a little and smiled, too, a slow curve of an invitation, daring him while her heart thudded.
“Well, you could let me do this.” He put his hand on her crossed wrists and rested against them, just firmly enough so she couldn’t move them. It had been so long since he’d touched her that she let her eyes go closed just from the sheer pleasure of the heat of his hand on her wrists. “And this.” He took his free hand and hooked a finger inside the opening of her chambray workshirt to pop the first button.
“Hey.” Quinn leaned forward to pull her arms down, and his hand closed hard on her wrists.
“And this.” His free hand was on her breast, his thumb tracing a circle over the cotton of her shirt while he smiled into her eyes, his breath coming faster. She shivered, and he let his thumb slip into the vee of her shirt, into the warm hollow between her breasts, popping another button, making her breasts tense and lift against him.
Quinn felt her breath go. “Just for a couple of daisies? I don’t think so.” Keep going.
He popped another button. “Think again.”
He leaned to kiss the hollow of her neck, and she sucked in a sharp breath as his lips tickled her throat. Then he kissed her again, lower this time, as he popped the rest of her buttons, one after another, slowly, echoing the buttons with kisses above, until her shirt fell open as he licked into the warm place between her breasts. He pulled her shirt open further, his hand sliding against the satin of her bra, baring her to his eyes—“Hot pink plaid, huh?” he said—and looked at her with such satisfaction and possession that she went dizzy with anticipation. Then, after what seemed like hours, he bent to trace the swell of her breast with his tongue, and she began to shudder and soften inside.
She could see the curve of his bicep against the edge of his T-shirt sleeve as he pinned her hands to the wall, the strong line of his neck, feel his hand on her wrists, the other pressed hot against her ribs as he moved his tongue across her skin. She ached to feel him under her hands, to pull his T-shirt up and pull him to her, to feel the fur of his chest tickle against her breasts and the muscles in his back flex under her fingers. “Let me go,” she whispered. “Let me go so I can touch you.”
He lifted his head to stare into her eyes—don’t stop—and shook his head, smiling at her and sending heat into her bones. “Not a chance,” he said, and kissed her on the mouth, taking her voice and her breath as he licked into her, making her squirm against him as he pressed her against the cool wall. His hand curved around her breast, his thumb stroked across her and then hooked around the edge of her bra, and she felt the satin slide across her nipple as he pulled the cup down, felt her whole body stiffen against him. Then his hair tickled softly on her throat as he bent to her, and she shuddered at the damp heat of his mouth on her, shuddered harder when he began to suck, shuddered harder still when he didn’t stop.
“Let me go,” she said, and tried to pull her hands from his grip so she could touch him as she rolled her hips toward him, but he tightened his hold, crushing her wrists together, stretching her arms higher, his lips moving against the swell of her breast, moving to bare the other, to tease her again with his mouth. His free hand moved to her zipper, easing it down, and she said, “No,” but she pressed against his hand because it felt so good and she wanted to feel him everywhere. His hand slid around her waist, into the back of her jeans, into the stretchy silkiness of her underwear, around her curves there and under to hold her tight against him, shoving fabric down until she felt the denim and rayon crumple around her thighs. He pressed her back into the cold, smooth tile with his hips, pulsing against her while he smiled against her mouth. Then she felt his fingers slide into her, the hot slick inside of her, and she moaned softly because he felt so good.
“Louder,” he said in her ear as he stroked her. “Scream,” and she shook her head but breathed faster, sighing with his hand.
Somewhere something moved, muffled, and she tensed. Nick stopped, too, still looking into her eyes but distracted, as if he were listening for something. It was so quiet, all she could hear was Nick’s breathing.
He was breathing pretty hard.
“We better stop,” Quinn whispered, but there were no more sounds, she wasn’t even sure she’d really heard the first one, she wasn’t really sure she cared, so she pressed against his hand, and when he moved his fingers inside her again, she let her eyes go closed.
“I don’t think so,” Nick whispered against her ear. “I think we do this now. Right up against this wall.”
She shivered. It was dumb to do this here, she should be saying no, telling him they could do this at home, at his place, even in the truck, but it felt so good right now, and she thought about what it would be like to not think about it once, to just be, to take into herself the darkness he’d tried to give her the last time, the darkness her mind had kept pulling her out of, the darkness she could feel moving into her now.
“It’s been so long,” he said, his voice low. “So long since I’ve been inside you, watched you come, made you come.”
He slid his fingers higher, stroked her faster, made her breath go and her throat dry. “Nick—”
“So we do it now.”
His voice hummed in her blood. “Nick—”
“I’m going to take you hard against this wall,” he whispered into her ear as his fingers moved into her. “Harder than you’ve ever been had before. So hard you’re going to feel me with every move you make for a week. You’re going to remember you were mine every time you breathe.”
She shuddered under the tickle of his breath, under the pressure of his hand, but mostly under what he’d said—you’re mine—and the dark washed over her in slow waves, syncopated with his hand. His fingers slid inside her, and she thought, Go into it, and gave herself up. The heat and the prickle in her blood spread low and thick, and she moved with it, against Nick’s hand but with his rhythm, and she thought about his hand to make things darker, Nick’s fingers, long and strong and square-tipped, alien inside her, invading her, moving into her slick folds and then out to her hard little center. There, she thought, and when his fingers slid wetly there, she said, “There,” out loud, and moved to help him, shivering at the stroke. “There,” she said again, just to say it, and when he bent his head to her breast, she said, “Oh, there,” and stretched to meet him.
Everything in her that was practical said, You know you heard something, and she ignored it and went into her body and what Nick was doing to her, into his fingers inside her, his hand holding her helpless, his body pressing hers—the heat was everywhere—into his mouth sucking her hard, his fingers faster there, his hand bruising her wrists—I’m going to take you hard—into the heat of him, the roughness of him, the darkness of him, the difference and the danger of him, into—
“Into me,” she whispered, and all sanity died as his fingers left her, left her so empty she cried out Oh and rocked forward, her hips following his heat, pressing against his fingers as they moved down his own zipper, pressing until his hand was on her again, not just his hand, and she felt him thick between her thighs. She breathed, “Yes,” into his mouth as he kissed her, felt his body slide down hers until his hand moved between her legs and guided him hard into her.
She shuddered at the shock of him, then deliberately opened herself to the dull thudding of her blood as he moved inside her, pinning her against the wall with each thrust of his hips. Into me, she told herself and thought of him smooth and thick sliding inside her, splitting her softness open, hard inside her, all the way inside her, into the hot and the slick and the pink of her, taking him, all of him. It was breathtaking, astounding, going into herself like this, thinking about herself like this; she’d had men inside her before but she’d never been there, never known herself thick with heat and succulent the way she loved herself now, could love herself now because she trusted him so completely that she didn’t have to think of anything else. For the first time, she was more real inside than out, all blood and flesh and nerve and mindless, endless pleasure filled with Nick.
He lifted her hips with his, pushing her up on her toes with each breath he took, thrusting her off balance each time, trapping her against the cold, smooth wall. The tingle in her blood turned to crackle, a dark itch under her skin that made her writhe, and she almost pulled her mind away but didn’t, not this time. Into me, she thought again, and willed herself to take in the darkness, to feel herself swell and clench, and when she opened her eyes and found him staring at her, she took him in, swallowed him with her eyes and made him hers.
“Quinn,” he whispered and let go of her wrists to cradle her face and kiss her, and she clutched him and gave herself up. He whispered her name over and over as he moved inside her, looked in her eyes as he took her, and when she dug her fingernails into his shoulders, he slid his hands to her hips to move against her harder, faster, shuddering, never taking his eyes from her, his fingers digging into her flesh, all of it part of the dark surging through her body, everywhere, swelling into her fingertips, her breasts, her thighs, her lips, everywhere she opened to it.
“Oh, God, Quinn,” Nick said, intent on her eyes. He kissed her hard, and the dark deepened and tightened. She writhed against him as it burned and spread and throbbed, and she shuddered with it, making small breathless cries as Nick thrust into her—Nick hot in her, mindless in her, thick and hard in her—her blood screaming, tight, everything inside her tight, tighter—tighter—and then she cried out “Nick” and came, staring into his eyes, crying again with each break and shudder, each spasm flinging her into the next, hard, hard again, hard again, hard again, over and over and over, until she clung to him, defenseless and open and ecstatic, safe in his arms, not caring about anything except how dark and beautiful and shattering it was inside her.
Then she collapsed and he held her tightly because her knees had gone and there was nothing left of her except ache and quiver and satisfaction. He felt so good against her—his worn T-shirt soft under her cheek, his chest hard under the shirt, his hands digging into her back—and then he bent to kiss her, his mouth soft on hers, and she sighed from the sheer rightness of it.
A few minutes later, he whispered, “Imagine what we could do in a bed.”
“I don’t want to imagine,” she said, and her voice came out thick and low. “I want to know.”
His arms tightened around her. “Your place or mine?”
“Yours.” Quinn moved her face against his shirt, still clinging to him, her knees like rubber. “Max took Darla back to my place a hour ago, and I want to scream again.”
When Nick was gone to get the truck—“Let me warm it up and bring it to the door,” he’d said, laughing, shrugging on his flannel shirt. “The last thing I want is you going cold on me or the damn thing stalling”—she stood alone on the stage, hugging herself because they’d done it right, she’d done it right, and anything seemed possible. Darla would go back to Max, the play would be a hit, Bill would find somebody else, and she and Nick could drive each other into hot, wet darkness forever.
She picked up her bag and went out to meet him in the dark parking lot, her heart tripping, letting the door slam shut behind her and yanking on it to make sure it was locked. If the BP found it unlocked, there’d be hell to—
“We need to talk,” Bill said behind her.
Fifteen
Nick sat in the truck and tried to tell himself that things were just fine, that the separation of church and state was still intact, but it wasn’t working. His democracy had turned to theocracy, and he didn’t care. Somewhere in the middle of fucking Quinn against a wall, he’d stopped thinking incoherent thoughts that could be summarized as this is phenomenal sex, and realized that Quinn was murmuring oh, yes, there, breathing his name, taking him without question, giving without reservation, staring into his eyes, being Quinn the body he craved and Quinn the woman he loved, one and the same, and everything fused, and he fell and made love to her instead.
Oh, hell, he thought now from habit, but he was too elated to be depressed. Holding her and loving her and needing her and having her all at once had been a mind-bending experience, one he intended to repeat every chance he got. Forever. Assuming he could pull that off.
“Don’t fuck this up,” he told himself now. “Do not fuck this up.”
Of course, she was going to be skeptical. You pancaked on me three times, she’d said, so she’d need some reassurance when she got in the truck that they weren’t going out for pizza.
Okay, she’d get in the truck and he’d tell her he loved her.
No, he wouldn’t. Jesus, this would be the worst time, right after sex, she’d never believe him, especially given the stuff he’d pulled before. They could never have pizza again. Why hadn’t he said, “Let’s go out for broccoli”?
Okay, he couldn’t tell her tonight, so maybe tomorrow. He could take her home tomorrow after the play stuff was done and not jump her until he’d told her.
No, that wouldn’t work, either, she’d think it was just a ploy to get her into bed. So he could tell her and then not sleep with her tomorrow night.
Fat chance.
This wasn’t going to work. Besides, he didn’t want to
tell her anyway, how could you just say something like that? No wonder guys sent flowers. More daisies. He could write it on a card.
No, he couldn’t.
Okay, so he was going to have to get used to the idea before he started actually talking about it. Oh, hell, he was never going to talk about it. Maybe she’d just know. Maybe if he stayed the night, she’d figure it out.
But then he’d have to actually stay the night.
He flinched a little at the thought, and then he thought of holding her close and safe—holding Quinn close and safe, loving her, feeling her warmth all night, waking up next to her, not having to wait to hold her again—and he stopped flinching and told himself it would be okay. He could get up really early. It would be fine.
He started the truck and thought, Well, what am I going to say to her when she gets in? and turned the truck off to think again.
She looked pale, Bill thought. Pale with bright spots on her cheeks, sick, she needed him to take care of her. “Come home,” he said, and she shook her head and laughed, but there was something wrong with her laugh.
“You scared me.” She tried to laugh again.
Wrong. Wrong. His head started to pound.
She pulled away. “Bill, you cannot even believe how tired I am. I can’t talk right now.”
“Come home,” he said and tried to take her hand, but she jerked it away, too, like there was something wrong with him, there wasn’t anything wrong with him, and she said, “Bill, I’m tired.”
She tried to move around him and he blocked her, just took one step, not touching her, just to stop her. “Come home,” he said. “We can talk.”