Quinn squeezed out the dishrag and spread it to dry over the central divide of the massive farm sink. (Melissa would have gone crazy over this huge antique cast-iron-and-porcelain sink; it was probably worth a couple thousand dollars.) He met Abby’s eyes and set aside a niggling sense that no matter what story he told himself about his desire to move in with Abby—temporarily of course—he might have some ulterior motive, such as getting her into bed with him. “I don’t want to come here one day and find that you’ve had some sort of accident and needed help I wasn’t here to give.”
“So,” she repeated, “what are you suggesting?” She closed the dishwasher door and got it running. The low hum of circulating water filled the empty space between them.
“I’m thinking I should move in here, with you. In case you need me.” He held his breath, partly hoping she’d say no, but mostly hoping she’d say yes.
“What about Sean? What about when he comes on weekends?”
“His next overnight stay won’t be for two weeks.” Quinn cleared his throat. He hadn’t actually thought that far ahead. Abby could stay at the pool house with him just as easily as he could stay at the farm. But Melissa would pitch a fit if Quinn had a woman staying over during Sean’s overnight visitation. Melissa didn’t want Quinn, but she didn’t want anyone else having him, either. “Two weeks is a long time. Your foot may be much better by then.”
Abby nodded, and Quinn noticed that a blush had spread over her cheeks. “Okay,” she said. “You can stay in Reva’s room. Go get your stuff.”
That was easier than he’d thought. “All right. What are you gonna do while I’m gone?”
“I’m going to go out on the front porch and call Georgia. It’s not like her to stay away so long, especially when there’s food involved.”
At the pool house, Quinn quickly assembled what he would need for the night. He could get more tomorrow. As he shoved his shaving kit down on top of everything else in his battered duffel, he wondered what the hell he was getting himself into. But he had already been spending a lot of time with Abby. Staying overnight, sleeping at opposite ends of the same house, wouldn’t make that much of a difference, would it? The more he thought about it, the more he figured that not much would change, really.
Two hours later, when Abby came out into her aunt’s living room with her dewy skin and her just-washed hair and her cropped pajama top and lace-edged tap pants, he knew that everything would change. He shifted position on the couch to cover his body’s strong involuntary reaction to her presence.
“Has Georgia not come in yet?” she asked. Her voice wobbled with worry, because it was clear that the little dog hadn’t made an appearance.
“Nope.” He muted the TV and patted the couch beside him, inviting her to sit. “Sorry. I tried to call her, too. Maybe she went across the street with the wolf dog.”
Abby sat beside him and took her cell phone from the scooter’s basket. “I have to ask Aunt Reva.”
Abby sent a text, and a few minutes later, the phone rang. He watched and listened while Abby told her aunt that Georgia had run off after a failed attempt to bathe her, and she hadn’t been seen since. She left out the part about Georgia causing her to fall. Then, leaning back and closing her eyes, she listened. It almost looked like she was falling asleep, but he knew she wasn’t, because she held the phone to her ear. After what seemed like forever, she said, “You think?” Then she got quiet for a minute before speaking again. “Okay, yes, I can see it, but I don’t trust myself. Are you sure?”
This was the strangest phone conversation he’d ever witnessed.
“Okay, okay.” Abby sat up, eyes open, acting more like a normal person having a normal phone conversation. “I will. Thank you, Aunt Reva. I love you. Yeah, okay. Bye.”
She ended the call and put the phone back in the basket. Then she looked over at him and noticed his reaction. “I guess that phone call may have seemed a little strange.”
He couldn’t help but grin at her understatement. “A little.”
“Aunt Reva says that Georgia is hiding out, either under something or in something, like a cave or a den. And Wolf is with her. We think they might have dug a hiding place under the front porch.”
Quinn chuckled. “And you’ve determined all this how?”
“Telepathy.” Abby sat up and gave him a challenging look. “If you must know.”
He grinned. What a bunch of horseshit.
Abby scowled. “Don’t laugh. I’m serious. And it would make sense, because Georgia’s feet were dirty today. It’s why I wanted to give her a bath.”
“Okay, Ms. Pet Detective.” He made a straight face, though an indulgent grin kept wanting to break through. Her obvious irritation at his teasing was kind of cute. He held up the first three fingers of his right hand. “Scout’s honor, I won’t laugh.”
“You already did laugh, but okay. I know you don’t get it.”
“You’re right. I don’t get it, so please explain it to me. Your aunt knows all this from five hundred miles away how?”
She took a breath and let it out. “My Aunt Reva is a telepathic animal communicator. She can connect with animals and know what they’re thinking.”
He couldn’t help himself; a snort of disbelief escaped him before he knew it was coming. “Okaaay.”
“Shut. Up.” Abby really looked mad now. She bolted to her feet and wrestled the handlebars of the scooter around, obviously prepared to flounce away, only too bad for her, flouncing wasn’t easily done when she had only one foot on the ground and had to hop behind a scooter.
The very thought of her trying to make a huffy exit behind that scooter made him chuckle. “I’m sorry.” But his funny bone had been tickled, and now he couldn’t stop laughing.
“Don’t you dare make fun of this just because you don’t understand it.” She stormed out of the room, hopping as fast as that stupid scooter would go. Boy, she really was mad.
“I’m sorry!” He went after her, laughing even harder. If she knew how silly she looked right now, she’d know he wasn’t laughing at her aunt’s crazy ways, or even her own. He was simply laughing because she was so damn cute. He should’ve made her mad long before now, because watching her hop around in a fury was so entertaining. He bit his lip and tried to sober up. At her side now, he refrained from touching her. He was pretty sure that if he reached out a hand, he’d draw back a nub. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to get a flashlight, you…” She looked over at him, so pissed that she couldn’t think of a word bad enough to call him. “You asshat.”
Shit. He had to laugh again. “So now I’m an asshat. I’m wounded that you would call me such a terrible name.”
She wrenched open a kitchen drawer and took out a foot-long metal flashlight. “Shut the fuck up.” She turned on him with such a daggered glare that he backed up a step in case she was thinking of beaning him over the head. “Get out of my way.”
He held up both hands. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry. Where are you going?”
She took a deep breath and puffed up with dignity. “I’m going to look under the porch and see if Georgia and Wolf are there.” Her eyes looked suspiciously bright, as if she might cry.
His sense of hilarity died a quick death. He really hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. “Let me.”
She hesitated at first, but then handed over the flashlight. “I’m coming with you.”
“As far as the porch,” he specified. He walked behind her onto the porch, hoping she was realizing right this minute that she definitely needed his help. “Wait here.”
“Fine.” She didn’t much sound like she was appreciating his presence, but maybe she’d think about that later, when she wasn’t so worried about the dog. He went down the stairs and walked around the porch, looking for a break in the dense azaleas that surrounded the house. He wanted to point out that if he hadn’t been here, she’d be hobbling around outside in the dark all by herself. But maybe he should wait until he found the dogs to do that.
Around the far side of the porch, he found a scraggly, puny azalea that had been partially dug up by the gutter’s rain spout. He turned on the flashlight and got to his hands and knees, pushing forward in the less-dense spot until the bushes parted enough to allow him to see under the porch. Sure enough, a freshly dug mound of dirt loomed before him, the area around it patterned with dog footprints, some big and others small. “I’ll be damned.”
He couldn’t see the entrance to the den, so he crawled around where the porch overhang met the backside of the shrubs, brushing cobwebs out of the way with the flashlight. “Georgia?”
Unlikely visions of badgers and coyotes flashed into his already weirded-out brain, and he was pretty sure something was crawling in his hair. But he pressed on until he could see the edge of an opening in the den that seemed to go under the foundation of the house. Smart construction; it would be out of the wind and sheltered from rain not only by the roofed porch but by the foundation itself, and the dirt mound formed a wall that would keep the opening hidden from predators. “Georgia,” he called. “Come here, puppy.”
“Do you see her?” Abby asked, sounding excited.
“No, but you’re right. There’s a den under here.” He shone the light’s beam at the big mound of dirt, marveling again at the ingenuity of the dog—or whatever—that had built it. “She’s not coming out, though, and I can’t see into the den. What do you want me to do?” He wasn’t eager to crawl all the way under the porch and confront whatever might be living in that den. Even if it was, in fact, Georgia and the wolf dog, he didn’t want to risk getting his face ripped off by the bigger dog.
“Come on out.” Abby sighed. “Reva said Georgia will come out on her own when she’s done pouting.”
He crawled back around the porch to the thin spot where he had entered the shrubs and pushed through. Abby leaned over the rail. “What do you have to say about animal communication now, smarty-pants?”
“Pretty incredible, I guess.” When he’d first seen the den, he had felt a thrill of revelation, as if maybe Reva and Abby did have some direct line to the consciousness of those two dogs. But between that moment and this one, his brain had been busy rationalizing.
The existence of a den might have seemed to be some sort of validation at first, but after further reflection, he wasn’t convinced. Abby could have deduced that the dogs might have dug something under the porch because she’d observed Georgia’s dirty feet earlier. He didn’t know how Reva would have known that, but he didn’t hear Reva’s side of the conversation.
For all he knew, that den could’ve been there for years, and Reva probably knew that Georgia liked to hide out there when she was in trouble. The fact that some fresh dirt had been deposited there recently didn’t mean anything. But he wasn’t about to say any of that now, knowing that it would shatter Abby’s satisfied smile, and then she’d probably kick him out.
After stomping the mud off his boots, Quinn came up the porch stairs and handed over the flashlight. “Unless you need me to crawl around in the shrubbery some more,” he said, realizing too late that his wording sounded a tad ungracious, “I want to grab a shower before all the spiders in my shirt decide to bite me.”
Abby’s lips tightened, but she didn’t say anything. She just dumped the flashlight into the basket, grabbed the scooter’s handlebars, and hopped ahead of him into the house.
“Um…” He closed the front door behind them and locked it, then hurried to catch up. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded. I mean, if it sounded any type of way.”
“You’re in a hole,” she tossed over her shoulder. “Might be smart to stop digging. I’m going to bed.”
* * *
Abby woke just after 3:00 a.m. when Georgia jumped onto the bed. Abby reached down to pet her, then brushed the dirt from her gritty fingers on the thin, summer-weight quilt. “Great, Georgia. Thanks a bunch.”
Georgia licked Abby’s fingers. It felt like an apology. “I’m sorry, too, girl. I shouldn’t have insisted on bathing you when I knew you were scared.”
Georgia licked Abby’s fingers again, then stretched out along Abby’s leg and settled down to sleep. Abby petted Georgia’s sandy head and went back to sleep herself. She was right in the middle of an excellent dream when the house phone—the landline in Reva’s office—started ringing. It rang five times before voicemail picked up. Abby rolled over and burrowed under the covers. She had just-about fallen asleep when it started ringing again.
Who would be calling here this early? Not Reva; she would text first, even in an emergency. Eventually, the phone’s ringing was bound to wake Quinn, though he was sleeping in Reva’s room at the opposite end of the house. With her eyes still blurry from sleep and her limbs feeling heavy and uncoordinated from the pain meds that had put her so far under, Abby slung back the covers. Georgia rolled over and groaned, sending Abby a look of annoyance before closing her eyes again. “Don’t let me disturb you,” Abby groused.
The answering machine picked up, but in no time, the damn phone started another round of ringing. No way would she get there in time to pick up before the machine kicked in. But by now, she knew that the asshole on the other end of the line would try again. “I’ll try not to wake you when I come back to bed in five minutes.” Abby set her knee on the scooter and hopped into the living room, where a weak hint of sunlight was just beginning to lighten the walls. She made it to Reva’s desk when round four began. She snatched up the receiver and yelled into it. “What!”
“Please tell me I didn’t wake you, Reva,” a querulous old-lady voice said. “I wouldn’t be up myself if your big, black cat wasn’t yowling at my window.”
“And who is this?” Abby asked, not bothering to correct the old woman about the multitude of facts—okay, maybe just two—that she’d gotten wrong.
“It’s Mildred, your next-door neighbor?” This said in a tone that suggested Reva might have recently lost her mind. “And the only neighbor who is on your side in your recent troubles, apparently, though I’m rethinking that position.”
Recent troubles? On Reva’s side? Was the old lady suffering from some sort of psychosis that made her imagine things? “Miss Mildred, this is Abby, not Reva. She’s out of town and I’m house-sitting. Reva has a lot of cats, but none of them are black.” Though if there was a feral tomcat in the area, Abby had no doubt that he’d end up here sooner or later. “Do you need to borrow Aunt Reva’s live trap?”
“Abby? Who’s Abby?”
“Reva’s niece. I spent every summer here when I was a kid.”
“Oh, yes,” Mildred gushed, finally sounding happy. “I remember you. Long-legged skinny thing with a wild mane of wavy hair. Lord knows, I tried to tell Reva to try coconut oil on that hair. I know she wrestled with it something fierce whenever you’d come in from a day of climbing trees and whatnot. Yes. I remember you.”
“That’s great, Ms. Mildred. Do you need me to send someone over with a live trap for that cat? He’s not ours, but if you can catch him, we’ll take care of getting him fixed up and adopted out.” Unless no one wanted him, in which case, he’d stay and live here like all the others.
“Well, honey, I don’t know how to set up that contraption. And as you may remember, Wilbur isn’t mechanically inclined, bless his heart. But if you want to come and set up that trap, I’d appreciate it.”
“I can’t come myself, but I’ll send someone else this afternoon.” She’d ask Quinn to do it.
“That’ll be fine, honey. Just call first, because we might be napping.”
“I know we all value our sleep,” Abby agreed with some lightly veiled sarcasm.
“See?” Mildred chortled, in high spirits now. “I told those people that you were good neighbors.”
“What people?” Abby asked.
“I don’t remember their names right off,” Mildred said, beginning to sound confused. “But Wilbur sent them packing before they’d set foot inside the house. He’s not like me, you know. He doesn’t believe in inviting folks in from off the street. But you know; I like those Jehovah’s Witness boys, so well dressed and polite, coming around on their bicycles trying to spread the word of the Lord. I always invite them in for a nice chat and a glass of sweet tea. You know how hot it gets out here, and how easily even healthy folks can get heatstroke. Why, you know, when—”
“Ms. Mildred,” Abby interrupted. “I think somebody’s knocking at my door.” Not likely at the butt crack of dawn, but Abby was determined to go back to bed and sleep until eight thirty, at least. “I’ll call you this afternoon about that live trap. Okay?”
Abby slipped back into bed without waking Georgia, then managed to take up dreaming where she’d left off. In the dream, she’d found a new job on a tropical island, where she managed an open-air office on a white-sand beach. She was still trying to figure out what sort of office it was when the smell of coffee brewing and bacon cooking coaxed her gently awake. Abby sat up and stretched. Sun streamed through the thin curtains, brightening the pale-yellow walls to a deep buttery tone. Georgia had already followed her nose to the kitchen.
Abby dressed in shorts and a Bayside Barn Buddies tee, then hopped into the kitchen.
Quinn’s too-long brown hair stuck up on one side, but aside from that one minor imperfection, he looked like a movie star standing in her aunt’s old-fashioned kitchen. Barefoot and shirtless in low-slung jeans, he used tongs to turn the bacon in the heavy cast-iron frying pan. When it splattered, he jumped back and rubbed his chest. “Shit fire,” he muttered, turning the heat down.
She opened a cupboard and took out a splatter guard, setting it on top of the frying pan. Then she adjusted the gas burner, turning it down a couple notches. “Good morning.”
He turned those blue-jean-blue eyes on her. “Good morning.” He looked at her lips, and for a second, she thought he might be about to kiss her, but the second passed by without incident. “I’m cooking an apology breakfast.”
“Oh, okay.” She took a mug from the cabinet and yawned. “You have coffee already?”
“Not yet. But I’d love some, if you’re pouring.”
She poured coffee into the blender and added all the ingredients that made it bullet-proof, then filled two mugs with the rich, frothy concoction. He turned off the heat on the bacon, then took her mug and motioned for her to go ahead of him. “I thought you might like to sit by the pool with your coffee while I cook. I’ll bring breakfast out when it’s ready.”
She sat in one of the lounge chairs and took the mug he handed her. “I like the way you apologize.”
He winked. “I can apologize in more delicious ways than this, but we don’t know each other that well yet.”
“Sexual harassment!” She held up a hand as if flagging down a taxi. “Somebody help!” As if in answer, Georgia hopped into Abby’s lap, her feet and coat dyed orange by the den’s dark red-orange dirt.
“I’m not sure who’s harassing whom here,” he said, giving Abby the stink eye along with a mischievous grin that quirked up one corner of his mouth. “But we can figure that out later.”
With his wide shoulders, bare chest, tight abs and just-out-of-bed hair, he was too handsome for anyone’s good. He bent forward in an obsequious butler’s bow. “I’ve gotta finish cooking breakfast for milady. And, by the way, I’ve already fed Georgia and the inside cats. I’ll do the rest once I’ve delivered your breakfast to the patio.”
“Fine.” She waved him off and took a sip of her coffee. “While you cook, I’ll decide whether I want to forgive you for being such an asshat last night.”
“Would it help if I whipped up a mimosa to go with your coffee?”
“No, thank you. Coffee is enough.” She had already forgiven him. Some of her angst yesterday evening had been due to her own insecurity. Reva had always been good at claiming her ability of animal communication without regard to what anyone else thought. But Abby did care what other people thought, no matter how much Reva preached about the dangers of becoming an approval whore. Reva said that knowing you were fulfilling the mission you’d been born to accomplish was all that mattered. What anyone else thought of you was none of your business.
A flash of gray, a flicker of movement at the edge of her vision, caught Abby’s attention. Barely seen and gone already, it had to have been Wolf. Georgia’s ears pricked up, and she whined. Abby sat forward and turned around on the chaise to look toward the corner of the house. “Come here, buddy,” she called, knowing Wolf was near enough to hear. “Come on, we won’t hurt you.”
Tail wagging with anticipation, Georgia quivered and stared at the spot where Wolf had been. Abby had the impression that Georgia was communicating with Wolf, inviting him to show himself.
“Puppy, puppy,” Abby called. She whistled low. “Come on out.”
The azaleas shivered, then Wolf appeared. Nose first, low to the ground, he commando-crawled onto the open lawn. “Hey, Wolf, you’re okay.” Abby held her hand out, knuckles first. “Come on.”
He crawled forward a bit more, then dropped back down to his haunches, sending anxious glances toward the house.
Georgia hopped down and ran across the lawn toward him, jubilant and encouraging. She stopped in front of him and rolled to her back, licking his mouth in welcome.
Then Quinn opened the door, and Wolf disappeared into the azaleas like a ghost. The moment was lost.
* * *
“You should’ve seen it,” Abby gushed. “He came closer than ever this time.”
Quinn kicked back in the recliner and muted the TV, because he didn’t need the sports commentary to know what was happening on the field. “I’m sorry I missed it.”
She had told him this story about a dozen times. He didn’t mind hearing it again, though, because her pretty face was so animated, beaming with happiness about such a simple thing. Wolf had shown himself a few times, but only when Abby was outside alone, and only for a few minutes. He’d been coming closer each time, but never close enough for Abby to touch.
“Wolf was so scared, I could see him trembling. But he wanted to come to me. I could tell. And Georgia was so sweet to him.” She reached down to stroke Georgia’s thick fur. “It’s like they’re in love, isn’t it, girl?”
Abby sat on the couch with a book in her hand, her foot propped up on the ottoman. Georgia stretched out next to her on one side, Max the tabby lay on the other side, and Griffie sat like a half-chewed loaf of bread in her lap. “I wish he’d just come to me,” Abby said. “I know that big scab on his side needs vet care. It looks like something tore a big chunk out of his skin.”
“Maybe the next time you see him, he’ll let you touch him.”
Sharing the recliner with Quinn, the new kitten, Stella, kept stretching up to nuzzle his chin. He had given up pushing her away. Abby said Stella hadn’t had any use for her since the day Abby had grabbed her from the culvert, but the kitten seemed to have decided that Quinn was okay. He stroked her soft fur and decided that he liked her, too.
“I know I’m probably trying too hard,” Abby said. “It’s enough right now to know that he’s getting fed.”
“Yep.” Quinn put a bowl of dog kibble out on the patio every night and went back to pick up the empty bowl an hour later, so they knew Wolf ate his food as soon as Quinn went inside. “There’s no harm in letting Wolf take his time deciding that this is a safe place.” Especially since they knew he was safe in his den under the porch.
“I just worry that he hasn’t had his shots, and he might need antibiotics for that wound in his side.”
Quinn knew that Abby wanted to get Wolf the veterinary care he needed and to get him neutered (a concept that made Quinn squirm whenever he thought about it). But first, they had to earn his trust. “All we can do is all we can do, though, right?” Quinn stopped petting Stella, and she settled down in his lap. He was almost getting used to being surrounded by animals, and it wasn’t all that bad. In fact, he enjoyed having a cat or two purring next to him in bed at night.
“Hey,” he said to Abby. She looked up from the book she was reading. “That pile of mail I’ve been putting on your aunt’s desk is getting pretty thick.”
“I know. I’ll handle it tomorrow. Promise.” She closed her book and sighed. “I think I’m about done for. I’m going to bed.”
He wished he had the courage to follow her in there. He had long since stopped torturing himself by denying their mutual attraction. He’d been keeping his distance, though, because that’s what she seemed to want. Since he had moved in, they had fallen into a routine that felt as intimate as an old married couple’s life together. Like Abby’s emerging relationship with Wolf, they were close, but not close enough to touch.
* * *
After the morning chores and a big breakfast, Quinn and Abby went to separate ends of the house to get cleaned up for a grocery run in preparation for Sean’s Wednesday evening visit. In the guest bathroom, Abby plugged the tub and turned on the taps. When the tub was full of perfect-temperature water, she performed the yoga-like ritual of stepping into the tub with her good leg, then lowering herself carefully into the water while leaving her cast hanging over the edge.
Reversing the process was a little trickier; she had to lift herself out of the water while keeping the cast outside the tub, then get her knee on the scooter’s seat while holding the handlebars for balance—
The scooter sailed out from under her and crashed against the wall while her butt skidded off the tub’s edge and hit the floor. “Ow, dammit!”
Georgia yapped outside the closed bathroom door, and Quinn came in without knocking. “What happened? Oh, shit. Dammit, Abby.”
As if she’d decided to fall on purpose. “Don’t yell.” Her tailbone hurt all the way up to her molars, and the inside of her left thigh burned like fire. “It’s not like I planned to do this for fun.”
He scooped her up, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she was buck naked. Next thing she knew, she was on the bed and he was touching her just about everywhere, feeling for broken bones, she guessed, because he wasn’t being the least bit romantic about it. “Stop it.” She batted his hands away. “I’m fine. Please go get a towel.”
“Oh.” He sat on the edge of the bed and ran a shaky hand through his hair. He gave her a surprised once-over, as if he’d only just now realized that she was soaking wet and naked. He bolted into the bathroom and came back with a huge folded bath towel, which he whipped out and draped over her like a tablecloth. The thing covered her from the knees up, including half of her face. “I’m sorry.” He dragged the towel down a bit so she could breathe.
He patted her awkwardly—trying to pat her dry? His tanned cheeks flushed a dusky rose color. So now that he’d seen her naked, even carried her naked self from the bathroom to the bed, his primary emotion was embarrassment.
How sweet.
And infuriating. She scowled at the back of his head while he gently patted her legs dry. Did he not find her attractive at all? And here she’d been arguing with herself for two whole weeks over whether or not she should let him get into her panties, while he seemed to consider her to be a responsibility, nothing more. She sat up awkwardly and grabbed his hands, not caring whether the oversize towel slipped. “Quinn. Stop.”
“Shit.” His gaze dropped to her breasts, then zoomed back up to her face. “I’m sorry.”
Some kind of devil made her do it; she leaned toward him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Stop apologizing.” Then, she kissed him.
His tongue slipped into her mouth, tentatively at first, then with a bold exploration that ignited nerve endings from her teeth to her toes. With one hand at her back and the other behind her head, he laid her back on the bed and stretched out on top of her. Her knees fell open, and her hips formed a cradle that his hips fit into quite nicely. It was just getting good when he stopped kissing and looked down on her with a worried frown. “Is your foot okay? You want me to put a pillow under it?”
“Forget about my foot.” She wrapped an arm around his neck and pulled him down. “Kiss me.” With his tongue stroking hers, her broken foot was the last thing on her mind, and she hoped it was the last thing on his.
Even through the damp towel wadded between them, she felt his erection hard against her. She gave the towel a tug, trying to drag it out from between them, but he wrapped his hand around hers, stopping her. His blue eyes were serious, his jaw tight, his face flushed—but this time not with embarrassment. “Don’t move that towel unless you mean it.”
She looked into his eyes and tugged at the towel again. He lifted his hips, taking his weight off her, and she slipped the damp terry cloth out from between them.
He stared back at her as his shoes hit the floor, one by one.
Thunk. Thunk… The sound of the invisible walls they had each erected between them falling to the ground.
Hungry for the heat of his body against hers, she pulled his T-shirt up over his head and unbuttoned his jeans. Then, oh, glory, the rest of his clothes fell to the floor with a soft, tumbling sound, and his naked body skimmed against hers. Rough and smooth, warm and hard, he felt every bit as good as she had imagined.
He rolled her to her side, and they lay facing each other on the lumpy old quilt some long-dead ancestor had so painstakingly stitched. He skimmed his fingers down her arm, a butterfly touch. “You know what this will mean, right?” he asked.
She reached out to touch his face, feeling the warmth of his taut skin, the barely there stubble of beard on his jaw. “No, what will this mean?”
“Everything.” He cupped her breast, lightly rubbing her nipple until it pearled up under his palm. “Are you ready for that? Because I won’t do this lightly. I’m fucking tired of cheap hookups, and I’m fucking tired of being alone.” His voice was deep and quiet, and just a little raspy. He swallowed audibly and looked away from her face, instead watching his fingers move over her breasts. “If we do this, it’ll be the start of something.”
Goose bumps broke out over Abby’s skin, a thrill of excitement—and of foreboding. Ever since she’d met Quinn, she had toyed with the idea of having a fuck buddy she could take or leave—or take and then leave. It wasn’t her style, never had been, but her last failed relationship still stung, so she’d been hoping for a fulfilling relationship that came with an easy way out. Despite her fears and insecurities, she said the only thing her heart wanted her to say, even though the words came with a stomach-dropping lurch that felt like stepping off the edge of a cliff. “I’m ready.”