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QUINN DREW MOLLY to her knees and moved behind her on the quilt. “Look,” he said, nodding toward their reflection, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. “I swear I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”
She looked. And saw herself bare to the waist, her long hair loose and disheveled—a candlelit ghost image layered on the roaring storm behind the glass. She saw Quinn, too, saw his hands cup her breasts. He lifted them, caressed them. Gently he plucked the tips, stealing her breath.
Molly closed her eyes, shutting out the image of her own helpless need, the flared nostrils, the flush of desire. Quinn whispered in her ear, “Watch with me, Molly. You’re so lovely like this.”
Stubbornly she kept her eyes shut until she felt him knee her legs apart. One muscular arm was banded around her middle, dark against her paler skin. She could only stare, mesmerized, as the fingers of his other hand slipped under the rolled hem of her shorts, under the elastic edge of her underpants. She flinched when he touched her right there, where she was slick and swollen and more than ready. His arm tightened around her.
“Uh-uh-uh, watch,” he chided as her eyelids fluttered, and she did. She watched her body rock into the skillful play of his fingers. He varied his touch, faster, slower, circling the tiny point where all sensation converged.
His finger pushed deep within and her breath left in a rush. She grabbed his arm like a lifeline. Her soft, panting gasps mirrored the rhythmic pressure of his hand until the exquisite tension peaked and snapped and her mind splintered with her climax.
Her body pumped hard and Quinn felt it. He told her so. Some wanton part of her responded to the rough, crude words he whispered in her ear, stoking her release until black spots began to crowd her vision.
Limp and sated, she gulped air even as Quinn yanked her shorts and underpants off in one swift motion. Something shiny flashed out of his pocket, a small square packet. A moment later he was pushing into her from behind, his face stark and savage in the glass.
Molly shouted, awed by the stunning pressure, the glut of pure sensation. His gaze remained riveted on hers in the glass as he pressed slowly, inexorably, into her. She greeted each short thrust with a sharp cry of fulfillment until he was fully seated. He felt enormous inside her, an overwhelming presence.
His hands were everywhere, it seemed, urging her toward the pinnacle yet again as he hammered into her hard and fast. As another orgasm rocketed through her, Molly struggled to keep her eyes open and was rewarded by the sight of Quinn’s face as he, too, tumbled over the edge.
They slumped onto all fours, then collapsed onto the quilt. Quinn’s heart drummed her back through his T-shirt. It took several minutes for the din of the hurricane to register over the roar of Molly’s pulse in her ears.
Quinn seemed to sense the exact moment that his weight ceased being welcome and rolled off her heavily. She didn’t have the strength to open her eyes but heard discreet movements as he righted himself, the rustle of clothing, the murmur of a zipper. He abandoned her briefly, returning with a soft blanket in which he lovingly swaddled her.
“It’s not fair,” she mumbled sleepily, prying her eyes open.
“What’s not fair?” His voice was a honeyed rumble in her ear as he tucked the blanket around her shoulders.
“I’ve never seen you without your clothes. You’ve seen me, you know, like, totally bare-butt naked. Twice.” She tugged on the hem of his shorts. “Take all this off.” With a giddy chuckle she added, “Dance for me.” She rolled over, stretching languorously, and watched him pull off his T-shirt.
He stood and dropped his shorts. “I’ll be happy to dance for you. With or without veils?” He kicked away his briefs and extended his arms to the sides, presenting himself for his lover’s inspection.
Molly folded her arms under her head and stared. Quinn really was a magnificently constructed man. And God bless him, he was already hard again. “No veils,” she said. “I was thinking more along the lines of the, uh, horizontal hula.”
“I don’t know, those grass skirts itch like the devil.” He slipped beneath the blanket and hauled her to him, giving her her first intoxicating taste of skin-to-skin Quinn. He said, “What say we try this hula thing, like, totally bare-butt naked?”
*
“NOT EXACTLY WHAT I meant when I said make yourself at home.”
Alarm bells clanged inside Quinn’s unconscious head. Even in slumber he knew he shouldn’t be hearing another man’s voice. Not when he and Molly lay sprawled on her bed under a thin sheet, naked and tangled and depleted from a night of nonstop loving. Laboriously he forced himself awake and cracked an eye open.
His muttered curse made Phil Owen smile. It wasn’t a pleasant smile.
Quinn glanced at Molly. The sheet covered only her lower body, but at least she was lying on her stomach. Not that Phil didn’t know what the flip side looked like, but that was history. Molly was Quinn’s now. He pulled the sheet up to her neck and sat up, automatically glancing around for his clothes.
Phil’s smile turned meaner. “They’re in the living room.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Checking out the hurricane damage. No one answered my knock. I don’t have to ask what you’re doing up here.” He stared pointedly at Molly, who’d begun to stir.
Her head came up. She looked over her shoulder and frowned in puzzlement. “Phil?” Groggily she sat up, making no concessions to modesty—until she intercepted Quinn’s dark scowl, at which point she promptly jerked the sheet up to her shoulders.
Her wary expression told Quinn she hadn’t forgotten his obsession with secrecy for the sake of his career. His career had been the furthest thing from his mind last night when he’d been consumed with the need to possess Molly, to pleasure her, to drive himself into her.
Now that discretion was no longer an option, he had trouble recalling exactly why it had seemed so important. It was as if his priorities had suddenly been realigned to fit a new, improved Quinn.
Molly had come into his life and that was all that mattered. Everything else would just have to work itself out somehow.
Quinn got to his feet and faced Phil’s corrosive gaze head-on. He felt vulnerable enough stark naked with his ex-boss standing there in his crisp “vacation uniform” of a white polo shirt and knife-pleated slacks. He wasn’t going to sit looking up at him, too. He never blinked as a primitive, unspoken, purely male exchange arced between them.
Molly rose, wrapping the sheet around herself. “Phil, did you stop for breakfast on the way up? I’ll put on some coffee.”
Quinn growled, “He doesn’t want any damn coffee.”
“Sure I do.” Phil’s expression was deceptively benign. “Molly knows just how I like it.”
“Half-caf,” she said with a yawn. “Just a touch of low-fat milk, right? And most of a packet of Sweet’n Low, only I don’t have any, and neither does Quinn. Is sugar okay?”
“Sugar’s fine.”
Quinn gaped at her. “Why don’t you fry him up some bacon and eggs while you’re at it? Maybe whip up some pancakes?”
His sarcasm was lost on Mellow Molly. “Sure, if he wants. Maybe you can get started while I cop a shower.”
What are you doing? he wanted to shout. This is the son of a bitch who coerced you! Slandered you! Cheated you! How could she stand there chatting cordially with Phil as if none of that had happened? Quinn felt like shaking her.
Phil watched Molly walk out of the room, trailing the sheet, which had begun to slip. His gaze lingered a little too long, a little too knowingly, on all the wrong parts. Or all the right parts, depending how you looked at it. Deliberately trying to rattle Quinn’s cage, no doubt.
Consider it rattled, you bastard.
Quinn didn’t linger. He stalked to the living room and yanked on his shorts as Molly gathered her clothes from the quilt on the floor. He ignored her attempts to make eye contact. His temper was too close to the surface. He didn’t even know who he was angry at—or rather, who he was more angry at.
In the past few weeks Quinn had come to appreciate Molly’s sanguine nature, her philosophical outlook. But the time had come to show some grit.
She headed down the hall, passing Phil, who laid his hand on her bare shoulder and murmured something in her ear. The two of them shared a private smile before she disappeared into the bathroom.
The canny devil was wearing a cream-lapping grin when he joined Quinn in the living room. Was that his game, then, to act sweet as pie to the woman he’d publicly vilified, simply to drive a wedge between her and Quinn?
Phil perused the stacked lawn furniture, the taped windows. He gave special attention to the rumpled quilt and sofa cushions on the floor. When he turned back to Quinn, his smile had been replaced by a sneer of pure venom. He asked how long Quinn had been making love with Molly, couching the question in the crudest language.
Quinn had no intention of answering that. Molly was right. She’d been right all along. Phil no longer had a claim on her, which meant there was no need for secrecy. But by the same token, whatever happened between Quinn and Molly was none of his damn business.
When his question was greeted with silence, Phil said, “Call me naive, but I never figured you’d go sniffing around my ex. I mean, the woman’s poison. This isn’t news to you. If you wanted to get your rocks off, why didn’t you snag one of the beach babes? Or a town girl. Easy pickings.”
“Don’t know what possessed her to walk away from a prince like you. I’m curious about something. How long before the wedding were you sitting on that prenup? Just waiting to spring it on her at the last minute.”
“It’s called hedging your bets.” Phil shook his head sadly. “I used to think you were savvy, Quinn. A real up-and-comer. Course, if you were so damn savvy, you wouldn’t have messed around with my ex!” he suddenly hollered, tapping his chest. He flushed brick red. A muscle jumped in his cheek. He spread his palms. “You see what I’m saying here? That doesn’t strike you as a monumentally self-destructive act?”
Now that the worst had happened, Quinn could only marvel at his previous tunnel vision. He almost laughed. What were the threats of this spiteful, manipulative man compared with what he’d found in Molly’s arms?
Phil added, “Know what I’m going to do soon as I get back to New York? I’m gonna make a few phone calls, have a chat with every major agency. You better learn how to make Happy Meals, buddy boy.”
“I’m not worried,” Quinn answered easily. “I don’t think you have that kind of juice in the business. I did, but now I’m not so sure.”
Phil took a step closer, quivering with rage. “You don’t think I could destroy you?” He snapped his fingers. “Like that?”
“I’ll risk it.” He’d risk that and more for Molly.
“Get the hell out of my house. Now.”
Quinn had anticipated this. Molly was still in the shower. He heard it running. He grabbed the rest of his clothes, shoved his feet into his deck shoes, and headed downstairs without a word. By the time Phil appeared on the threshold, Quinn had already thrown all his clothes and toiletries into his luggage. Swiftly he made his way through the rooms, tossing his personal possessions into the plastic milk crate he’d brought with him. He left the food behind. Phil watched silently, arms folded over his chest.
A minute later Quinn slammed the trunk of his car and started back into the house. To Molly. She’d want to leave with him, he was sure.
Phil blocked the entrance. He held out his hand. “Keys.”
“Molly!” Quinn called. Was she still in the shower?
“If you’re not off my property in ten seconds, I’m calling the cops. Give me the damn keys.”
Quinn worked the two beach-house keys off his key ring and hurled them over the roof of Phil’s silver BMW into the patch of poison ivy that passed for a side yard. Phil cursed ripely.
Molly pounded down the stairs, wet hair flying, zipping her short denim skirt. “Quinn!” she cried, pushing past Phil. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is that I’ve been asked to vacate the premises. I’m leaving, Molly.”
She turned to Phil with a perplexed frown. “Because of me? I didn’t think you still cared about me that way.”
Phil touched her cheek. “Neither did I until I saw you with someone else.”
“I don’t believe this,” Quinn muttered.
Phil’s performance had nothing to do with tender feelings for Molly and everything to do with male territorial rights. He didn’t want her, but his ego couldn’t bear to see her happy with Quinn. Her failure to see Phil’s chest-thumping for what it was frustrated and angered Quinn.
“Are you satisfied, Molly?” he snapped. “You see now why I wanted to be discreet? You’ll be happy to know he’s planning to blacklist me in the industry. Don’t say I didn’t call this one.”
She blinked, clearly stung. Phil put his arm around her shoulders, and she didn’t shake it off. That was the coup de grâce, watching the smug bastard touch her as if he had a right. And she let him!
“I don’t think you have to worry about your career, Quinn,” she said. “There’s something I haven’t—”
“If I listened to you, I wouldn’t worry about a damn thing, would I?” He gesticulated angrily. “My life would just roll along with no direction, and to hell with my goals, my dreams, everything I’ve busted my butt for.”
“Quinn, let me tell—”
“Save it. I do have to worry about my career now, Molly, and none of your useless feel-good platitudes are going to pull it out of the fire.”
Molly didn’t move a muscle. She just stood staring at him. Finally she said, “You’re upset, Quinn. That’s why you’re lashing out at me. I can understand that.”
“You know what?” He rounded the Mercedes. “I don’t want your understanding. You’re too damn understanding.”
Phil said, “I don’t think your ‘understanding’ is what he was after, Molly.”
She never took her eyes from Quinn as he slid behind the wheel and started the car. He’d thought his imminent departure would goad her into action, but she said nothing, did nothing. He wouldn’t humiliate himself by asking her to leave with him. If she wanted to, she’d have said so. One thing about Molly, she didn’t play coy.
Would she take Phil back now? Or more to the point, would she let him manipulate her into believing he wanted her back? Would she let him use her again, savage her feelings again? Probably. Molly and her ex looked pretty damn cozy from where Quinn sat.
He executed a two-point turn to nose onto the road, then stuck his head out the window. “Hey, Phil. Give my best to Ben, will ya?”
Phil’s eye twitched. “Ben who?”
“‘Ben who?’ Ben Curran, you big kidder. Your cousin. First cousin on your mother’s side, am I right? The guy who replaced me. Inexperienced and more than a little incompetent, from what I hear.” And then, as if he hadn’t put a fine enough point on it, he added, “He’s the reason you fired me. You remember Ben.”
Phil looked like he didn’t want to.
Molly appeared more resigned than distraught. If she’d shed one tear, if she’d silently pleaded with that expressive face of hers—if she looked like she gave a damn!—he might have stayed and fought for her. He might have insisted she get in the car and leave with him. But she didn’t.
Quinn gunned the accelerator.