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“I’ll be here for you, Quinn. As a friend. I don’t like it, I don’t understand it, and I… well, I want more. But obviously you have something you think you can’t tell me.” He moved closer, his mouth only a few inches from hers. His warm breath caressed her skin as he spoke, giving her goose bumps. “You can tell me, Quinn. When you’re ready. Believe me, I understand secrets. Until then, I won’t press you for more than you can give.” She shivered under his touch.
Rick gave her a small smile, dropping his hand back to his side.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. No hiding.”
Quinn made a noise that was more like a squeak than a yes. When he left the room, she braced her hands on the edge of the sink, needing the support to stay upright. Her legs were shaking, on the verge of giving out.
God, he affects me so much. Just his touch makes me an incoherent mess. Why am I resisting this?
Rick’s deep voice traveled from the great room, saying his good-byes to Clint and Mara. A minute later, the front door closed and Quinn sagged against the countertop. The warring feelings she had been hiding from Rick were about to burst out of her against her will. Tears welled up again, demanding to be released, burning the back of her eyes as she held them in.
Mara entered the kitchen, putting an arm around Quinn’s shoulders and pulling her into a hug.
“It’ll be okay, Quinn. Like I said, whatever it is that makes you happy, you need to acknowledge it and take it. You deserve that much. Don’t hold back because of your asshole ex.”
Quinn hugged her friend back as the tears came, needing the warmth of human contact to allay her fears about Travis, about Rick, about the direction her life was headed. She loved Mara, but in the back of her mind, she selfishly wished that Rick were the one holding her.
Chapter 8
Quinn stood up from where she was anxiously sitting on the couch and marched into her tiny bathroom, checking her hair for what felt like the millionth time. She glanced, again, at the clock on her nightstand. Eleven fifty-five.
God! Why am I so nervous! It’s just lunch with Rick, not a date with the firing squad. Get yourself together, Quinn!
Even though she had been expecting it, the knock on her front door made her jump. For a brief second, Quinn hesitated, unsure if she was doing the right thing by meeting Rick.
She wanted to go to lunch with him. She wanted to be with Rick pretty much all of the time. But what she wanted and what she needed were two completely different things and leading him on seemed cruel.
Another knock, louder this time, ended her pointless deliberation. She agreed to lunch with a friend and he was here, waiting on her doorstep while she argued with herself like an idiot. There was no way she was going to back out on him now, especially since the last time she bailed on Rick, it caused a rift between them a mile wide.
Quinn forced herself to open the door and her traitorous body responded to the sight before her just like it always did. She shuddered as a delicious tingle rolled down her spine, gathering at the juncture of her thighs in a frustrating knot of desire. No man had ever caused this blatant of a sexual response in Quinn. It was as if Rick were created specifically to push every single one of her buttons simultaneously, bringing out every shameless, dirty thought she ever had and replaying them over and over in her head with Rick as the star performer.
“Hey. Are you ready?” Rick stood stiffly on her doorstep, clearly as uncomfortable as she was.
Unable to stop herself, Quinn’s gaze dropped to the bulge in the front of Rick’s jeans. The thick package she discovered there was cradled perfectly by the tight denim, making her mouth water. By the looks of things, Rick was just as affected. She flicked her gaze back up to find his pupils blown with lust.
“Ummmm, I’m ready. Just let me grab my purse.” Quinn fumbled with the door, almost shutting it in Rick’s face.
Nervously laughing, he caught it before it could hit him. “Trying to break my nose?” He slid inside the apartment, closing the door behind him.
“Yes… I mean no! I didn’t mean to. It slipped. My uh, hands are sweaty from the heat.” An image of Rick all sweaty and naked, grappling another man in the ring flashed through her brain, causing her to stumble. Quinn cursed her nerves and her dirty, dirty mind.
“Sure thing, Quinn. It slipped.”
She eyed Rick cautiously, looking for any sign of sarcasm in his reply. All she could see was his usual easygoing expression. Maybe a bit tighter around the eyes and mouth, but that was easily explained by the stressful situation and the hard-on he was sporting in his pants. Quinn decided to let the comment go, slinging her purse over her shoulder with false confidence.
“Let’s go.”
Rick reclined in a small booth tucked away in a dark corner of the restaurant. So far, this lunch was a disaster. The conversation was forced, from the look in her eyes Quinn was either anxious as hell or incredibly horny, his view of two pert nipples poking through her dress meant she wasn’t wearing a bra, and if the throbbing between his own legs wasn’t a clear signal of how he felt, he didn’t know what was. All Rick wanted to do was skip the meal, bring her back to his condo, and spend the day with her naked on his bed.
“So, you said you had to sort out everything with your dad’s estate. Did that go okay?”
No matter how much he wanted to get the fuck out of here and rip off her clothes, Rick was still curious to know more about Quinn’s father and how it related to her bailing on him three months ago.
Quinn stared at her glass of water, aimlessly pushing the ice cubes around with a straw. “It went fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yeah.”
