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She smiled at him as they rose to their feet, thinking how much more relaxed Quinn seemed compared to how he’d been when he’d walked up to her at the bar. “It’s incredible to think that with all the chaos in day-to-day lives, people actually slow down enough to come here and look for these marks, isn’t it?”
“Actually, I think what’s really incredible is the way that you connected with Gus at his coffee shop,” Quinn said. “But maybe some things are meant to be. Especially since it sounds like you found a business you love.”
“I really do love it. I know I might seem like a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of person, but the café keeps me grounded—and lets me fly at the same time. I have all the administrative things to keep up with, like sourcing the best organic beans, and then there’s the consistency of the schedule, of course. But it’s more than a business to me, whether I’m comforting a customer who needs a shoulder to lean on or chatting with college kids coming in to do homework. I think they see me as the older, wiser sister type and ask for advice.”
“You’re full of so much passion, aren’t you?”
He stroked her cheek again as he said it, and she barely held back her gasp of awareness at how much she liked his touch. Craved his touch already, if she was being totally honest with herself. And the way his eyes heated whenever he looked at her made her want so badly to show him exactly how much passion she had inside of her.
She couldn’t believe how strongly she was drawn to him. Not just sexually—even though the heat between them was off the charts—but because he got her.
And yet that, more than anything, was what had her instinctively pushing the idea of a fling even farther away. Because if they got each other this well, this quickly, and he came to mean something special to her this week, how much harder would it be to walk away from him?
Of course, for all she knew, Quinn might be one of those guys who only had flings.
Desperate to get ahold of her emotions so that they didn’t bloom into something bigger than either of them were prepared for, she said, “Tell me about your work.”
“I own a shipping company.”
Ah, so she’d been right about the boardroom and the suit. He exuded power, and she could easily imagine how women everywhere must drool at the sight of him in a suit and tie. She had to work really hard to push aside a supersexy vision of surprising him in a boardroom and reaching up to unknot his tie. “Did you always want to do that?”
“Believe it or not, the impetus behind it was because I loved my boats so much when I was growing up, and I wanted to do something that would allow me to be on the water. Little did I know that I would run a fleet of ships and land transport vehicles from an office while my personal boats sit unused.” She could have sworn there was regret on his face as he said it, but before she could ask him any other questions about his career, he pointed at the sand. “Look. There they are.”
“Spit marks!” Water spurted out of the hole in the sand, and she laughed delightedly. “What do we do?”
“We dig, but I’d better warn you, jumping on the sand makes them burrow faster. You’ll never catch it now.”
“Oh, come on!” She dropped to her knees and dug as fast and as deep as she could while Quinn stood beside her, laughing. Sand flung right and left as her hands burrowed deeper into the wet channel.
“Oh my God, I feel it.” She dug one hand deeper, leaning into the sand as her fingers continued digging, trying to grip the clam’s slick shell. “Help me, Quinn!”
But he was already on his knees, and in seconds his fingers were brushing hers, the wet sand cutting into both their skin as they laughed and egged each other on.
“Faster. Come on!”
“Come here, you little bugger,” Quinn said through gritted teeth.
Shelley fell back on her heels in a fit of laughter.
“Get him, Quinn. Don’t let him get away!”
His biceps flexed with his efforts. He laughed and groaned, then laughed some more as he dug down elbow deep and actually fell over, sinking to his butt on the wet sand.
Shelley fell across his lap in another fit of laughter. They were both covered in wet, gritty sand, but he was making no move to brush it off. She’d never met a man like him, who was as serious as he was carefree, as sexy and powerful as he was gentle and sweet.
When their laughter subsided, Quinn reached for her cheek.
