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“Not my point. You okay?” she asked, sitting next to him on one of the chairs the hotel had provided.
He looked over at her. It had been years since he’d let anyone close to him. He had his brothers and sister, and sometimes he relied on his assistant, but most of the time he kept his own counsel and he liked it that way.
“Yeah.”
She arched one eyebrow at him. “That didn’t even sound real.”
“It didn’t? I thought it was convincing,” he said.
“I don’t buy it,” she said, reaching over and putting her hand on top of his. A zing went straight through his body and right to his groin. He straightened his legs. He’d wanted to be distracted from his own internal debate about this new brother he didn’t want. But he knew that Quinn was complicated. It was okay to be turned on by her. She was hot as hell and they’d always had this kind of reaction to each other.
But that was it. She was complex and real to him. She wasn’t a woman he’d picked up in a bar and could take back to his room for one night. He liked Quinn, respected her, and she was very good friends with the women in his family. He knew this couldn’t go anywhere, but that didn’t stop him from turning his hand over and running his finger along her wrist and up her arm.
She shivered and leaned in closer to him. She still wore that faint vanilla scent that always made him think of her. She tipped her head to the side, studying him. He wasn’t sure what she’d see, but he knew that tonight he didn’t want her realism. He needed to believe the image he always presented to the world.
So he leaned in slowly to see if she’d allow him to kiss her, and she licked her lips, putting her hand on the side of his jaw, her fingers moving along the side of his neck before she squeezed his shoulder as she came closer to her.
Her lips brushed his and he pushed aside all of the worries of the day and took the kiss he hadn’t realized he’d been missing for ten long years. Her mouth opened under his and he forgot about complications and messed-up family relationships. He forgot about the wedding and the merger he’d already set in motion. He forgot about everything except Quinn Murray and the fact that she kissed him the way she did everything else in life. With passion and need. And she made him realize how busy he’d been with his business life and how he’d neglected this side of himself.
But this was Quinn Murray. The one woman he’d never been able to resist. He needed a distraction, so he lifted her out of her chair and onto his lap to deepen the kiss. She pushed both hands into his hair, holding him close to her. He had found the distraction he was looking for in the fire of her kiss and knew that, for tonight at least, he didn’t need to figure out anything other than pleasing this woman.
Logan. He’d always been the one problem she’d never been able to solve. The one guy she couldn’t just leave in the past. He was hot, anyone could see that, with his dirty-blond hair, chiseled jaw and ice-blue eyes. He’d always had striking looks. He was muscled because he had an amazing amount of energy. She knew from his sister, Marielle, that he still got up every day at five to work out and then went into the office, staying until almost midnight.
When they’d been in college, it had been attractive to be with a man who was so driven, so determined to succeed, but then she’d realized that he’d never stop competing with her over everything. And she’d liked the challenge at first. But soon it was more than who got the better grades, it was...well, everything, and when she started to realize that no prize was ever going to be enough for him, she’d walked away. But a part of her, the part that had her climbing all over his lap like it had been nine months since she’d made love to anything other than her vibrator...well, she wanted him. Even if it was just because of the long weekend they were both spending in Nantucket.
He tasted good.Addictive. She had to be honest and say he was the best man she’d ever kissed. There was something unhurried and yet raw and sensual about the way he kissed her. He took his time, but she felt completely laid bare by it. The passion between them hadn’t waned in the years they’d been apart and, as much as she wished it had, she was glad it hadn’t.
She liked being in his arms, feeling his hard-on under her hip and his hands roaming up and down her back.
Quinn knew that this wasn’t real. She didn’t kid herself that it was anything more than Logan distracting himself from finding out that a man he considered his rival and enemy was now his brother. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t turned her on.
She broke the kiss and opened her eyes to find herself looking into that icy-blue stare of his. The honesty there, the unfettered need, struck a chord deep within her. She’d always been able to see past the ego and the arrogance that he wore like a haughty cloak. But tonight, what she saw there mirrored what she wanted.
They needed this night. They’d never really had any closure, and this could be it. Just a night of burning up the sheets and, in the morning, he’d go back to the mess that his family was and she’d go to work producingAdler’s Destination Weddingfor the television network she worked for.
“That was unexpected,” she said.
“Unwelcome?” he asked. “I know we broke up a long time ago, but I have to be honest, Ace, every time I see you, I think about kissing you.”
Ace.
He was the only one who called her that. It had been years since she’d heard him use the nickname, though.
“I think about it sometimes too,” she admitted.
“But not more than me, right?” he asked. “I know I was too much at the end and, hell, I probably still am...”
It was there in the way he paused. He wanted to hook up, but he didn’t want to appear to be the one to suggest it in case she said no. This was why their relationship hadn’t worked. Quinn believed with her entire heart that when she found a man to spend the rest of her life with, she’d feel comfortable being vulnerable to him. But with Logan she’d had to keep her guard up. He was always competing, always trying to win, and after a while she’d realized she couldn’t compete all the time.
“That kiss was hot and a nice trip down memory lane,” she said. “But I don’t think either of us need the complications a hookup would bring.”
“Does it have to be complicated?” he asked.
“I’m not sure, but you are hedging like you can’t admit you want me, and I’m way past that,” she said. Turning thirty had burned away a lot of the artifice she’d used in the past. “I’m not interested in being your dirty little secret.”
“It wouldn’t have to be a secret,” he said. “I don’t mind if it’s a little dirty.”
A shiver went through her and she knew she didn’t mind if it was dirty either. The thing about Logan was that once he committed to something, he never backed down. Maybe commitment was the wrong word, because the only thing he was dedicated to was his career.
