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“You look unbelievably beautiful,” he said easily, as if that weren’t the first time a man had said that to her. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah, I’ve been ready.” More than ready. Ready to skip dinner altogether. That book had been good, but Quinn was something better. His gray suit pants fit perfectly, framing slim hips, and the French-blue dress shirt stretched across those wide shoulders.
“Sorry,” he said again, reaching for a suit jacket that hung on a coatrack. The shirt grew taut, then looser again before it was hidden beneath the coat. He pulled a tie from his pocket, flipped up his collar, and proceeded to dress in front of her. As if they’d just woken up together. As if they’d just finished having sex.
God, she wanted to do him.
He glanced at his watch. “We’d better get going.”
If this were one of her books, she’d put a stop to this dinner business. She’d unzip the back of her dress and strip down to her brand-new underwear and matching bra. Tell him all she wanted to eat was him. Tell him she wanted it hard and fast andnow.
But she was just Lori Love, girl mechanic, and she didn’t have the guts to put what she wanted into words even if it was the whole point of this date. Pitiful.
Maybe she should call the whole thing off. If—
His hand left a two-inch trail of white fire down her upper arm when he touched her. “Shall we?”
Throat frozen with wants and demands and dirty words that she couldn’t force out, Lori couldn’t speak. She couldn’t say what she wanted, but God shewanted.Wanted this just for herself and no one else. So she took the hand Quinn offered and silently led him out the door.
He didn’t say anything, either, just waved her toward a silver car that was parked at a panicked angle near the entrance. Lori looked over the car and felt her body settle back into her skin. This was something she knew. Her throat opened up.
“Nice car.”
He glanced at the Audi A6 as if he’d never seen it before. “I guess. It’s got four-wheel drive.”
“Ah. Of course.” Nothing about the horsepower or the supercharged V6. The car got him where he wanted to go and that was that. Everything in his life functioned as a simple vehicle for his passion and skill.
She wondered suddenly if Quinn had sprung fully formed from the head of Zeus, because he was certainly nothing like his parents. Mr. Jennings had run the town feed store, and Mrs. Jennings was a no-nonsense housewife, the daughter of a rancher. He came from people who drove American trucks with big engines and oversize tires. People who never dreamed bigger than wanting to own a few more acres of land than their parents had. People like her.
Quinn was different…shiny and polished from the constant flow of letting his own dreams wash over him.
When he settled into the driver’s seat and flashed her a smile, Lori’s throat froze again, so full of need that she wondered if she’d cry. She wanted sex with him, there was no doubt about that. But maybe more than that, she wanted a little of that glow to rub off on her bare skin, wanted to feel what she’d felt as a younger woman.
Her glow was long gone, now she just wanted a taste of Quinn’s.
* * *
THE WINE ARRIVEDlike a gift from a sympathetic god. Or as if Quinn had ordered it when she was pretending to look at the menu and wondering if they would have sex that night. The waiter had clearly come and gone without her ever noticing. Which was just fine, because now she had the unexpected relief of a whole bottle of white wine to give her courage.
This affair had seemed only slightly frightening when Quinn had been his normal nerdy, distracted self, but his distraction had vanished at the most inopportune time. Every time she looked up from the menu his hazel eyes were focused on her, unwavering and not the least bit clouded by distant thought.
“Why are you looking at me?” she finally demanded.
“We’re on a date.”
She watched greedily as he tipped the bottle and poured golden light into her glass. “So you’re always an attentive date?”
Quinn’s eyes crinkled at the edges when he smiled. “Probably not, no. But I’m trying to figure you out. It’s taking all my powers of concentration.”
She shifted. “I’m simple enough.”
“Hardly.” His eyes dipped to the tiny bit of cleavage she’d been trying to cover earlier. “You’re a complicated woman.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m deep and mysterious, all right. A real enigma.”
“Mmm.” His eyes narrowed in study. “I can tell you’re trying to be funny—”
“Trying?”
