Crossfire (27 page)

‘‘Join the club.’’

‘‘As you said earlier, I’m probably the last woman on the planet you should go to bed with.’’

There was an underlying hurt in her tone that once again told Quinn he was going to have to come clean with her. Because it appeared she’d taken his words personally. And why shouldn’t she have? Since she had no way of knowing his checkered past.

‘‘Though it really doesn’t have all that much to do with you, but with some stuff in my past, that’s what I said, all right.’’

‘‘Then why—?’’

‘‘I don’t fucking know, okay?’’ He swiped a hand through his hair. ‘‘What I do know is that there probably isn’t a guy on this planet who wouldn’t run over his dog for some hot, uncomplicated sex with you.’’

She arched a brow. At the same time a slight smile curved her lips. ‘‘That’s a vast overstatement, but the idea works for me. Except for the running-over-the-dog part.’’

‘‘Okay. That was a bad analogy. And if someone had told me even last week that you were up for some hot, mindless sex, I would’ve been fighting off every guy in the Lowcountry to make sure I was at the front of the line.’’

Quinn was confused. And he didn’t like the feeling. He also decided that if Zach or Shane ever found out about this idiotic need for honesty, when nirvana was waiting for him right upstairs in Cait’s apartment, he’d never live it down.

‘‘But something’s changed, and no, I don’t know why it did, or what the hell we’re going to do about it, but I figure the only right thing to do is to let you know where I stand.’’

‘‘Well.’’ She glanced down at her hands. Began twisting a knotted silver ring she wore on the index finger of her right hand. ‘‘Thanks. I think.’’

‘‘Do you have any idea how many women I’ve slept with trying to get over you?’’

Her eyes met his. ‘‘No.’’

‘‘Neither do I.’’ And wasn’t that the truth? ‘‘But here’s another thing, since I seem to be determined to make a damn fool out of myself. It didn’t work.’’

‘‘Well,’’ she said again. Quinn figured there weren’t that many times Caitlin Cavanaugh had been at a loss for words.

As the sexually charged silence spun around them, and his body shouted at him to just shut up and grab the woman and do what they both wanted to do, she finally said, ‘‘It appears we have two choices.’’

‘‘I guess so.’’

What the hell had he been thinking?

Her eyes gleamed like blue neon as they swept over his face, moving down his body, lingering for a moment on the boner that was pressing painfully against the damn metal buttons of his 501s, which was one of the downsides of going commando.

Then her gaze returned to his.

‘‘We can risk getting arrested by ripping each other’s clothes off right here and now. Or we can try to summon enough restraint to hold off until we get upstairs.’’

When she touched a finger to the tip of her tongue and trailed it around his mouth, Quinn was amazed his skin didn’t sizzle.

‘‘Where,’’ she said, as she continued the stroking touch, down his chest, then, Sweet Jesus, lower, ‘‘I intend to have my way with you. And this time I’m going to remember every dirty detail.’’

His lungs clogged. His hands, which could take a rifle apart and put it back together again in seconds, began to sweat. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see his palms grow hair.

She lifted both her hands, framing his face. Her smile somehow managed to be both sweet and incredibly hot at the same time. ‘‘And I promise to respect you in the morning.’’

When she pulled his suddenly dry mouth down to hers, Quinn was lost.

Quinn wanted to carry Cait up the stairs to her apartment like a conquering warrior. No, he thought, as he felt his heart tumble, then soften, he wanted to lift her into his arms, as he had that first night, when, over her breathless, laughing protests, he’d carried her down the long hallway to his hotel room.

He settled instead for merely keeping his hand on her slender hip as they climbed the stairs together. In his other hand he carried his rucksack and a garment bag with the dress uniform he’d picked up from that very same Vietnamese dry cleaner where the Stocktons’ maid had retrieved her employer’s uniform before continuing to the fatal encounter at the Piggly Wiggly.

He’d also brought along his laptop, though she suggested that with all she had in mind for him, he wouldn’t have a whole lot of time for writing.

Every atom in his body was up—literally—for whatever plans she could come up with.

And this time there’d be no drinking to cloud her mind and his judgment.

No sooner were they in the pretty living room than he cupped her chin in his palm. His thumb brushed her lips. ‘‘I want you to be very sure about this.’’

Her lips parted at his stroking touch. ‘‘Yes,’’ she said, the word expelled on a breath of ragged need.

He needed no further invitation. His mouth capturedhers, crushing, conquering, as he pulled her tight against him.

His teeth, scraping over her lower lip, dazed her. His mouth, as he drank deeply from hers, stole the breath from her lungs.

Cait swayed as her body softened, fitting her curves to the rigid lines of his body. Her nipples pressed against his chest; his stony erection was huge against her belly.

Her body came alive as never before; her nerves sparked, her blood ran hot in her veins, her temperature rose, heating her flesh.

Even as she tried to tell herself that it was only raw chemistry that had her responding to him, deep down inside she knew it was something much more elemental.

Even more than the irresistible pull of a female to a male, more than the need to have him inside her, as much as she’d fought it, from that first moment she’d seen him, looking too large, and too hot, and way too dangerous to her mind and her future, Cait had felt herself engulfed in a flood of acceptance.

Not just acceptance that she was about to fall off the celibacy wagon. But acceptance of the knowledge that once she had sex with Quinn, her life would inexorably, forever change.

‘‘I was in Central America a few years ago,’’ he murmured against her hair. ‘‘On an undercover mission.’’

As his hands cupped her breasts, his thumbs brushing against her painfully taut nipples, Cait’s mind was screaming for him to just shut up and do it.

‘‘There was this woman—Svetlana—who ran a beachfront cantina where all the Special Forces guys who were down there training rebel troops used to hang out. We had U.S. teams there, and the Russians had their Spetsnaz guys. That’s their version of Spec Ops.

‘‘There was even a handful of British SAS agents around. Svetlana was a real friendly woman. To everyone. I doubt there was a guy in uniform she wasn’t more than happy to go to bed with. I also doubt there was anyone who didn’t know she was a Russian secret agent.’’

‘‘That didn’t bother you? Sleeping with the enemy, so to speak?’’

He shrugged. ‘‘Sex was sex. I knew she was working me. She knew I was working her. Besides, she was giving us as much information as she was Ivan.’’

‘‘She was a double agent?’’

‘‘Hell, Svetlana would do double, triple, whoever paid her. In U.S. dollars.’’

‘‘Which meant her information probably wasn’t very reliable,’’ Cait guessed, wondering if he was using the terminology to describe her spying. Or her screwing around.

Had Quinn been involved in a sexual double? Maybe with one of Svetlana’s friends? A tall, slinky, double-jointed blonde named Anastasia?

He’d said he refused to share. Suddenly Cait understood the feeling—she hated the idea of him having sex with any other woman. Even if had been for flag and country.

Yeah. Right. He’d obviously forced himself to get it up in the name of patriotism. To keep people like her safe on the homefront.

And she was Lara Croft, Tomb Raider.

‘‘We were drinking in this cantina on the oceanfront. I stuck to tequila, but she was drinking frozen piña coladas. And even though I kept trying to focus on the mission, which was to infiltrate a terrorist cell, all I could think about was you.’’

Her breath caught. If it had been any other man telling her this, she would have thought he was feeding her a line. But she knew Quinn was telling the truth.

‘‘Maybe you’ve been hanging out with SEALs too long,’’ she said, as he pulled her blouse free and bunched it in his fist, ‘‘if you consider telling one woman you’re about to get naked with a story about you getting drunk and having hot beach sex with another to be foreplay.’’

‘‘That’s my point.’’ His fingers splayed across her bare abdomen while his thumbs brushed against ultra-sensitive nipples. ‘‘I blew the mission because I couldn’t get it up.’’

Revealing a familiarity with female clothing, he unfastened the front closure of her bra with a deft click of the wrist, while the tip of his tongue skimmed a hot, damp trail around her ear.

‘‘Well, that’s encouraging.’’

He surprised her by laughing at that. Then his long fingers caught her wrist and pressed her palm against the front of his jeans. He was hot and hard and huge. It was all she could do not to drop to her knees right there on her living-room floor and rip open those metal buttons and take him in her hands, and her mouth, and . . .

‘‘I think you can tell that isn’t going to be a problem tonight.’’ He pinched a nipple between the thumb and fingers of his free hand, making her go all liquid inside. ‘‘The thing is, the minute the bartender delivered that damn drink with the umbrella in it, all I could think about was you. How your hair smelled. How you turned me inside out. And how I wanted to track you down and have you again.’’

He shoved his hand into the waistband of her slacks, between her panties and her hot flesh and pushed a finger deep inside her. ‘‘And again.’’

Cait’s head fell back as her body clutched at him. She heard a ragged moan and realized it had come from her own suddenly parched throat.

‘‘I need a shower,’’ she managed.

Maybe her hair smelled like a tropical drink, but she feared the rest of her smelled of smoke and burned flesh. And since this time she planned to remember every moment of the night, she wanted it to be perfect.

‘‘Works for me,’’ he said agreeably, scooping her up into his arms. ‘‘So, where’s the bathroom?’’

He stood her up again on a plush rug the color of ripe grapes. Reached behind her, opened the glass door, and turned on the tap.

Flashes of the last time they’d been together suddenly sparked in Cait’s mind, and she realized that it had indeed been she who’d ripped off the dress, peeled down the pantyhose, taking her panties with them, and, wearing only the strapless corset with the painful boning that had been digging into her skin for the previous eight hours, literally leaped into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist as she’d practically raped him.

She also remembered him trying to turn her down as her mouth had eaten into his. But she’d been drunk and determined to get laid, and he’d been, after all, a SEAL. And not only that, a SEAL who’d slept with a Russian spy named Svetlana.

Because, after all, as he’d said, sex was sex.

Which was why it hadn’t taken him that long to throw in the towel. So to speak.

‘‘It’s not,’’ she murmured as he unbuttoned the blouse that was clinging to her too hot skin.

‘‘What’s not?’’ Since her bra was still unfastened, he was able to slide them both off her shoulders and down her arms, where they pooled on the floor at her feet.

‘‘Sex.’’ She sucked in a breath as his hands got busy on her belt, unfastening it and pulling it slowly, insinuatingly, through the loops, in a way that had it been any other man but Quinn, Cait might have found a bit threatening. ‘‘It’s not just sex.’’

The sound of the zipper on her slacks lowering was unnaturally loud. So loud she could hear it over the rush of the water flowing behind her in the shower.

‘‘At least, not all the time.’’

‘‘No.’’ His thumbs snagged the low waistband of her panties. ‘‘Definitely not this time.’’ She leaned her head back and closed her eyes as he drew the slacks and panties down her legs.

The crotch of the panties was soaked. She wondered if he’d notice.

He did.

‘‘Do you have any idea,’’ he said as his mouth touched hers, holding back his need to take, keeping the kiss gentle. Tender. ‘‘What it does to me to know that you want me as much as I want you?’’

She laughed softly, the sound a sexy blend of humor, surrender, and pleasure. ‘‘Unless you’ve taken to wearing your weapon in the front of your jeans instead of the back, I have a clue.’’ She skimmed her fingertips over the raging hard-on, the same way she had in the car. ‘‘As a detective, I’m very good at reading clues.’’

‘‘Not that I doubt your skills, having seen you in action, but I believe even Inspector Clouseau could read that one.’’

‘‘Well.’’ She unfastened the first metal button. Then the second. The third. ‘‘I suppose it is a bit more noticeable.’’ The fourth. ‘‘And substantial.’’ Thank the good Lord, she finished with the fifth. And he wasn’t wearing anything beneath the jeans.

Slipping free of his arms, she went down on her knees on the rug and slowly drew the jeans down over Quinn’s bare hips.

‘‘And ever so much larger than your average’’—her fingers curled around his length and she began stroking him, from root to painfully swollen tip—‘‘clue.’’

He sucked in a harsh breath when she leaned forward and gathered in a drop of moisture from the cleft with a swirl of her tongue.

‘‘You make me want things.’’ His voice was rough, more groan than words as he swelled in her hand. ‘‘Hot things.’’ He cupped her butt with his hands and squeezed. ‘‘Pelvis-grinding, dirty, blow-your-mind things.’’

‘‘Well.’’ He nearly wept when she leaned back on her heels, breaking the glorious contact of her mouth on his cock. ‘‘Don’t let me stop you.’’

He grabbed her hair, urging her back to her feet. They kicked off shoes, and later, although he wouldn’t remember how, the socks went flying, too. One of them landed in the sink. The other he wouldn’t find until the next morning, behind the toilet.

Pausing just long enough to pull out one of the rubbers he’d stuck in the pocket of his jeans, he yanked her beneath the stream of hot water. Or maybe she pulled him. More likely, he thought, as he crushed his mouth to hers, hot and hungry and hurried, they pulled each other.

Quinn had never used his superior strength on a woman before. But, after tossing the condom packet onto the rack next to a white bottle of that shampoo he’d never been able to get out of his mind, he used it now to press her against the tile at the back of the stall, while his thumbs traced the fold between her smooth thighs and her crotch.

‘‘Oh, God,’’ she managed, her voice as slurred as it had been that night. But this time it wasn’t alcohol making her nearly incoherent. It was desire. For him.

He pressed his palm against her pubis. Drew a long, shuddering sigh from her lips as she arched her back, beyond words now, but urging him to take more.

Which he did.

He lowered her to the tile seat built into the corner of the stall, then knelt in front of her, just as she’d done to him. He used his palms to spread her legs apart, then bit the inside of her smooth, wet thigh— just hard enough to make her tremble.

Then, parting the slick pink folds with his fingers, he clamped his mouth onto her.

He brought her to a peak, with lips and teeth and tongue. She cried out, bucked against him, then went so limp, if he hadn’t been holding her, she might have slid bonelessly to the floor.

‘‘Wow. When you’re right, you’re right,’’ she said. Her head was back against the tile, her eyes closed, her lips parted.

‘‘About what?’’ He stroked her thighs, frowned a bit as he noticed the bruise. But at the same time he couldn’t feel all that guilty about having marked her.

Branded her. And wouldn’t that get her temper up if she knew that thought had just flashed through his brain?

‘‘About sex being a good stress reliever.’’ She grinned and combed her fingers through his wet hair as the water continued to pelt down on them. ‘‘I’m feeling better already.’’

‘‘Told you.’’ He grinned back.

Quinn decided that watching Cait as she watched him roll the thin latex over his penis was one of the sexiest things he’d ever seen. Her eyes gleamed, and when she unconsciously licked her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue, he felt himself on the verge of losing it.

‘‘I wanted to take my time,’’ he said, even as he lifted her off her feet.

‘‘Next time.’’ She scissored her long legs around his hips. ‘‘Right now I think I’m going to die if I can’t feel you inside me.’’ Despite their difference in height, they were crotch to crotch.

‘‘Roger that.’’ Because the need to be inside her had become unbearable for him, he gripped her hips and surged into her, filling her with one deep stroke.

Then paused. Partly to let her become accustomed to his size, but mostly because the shock of pleasure was so hard and so strong, it almost knocked him off his feet.

Lowering his head, his mouth found her wet breast. He suckled deeply, feeling the convulsions surrounding him as she lifted her hips with each downstroke, meeting him thrust for thrust, and this time, when she climaxed around him, her inner muscles clutching at him like a greedy fist, rather than holding back as he’d planned, Quinn surrendered, giving in to his own release.