In Too Deep (4 page)

 

His name being whispered brought Quinn wide awake.

After a second of disorientation he remembered where he was. Spending the night with Lily and her family. He really had intended to go home, but instead found himself in Lily's queen-size bed, while she slept with her daughter.

He'd watched Lily and Rosie put clean sheets on the bed, but they still smelled like Lily, a scent he liked better by the hour. Long after he'd gone to bed and turned out the light, he had imagined having her in bed with him, naked, hot and willing. She wouldn't be so worried about waking him at the two-hour intervals that Hilda had prescribed if she knew how unruly his thoughts were.

He turned his head toward the open doorway. The hall light behind Lily backlit her slim figure. To his disappointment, she was wrapped in some kind of thick bathrobe that prevented the light from revealing a bit of her body.

“What time is it?” he asked.

“A little before one.” She came into the room, knotting the sash of the robe more firmly around her waist.

That meant he'd been asleep not even two hours.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Like hell.” He wished her face wasn't hidden in the shadows. “Which probably means I'm going to live.”

“Is there anything I can get you?”

That was too good to pass up. “What are you offering, darlin'?”

She chuckled as though she understood exactly what he meant. “Company—” she held out a glass of water as he sat up “—Tylenol.”

“I guess that will have to do, then.” He took the pills from the palm of her hand, washed them down, then set the glass on the nightstand.

“Are you hungry?” she asked. “There's milk and chocolate cake. Or maybe you'd rather have hot chocolate.”

“I'm fine. You shouldn't have to give up any sleep on my account.”

“I'm not.”

He snorted. “Sure you're not. You're up in the middle of the night all the time.”

“More than you might think.” Her expression was hidden in the shadows, but it was impossible to miss the sadness in her voice. “Go back to sleep, Quinn.”

“Sure. Just so you can come wake me up again.” Truth was, he was looking forward to it. He slid back down until his throbbing head rested on the pillow.

She turned off the light in the hallway and he heard the soft click of the other bedroom door as she closed it.

He fell asleep in the middle of wondering about her confessed insomnia. True to her word, she came back at three. The only other time in his life that he remembered anyone checking on him during the middle of the night was when he'd been in the hospital with appendicitis. At the time he'd been sure the nurse had woken him simply to give her something to do. Thinking about the kind of caring a man might attribute to Lily's actions was dangerous thinking in the middle of the night.

“Are you doing okay?” she asked. Perching on the edge of the bed, she touched his shoulder. That simple touch shot straight to his groin.

He took her hand and kissed the back of it. “Fine.” Gruffly he asked, “What about you? Did you sleep?”

“I was hoping you would have forgotten about that.”

“So you didn't.”

She didn't say anything, but didn't deny it, either.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, taking one of her hands within his, rubbing his thumb against her palm.

She sighed. “If there weren't nights, this would all be a lot easier.”

“What?”

“Getting on with my life.” A long moment of silence stretched before she added, “I felt like I was just getting back
on my feet after John died when I saw this guy murdered one night. I'd just gotten into my car and was leaving the parking lot, and there they were—these three men. One of them was on his knees and one of the others shot him in the back of the head.” Her voice had a soft, overcontrolled quality to it that showed just how close to the surface her emotions lay.

When she paused, Quinn didn't say a word, just continued to hold her hand. What could he say that wasn't totally meaningless? But he ached with the fear that he knew she would have felt.

“God, I don't even know why I'm telling you all this.”

“Maybe because I'm interested. Maybe because there's something about the dark that feels safe.”

“Sometimes I just wish there was someone to hold me during the night—” She broke off suddenly. Then, in a strangled whisper, added, “I'm not asking… I didn't mean—”

“It's okay,” he said. “I didn't think you were inviting yourself into my—your—bed.”

“God, I'm embarrassed.”

“Don't be.”

“During the day, I'm busy and I do okay. But at night…”

“You have too much time to think.”

“Yes,” she breathed. A smile was back in her voice when she said, “So, you're doing me a favor. Giving me something to do during the long hours of the night, something other than my puny fears to think about.”

“They aren't puny, so stop right there,” he said, cataloging all she had been through the last couple of years—at least the obvious things. Her husband dying, witnessing a murder, walking away from a career, moving, and all the while keeping things normal for her daughter.

Though his head was throbbing, he liked having her with him, liked knowing that in some strange way his being here was somehow helping her, too. She didn't say anything more, just sat there with him, her hip warm against his side. And
despite wanting to stay awake, to keep her company, he felt himself drift back toward sleep.

When she came back at five, though it was still dark outside, sleep was the last thing on his mind. He'd been awake for maybe half an hour, anticipating the moment when she'd slip inside the room. Knowing she fought demons during the night somehow made her even more likable. Like? Who was he kidding? There was like and then there was
like.
What he was feeling at the moment had nothing to do with friendship and everything to do sex. Morning arousal didn't usually have the direct focus of a warm, fragrant woman.

She sat close to him on the bed, apparently oblivious to the danger, and brushed his hair away from his forehead. “Are you doing okay?”

“Lie down with me,” he whispered, wondering where the hell those words had come from the instant he said them. Sure, he'd been thinking about it, but that was no excuse.

Her breath caught, and he wished for more light than came from the hallway so he could see her expression. She looked away from him, then stood.

Ah, damn. The apology he owed her remained stuck in his throat. She'd been nothing but kind, and she was bound to take his invitation as an insult rather than… Than what? he wondered.

He closed his eyes and a second later heard the click of the door. He looked over at it and, to his astonishment, saw that she was moving toward him as if in a shadowy dream. He heard the soft swish of her robe, then sensed more than he saw as she let it drop from her shoulders to the floor. She pulled back the covers and slipped in beneath them.

She scooted closer as he shifted onto his side, then she was in his arms, pressed against him full body to body. Hardly daring to breathe, he wrapped his arms around her. He had to be dreaming.

No way had she just climbed into bed with him.

“O
h, Quinn,” she whispered, her arms coming around him, gently for an instant, then fiercely, as though she expected him to be wrenched away. “You feel so good.”

“So do you, darlin'.” Against Quinn's feet, hers were like ice. As soon as he touched them, she tried to pull away. “Shh,” he murmured, cradling her cold feet between his much larger ones.

Breathing in the fragrance of her hair, he decided that if he was dreaming he didn't want to wake up. If he wasn't dreaming…he sure as hell didn't want to do the honorable thing and send her away.

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to roll her onto her back and to plunge into her soft body. He wanted to know the sounds she made while making love. Instead he held her, feeling her feet warm.

Beneath his hand, the silky fabric of her nightgown slid against his fingers. Soft, but not as soft as her skin at the nape of her neck. He couldn't have kept his hands from wandering to the swell of her bottom or the sweet curve of her
breasts if his life had depended on it. As he did, she somehow snuggled even closer, her breath hot against his cheek.

He buried his face in her hair. Silky. Fragrant as sunshine. In his arms, she was so damn small. Smaller by far than any other woman he had ever held. He shifted against her, absorbing the slide of her body against his, the friction undoing him a bit at a time. Oh, she fit him perfectly.

He pressed his lips against that fragrant hair, then on her cheek. Soft. Then at her jaw. Smooth. Then the other cheek. Silky.

Her small hands were warm through the fabric of his T-shirt; he would have given just about anything to feel them against his bare skin. Through the pounding of his head, he couldn't decide what the mixed signals meant. She was in his arms, being held so intimately that with a couple of shifts of their clothes, he could be where he wanted—buried in her. Though she held him tightly, offering the comfort of her body, he wondered if she meant to be offering sex, too.

God, he wished his head didn't hurt so much. He needed to really think this through.

Her fingers eased into his scalp, finding the pressure points and gently massaging them, the movement easing the throb in his head. Instantly, he relaxed, and his head dropped into the hollow between her neck and shoulder.

“Keep that up, darlin', and I'm yours for life.”

Her soft chuckle vibrated against his cheek. “Promises, promises.”

Though he was too relaxed to move, the realization that he had said,
Yours for life?
stabbed at him. Where the hell had that thought come from? Who was he kidding? He was a here-and-now kind of man. And she was…definitely a forever kind of woman.

That knowledge didn't keep him from wanting to kiss her, from wanting this innocent embrace to morph into torrid sex.

“Better?” she whispered, her magic fingers easing the knots out of the tendons in his neck.

“Mmm.” He kissed her neck, then had to test that silky skin with his teeth.

She shuddered then arched beneath him in that timeless gesture of surrender that his own body recognized. He released her skin, then laved the tiny hurt, kissing her neck. He inhaled deeply, loving the floral, musky scent of her.

His arms came around her and he ignored the throbbing in his head to kiss her the way he had been wanting to practically from the moment he had met her.

Her lips were soft beneath his, trembling, and so sweet.

“Darlin', let me in.”

She sighed, and then he was in, finding her shy tongue with his own. She moaned, or maybe he did, and the sound drove the last coherent thought from his mind. All that was left behind was a need to be connected to her, a need that he'd die for.

The kiss went on and on. Dark. Carnal. More vital than breathing. He pulled her close, sliding his hands across the satiny fabric of her nightgown, pushing the fabric up…until he reached the inside of her thigh. Soft. So…damn…soft.

Barely daring to breath, he lay there, his head pounding and his arousal throbbing…more scared about making that next move than he had ever been. Time stopped except for brush of his thumb against her leg.

From somewhere he found the honor to ask, “Is this what you want?”

“Lying with you?” The beat of a second passed. “Or sex?”

“Either. Both.”

“What I want.” She cupped his cheek with her hand, the tension seeping out of her body. “You'd have to be a decent man and ask me, wouldn't you?”

“There's not a single decent thing about what I'm thinking.”

Still, he had his answer. He dredged a little deeper, found his conscience and removed his hand from the inside of her thigh. Wishing that he'd touched her more intimately, he
smoothed her nightgown into place. She'd have to be dead not to notice his erection pressing into her belly, but to his relief she didn't ease away from him. Her body softened even more, though the thrum of arousal continued its hum through him, urging him to ignore his self-control and the headache that had resumed its incessant pounding. He allowed himself a sweep of his hand over the curve of her bottom and imagined how she'd feel naked.

They lay together like that for a long time, her hands continuing to knead the knots of muscle in his back and neck. Her touch became more languid, then ceased altogether. Her breathing became even as her body relaxed against his, and he realized that she had fallen asleep. He didn't dare let his mind embrace the implications of that. Sleeping together, in his mind, was a thousand times more intimate than sex, required way more trust than sex. And yet she had fallen asleep in his arms as though he could keep her worries at bay. Sighing, he pressed his lips against the smooth skin at her temple and wished he was the kind of man who could do that for her. But he wasn't.

He must have slept because sometime later he opened his eyes and the room was light, sunshine streaming through the window. He rolled onto his back and stretched, noticing feminine things, frilly things, about the room that he hadn't noticed last night. A stack of paperback novels on the nightstand caught his attention, along with a small lamp. He had images of her in here inside that tiny pool of light reading and keeping her worries hidden from her family.

Rubbing a hand over his face, he felt the bandage at his hairline and realized his headache was mostly gone. He hoped it stayed that way when he was vertical.

An erotic dream lingered, its focus Lily. He brought one of the pillows to his nose and inhaled deeply, the scent of her making him instantly hard. For a moment he wondered if she had really been in his bed or if he had simply been wishing so hard that it seemed real. His remembered words tore through his brain.
I'm yours for life.
What kind of idiot
was he to ever say such a thing? No one else had wanted him for life, and he was about to delude himself into thinking that she would. Thank God they hadn't had sex. He didn't need that kind of grief in his life.

Instead he'd been even more stupid—letting her under his skin with her hidden worries and vulnerabilities that made him wish he was a different kind of man. He needed to reestablish the relationship on a professional level, and fast. Before he hurt her. Because it would come to that. It always did.

He had just met her, didn't really know her. She worked for him, for Pete's sake. Making love with her…what in the hell would he call it, if not that? So they hadn't had sex. Not quite. What they had shared, though, had been a hell of a lot more intimate. He might have sex with the occasional woman, but he didn't sleep with them.
She worked for him.
He had to remember that because he didn't have a damn thing that he could offer her.

Why even think about that, moron? he told himself, yanking on his clothes. Sex without commitment, he was used to. Somehow those words in relation to Lily sounded dirty. What he had felt with her wasn't. Not even close.

He had nothing to offer her. Not a woman who had been as happily married as she clearly had been. Not a woman with a cute little girl like Annmarie. He'd done that once before—acquired the ready-made family he had been so sure he wanted. One word described that experience. Disaster.

He raked a hand through his hair and went to the window. Thanks to the sunshine, the water in the cove beyond the house sparkled and the islands in the distance rose from the water like mountains. The scene was so idyllic he was tempted to hope for the possibilities that skipped through his mind.

The daydream lasted for about a second. Until the old accusation, so true it hurt, ripped through his head.
You're too damn scared to let anyone love you. However much you're hurting me…you're killing yourself. You just don't know it.

Oh, he knew. His ex-wife had been right on all counts. No way could he risk going there again.

His emotions in turmoil, he glanced around the room to make sure he had all of his things. Shoes in hand, he pulled open the door and stepped into the hallway. To his relief, the door to Annmarie's room was closed—with any luck, Lily was still asleep. Coward that he was, he didn't want to face her.

He crept down the stairs. Uncertainty crawled through his gut, reminding him of being a child in a strange house with people he didn't know, sure that soon he'd be sent somewhere else because he always was. He hated the feeling and reminded himself he was a man, no longer powerless like the scared boy he had once been.

Downstairs, he went through the hallway to the kitchen. As soon as he put on his shoes, escape was within reach. Seconds away.

“Hi, Mr. Quinn,” Annmarie said from the kitchen chair where she was sitting, a coloring book in front of her. “I'm having hot chocolate. Do you want some, too?”

“I…” His gaze darted around the room. “Where's your mom?”

“Sleeping.” She sighed and took another sip of her hot chocolate, carefully lifting the mug to her lips with both hands. “Everybody is sleeping, 'cept you, me and Sweetie Pie.” Annmarie set the mug down and pointed toward the cat who was on the windowsill, her attention riveted on the bird feeder visible through the window.

“I see.”

“Is your head still hurted, Mr. Quinn?”

“Only a little.” He sat across the table from her and began to put on his shoes. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Annmarie put one of the crayons in the box, then select another one.

“I can make hot chocolate all by myself. Uncle Ian showed me. Blowing up the marshmallows is the best part.”

“What?” When he looked up from tying his shoe, she grinned.

“You put 'em in the microwave, and they get real, real big. Uncle Ian says that I can do it by myself, but I have to follow the rules.” She leaned closer to him. “So, Mr. Quinn, you want hot chocolate and marshmallows, don't you?”

“I do.” Clearly he had lost his mind. What he wanted to do—needed to do—was to leave before anyone else was up. Still, this little girl with her impish smile made him want to linger—to pretend for a few minutes longer that he really could do the family thing.

He followed Annmarie across the kitchen, where she scooted a chair to the counter, filled a cup with water, heated it in the microwave, added chocolate mix and stirred carefully. Then she added a marshmallow and put the cup back in the microwave for ten more seconds, all the while telling him each step and finishing with, “See? Simple, huh?” and handing him the cup with a huge, puffy-white topping, the likes of which he'd never had.

“That's very grown up,” Quinn told her as they sat back down at the kitchen table.

“I know,” she agreed solemnly. “And, if I don't get a baby brother or sister soon, it will be too late.”

“Too late for what?” Quinn asked, focusing on the one part of the sentence that kept him from thinking about the very activity that could lead to Annmarie having that sister or brother.

“Well,” Annmarie said, swinging her legs back and forth, her fuzzy pink slippers making her feet look bigger than they were. “If Mommy waits too long, then I'll be sixteen like Angela.”

“I see.” In fact, he didn't see anything at all. “Who's Angela?”

“Thad's sister,” Annmarie said before returning with laser precision to the topic at hand. “And I asked Mommy why she couldn't do it like last time, only she said things are different now. We can't adopt Aunt Rosie's baby like
Mommy did with me because Uncle Ian wouldn't like it. But he could still be the daddy and Aunt Rosie could still be the auntie.”

Quinn failed to follow the child's logic even as he was sure things made perfect sense to her.

“So I've been thinking. Since Uncle Ian says you have to have a mommy
and
daddy, all I have to do is find a daddy. Mine died, you know.”

Quinn nodded at her matter-of-fact announcement.

“When you were a little boy, did you have a daddy?”

“No.” The question was as unexpected as everything else about the conversation.

“Oh.” A tiny pucker appeared between her eyebrows. “Did you want one?”

Had anyone else asked the question he would have lied. Instead he found himself telling this child a truth that he would have denied anyone else. “With all my heart.”

She smiled. “Me, too. But mostly I want a baby. This time maybe the baby can grow in my mommy instead of in Aunt Rosie. That should work, don't you think?”

He didn't know what to think, but he was sure of one thing. Agreeing with Annmarie in any way at all would likely land him in deep trouble.

“I think—” he glanced at his watch “—it's getting late.”

“Yep,” Annmarie agreed.

“And I should probably go.”

“Before breakfast?”

He nodded, standing up, and she expelled a big sigh.

When he looked down at her, she said, “Are you sure you don't want breakfast?” She pointed at the cupboard. “The cereal is way up there. The bowls are over there and, besides, the milk is very heavy.”