Insatiable (8 page)

His other hand, the one that didn’t cup my cheek, slid down my waist, coming to rest on the swell of my hip. He squeezed, then pulled me against him.

My insides turned to warm jelly. I could feel the power in him. He was like a magnet I couldn’t resist, drawing me inexorably towards him.

Then he stopped. And I didn’t want him to stop. He pulled back a bit, his face still filling my vision, his hands still on my cheek and my hip, his eyes fixed on mine. I could still feel the prickle of his stubble. I could feel my heartbeat in my lips.

I licked my lips. I wanted to look away from him, but I couldn’t. It was that magnetism.

“See?” he said, stroking the soft and delicate skin below my eye gently with the ball of his thumb.

My instinctual desires flared up again, and I could see. I could see myself letting go of my resistance, pushing him down onto that couch back there, the two of us tearing at each other’s clothes until there was nothing between our naked bodies.

I parted my lips to reply, but couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to say. Whether I wanted to tell him to kiss me again or to take his hands off me.

Ward’s eyes followed the movements of my lips, his jaw working. He swallowed heavily and I knew he wanted to kiss me again. His eyes moved to my hair, taking in the way it waved, the way the ends curled a little.

Then he pushed his fingers into my hair, threading them through my locks. He squeezed just enough to make me gasp, to make me throb inside.

“I’m going to kiss you again,” he said, his voice throaty and low. His fingers squeezed a little tighter in my hair, his other hand pulling me a little harder against his body.

He pursed his lips, wetting them. And then he came in for the kill. My heart palpitated again, leaving me hot and trembling all over.

My cell started chiming in my pocket. He tried ignoring it, but the sudden sound broke whatever charm or spell he had cast on me. I put my hands between our bodies and pushed.

His fingers slipped from my hair and he stumbled back a step before catching his balance.

I tugged my blouse straight, and then I turned away from him and pulled my cell out. I frowned at the phone then thumbed the answer button across the screen.

“Mary? What’s up?” I said.

“Oh, Quinn, I’m so happy I caught you. I wanted to catch you before you got home tonight but I haven’t seen you come in. Look, I’m really sorry, and this is such short notice, but can you watch the kids again tonight? I’m so sorry, but I really need to take this shift and it’s so last minute...”

I started cooling on the inside, the fog around my mind lifting. The fantasies of our two bodies pressed together on the couch receded. It felt good, like a return to normal. This was a problem I could solve, unlike the problem Vaughn Ward.

That problem twisted and changed every time I thought I had a handle on it.

“It’s okay, Mary. I’m over in Back Bay right now, but I’ll start home right away. I’ll be as fast as I can. And it’s not a problem. Not at all.”

Mary’s relief was palpable over the phone, the tension and worry leaving her voice. “You’re a lifesaver, really. And please, let me pay you this time.”

“How about you just send a few boxes of mac & cheese up with them and we’ll call it even? I have to replenish my stores.”

I should be paying you
, I wanted to say. She had no idea what sort of trouble she had just gotten me out of. The least I could do was look after Alex and Charlie for the night.

I could feel Vaughn standing behind me, feel his eyes on me. His confusion, like Mary’s relief, was palpable. And like Mary’s relief, I enjoyed it. “Just send them on up right now if you like. Alex knows where I keep my spare key. I’m sure they’ll be fine until I get there.”

Mary continued thanking me until I told her she shouldn’t waste any more time talking to me. I ended the call and slipped the phone back into my pocket.

“Did you enjoy that?” I asked him.

“Yes. Didn’t you?”

I didn’t answer his question. “Good. Because it’s never happening again.”

“Is there a problem?” Vaughn said. The concern in his voice sounded real, surprisingly. I had to give it to him, he was good at what he did.

And he’s a damn good kisser, too!
My lips still tingled. I wasn’t about to admit that, though.

“Nothing that can’t be solved with a box of mac & cheese,” I said. “And now I really am going. As far as I’m concerned, none of this ever happened.” I walked down the stairs, watching my hand slide along the banister.

V
AUGHN

I could still taste Quinn on my lips while I watched her walk down the stairs and disappear.

I thought about calling out to her, but knew that I shouldn’t. She liked doing the opposite of what I said, and asking her come to back now would just push her further away.

I rubbed my bottom lip with the tip of my finger, pulling my thoughts back to what it felt like to kiss her. I thought I’d gotten just a touch of that heat inside her, and it burned me.

My head was all sorts of messed up. A flurry of thoughts and desires blew through my mind, and all I could do was go sink into the wingback chair closest to the window.

I hadn’t really caught much of her phone conversation. I gathered someone had asked her for help and she jumped at the chance. Probably because she knew that I had her dead to rights. I had sensed that desire inside her, that need to move things up to the next level.

And now that she had denied me again, it made me want her even more.

I tried not to think about how it worried me that she made me feel the way she did. How every other time I’d felt that way about someone it never worked out. How I always managed to sabotage myself.

I smiled at the irony. I was rich and successful. A few magazines even thought I was handsome. And in spite of all that there was still something inside of me that was broken. Something that so many other people without my circumstances had.

And what was that about mac & cheese?
I couldn’t figure Quinn out, not completely, and I knew that made up good portion of my attraction to her. One of the things that drew me to her.

And I thought that maybe she experienced something similar with me, but that it was also one of the big reasons that made her push me away even in the middle of a kiss.

Maybe someone hurt her in the past? Someone that I reminded her of?
I wondered.

It was all too much to think about. Especially right now, what with my new app launch coming up. If anything, I should have all my efforts focused on that. I couldn’t, though.

Maybe I just need to get her out of my head,
I figured. That hadn’t gone so well earlier with that lingerie model earlier, but I could give it another try. There was that movie junket tonight.

Starlets and alcohol. The perfect way to get your mind off anything.

I grabbed my phone to find the details.

Q
UINN

I got back to my condo and found Alex and Charlie sitting on the floor between the couch and the TV, a
SpongeBob
episode playing on the screen.

“Hey, guys,” I said, feeling exhausted. It was like that kiss had burned me up on the inside, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, or him.

Is he thinking the same thing?
I wondered, followed by,
It doesn’t matter what he’s thinking about.

“Quinn!” the kids said, getting up when they saw me.

They stopped short, looking at me funny.

“What is it? Did I grow a second head?” I said.

They giggled. Then Alex took the lead, “You look pretty, Quinn. Like a girl.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Well, I am a girl. And are you saying I don’t look pretty normally? Because if you are, then you’re in for the tickling of a lifetime.”

“No!” Charlie said, laughing, “It’s your hair. It’s long. And pretty. What did you do to it?” She tugged at her own hair, which her mom kept trimmed to just below her chin. I recognized that look. I’d given it to older girls myself. That mix of awe and jealousy.

“Was it for a boy?” Alex broke in. He wrinkled his face at the thought. At his age, girls were still just cootie factories I suppose.

I looked down and saw my hair resting on my shoulders, still wavy, still a little curly at the end.

“That’s none of your business,” I said, winking at them. I felt self-conscious, so I excused myself and went to the bathroom.

I leaned over the vanity and looked at myself in the mirror. I guess my hair looked okay. But what was Ward playing at? I still had that nose. And those freckles. Big, soft eyes with eyebrows that always seemed too thick no matter how often I plucked at them.

Then I shoved my hand into my pocket and felt the bobby pins. The ones he’d pulled out and then offered to me.

I didn’t put them back in, but I did grab a hair elastic from the drawer on the left and used it to pull my hair into a ponytail.

I grabbed the pins from the vanity and looked at them against the pink skin of my palm.
What happened back there? What came over me?

Whatever it was, it had been a mistake. Something I couldn’t and wouldn’t let happen again. I tried to be an adult about it. I had to admit to myself that I found him physically attractive. There wasn’t anything wrong about that.

It was giving into that attraction that I shouldn’t let happen.

But I had experience with men who knew they were handsome and knew that women liked them. Experiences and pains I didn’t feel like reliving. I wanted to concentrate on my future, on my career, and on myself.

I’ll make sure we do everything over the phone or email.
The easiest way to get rid of temptation was to get rid of the object of that temptation. Ward and I had had our face-to-face meeting and that should be enough to satisfy the higher-ups back at the C&M.

I hoped.

“Quinn! Can we have something to eat?” Charlie called. I squeezed the bobby pins. I still felt confused. Nothing was resolved yet.

“Yeah, I’ll make something in a minute!” I called back. I liked having the kids here. They were a distraction, of course. But they also made me feel good. But eventually their mother would want them back. I wondered if maybe I should buy a cat.

I opened my fist and looked again at the pins.
It was a kiss, nothing more.
And it wouldn’t happen again. Ward was probably busy with another model by now anyway. Someone more suited to him. Basically, someone who was the opposite of me.

I pushed down on the pedal for the little metal trashcan I kept in the bathroom and tilted my palm over it until the pins fell down into the plastic bag.

***

I
was cautiously optimistic when I sat down at my desk the next day. Trish wasn’t there to badger me. There weren’t any intimidating emails from anyone with the ability to fire me.

And also nothing from Vaughn Ward. No news was good news, right? I congratulated myself, figuring that I got to him.

Now I could concentrate on the work. Last night while getting the kids ready for bed (I let them use my bed and I took the couch) I’d had an idea. I brought up one of the magazine stills.

Then Anne showed up. “Hey!” She gave me an expectant smile.

“Hi,” I said.

“So...?” Anne said, looking around my cubicle. She ran one finger along the false wall, tracing over my calendar as she walked around my desk to see what I was doing.

“I’m trying to think if I should change the wording a little,” I said.

Anne leaned over my chair and squinted at the ad. She nodded approvingly at the layout, which was her work.

“You know what? I don’t think you’ve ever been interested in more than the artwork before. What are you looking for?” I asked.

“You had another meeting with Vaughn Ward last night...”

“Yeah?”

“Just the two of you, alone in his house. Vaughn Ward, the 17
^th
sexiest person alive, and you, alone.”

Yeah, and I can still feel the prickle of his stubble on my lips,
I thought, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “So, what?”

“So,
details
, of course! Come on, you can kiss and tell with me!” Anne said, grabbing the back of my chair and giving it a little bit of a shake.

“Who said anything about kissing?” I said, my throat tightening. “It was a business meeting. A consultation.”

Anne went still behind me. I could sense the inner workings of her mind, trying to figure out what my tone meant. “Was there kissing?”

“There was coffee. He made me coffee. A latte, actually,” I said. It had been a good one, too. I thought about how I’d remarked to him how surprised I was he could do that sort of thing himself. And then how he said he liked surprising me.

“He made it himself? Like with his own hands?”

“Yes, Anne, he ground the beans between his fists and used his own inherent hotness to steam the milk.”

“You know what I mean!” she said, giving my shoulder a playful swat. We both laughed. I knew I should tell her that I needed to work (because I wanted this over with as quickly as possible) but it felt good to gab a bit.

“Yeah, sorry. Yes, he made it himself, he didn’t order it or anything. I just can’t figure him out,” I said, turning a bit in my chair so that I didn’t have to crane my neck all the way around to look at her.

“Do you want him to kiss you?” Anne asked.

“What sort of question is that?”

“An honest one.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t. He’s just another flirt who thinks he can get any woman he wants. He just happens to be incredibly wealthy and handsome, too.”

“Is he ever!” Anne started gushing. She actually clasped her hands to her chest. She walked back around to the front of my desk and stared dreamily up at the tiles in the drop ceiling, as though Ward’s angelic face might deign to look down on her.

“Have you been doing more
research
on him?” I said, wondering how much time she’d spent last night going through gossip sites and Google image searches.