Insatiable (10 page)

She‟d checked. Repeatedly.

“Probably too busy with his new friend,” she muttered, reaching for her lipstick.

Then again, if the reason he‟d been so cold to her today was because of Ryan, how come he hadn‟t acted more, well,
jealous
? Though she hated admitting it, the hot, possessive expression that had overtaken his face as she‟d told him she was going to see Ryan had thrilled her in some sick way.

Thrilled her a little, and turned her on more.

She tied the sash of her short, flirty costume and angled her chin, making sure the artful arrangement of curls on top of her head wouldn‟t come loose. Then she picked up her miniscule evening bag and her eerily silent cell phone to head for the door of her suite.

When the phone finally gave in and rang, she grinned. Had to be Shawn. Who else could it be?

“Hey. I wondered what you were up to.”

“I appreciate an attentive female.” Acute disappointment registered at the sound of Ryan‟s voice. “In fact, I like this particular attentive female so much, I think she should be my date tonight.”

“What happened to Colleen?”

Ryan cleared his throat. “Her boyfriend had already made plans for them, apparently.”

“Ouch. So she‟s as trustworthy as you.”

He chuckled. “No harm, no foul. What do you say?”

She nearly said no. Nearly. Then she remembered Shawn and his pigtailed strumpet, and her eyes narrowed. “I say pick me up in fifteen.”

“Make it twenty and you‟re on.”

“Works for me.” She tried to smile, surprised that the expression felt false.

Hadn‟t she come here for the very purpose of reuniting with Ryan? “See you soon.”

She closed the door of her suite and took a slow, deep breath. It‟d be a hell of a thing to gain one friend on this trip, only to lose another.

The only one that mattered.

* * *

Well aware many of the members of the publishing world‟s glitterati would be in attendance, the Wheaton Suites and Conference Center had pulled out all the Insatiable

49

stops for the Zenith gala. The grand ballroom had been done in soft whites and strident purples, and a live band played onstage. Wineglasses tinkled as conversation and laughter flowed, while chandeliers dripped light over the sea of deliciously sexy—and in some cases, hardly dressed—sprites, fairies, and maidens.

But as Shawn surveyed the crowd from behind his own claustrophobic eye mask, he looked for only one scrumptiously sexy woman. Regrettably, it wasn‟t his date.

Chrissy had wandered off some time ago in search of her colleagues from Zenith‟s graphics department. She‟d gathered quickly Shawn was preoccupied and hadn‟t pushed, but when he‟d seen her animated blue eyes shutter as a hulking Spiderman strode past, he‟d pried out her tale of woe.

Spidey had dumped her a couple days ago for the nubile Marilyn Monroe currently on his arm. Marilyn was Zenith‟s star designer, and she knew her way around more than just Photoshop, judging from the tongue-heavy kiss Shawn had witnessed between her and her superhero moments ago.

He was glad Chrissy hadn‟t seen it, though he half-wondered if maybe she wouldn‟t benefit from some painful shock immersion therapy to get over her futile obsession. After all, who would know better than a fellow obsessee?

Then Rachel walked into the room, her short geisha girl outfit revealing a mile and a half of leg, and his muscles locked as if he were a wolf that had just scented its mate.

She wasn‟t the most beautiful woman in the crowd. Wasn‟t the most alluring or even the most striking. But to him, she was the only.

She paused just inside the doorway, tossing back the springy dark curls that kept tumbling into her eyes as she scanned the room. Even as Shawn‟s heart leaped for one ridiculous moment, Ryan sidled up beside her in his terribly unoriginal Dracula costume and wrapped his arm around her waist.

Shawn turned his head away. “Great plan, Dad,” he said under his breath, knocking back his martini in two swallows. She didn‟t care
he
hadn‟t contacted her today, not when the man of the hour was at her side.

The clutch of people nearest the door erupted into cheers and applause at Ryan‟s entrance. Soon, he was swept away into the champagne spritzer-proffering throng. But Rachel stayed behind, wearing a smile as blank and emotionless as a pane of glass.

Shawn forced himself to release his death grip on his drink. Ryan wouldn‟t know she was putting on her game face, that she clearly wanted to be anywhere but here. He wouldn‟t know that, because he didn‟t know her. But
he
did.

He didn‟t take a bolstering breath as he unfolded himself from his chair. He didn‟t need it. For the first time since he‟d hatched this crazy plan, he knew what to do.

Each measured step that brought him closer to her made his heart bump against his chest in expectation. She didn‟t notice his approach, because she‟d turned to accept a glass of champagne from a waiter. When he was a held breath 50

Cari Quinn

away, Rachel shifted, her smoky gaze cutting through the milling guests to fasten onto his as if no one else existed.

Awareness zinged between them, as tangible as the heat cascading off her body. He saw her lips part, heard some combination of syllables fall forth that hit his fogged brain as no more than a senseless jumble. Then she whirled around and disappeared into the crowd, leaving her summery scent to twine around him as he fought his way toward the exit.

* * *

Or screaming in sheer pent-up frustration.

None of this made sense. She‟d known Shawn all her life, and until two days ago, she‟d believed, perhaps naively, that she understood him better than anyone.

She knew what to buy him for his birthday—books on architecture or a gift certificate to his favorite art store, so he could buy his preferred brand of sketch pads and blue pencils—and how to make his favorite kind of peanut butter sandwich, with strawberry jelly
and
banana on extra-dark toast. But she didn‟t know this dangerously tempting man who‟d just stared at her as if he wanted to swallow her in one greedy, finger-licking gulp.

And she‟d wanted him to. With every fiber of her being, she‟d wanted to give herself to him right then and there.

Once she reached the center of the courtyard, she sank onto a wrought-iron bench. Would he come? If he didn‟t, how would she find the reserves to walk back inside alone?

She sensed the moment he appeared in the doorway. Her fingers twisted around her bag, and she took a breath, surprised air still flowed through the tight walls of her chest.

He‟d begun to approach when her cell went off in her hand. The spell broken, she glanced down and saw Ryan‟s name.

“Don‟t answer it.”

Rachel tried to come up with a glib response to Shawn‟s hoarse command, but she‟d been struck dumb. He looked so gorgeous in unrelieved black, with that strangely prim, white ruffled shirt peeking out between the lapels of his long suit coat. Though his eye mask shielded half his face, the lights lining the winding pathways glowed in the deep green of his eyes and gilded his silky hair. And his lips—full, aristocratic, and in perfect accord with his costume—summoned urges she‟d never imagined feeling in his direction.

In this quaint, idyllic setting, with the wind rustling through the leafy green canopy above their heads and the moonlit darkness an enveloping cocoon, Shawn wasn‟t her friend. He was her ideal lover, here to do her bidding.

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To be her fantasy.

Rising, she took a step forward. He didn‟t move as she shortened the distance between them, but his eyes stayed on hers, daring her.

Gonna run? Or do you have the guts to stay?

She shouldn‟t. Giving in to lust—or whatever the hell this was—was wrong when a friendship was on the line. Wasn‟t it?

“No.”

His features hardened, as if he perceived her whisper as a rebuff. Before he could speak, her hands snagged in his hair to drag his mouth down to hers.

If he was surprised, no jolt reverberated through the rip-cord tension of his body, nor did she sense any hesitation in the slow, persuasive licks of his tongue.

What she felt was heat. Thick, drenching waves of it.

She explored his mouth, her yearning for his taste growing more crazed with each second. Mixed with the flavor that was uniquely his own, she picked up his preferred vodka on his tongue. And olives.

Of course. Because she hadn‟t been with him to steal them.

Even as her heart warmed, his hands cupped her head in a mirror of her pose.

Pins pinged on the sidewalk as he loosened her curls, his fingers tearing apart each carefully looped strand with the glee of a toddler wrecking a sandcastle.

Rachel didn‟t stop him. She couldn‟t. Reflected in his eyes, she saw herself, and what they could be together. Even if that scared her like hell.

As if he knew his way around her body already, he lifted her hair to skim his fingers down the side of her neck, somehow zeroing in on the one spot just above her shoulder that always weakened her knees. Her startled moan broke the tranquil stillness of the empty courtyard, shocking her, but she kept right on kissing him.

At this point, only death could pry her lips from his.

When his hands sought the tie of her robe, her mind shrieked that she wore only a thin chemise and panties beneath, but she voiced no objection. Had he pulled her down onto the concrete and driven into her, she would‟ve done nothing but thank God.

She‟d wanted men in the past. Lusted after them certainly. But she‟d never experienced this soul-searing need to be
possessed
by one. By Shawn.

He flicked her nipples through the silk of her chemise almost casually, as if he knew the firestorm the gesture would cause and wanted to watch her implode.

Indulging him, she tipped her head back, reclining like a supplicant in his arms until the trailing ends of her hair brushed the backs of her thighs.

“Shawn…” His name was a silky moan.

The cloud-smothered crescent moon flashed in the periphery of her vision as his teeth skimmed her collarbone. Then, with aching patience, he dipped the tip of his tongue into the hollow, mimicking what she yearned for him to do with his body.

52

Cari Quinn

She wanted to do it here, in the courtyard of one of the city‟s most exclusive hotels while publishing industry bigwigs danced only yards away. Where her date, and likely his, waited for them to return.

This was wrong. It had to be. But why did it feel so right?

Before she could tell him exactly what she had in mind—though she figured undulating her hips against his impossibly hard cock was a pretty good signal—

Shawn drew her up, catching her as she misstepped on her precipitously high heels.

When he clasped her hand to lead her up the path, sweat broke out on her lower back. “Don‟t even
think
you‟re stopping now, Griffin.”

Without replying, he led her around the side of the hotel, past a burbling fountain lit by crisscrossing multicolored streams of light. Laughter and voices reverberated on the breeze as they came to a halt in a shadowy alcove, but in this patch of darkness, no one could see them.

Not that she would‟ve cared.

He hitched her legs onto his waist and bared her breast to his mouth in one lightning-quick move. Though his easy strength had always alternately annoyed and impressed her, that he could simultaneously pin her shoulder blades against the cool granite and ravage her burning skin with teeth, tongue, and lips only added another thrill. She struggled to grip both her purse and him, hating that she couldn‟t do more than rake her nails down his shoulders. From his harsh pants every time her hips rocked against his, he obviously had no complaints.

Rachel bowed to his mouth again and again, helpless to hold back her cries as he seized one painfully erect nipple. Her fingers tangled in his hair, holding him against her while his tongue swirled around the peak. Abruptly, he changed the angle of his erotic kiss, drawing on her so hard she had to cut off a scream.

Liquid desire coursed through her veins. In a second, she‟d be begging him to take her, and she‟d never begged in her life.

Shawn‟s head lifted, a groan slipping from him as her eager fingers fumbled between them for his zipper. She had trouble reaching it, so he jiggled her until he could. One more thing she could add to the file of stuff she hadn‟t known about her best friend: he was amazingly dexterous.

And thank the Lord for that.

She gasped as his cock nestled into the liquid warmth soaking her panties. Her pussy ached for his hard length almost as much as she‟d missed him during this ridiculously long day. But the hours apart fell away when he gave her one of those grins that lit up her heart like Christmas. The wicked curve of his lips teased her own smile free, though the darkness prevented her from seeing his eyes behind his mask.

Would he leave that on when they…

Yes, she realized a moment later as he started to release her so he could withdraw his wallet.

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“Wait.” Unwilling to unclench her thighs from his waist for even a moment, she uncinched the drawstring of her purse to pull out a condom.