Um, because you need to get laid.
Just agree to whatever, you can worry
about the details later.
“I’d love that.” He slid deeper. “And
how about being my date for Alex’s
wedding?”
Oh God, really? The wedding?
“Yes!” I cried out as finally gave me
what I wanted, pushing so far I felt that
sharp twinge deep within, the harbinger
of a seriously fucking good orgasm.
Deliriously happy, I held him to me,
delighted with the ragged breaths that
escaped him as he moved, ecstatic that
the fit was such perfection, and goddamn
jubilant over the fact that not only did
Quinn have a huge, hard cock but he
knew what to do with it. I’d been with
one or two guys in the past who had a
nice big drill but no clue how to use it
once it was plugged in.
Quinn was fucking magnificent.
Maybe it was because he worked out
so much and had such a strong core, but
he moved in ways I’d never
experienced. His body undulated over
mine in rippling waves, and he rocked
into me with a tight, steady rhythm that
had me spiraling toward my climax in
record time, even for me. I moved
beneath him, matching his strokes, our
bodies becoming slick with sweat. My
hands were everywhere—his back, his
shoulders, his ass, his abs. I gasped and
clawed and panted, racing toward the
finish, and the more frantically I moved,
the harder he fucked me.
“Yes,” I rasped in his ear. “I love it
hard like that. You’re so
fucking
good,
Quinn. Your cock feels
so fucking
good
.”
“Christ,” he growled. “You’re gonna
make me come right now if you keep
talking like that.”
“Now!” I demanded, the tension in
me coiled too tight to last any longer.
“Fuck yes, do it!”
He cursed and drove into me even
deeper, and everything inside me burst
wide open. I held him tight to me as his
body went plank stiff, color and light
exploding behind my closed eyes as my
pussy pulsed around his throbbing cock.
And didn’t stop, didn’t stop, didn’t
stop.
Every time I thought it was fading,
I’d feel him twitch inside me once more,
and my body would shudder with
aftershocks.
“Jesus,” he finally said.
My face was buried under his chest,
my hands stuck to his ass. I peeled them
off. “I think my handprints might be
permanently seared on your butt.”
“Well then, we’d be even.”
I giggled.
“What’s funny?”
“You. Spanking me like that.”
“I can’t be the first guy to do it.
You’re terribly naughty.”
“You are the first, actually.”
He propped himself up on his hands
and looked down at me. How the fuck
was his hair still perfect? “Really?”
“Really.” My heartbeat, which had
been in the process of slowing down,
suddenly began to gallop again when I
looked up at his face.
To be honest, I wasn’t entirely
comfortable with it.
“Let me up. I can’t breathe,” I said,
wriggling beneath him.
“Sorry.” He pulled out carefully and
stood up. “I’ll be right back.”
While he was in the bathroom, I
rolled off the bed, scooped up my
clothes from the floor, and headed to the
other bathroom. After cleaning up a
little, I got dressed and congratulated
myself on a job well done. The snooping
mission had been a bit of a debacle, but
since the big picture goal had always
been to get him in bed, this felt like a
victory to me.
A sweet, sticky victory.
Smiling, I went back into the
bedroom, where Quinn was pulling his
shirt over his head. At the sight of his
bare stomach and chest, my stomach did
this little fliparoo thing that annoyed me.
I need to get the hell out of here.
Except wait…hadn’t I promised him
some sort of date or something? He
hadn’t meant tonight, had he? Crap. I
didn’t want to go anywhere with him
tonight. Besides, the weather was awful.
“Look at all that snow,” I said
purposefully. Quinn had opened the
blinds and although it was five o’clock
and getting dark, I could see it coming
down like mad. I walked over to the
window and looked out over white-
blanketed rooftops. “It’s like a
blizzard!”
“It is.” Quinn came up behind me
and nudged me in the back. “You better
stay here tonight. The roads will be
bad.”
I smirked at him over my shoulder. “I
live upstairs, remember?”
“Oh yeah.”
I faced him. “Plus I don’t do
sleepovers. It’s a rule.”
His eyebrows went up. “There are
rules?”
“Yes. But I agree the roads will be
bad. Was your class canceled tonight or
something?”
He grinned. “You know my
schedule?”
“No.” My cheeks started to tingle,
which meant they were getting red. “Not
your
whole
schedule.” I moved around
him, heading for the door. “I’m just very
observant, and I’ve noticed when you
come and go. I assumed it was a class.”
He followed me out of his room.
“Aha. Well, anyway, yes, it was
canceled, so I’m in for the night. What
about you? Did you take the day off?”
“Yes.”
“And did you have any plans besides
observing me in my natural habitat from
your hidey hole in my closet?”
We’d reached the living room, and I
whirled around to face him, hands on my
hips. “For the last time, I wasn’t
spying!”
“OK, OK.” He held up his hands in
surrender. “Relax. I forgot—you were
just curious.”
“Exactly.”
“So has your curiosity been
satisfied, or would you like to know if
I’m a good cook? I was thinking of
making a pizza. Want to stay for dinner?”
I’d been planning on going up to my
apartment—I wasn’t one to linger after
sex, unless a repeat performance was on
the immediate horizon—but pizza
sounded pretty good. Quickly I weighed
my love for good pizza against my
dislike for post-sex chatter. At that
moment, my stomach growled, making
the decision slightly easier. “OK. I’ll
stay for pizza.”
For pizza, not for you,
get it?
He smiled. “Good. We can talk about
our dates.”
“Dates? As in plural? I thought it
was just one.”
“Well, there’s the one first date. And
then you said I could meet your friends,
and then there’s the wedding. So
that’s…” He counted on his fingers.
“That’s like three dates.”
My eyelid twitched. “Do you have
any wine?”
“No.”
I moved for the door. “I’ll be right
back.”
NINE
QUINN
WHILE JAIME RAN upstairs for a
bottle of wine, I opened my laptop, put
on some music, and started taking out the
ingredients to make pizza. When I was
working a lot, I never ate things like
pizza¸ but it was something I really
enjoyed making and eating now that I
didn’t have to be so strict about my diet.
I even had a pizza peel and stone so I
could do it right, and I’d grabbed my
kitchen boxes out of storage last week so
I could cook for myself again. Hotel
living was horrible that way.
I pulled out yeast, flour, sugar, sea
salt, and olive oil, setting them on the
counter. Next, I found a mixing bowl and
liquid measuring cup in a cupboard and
ran the tap to warm up the water.
I couldn’t stop smiling.
When was the last time I’d felt this
happy? Before my mom died? I couldn’t
even remember. In general, I was an
upbeat person who managed to find
silver linings and didn’t tend to fret over
things I couldn’t change, but it had been
a while since I’d felt this good. Was it
because I hadn’t had sex in months and
had broken a rare dry spell? Or was it
her?
I thought about it as I whisked
together the dry ingredients, then added
the water and olive oil. I’d figured sex
would be good with her—not only was
she smoking hot and temperamental, but
we’d wanted it for so long—what I
hadn’t counted on was how much fun it
would be. How much I’d enjoy the
challenge of her. How much I was
hoping she’d want to do it again later
tonight (and for fuck’s sake, let me take
some time with it…there were all sorts
of ways I wanted to please her), and then
again in the morning before she left for
work.
Of course, that was before I knew
about her No Sleepover rule. I’d have to
work on that, but not tonight. She’d only
turn me down, and I’d learned it was
better to let her come looking for things.
Shaking my head, I laughed out loud
thinking about the way I’d discovered
her in the closet. It was so ridiculous.
No complaints about where it went after
that, though.
Jaime appeared in the kitchen
doorway a few minutes later, a bottle of
wine in her hands and an amused
expression on her face. “From the
sounds coming through the floor up
there, I thought maybe the ghost of Prince
was down here cooking me dinner.”
“Alas. It’s only me.” I wiped my
hands, crossed myself, and glanced
skyward before turning the volume
down. “Rest in peace, brother.”
She opened a drawer and looked in.
“Oh good, you do have a corkscrew,”
she said, pulling it out. “I couldn’t
remember if there was one here.”
“How come so much stuff was left
when the former tenant moved out?” I
grabbed the biggest bowl I had and
greased it with olive oil.
“She found a job in London, where
her boyfriend was, and moved in with
him, poor girl. She didn’t want to take
all this stuff since she knew she
wouldn’t need it, so we said it was OK
to leave things.” She uncorked the bottle
and poured red wine into two glasses.
“Once she was gone, I came in and
cleaned and organized everything. I’m
glad it worked out for you.”
“Me too.” I put the dough in the bowl
and covered it with a towel. “I only had
to take a few boxes from storage. God, I
missed having a kitchen.”
“So you’re a good cook, huh?” she
asked, handing me a glass.
I shrugged. “I’m OK. My mom taught
me a few things growing up, and while
she lived with me in L.A. we’d cook
together when she felt up to it. Not that
she ate much.”
“Your mom was a great cook.”
“She was.” I took a drink. “Want to
go sit down? We need to let the dough
rise for a while.”
“OK.” She followed me into the
living room, where we settled next to
each other on the couch. The curtains
were open, and we both stared out at the
snow for a moment.
“My mom actually liked winter,” I
said. “It’s one of the reasons she never
wanted to move away from here.”
“You must miss her.”
“Every day,” I said. “I feel like I
didn’t get enough time with her, you
know? It’s like, when you’re young, you
can’t wait to get away from home, and
it’s only later that you appreciate what
your mom—or dad, or whoever raised
you—did for you. Only later that you
realize you should have listened closer,
that you weren’t done learning from
them, that you still have questions about
life.”
She nodded, looking over at me.
“What would you ask her now if you
could?”
“More about her life—her childhood
growing up in Hamtramck, what it was
like being the daughter of immigrants,
why she waited so long to get married
and start a family. She was over forty
when she had me, which I didn’t ever
think about before, probably because
anything over twenty-five seemed
fucking ancient anyway, but now I
wonder about it. And when my father left
her alone with a baby, what was that like
for her?” I took another drink before
going on. I’d never said these things out
loud before, but it felt good, actually.
“Was she angry? Hurt? Did she miss
him? She never talked about him, and I
had zero memories of him, of course, so
it wasn’t as if I missed him and asked
questions. But what was he like? What
made her fall in love with him?”
“I bet he was handsome.” She said it
nicely, possibly the only reference she’d
ever made to my looks without making
fun. “He must have been.”
“Maybe. Guess we’ll never know,
since there are no pictures.”
“Really? Are you sure about that?”
I shrugged. “None that I ever saw. I
haven’t gone through every single box in
the attic, so I guess it’s possible, but