The Mighty Quinns: Kellan (6 page)

Gelsey smiled to herself and snuggled a little closer. She didn’t need to hear anything else. She had another day and maybe another night to spend in this world, with this man. And that was all she really wanted.

“You can’t resist me forever,” she said.

“I can’t?”

“No,” she whispered. There’d come a moment when he’d ache for the touch of her hand or the feel of her mouth on his body. And then, she’d give him what he’d given her…sweet, shattering release. And after that—they’d see what happened. Right now, the possibilities seemed endless.

KELLAN ROLLED OVER in bed, stretching his arms over his head. His legs were tangled in the bed linens and he kicked them aside, then reached out to Gelsey. But the opposite side of the bed was cold and empty. He sat up and drew a deep breath. The soft sound of her voice drifted in through the open door. It sounded as if she was talking on the phone.

Kellan glanced over at the clock on the bedside table. It was just past 5:00 a.m. and dawn was still hours away. Swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, Kellan stood and tiptoed to the door. A floorboard creaked beneath his feet and he paused, waiting to see if she’d noticed.

“Really,” Gelsey whispered. “I’m fine. I’m safe. I’m with friends. I just didn’t want you to worry.”

After a long silence, she spoke again. “Yes, I have everything I need for now.”

Who was she speaking to? It sounded like a parent. But maybe it was a boyfriend. Or a husband.

“I—I lost my mobile,” Gelsey said. “If Antonio calls again, tell him…tell him that…” She cursed softly. “Just put him off. Don’t tell him anything.” She paused again. “All right. I know you do. Take care.”

He heard her set the phone back into the cradle. By the time she returned to the bed, his eyes were closed and the sheets pulled up around his waist. She sank down beside him and a moment later, he felt the warmth from her naked body against his. Kellan wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled his face into the curve of her neck.

“Are you awake?” she whispered.

“I wasn’t…until now. Where were you?”

“Bathroom,” she lied. Gelsey shuddered and wriggled back against him, her backside nestled into his lap. “I’m so cold. I just can’t seem to stay warm.”

It was a blatant invitation to touch her, to run his hands over her bare skin. Kellan considered his options. Why even bother to resist, he mused. She was offering herself to him without any conditions. Why not enjoy her company while she was here? He reached out and smoothed his hand over her shoulder, pushing her hair aside until he could kiss the curve of her neck.

The warmth of his lips on her skin was enough to get him aroused again, enough to make him forget all his doubts about who she was and where she came from. In truth, the mystery about this woman made it even more exciting, more dangerous.

She turned to face him and almost immediately, her mouth found his. She kissed him without any hesitation, her tongue tangling with his as he pulled her beneath his naked body. Everything about her was perfect, her long, slender limbs, her pale silken skin, the addictive taste of her lips….

Kellan groaned as she slid her leg up along his hip, his growing erection cradled at the juncture of her thighs. It would be so simple to just slip inside her and he ached to join in this way, to share such an intimate connection.

He hadn’t planned on unplanned sex. Part of the reason he’d focused on her earlier was that he wasn’t really sure he had any condoms with him. He usually kept a box in the side pocket of his duffel, but he’d put his emptied bag in the boot of his car to get it out of the way.

Gelsey pressed her palm to his chest. Kellan was sure she could feel his heart slamming against it. He’d always had such control around women, trying to figure out what they wanted, and what he was willing to surrender to get what he wanted. It was like a chess game, only with naked bodies and unsatisfied desires.

But he didn’t want to think now. He just wanted to feel. And when Gelsey ran her palm between them, then wrapped her fingers around his shaft, Kellan closed his eyes and groaned. He didn’t know anything about her, except her name. And one other thing. She could make his body ache like no other women ever had.

“I need to go get a condom,” he murmured.

“You don’t keep them in the bedroom?”

“They’re in my duffel. I think.”

“Where is your duffel?”

“In my car.” Cursing softly, Kellan crawled out of bed. This would no doubt prove to her that he wasn’t the smoothest guy on the planet.

“Aren’t you going to put some clothes on?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. That will take too long. I’m just going to make a run for it.” Kellan hurried to the front door, grabbing his keys from the table as he passed. With a squeal of excitement, Gelsey followed him, tugging the quilt off the bed and wrapping it around them both.

“You don’t have to come with me,” he said. “It’s freezing out there.”

He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her body against his, kissing her deeply as his hand skimmed over her bare torso. When they finally pulled the front door open, a cold, wet wind hit them both in the face. Gelsey covered him with the blanket and stood in the doorway, naked and shivering. “Run,” she cried. “Hurry.”

Drawing a deep breath, Kellan started down the garden path. The bricks were freezing and slick under his feet and by the time he reached his car, he was already soaked. Fumbling with the keys, he tried to keep the quilt wrapped around himself, but a gust caught it and exposed his nude body to the full brunt of the storm.

When he reached the front door, duffel in his hand, Gelsey was waiting with a towel. She rubbed the rain from his face and hair, then slammed the door shut and gently pulled him along to the fireplace.

“It’s bloody cold out there.”

“You’re stark naked,” she said with a giggle. “What did you expect?”

He glanced down. “I think I’ve done irreparable damage to my manhood.”

Gelsey looked up at him, sending him a coy smile. “I can take care of that.”

As she continued to dry him off, he reached out and cupped her cheek in his palm. “Who are you? What are you doing here with me?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “But I do know that I don’t want to leave yet.”

He brought her lips to his and kissed her, a rush of warmth snaking through his body. It wasn’t enough to possess only her mouth. Kellan pulled her against him, stumbling back against the door and dropping the leather duffel.

Grabbing her hips, he spun them around and pressed her against the door. Gelsey slipped her hand between them and slowly began to stroke. She’d been right all along. She had a very simple antidote for the cold. In little more than a minute, he was hard and ready and aching to bury himself in her warmth.

Outside, the weather raged, the wind roaring up from the sea and the rain pelting at the windowpanes. But inside the cottage, they found the storm between them just as powerful and overwhelming.

Kellan’s mouth savaged Gelsey’s and he felt himself losing all sense of control. The last time had been gentle and slow, but this time he didn’t want to wait. For Kellan, there was no longer any point in pretending. Since he’d held her body against his on the beach, he’d known this moment would come. It felt as if he’d been waiting for this his entire adult life—waiting for a woman who could make him feel real raw passion.

“Condom,” he murmured.

She reached down and picked up his duffel and he rummaged through it until he found the box. Saying a silent prayer that it wasn’t empty, Kellan opened it. A single foil packet fell into his palm. “Stroke of luck there,” he murmured.

Gelsey grabbed the packet and tore it open, then quickly sheathed him. She drew him along to the sofa, then pushed him down, straddling his hips with her knees. Gently, she guided him inside her. He wanted to slow down, to just take a moment and enjoy the anticipation. But the instant he felt her warmth close around him, Kellan was lost. He held his breath, marshaling his control, trying to fix his mind on something other than the woman above him.

Programs, he thought to himself. He had to do those damn wedding programs. Ribbon and little red jewels, Nan had said. He didn’t know what the hell she’d been talking about, but as long as he focused on his brother’s wedding plans, he’d be all right.

“Do you want me to move?” she whispered, her words soft against his ear.

“No,” he said.

“It works better if I move.”

He leaned back and found her smiling down at him. “I know. I have done this before.”

“Really? It’s hard to tell.”

Chuckling softly, he clasped her hips and moved. “Better?”

“Do it again,” she said with a laugh.

He did as she asked and she groaned softly. “See how good that feels?”

She leaned over him and touched her lips to his. “You were right,” she whispered.

“About what?”

“You
are
very good at this.”

3

GELSEY SNUGGLED into the soft covers of the bed. It was still warm with the heat from Kellan’s body, even though he’d gotten up an hour before. She was beginning to feel almost normal and attributed part of that to the passionate interlude she’d shared with her rescuer.

Sex had always been an important part of Gelsey’s life, but never for the right reasons. According to a long string of therapists, she used sex to create a false sense of security, the security she’d never enjoyed as a child.

Her early childhood had been spent with her nanny, Marie, a wonderful Frenchwoman who had been more of a mother than Dorothy Trent Woodson had ever been. And Gelsey had been happy with that life, even if she rarely spent time with her parents.

But after the divorce, Marie had been sent away, there one day and gone the next. And Gelsey had been packed and shipped off to a Swiss boarding school, a place where she was to be well educated and carefully prepared to take her place in society as some billionaire’s charming wife.

At first, she’d accepted her fate and done her best at school. But then, she’d discovered boys. And along with boys came a sense of exhilarating freedom. There was nothing to stop her from living her life exactly how she chose. That first spontaneous kiss with Kellan had been just the start of her pursuit of pleasure.

Thinking back on it, it had been a terribly bold move on her part. But her grandmother had always told her that if she wanted to be happy, she had to grab happiness wherever she could find it. At that moment in time, Kellan had represented everything that was wonderful about life.

She’d watched him and his brothers from afar, hidden behind the rocks on the cliff. He’d been the one she’d fashioned her silly schoolgirl dreams around, the dark, brooding, handsome boy with the pale blue eyes and the confident air about him.

He’d been her first, but he hadn’t been her last. Schoolgirl fantasies gave way to teenage realities. Once back in Switzerland, she’d begun to sneak out after curfew. A few years later, there were ski weekends with college boys, older brothers of her schoolmates. She quickly learned to use her sex appeal to get whatever she wanted from handsome men.

After being kicked out of one boarding school, her parents sent her to another and another. It was then she discovered that bad behavior was all it took to get attention from her parents.

Prep school was followed by university. She headed for Paris and studied art history at the Sorbonne, cooking at Le Cordon Bleu and apprenticed as a designer at Studio Berçot. Then she gained access to her trust fund and her life as a celebutante began.

Gelsey sighed and pulled the covers over her head. She was so tired of that life, completely exhausted playing the role she’d created for herself. The men, the money, the parties. It had all become a giant, crashing bore. And now she’d found an escape, a place to breathe, to take stock of the future and put her past behind her.

To the rest of the world, she was Gigi Woodson. She dated famous athletes and gorgeous male models and sexy actors. She moved from one man to another whenever she grew bored or restless. And every now and then, she got so drunk that she did something that landed her in the tabloids. But here, on the western coast of Ireland, she was a stranger without a past.

Very few people knew her well. Her parents had never bothered to try. But her grandmother had always been able to see inside her heart and say the words that made her feel loved and cherished. It had been the only truly good thing she’d remembered from her childhood. Gelsey felt emotion tighten her throat and she fought back the tears. If only her grandmother were here now, to help her through, to reassure her.

A knock sounded at the front door and Gelsey pushed up, bracing her hand beneath her. She raked her tousled hair out of her eyes and searched around for something to wear. The sweatshirt that Kellan had given her the night before was draped over the bedpost. She grabbed it and pulled it over her head, then tugged on his boxer shorts.

The house was warmer, a fresh peat fire burning in the hearth and the little space heater humming away in the corner. She pulled the door open expecting to see Kellan, his arms overloaded with breakfast. But two women were standing outside, friendly smiles pasted on their faces.