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Unfortunately, that accusation was the one thing Oliver could never forgive. He and his wife, Katherine, could not have children of their own. Jarrod and Matt were adopted.
“Nice bloke,” Quinn said, an edge to his voice.
“You have to remember that he’d lost a son,” Dani countered. “And whatever rumours you’ve heard about his womanising, Mum says he really loved Auntie Ursula. It can’t have been much fun watching her struggle with depression.”
Quinn didn’t look impressed or moved. Whatever had gone down with him and Howard must have been spectacular. She sighed. “I don’t get it, Quinn. Matt has a legitimate right to be angry, especially after the past few months. But your little spat was years ago. I wonder, why do you hate his guts still, even after his death?”
“Curiosity killed the cat.” His tone was cool.
It had to be more than just the diamond-association vote, Dani reasoned. Quinn was a very successful broker, one of the most prominent in the world. She refused to believe that he still held a grudge because Howard had made life a little difficult for him years ago. “You know, your dislike of Howard borders on obsession.”
He cocked a cynical brow. “That so?”
“It’s too personal. What did he do? Take a woman from you?”
His bark of laughter rang out, startling her.
“Professional jealousy?” she guessed.
Or maybe she was needling, trying to pick a fight. Trying to find some external conflict to justify the internal conflict of wanting him. “He beat you to the deal of a lifetime?”
Quinn’s brows knitted together. “Howard Blackstone never beat me at anything.”
“Or maybe you’ve heard the stories and decided that you are the missing Blackstone heir.” She was joking, of course, even knowing it was a terrible thing to joke about.
Howard alone always had faith that his firstborn, James, would walk through the door one day. He’d never closed the investigation and must have had a strong lead just before he died, because he changed his will. The new will effectively cut Kimberley out, favouring instead his oldest son, James should he be found within six months of Howard’s death.
Naturally the press enjoyed this extra twist to the ever-changing, always-enthralling saga of the Blackstone family. Several candidates had been discussed and discarded over the past months, including Jarrod Hammond, Matt’s brother. You had to hand it to Howard, she thought with a spark of admiration. He sure knew how to keep the paparazzi guessing.
Just like Quinn kept her guessing, mostly about how long it would be before she gave in to an unusually severe case of the hots … Reining in her errant thoughts, she returned to the topic of the missing heir. “Let’s see, you’d be about the right age, mid-thirties. And I heard somewhere that you’d grown up in a foster home.”
He spread out his fingers on his thigh, snagging her gaze for a moment. Tension curled his fingertips around his muscled leg, tension that radiated toward her in a hot cloud. Dani tore her eyes away and braved a look at his face, hearing the waves just a few metres away as if they were sloshing against her ribs.
Quinn gave no sign that he agreed or disagreed, but a rising sense of incomprehensible excitement pushed the next words from her mouth. “What, did you go to him with your theory and he laughed you out of the room?”
He stilled for a long moment, then slapped one hand on the log right beside her leg and heaved to his feet, turning to loom over her. The smell of him, sweat and soap and desire, swamped her. Then his other hand slammed down on the log on her other side.
She was trapped.
His face descended quickly to within an inch of hers, so close she could almost feel the scrape of his morning beard.
“You’ve got it very wrong, Danielle,” he said, his soft voice at odds with the dangerous blaze of warning and desire in the espresso depths of his eyes.
Her stupid joke had pushed him too far.
“I’m not the missing Blackstone brother,” he murmured, his chin dipping as he inched closer. His pupils were enlarged, the centres pinpoints of fire that hypnotised and immobilised.
“Because if I was,” he continued in a low murmur that made the hairs on the back of her neck leap to attention, “I wouldn’t do what I’m about to do.”
Dani knew what he was about to do. She saw it coming like a train wreck—and she was chained to the tracks. It was inevitable that her head tilted back and her fingernails dug in to the rough surface of the log, bracing her. The cords on her neck stretched, rigid and tight. She watched, wide-eyed, as his face and mouth crossed the last millimetre, the point of no return.
If she’d been standing, her knees would have buckled at the first taste. They stared at each other until his salty mouth with its silky tongue started teasing hers, then she felt her eyelids flutter and close. He kissed firmly, not touching her except for his mouth, yet involving her senses totally. Every kiss she’d ever experienced was just window dressing; she’d been waiting for this, the real thing. Every man she had ever kissed before was a boy, and Quinn was here to show her how a man kissed.
Where were her cautionary affirmations? Where was her regard for that unknown woman, waiting somewhere for her diamond? That woman, at least, would understand, would realise that to be kissed like this was impossible to resist.
Dani wouldn’t have stopped it; he taught her that in just a few seconds. How beautiful and right it was that she sat on a log in her favourite place in the world at sunrise, and the door to perdition was open and inviting. With his tongue stroking hers, his lips commanding hers to give him more, desire pushed her to where the sunrise would claim her, consume her with pleasure.
Then he raised his head abruptly and she sagged back onto her log, gasping for breath. The young sun disappeared behind him as he straightened, and all she could think was “I’ve done it now.”
Quinn looked down at her, his eyes a swirling brown storm of intent. “Did that feel like a cousin’s kiss, Danielle?”
While she was still trying to collect coherence and dignity—and maybe some form of protest—he turned and jogged away, his strong legs pumping, his back bristling with tension.
She registered a sharp pain in the tip of her middle finger and raised her hand to her mouth to nibble at the splinter.
She was so out of her depth.
Five
Thankfully Quinn left her alone for the rest of the day and she completed the first of several wax models she would make in these initial stages. Dani worked late, said her good-nights from his office door and went to bed, trying to dampen down the memory of the kiss. But even though she’d had little sleep the night before, it still eluded her tonight.
She tossed and turned, listening to the waves through the open window. She considered a walk along the beach, something she did sometimes when troubled or unable to sleep. But she discarded that idea, knowing all she’d see was his face, all she’d feel was his mouth on hers.
Finally at about 1:00 a.m. she rose and threw on her robe, hoping that chocolate milk might help.
Downstairs, Quinn’s office light was on, the door ajar.
She halted for a minute that seemed to stretch on forever, her heart thudding in her ears. All was quiet so she crept closer and pressed her ear carefully to the wooden door. Then his voice sounded and Dani nearly leapt into the air. She only let her breath out when she realised he was on the phone.
Who could he be talking to at one in the morning? A nasty combination of guilt and jealousy clawed at her as she wondered about the special woman in his life. Perhaps it was a long-distance love affair and that’s why he was calling so late. Hi, honey, I kissed someone today….
But it was soon apparent this was a business call—exciting business. From what she could make out, he was in the middle of a live auction, bidding by phone. When she heard him murmur “Five million,” her decorum abandoned her and she straightened and inched forward, snaking her head around the door.
Quinn sat at his desk, the phone to his ear. She felt the leap of interest as his eyes swivelled toward her, a palpable, inescapable sense of awareness, zeroing in on her. He’d rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows and undone his top buttons. One hand rested on a file in front of him, under a half-full glass of some amber liquid. The desk lamp was on, but otherwise the room was in darkness.
Dani lingered in the shadows, although he gave no sign that he was either displeased or happy with her presence. But he did not release her from his gaze. She leaned against the door, her heart thudding along in the silences that punctuated his infrequent responses.
After a couple of minutes, Quinn sipped his drink and then laid the receiver down and turned the speaker phone on, all without taking his eyes off her face. She took that as something of an invitation. Here was an opportunity to have a glimpse into his world, see the negotiator at work.
She moved a few steps farther into the room and rested her hands on the edge of a chair to keep that barrier between them.
The voice on the speaker was unmistakably English. She heard the name of a well-known auction house and the words lot seven. Presumably the auction was being conducted in London. Dani wondered if the man on the phone was a bid clerk from the auction house or an employee of Quinn’s.
The item being bid for was a famous painting by a contemporary Irish artist who’d died in the sixties. She only knew that because Howard had one of his paintings. She wasn’t sure how many bidders there were for this particular item. The bids were relayed to Quinn as they happened, although Dani heard nothing of the activity in the auction house, only the man’s voice. The pauses in between bids seemed interminable. They probably weren’t, but she guessed there was a lot of tension on the other side of the world. Lord knows there was enough in this office.
Would he smile if he won the bid? Celebrate with a drink? She held his gaze, and no doubt her face was alive with questions. His, however, was framed in intense concentration that held her captive.
The price was now up to eight million pounds. Dani inched a little closer to the desk, marvelling at his calm. It probably wasn’t his money he was spending, but if it’d been her, she would have buckled under the pressure. The next million took only two or three minutes to be disposed of. Still Quinn looked at her face.
“Ten million pounds, sir?”
He didn’t flinch, but she did. While she’d been thinking about him, about his face and concentration and possible means of celebration, she had waylaid a couple of million.
Quinn quietly affirmed.
Ten million! That was how much in Australian dollars? For a painting?
The next pause was a long one. Dani was halfway across the room now, just a few more steps to the chair in front of his desk.
“The other party has just bid eleven, Mr. Everard.”
“You may proceed,” Quinn said quietly, and flexed the fingers of his right hand.
Dani covered her mouth with her hand and moved to the desk. The tension was killing her, but how cool he was. No sign of emotion crossed his features. He might have been reading the paper.
The minutes crawled by. Twelve million came and went. Her throat felt like sandpaper and she swallowed. Quinn lifted the glass and moistened his lips, then held it out to her.
Cognac. She would never smell it again without remembering this night. It slid down her throat and washed her lungs with heat. Slowly she rolled the glass over her forehead before setting it down on the desk. She had to lean well forward to get it within his reach, so she edged one hip onto the desk, twisting around to face him.
His eyes were inscrutable. A trickle of sweat began its journey down her spine, surprising her. She arched a little as the fabric of her silky robe slid over and cooled the moisture. A tiny flicker of that mahogany gaze told her he’d noticed, but not one muscle in his face twitched.
“Mr. Everard,” the bid clerk’s nasal voice intoned. “The other party has entered into a consultation with his client. Are you happy to hold?”
“Yes.”
Dani’s breath gushed out and she stretched her tense limbs and rubbed the back of her neck, thankful for the intermission.
“By the way, Quinn …” The man on the line lowered and warmed his voice. “That commodity you were interested in? A blank wall so far, I’m afraid. However …”
Quinn shifted but made no response to her raised brows. “Go on.”
“A gentleman of my acquaintance has recently returned from visiting the big house on the other side of town. He owes me certain favours.”
Quinn chuckled. “You run with the most appalling crowd, Maurice.”
“I will let you know directly if I can be of any further assistance,” There was a muffled crackle and muted voices. “I think we are ready to resume, sir.”
“Thank you,” Quinn murmured, his eyes back on Dani’s face.
She lost the ability to judge time in the airless room. The performance may have lasted ten minutes or an hour. The last two million pounds advanced and Dani took another sip of liquor, her nipples prickling with the knowledge that he watched her every move. Rather than push the glass across the desk, she walked around to his side, placed it in front of him and leaned against the desk beside him. Quinn swivelled in his chair to face her, still holding her prisoner with his eyes.
Fourteen million pounds.
Dani swallowed.
Fourteen-point-two million. The other bidder had opted to chop the bid. Quinn offered no objection, neither did the auctioneer, apparently. Dani cleared her dry throat and helped herself to another sip of cognac while he watched.
Fourteen-point-five million. The room spun a little, which could have been the cognac. It was like a vacuum in here. Quinn Everard stared at her calmly, steadily, and the bid rose another massive increment. The tension was unbearable.
The skin of her throat and face tickled and she swiped at it, somehow agitated and afraid for him. She could not even contemplate him losing now, not after this. Not when she felt so sensitised, so aware of his gaze gripping her, holding her up.
Fourteen-point-seven million pounds for lot seven, going once. She chewed on her thumbnail, praying. Her chest rose and fell as each breath tortured her lungs.
Fourteen-point-seven million pounds for lot seven, going twice. Dani sucked in a massive breath, held it. This was it!
It was over! Quinn had won the bid.
Air gushed out from her lungs and she slumped momentarily, but then elation poured through her like the most illicit rush. She leapt in the air, her arms high above her head, her hands fisted in victory. For the first time in many minutes, maybe even an hour, Quinn was not looking at her. He stared at the file on the desk. His shoulders were rigid.
“Congratulations, Mr. Everard, and thank you for participating.”
He exhaled slowly. “Thank you, Maurice.” He paused, as if about to add something, but then looked up into Dani’s face. “Thank you,” he repeated, and she saw that his teeth were clenched. His hand shot out and hit the switch of the phone. Then he was standing in front of her, gripping her waist hard. He dragged her forward into him, his body like stone against her soft, yielding form.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and sagged against him, burying her face in his shoulder. Quinn moved so that her head tilted up, her throat exposed.
Bite me, she thought, her blood screaming in her ears. She was leaping out of her skin. Never had she reached this peak of excitement in her life, and she couldn’t begin to think of consequences, other women, her heart, his hatred for Howard.
As if he’d heard her plea, Quinn lowered his head and nuzzled the hollow at the base of her throat briefly, then took her mouth hard. The taste of leather and almonds from aged cognac filled her mouth. His need for her came from farther down where his groin pushed into the silk-clad vee of her thighs. With a strangled gasp, she pushed back, feeling the distended ridge of his fly, every link of his zipper.
His tongue lashed hers, teeth knocked and scraped. She gasped breathlessly when his hand cupped and squeezed her buttock, forcing her forward. Then his hand ran down the short robe and to the sensitive back of her thigh, lifting it high and hard against him, so that her leg came up and wrapped around his hip. Her mind splintered with a desperate need of carnal contact.
She got it in spades, and the more she jerked against him, the higher she went. Grinding and straining, she became something—someone—she had no control over. She was on a collision course with a cyclone, building higher with every lash of his tongue deep in her mouth and every hard, fast thrust against her hot centre. And then he gripped the soft inside of her leg from behind and moved up, his seeking fingers sending a bolt of fiery energy searing through her. She lost the battle to be aware of her actions or his. All she knew was a wave of scalding pleasure that fisted and ebbed and fisted again and again, driving everything out of her mind.
She sagged against him, trying without success to halt the slide of her leg down his. Boneless, still swimming in pleasure, she trusted him to hold her up because her only tenuous grip was one hand around his neck. The other arm was behind her, palm pressed into the desk and trembling.
Quinn dragged her thong down her legs and made short work of the knot of her robe. While she still lagged, he plunged his hand into her hair and lifted her face to his.
His eyes snapped at her, fierce and hot. “Again.”
“Yes.” She sucked air into her lungs and pushed up off the desk and the madness started again.
Hands tore at clothing, mouths scraped over heated flesh, breath gushed from screaming lungs. When she got her hands inside his shirt, they slid on his slicked flesh. Cool, calm Quinn Everard was sweating, her mind crowed. She had reduced him to this, a wild animal desperate to copulate, so far removed from the suave, sophisticated businessman he was.
Where had she come from, this wanton, panting woman using her teeth and nails, taking his tongue into her mouth as if it was a drug she was addicted to? She was a nice girl about sex, only did it with someone she really cared about. One didn’t do nasty sex when one had lived in a fishbowl all one’s life, just like one didn’t do drugs or drunken rampages, either.
“Do it!” the nice girl panted, desperate to have all of him now.
His hands tangled in her hair. “You think I have any control over this?” he gasped, holding her face up and scowling down into her eyes. “That went when you walked into the room.”
The only answer she was capable of giving was to pull his torso against her and swipe her breasts back and forth, again and again. His crisp chest hair scraped and burned her nipples, spurring her into intensifying her efforts with his pants fastening. She finally got his pants down and at last he was naked, in all his pure, proud, masculine glory, roped with muscle, rough with hair, fierce with need.
There was a brief halt when he clapped a hand to his head. “Wallet?” Feverishly, he picked up his pants, slapping the pockets, then his face cleared and he reached behind her to the drawer and drew his wallet out.
Grateful for his foresight—protection hadn’t even occurred to her—she took the pack from him and made it memorable, smoothing the condom over his hot, hard flesh with a dedication that had both of them holding their breaths for long seconds. He was built. Even her wildest daydreams hadn’t done him justice. Then he groaned and grabbed her hands in a viselike grip. This agitated man before her, streaked with sweat and with rumpled hair, was a side of him she could come to like. But right now, her body was screaming for him, she needed more than like.
Then his palms were covering her breasts and his mouth was stealing her breath and the eye of the storm moved on, throwing them into a sexual frenzy again.
Quinn kept one arm firmly around her back for support while the other swept clear the surface of his desk. Then down she went, clutching at his shoulders and arms, dragging him down, too. Limbs tangled, teeth gnashed, her heart threatened to explode out of her chest. The storm overtook her, both of them. The air was filled with grunts and bumps and harshly drawn breaths. He dug his fingers into her hips and dragged her forward. She felt heat meeting heat and then the delicious, brimming slide of his total invasion. For a second, the absolute shock and pleasure of him deep inside immobilised her. Then she strained up, locked her legs around him and held on for the ride of her life. He kept one arm under her to shield her from the unforgiving desk. The other he plunged into her hair, pulling her head back to give him access to her mouth. Bodies and mouths locked together, she threw herself heart and soul into a coupling so intense, as full of the fire and brilliance of the diamond upstairs, that she wondered if they’d survive or just combust.
