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It didn’t occur to her for even one second to believe the proof of her eyes. She was just so obsessed she was hallucinating—it was the only possible explanation. Pale-faced, she stared transfixed at the hormonal hallucination before her.
The half-naked man, his green eyes narrowed slightly, smiled languidly, displaying a set of even, pearly white teeth.
The gasp that emerged from her lips was faint, but audible enough to attract curious glances from the other women present.
This was worse than hallucination—this was real! Only one man in the world could combine that much sneery contempt and sexual challenge in a smile!
If her legs had actually responded to her urgent mental commands she’d have obeyed her first cowardly instinct and fled the room. As it was she had to think of something to say that wouldn’t excite unwanted speculation from the women she had to work with. Women whose respect she needed.
Why here, why now, why me…? Especially why me! She took a deep breath. It was no good moaning about it, it was happening and she’d have to deal with it.
Of course she’d known she’d have to see Quinn some time—she still hadn’t worked out when precisely that some time might be, but she’d known she’d be psyched up for the experience. She’d have worked out in advance what all his arguments might be when she broke it to him, and she’d have a suitable reply for each one. But most importantly she’d have her own messy feelings sorted out by that point!
Her voice, hoarse and accusing, broke the strained silence that had fallen. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Way to go, Rowena! She could almost smell the rampant curiosity in the quiet room.
‘This is Quinn Tyler, Rowena, our model for the—’ Anna began.
Model! Rowena threw the older woman a look of withering disbelief. ‘He is not a model!’ she exclaimed, scurrying forward to gather up Quinn’s discarded shirt and jacket from the floor where he had obviously dropped them. How could he stand there with all those women ogling him? He was nothing but a damned exhibitionist!
‘What is he, then?’
‘Yes, Rowena, what am I?’ Quinn drawled. Colour flooded Rowena’s face as she met the malicious wide-eyed innocence in his mocking emerald stare. ‘Don’t tempt me!’ she choked, wishing she could wipe that smug grin off his face.
‘Actually, Anna,’ she explained, trying a bit belatedly to re-establish some dignity, ‘Quinn is a doctor.’
‘He doesn’t look like any doctor I’ve ever seen,’ the older woman responded sceptically. Hands on her bony hips, she allowed her eyes to wander up and down Quinn’s lean frame.
Rowena couldn’t argue that point. ‘He scrubs up almost respectable,’ she snarled, experiencing an abrupt dignity meltdown the instant she looked at him again.
‘Why, thank you, Rowena,’ Quinn murmured provokingly.
‘It wasn’t meant to be a compliment. Let’s face it, put Jack the Ripper in Armani and he’d most likely look respectable,’ she announced dismissively—actually Quinn in Armani or anything else was almost impossible to dismiss or ignore! With a forced smile she turned to the other women. ‘We went to university together.’
‘Oh, an old boyfriend.’
‘I object to the old,’ Quinn complained with a hurt-little-boy look that had the other women grinning.
Nostrils flared, lips pinched tight, Rowena rounded angrily on a startled Sophie. ‘Not an old boyfriend!’ she announced emphatically. She looked to Quinn for support—not surprisingly, none was forthcoming. ‘We were part of a group,’ she began to explain laboriously. ‘A group of like-minded—’
Quinn’s deep velvet drawl cut her off. ‘A group of earnest, élitist snobs who liked to congratulate each other at frequent intervals on how brilliant, how cultured, how much better than everyone else we were. Many’s the time we’d sit there contemplating our glittering futures.’
‘Quinn!’ Rowena exclaimed, shocked.
Quinn met her outraged glare, an amused glint of humour in his eyes—eyes which she knew could unexpectedly change from deep emerald to subtle aquamarine. ‘You trying to tell me I’m wrong?’
Rowena’s face softened. Her lips were halfway to forming a rueful smile before she realised she couldn’t afford to relax around Quinn. ‘No, you’re not wrong,’ she admitted with a sigh. ‘We were unbearably pleased with ourselves.’
Quinn switched his attention to the three other women. ‘In our defence I have to add that we were all very young, and most of us aren’t quite so arrogant nowadays!’
‘If that’s a dig at me…’ Rowena bristled, growing angrily pink.
A disturbing lopsided smile tugged at one corner of Quinn’s mouth as he contemplated her stormy face. ‘It wasn’t.’
Rowena wasn’t willing to be convinced. ‘Talk about a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black,’ she muttered truculently. Her colleagues, who had never heard their leader sound truculent, exchanged glances—and as for pouting…!
‘And I don’t know how you managed to weasel your way up here, but I’ve a good mind to call Security and have you thrown out!’ He had the audacity, not to mention ill judgement, to grin. ‘You think I’m joking, Quinn—just try me.’
‘No, I don’t think you’re joking—that would require a sense of humour, not to mention an ability to laugh at yourself.’
All those weeks of deprivation she’d put him through—he could have strangled her! His darkened eyes travelled from the smooth curve of her neck to the soft outline of her wide, generous lips—or maybe kissing her would be more appropriate…? The muscles in his throat worked hard as he visualised sliding his tongue between her lush lips—she’d make that hoarse little whimper low in her throat, the one that drove him a little crazy.
Rowena’s even white teeth came together with a jaw-aching crack. ‘Shall we leave my inadequacies out of this for the moment?’ Her eyes slid of their own volition to the expanse of silky dark skin and her sensitive stomach muscles tightened. ‘For heaven’s sake, Quinn, cover yourself up!’ she pleaded hoarsely.
She wasn’t sure which was the worse, coping with her own weak, lustful reaction to the distracting sight of Quinn’s powerful torso or coping with the knowledge that the other women present were leching over his smooth olive flesh and sculpted muscles too.
She didn’t pause to consider the consequences of her impulsive actions—around Quinn that happened to her a lot—the urgent need to shield him from their lascivious eyes was just too strong to resist.
Actually the three other women were no longer looking at Quinn at all; they were too fascinated by the sight of their cool, composed editor desperately pressing a crumpled white cotton shirt protectively against the dark, hair-roughened chest of the tall, gorgeous man.
‘I suppose you think this is funny?’ she hissed. The physical contact had been a big mistake! For starters, being this close she couldn’t avoid breathing in the warm, male, distinctly Quinn scent of his body—it had a dizzy, addictive quality.
‘I don’t know how you got here, or why you’re here…’ she huffed, tears of angry frustration springing into her blue eyes as Quinn stood there totally impassive while she attempted to cover him up. She was struggling with all manner of insane urges, most of which involved plastering herself against him. ‘I take that back; you obviously came here to humiliate me!’ she accused wildly.
As if I need any help!
Quinn responded with a quirk of one dark brow and a cynical twist of his sensual lips.
‘You know exactly why I’m here, Rowena.’ Threat, promise and warning, his deep voice held all three.
She stood by helplessly, her insides quivering as he took the shirt from her shaky hands and in a fluid motion pulled it over his head. He slid it into place, tucking it into the narrow waistband of his trousers.
What was he trying to do to her? Those leather trousers left nothing whatever to the imagination; they showed off every inch of his long, powerful thighs. Rowena tried to avert her eyes, but the glint of dull silver caught her eye and held it.
It was the same silver engraved buckle he’d been wearing that night, the night that she had unclipped it with trembling fingers. He’d taken her hand and pressed it against…don’t go there, Rowena! she warned herself frantically.
Too late! Erotic images complete with taste and touch and smell rose up in her head. His smoothly textured olive-toned skin covered in a fine layer of sweat…the raw rasp in his voice that had reduced her to a compliant, quivering heap of neediness…the unbelievable combination of triumph and tenderness on his face as he’d responded to her pleas and thrust powerfully up into her body, filling and stretching every part of her…
Hand pressed flat against her heaving bosom, she fought for breath, and a semblance of composure. The stabbing sexual desire that hit her was so tangible it was like walking into a solid wall of heat. She could feel the cold trickle of sweat as it slid damply down her back.
Quinn’s slanted eyebrows quirked as he smoothed down the white fabric over his flat, leanly muscled midriff. ‘Happy now?’
The action had mussed up his thick dark hair and without thinking Rowena reached up to smooth down his tousled locks. Her antagonism faded for a moment as her fingertips sank into his hair and brushed against his scalp.
She realised the implied intimacy of her thoughtless action at the same moment Quinn’s head jerked back, the violent rejection making her lift her hurt eyes to his.
For a split second their glances collided before Quinn’s heavy lids came downwards, veiling his expression. Rowena had seen enough in that moment’s scorching contact to turn her insides hotly molten.
Their long-standing relationship had always been the sort where such innocent gestures were not misread. Well, news flash! Things had changed—big time!
But when had they started to change…?
CHAPTER TWO
AS SHE’D gone over the events in her head that had led to their becoming lovers Rowena had tried time after time to work it out, but she hadn’t been able to pinpoint the exact moment that friendship had become something else.
It had begun before her short stint at the New York office, which the powers that be had deemed essential for someone about to take over the running of the London end of the operation. Rowena had needed an escort for a big charity bash and Quinn, who had just accepted a senior post at a major teaching hospital in the city, had stepped in at the last minute.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t noticed, but after knowing him for so long Rowena took his spectacular looks for granted. The admiring glances he’d received that night, not to mention the envious comments she’d received from friends and acquaintances, had brought home to her just what a gorgeous creature he was.
It had been a good night—no, better than good—Quinn had a way of making his companion feel very special. He was also a great dancer, and an even better conversation-alist—he had a dry wit and a clever tongue that had had her laughing half the night. She’d laughed so much that several acquaintances had commented on the fact, which had made Rowena wonder—for about two seconds—if she didn’t take things a little too seriously as a rule.
‘You were a big hit,’ she told him when he dropped her off at her flat in the early hours. Head against the back-rest, she yawned and fished around for the shoes she’d slipped off her aching feet when she’d got into Quinn’s Jaguar.
Quinn inclined his dark head. ‘We aim to please.’
‘So now I know how you manage to captivate all those women.’ Quinn worked hard, but he played hard too. He had a taste for fast cars, motorbikes and beautiful women, but no staying power with the latter as far as Rowena could tell—not that she held this against him.
Perhaps like her he was married to his career, or maybe he hadn’t met the right girl yet…The fleeting thought made her feel vaguely dissatisfied.
‘If I didn’t know you so well,’ she teased him, adjusting the strap on her kitten-heeled sling-back, ‘I might even make a pass at you myself.’
For what felt like a long time he looked at her, his expression enigmatic. ‘Is that all that’s stopping you?’
Rowena’s smile didn’t make it past the starting-post—there was no shadow of humour in his face, just a taut, dangerous expression that made the nerve endings deep inside her stomach tortuously flutter with excitement.
She couldn’t remember what she’d said to fill the awkward lingering silence that had followed, but she knew his contribution had been nil. He’d just sat there and let her babble like an idiot.
One thing she did recall, very well indeed as it happened, was how it had felt when his arm had brushed against her breasts as he’d stretched over to open the car door for her. She had been mortified, not to mention confused, when her nipples had responded instantaneously to the brief contact. She had prayed he hadn’t noticed them thrusting brazenly through the thin fabric of her bodice as she’d slid with a hastily mumbled thank-you from the car.
There had been no legitimate reason to refuse the series of invites that had followed—after all they were friends, and there was nothing wrong, she had told herself, with having a meal with a friend, or going to the theatre. As for walking by the river in the rain, what could be a more innocuous way to spend an evening?
Quinn’s behaviour had given her no cause for complaint; there had been no repeat of that electric moment in the car. No, he had acted like the perfect gentleman despite the fact that she, for some perverse reason, had gone out of her way to recreate the moment—maybe it had been just to convince herself it had actually happened…?
Letting her hand linger longer than strictly necessary on his arm or knee, a lot more eye contact than was normal between them, making sure he’d been able to see her very excellent legs when she’d sat opposite him. Nothing too heavy or obvious; at least that was what she’d thought until one night, sitting in her flat after having been out for dinner, Quinn had bluntly demanded an explanation.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she blustered. ‘I’m not playing at anything.’
He dragged an unsteady hand through his thick hair. ‘Well, whatever that nothing is you’re doing, it’s driving me crazy.’ His green eyes came to rest on her face. ‘You’re driving me crazy.’
‘I am?’ she exclaimed, unable to hide her pleasure. ‘You’d never have known,’ she added with a condemnatory frown.
After a startled moment Quinn began to laugh. It was such a warm, uninhibited sound she couldn’t bring herself to be cross with him.
‘Well, if you must know, I’m quite attracted to you,’ she divulged bluntly. ‘The idea takes some getting used to…’ With a hint of bravado she raised her eyes and saw it was Quinn’s turn to look pleased—and relief rushed through her. It would have been too embarrassing if she’d been reading the wrong messages.
‘I think,’ he replied huskily, ‘that it might be worth the effort.’
Mesmerised by the stark hunger in his darkly lashed eyes, she felt her knees start to tremble. Her heart was battering against her ribcage like a sledgehammer.
He would be an excellent kisser—with a mouth like that how could he not be? she reasoned, allowing her gaze to rest dreamily on that stern, sensual outline. The idea of putting her theory to the test had her literally trembling with anticipation.
‘You don’t think it’s too silly an idea, then,’ she gasped, feeling a bit light-headed with relief—well, maybe relief wasn’t solely responsible for that strange but marvellous floaty feeling.
Quinn took the wilful curve of her jaw in his hand, his fingers stroking the smooth skin of her throat. The touch was so gentle and his strength was so formidable that Rowena found the contrast deeply exciting. ‘Not silly at all,’ he replied.
His deep, husky voice sent tiny shivers up and down her spine. ‘I knew you’d understand—you being not exactly big on the whole commitment thing.’ Rowena was so relieved that she hardly registered the wary expression that flickered into his eyes. ‘I mean, neither of us have the time to lavish on a proper relationship, do we?’ she told him happily. ‘With that whole pet name, flowers, and plans for the future stuff. Most of all the plans for the future,’ she added with a heartfelt shudder. ‘But we all have…needs.’ It was probably ignoring hers that was responsible for her present distracted condition. ‘I think I should be honest with you.’
‘By all means be honest,’ Quinn responded drily.
Rowena nodded, glad they were in accord. Quinn had let go of her chin and she wished he hadn’t. She wondered if it would be quite acceptable for her to take the initiative and touch him…? God, but she wanted to, she thought, her eyes running covetously over his lean frame.
‘Of course I’ve tried sex, but, I’ve got to admit, it wasn’t an unqualified success. To be quite honest,’ she added, the words coming in a rush, ‘I’m terrible at it, but I’m willing to learn.’
She heard the stark sound of his inhalation and wished she’d not been quite so frank, but it was true: sexually she was what was popularly termed frigid. The first time might have been put down to inexperience, but the second time had been a full five years later, and though her lover—an attractive, experienced man she’d liked a lot—had been perfectly polite, she’d been able to tell he’d been in no hurry to repeat the experience, and actually neither had she. Since then she’d been able to channel her energies into her work—until Quinn.
‘Let me get this straight—you want me for sex and nothing else.’
His low, very quiet tone sent a quiver of apprehension up her spine. Anxiously she searched his face but it was impossible to read anything from his enigmatic expression.
‘Well, I wouldn’t put it like that exactly.’
‘Well, I would!’ he yelled suddenly. ‘I’d put it exactly like that. I’ve heard you called callous, Rowena. I’ve heard you called a cold, calculating bitch.’
Rowena flinched. It was a tired old sexist line that she’d heard many times before and it never failed to make her mad as hell—it hadn’t hurt as it did hearing Quinn say it, though. It was nonsense, of course—a man who shared the qualities that made her good at what she did would have been universally admired for his skill, but not her. No, she was female so that automatically made her as hard as nails.
‘And I’ve always stuck up for you, but I’m beginning to see how much you’ve changed since the old days!’ he blazed. ‘Sex isn’t something you schedule like a finance meeting.’
Rowena listened to his diatribe in stunned silence. ‘I didn’t mean…I had no intention of insulting you, I just wanted to be upfront, Quinn.’
‘I’m slow,’ he reflected with a bitter smile, ‘but not that slow. I don’t need a diagram to tell me what you want.’ At some level he was aware that he was overreacting—after all, he’d been propositioned before.
Quinn’s scornful sneer reawakened her temper. ‘I have to tell you, Quinn, I find all this righteous outrage at being treated like a sex object just a tad hypocritical coming from you of all people. I mean, a man with a track record like yours hardly screams commitment, does he? Or don’t you like it when someone turns the table on you? The way you’re going on anyone would think you wanted a serious relationship or something…’ She saw his face and her eyes widened. ‘Good god!’ she gasped, horrified. ‘You didn’t, did you…?’ She laughed in what was pure nervous disbelief, but he could hardly be expected to know that.
‘I’ve been accused of being shallow in my time…’ His voice had dropped to a soft, menacing whisper, but Rowena was in no mood to be intimidated.
‘I can’t imagine why,’ she muttered belligerently.
The glacial flicker of his long-lashed eyes silenced her. ‘But it would seem I’m an amateur compared to you.’
‘The way I hear it you get by,’ she retorted childishly.
‘Then maybe you hear it wrong,’ he cut back in a chilly voice. ‘I may not be able to match your clinical objectivity, but I’m not totally unrealistic. I accept that some relationships are never going to go anywhere, but they’re fun anyway. I’ve been there and done that, but not as often as you seem to think.’
Rowena hardly noticed this dry postscript; she was too busy dwelling on the lurid images drifting around in her head of Quinn having fun. She actually felt quite unwell—she’d had doubts about that lobster.
‘Part of the excitement of entering a relationship is not knowing where it’s going.’
Diverted by this peculiar viewpoint, Rowena forgot momentarily about the sick churning in her stomach. Personally Rowena always liked to know exactly where she was going.
