He butted up against my cervix and a rush of heat spread through me at being connected to him so completely. Having him penetrate me so deep and intense was wonderful. My sensitive tissues were still buzzing from my climax and gripped him greedily, thrilled to have a cock to throb and clamp against.
He pulled out, pushed in, setting up a wonderful steady rhythm that jostled my breasts and knocked the air from my lungs every time his hips pumped forward. Quinn reached out and tweaked my nipple between his finger and thumb, twisted it to a tight point. I grabbed for my other nipple, twirling it between my fingers, stretching it to 57
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discomfort as I stared up at Liam. He pounded on and on, a look of acute concentration on his face until suddenly my legs slipped from his forearms and he was over me, looming down, a hand placed on either side of my head. His mouth captured mine and his tongue plundered in, a hot wetness that tasted of my sex. He dipped to the same fast tempo as his cock was thrusting into my pussy.
He released another unharnessed groan as I locked my boots into the dip of his spine and kissed him back, breathlessly, savagely. I gripped his shoulders and rose to him, absorbing the rough, reckless thrusting of his hips. The leather of my boots clung to his hot flesh, the spiked heels just touching his butt cheeks each time he shunted upward.
“Ah, baby,” he panted, breaking the kiss and locking his arms out straight. His chest lifted from mine and he glanced down at where we were connected, stared at his pubic hair grinding against my bare mound and the black leather wrapped around his hips. “Ah, baby, I’m coming in you, right now, I’m coming, Ariane…in you, ah fuck…” His neck arched and his face angled toward the wall behind me. His lips pulled over his teeth and his eyelids pressed together so tight they became thin lines. His whole body went rigid and I was aware of his cock pumping inside me. Filling me as his long, glorious orgasm drained him.
He began to shake. His chest, his back, his arms. I reached up and wrapped my hand around his right upper arm, absorbed the tremors in his muscles. Quinn did the same to his left arm, tightening his hand around Liam’s bulging, shaking biceps.
“Ah, fuck, yes,” Liam growled, dropping his head back down. His hair flopped messily around his face and he gave a final hard thrust into me. “God, that’s so intense,” he panted as his glazed eyes opened.
“I know,” I said quietly. “Intense and perfect.” The feelings between us were so much more than physical, it was what made our lovemaking so exquisite.
“Are you okay?” Quinn asked, his hand still on Liam’s arm.
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“More than okay.” Liam smiled at me and swept his tongue over his bottom lip.
“Bloody brilliant.”
“Sure?” Quinn asked.
Liam glanced at Quinn and saw his hand wrapped around his upper arm. “Of course, I’m sure.” His voice was firmer. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You were shaking,” Quinn said. A muscle in his cheek flexed and his eyes narrowed. He ran his hand up to the ball of Liam’s shoulder and back down to his elbow. “A lot.”
Liam let out a little snort and his arm and shoulder twitched. “So would you, mate, if you had these leather boots wrapped around your hips.” Quinn removed his hand from Liam’s biceps. I looked from Liam to Quinn. A log shifted in the grate and a shower of crackles followed.
Eventually Quinn spoke, but his tone sounded forced with lightness. “Yeah, I reckon it’s my turn with the hot boots then.” He shifted into a sitting position. “And for that I’m gonna need Ariane to—”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Oh no,” I groaned. “Not now.”
Quinn sighed and pushed to his feet. “You know how it is.” He walked to the couch as Liam slipped from me and I drew my legs together. My pussy felt overflowing with liquid—stretched and satisfied.
“I have to go in,” Quinn said, looking at the small screen on his pager.
“Can’t someone else deal with it?” As I spoke I wondered why I was wasting the words. Being one of the most experienced neurosurgeons in the country, Quinn probably
was
the only one who could deal with it.
“No,” he said, grabbing his boxers, pulling them up his legs and over his semi-erect cock. “It’s the burr holes I worked on today. They weren’t straightforward and there’s obviously been another bleed. The ICP is up, so is the heart rate and mannitol is doing 59
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nothing.” He dragged on his smart black pants and shirt. “I need to take him back to surgery and see what’s going on.” He shook his head as he did up the buttons on his shirt. “The kid is only sixteen. He was mucking about on a motorbike without a helmet.”
I stood and went to him, smoothed my fingers over the white-and-black checks around his neck and straightened out his collar. “I’ll miss you. Try to come back for breakfast. The hens are laying well and…” I paused, “I’ll cook you bacon from Ridgeway Farm to go with your eggs.”
He smiled. “I’ll do my best.” He glanced at Liam, who’d stretched out on the floor, hands behind his head, eyes shut and looking for all the world as if he might stay there for the night. “See you later, Liam.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Liam said, “I’ve got Ariane covered.” Quinn laughed. “Yeah, don’t I know it. Just don’t forget I’m owed a turn with those boots around my hips.” He reached for me and smoothed his hand into the small of my back, pressed a kiss to the tip of my nose.
“Yeah, well, I bought them,” Liam said lazily. “So that gives me as many turns as I want.”
“If you’re gonna get picky then I might start hiding my box of toys.” Quinn’s hand traveled up my bare back to my nape and his voice lowered. “And I know you two like to play with them when I’m at work.”
“Oh, stop it,” I said good-humoredly. “You know there is plenty of me to go
’round. Share nicely.”
Quinn cupped my skull in his hand. “I really don’t want to go.” He sighed and narrowed his eyes.
“I know, but you have to.” I smiled reassuringly. “People’s lives are at stake. We can play when you come home. It’s Friday tomorrow and if you don’t get called in we’ll have all weekend.”
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Quinn’s jaw set and he turned and paced from the room, his strides fast and purposeful. A small hole appeared in the pit of my stomach as his keys scraped up from the kitchen table and the door clicked shut. I hated it when he had to leave at a moment’s notice. It was something I’d never gotten completely used to, even though I’d coped with it for many years. His sudden disappearance in the night to the hospital made it feel as though he were a dream or a figment of my imagination. One minute we were making love, tying ourselves in knots, hot, sweaty, panting, and the next he was gone. Vanished. Sometimes we hadn’t even reached the point of climax and we were left hanging for hours.
But at least this evening Liam was here. It was worse if he was in his office, and at present he looked as though he had no intention of going anywhere near his computers.
I hoped that would stay the case. He spent far too much time in front of those screens.
I sat on the couch and pulled off the boots. My legs were hot and the balls of my feet suddenly throbbed from dancing in new high heels.
“Spoilsport,” Liam said, turning to me with one eye open.
I smiled. “My feet ache.”
“Then I’ll let you off, for tonight.”
Suddenly the dogs scampered in, tails flicking crazily and feet tip-tapping on the hard floor. They must have made a dash for it when Quinn opened the door. I went to rub their heads but they ignored me when they saw Liam stretched out by the fire.
Liam was their favorite. Even though it was me who fed them, it was him they adored.
“Hey guys,” he said, sitting abruptly upright, drawing up his knees and shielding his cock.
Billy barked a greeting and immediately rolled to his back to have Liam rub his belly. Drake leapt over his ankles and claimed the hottest spot by the fire. Liam laughed and I smiled at the crazy scene. My naked husband sitting on a rug in front of the fire with his loopy dogs wriggling around him was not something I saw every day.
“How quickly Quinn and I are replaced,” I said with a giggle.
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“I would never replace you,” he said, his gaze capturing mine. “Never in a million years.”
I stood and walked to him, held out my hand. “And I would never replace you.” He took my hand and stood without so much as tugging on me. Standing tall, he wrapped me in his arms. Billy jumped up and barked, objecting to Liam leaving the floor.
We both ignored him.
I rested my head beneath Liam’s chin and felt his arms solid and strong around me.
His citrusy scent was mixed with fresh sweat, my sex smell and the logs from the fire.
The dying flames treated us to their now quiet but penetrating heat and I curled my arms around him, feeling his robust, agile body. Quinn had been concerned by Liam’s shaking at climax. I could understand that, it was Richter scale. But I’d seen him do it before several times when it was really intense for him. I guessed it was something to do with being strong and big-built—all that energy had to go somewhere. There had to be a release for the adrenaline, a way for it to be expelled, and if shaking as he orgasmed was Liam’s body’s way of dealing with it then it was okay.
“Shall we take a bath?” Liam asked.
“Mm, sounds like a great plan.” I looked up at his face. “We haven’t done that all summer while the girls have been here.”
“I know, that’s why I thought of it. I love taking a bath with you.”
“Don’t you need to work tonight?”
“No, they have a public holiday in Taiwan today, tonight, whichever way you want to look at it, so I guess that means I’m off too.” I reached up and touched his cheek. “How very convenient.”
“Mm, very.”
“But can we…?” I paused.
“What?” His forehead creased.
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“Take a glass of wine.” I smiled. “I never got to finish mine in the bar, and it was a nice pinot grigio.”
“Sounds great. I’ll have one too and let’s take some of those apple candles, they smell great.”
“And put on some music, something soft and romantic.” His brows pulled low.
“What?”
“Do you mind if we don’t?”
My hand slid from his cheek to his neck. I could feel the steady tempo of his pulse.
“Of course not.” I looked into the deep ocean-blue of his eyes. “I don’t mind at all.” 63
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Chapter Five
The bath Liam ran was deep and bubbly, the steamy air thick with the scent of apple candles and strawberry foam. Sinking in next to him, balancing two glasses of icy cold pinot, a flush of tingling heat spread over my tired, sated body. “Wow, it’s hot,” I gasped as my butt hit the hard base.
“Just like my wife.” He grinned and took a sip of the wine I passed him.
I leaned back next to him, our shoulders touching. The bath was big—big enough for three, or four at a push. Sipping my own wine, I sighed, stretched out my toes and ankles and rotated them beneath the water.
“Are you tired?” he asked.
“Tired but content.”
“Good.”
“Except…” I said, then paused.
“What?” He twisted abruptly to look at me and his brows pulled low.
“I just.” I didn’t know how to put it into words. But the nagging feeling in my chest was back.
“What, baby, what’s worrying you?”
I stayed silent.
“You spoke to the girls tonight, didn’t you? They’re fine?”
“Yes, yes.”
I didn’t want to give him a second’s worry about Rebecca or Sophie. They were great. They’d settled back into school life perfectly, so had their ponies. Lessons were going well on and off horseback and their dormitory sounded like an enormous amount of fun until the strict lights-off curfew at eight.
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“They’re fine,” I said. “Jasper had new road shoes because the Evenglade farrier didn’t do a very good job on his and Sophie got an A in her first French assessment.
She’s looking set to go up a year in that subject.”
“Great,” he said but his face didn’t relax. “So if the girls are fine, what is it? What’s worrying you?”
“It’s just…” I bit down on my lip. “I probably should be talking to Quinn, not you,” I said quietly.
“Baby, if something is upsetting you it has everything to do with me.” I glanced at him, surprised. Usually if we had issues with one another it was kept separate from whoever wasn’t involved.
“It’s Eve,” I said, grateful to be able to say it.
“Eve?”
“Didn’t you see the way she was with Quinn?”
Suddenly I felt stupid. Why the hell would Liam have noticed how Eve had been with Quinn? Liam lived in his own little world, a world that consisted of me, Quinn and the girls. Everyone else, as far as I could make out, was superfluous. Unless they were on the end of an email and could make him money, he didn’t have any interest in what other people were doing.
He took a slow sip of his wine then set it on the side of the bath. The steam had created a mist of condensation around the glass. “How Eve was with Quinn?” he repeated.
“Yes.” I gulped back two mouthfuls of wine, not savoring the light grapefruit hints the label had boasted. “She was all over him, chatting, touching his arm, making him laugh.” I stopped myself before I added how she’d salivated over him with her gaze as we left Hanrahan’s.
“Yeah,” he said on a sigh. “I did notice.”
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“You did?” I turned to face him. The last thing I wanted to do was treat Liam as if he were a girlfriend. I should really ring Hilary for a natter over guy problems but Liam was my husband, Quinn was my husband. There were already three of us in this relationship and we understood it in a way no one else ever would. We were unique, we knew that. Who else would understand? I gulped more wine. “So what did you think?”
Liam sought my hand beneath the bubbles, twined his fingers with mine. “I think she likes him.” He paused and lifted our joined hands above the surface, studied my short, neat fingernails. “I’ve seen it before, in New York. Women
like
Quinn, especially women who work with him. He gives off this aura of godliness. He saves lives, for heaven’s sake, all day, every day. I speak from personal experience and it’s easy to see why people think of him as superhuman. Those hands and that big brain of his. It’s amazing and he uses it to attain the ultimate result—he gives life.” He paused and traced the scar just back from the hairline on his forehead, the tip of his finger gliding from one ear right across to the other.