At First Touch (14 page)

“Please, Wyatt,” she whispered, unable to laugh or joke at this moment.

His expression became serious once more, as his hands caressed her thighs. He seemed incapable of not touching her, not caressing her. “If you want me to stop, just tell me. One word—”

“I don't want you to stop,” she groaned. “Please, Wyatt. Stop being so damn nice. Just do it already.”

“Do what?” he asked, lifting one side of his mouth in a sardonic smile.

“Kiss me, touch me, do something.
Anything
.”

Wyatt grinned again. “Remember you asked for this,” he said, then sank lower and touched his tongue to her.

Quinn screamed louder than she had before as pure desire shot through her body and ended directly in her brain. She didn't know if it was because it was a tongue on her, or because it was Wyatt, but she was in another plane of ecstasy. His tongue began to dally against her, soft, long, slow. She wanted to crawl away, she wanted to move closer. She just wanted it to never stop.

Wyatt grabbed her hips and pinned her down, even though she hadn't known that she had been moving. He began to kiss her in earnest, running his tongue over her, inside of her, around her. Quinn undulated against his tongue, squeezed the sheets trapped in her hands, screamed for mercy. She squeezed her eyelids shut, unable to handle the feelings and seeing at the same time. It was as if she could only concentrate on one sensation at a time.

“I want to finish you off, but I can't…I have to be inside of you,” he moaned, giving her some relief, as he stopped to hover above her.

She tried to reply, but there was nothing she could do, except wordlessly moan. He pushed inside of her, filled her to capacity, and it was a momentary relief as she hugged him to her. He groaned her name through clenched teeth, then moved his mouth over hers as he began to pump. Firecrackers sparked throughout her body and flooded into a tight ball at the base of her. It overwhelmed her. Quinn screeched under his open mouth and dug her fingernails into his sweat-slickened back. She squeezed her eyes closed and matched his rhythm. Loved his rhythm. Wanted his rhythm.

It was as if they were the same person. Moving together as one. She opened her mouth to scream, but then she could only place a kiss on his shoulder and suck his skin. He tasted salty, delicious, like he was hers.

And then it started. It spiraled and moved into one force and then exploded inside the center of her. She arched and screamed his name, glorying in the feelings. Wyatt pumped faster, quicker, moaning her name, his arms quivering as he hovered above her. Then he shuddered and rushed into her.

And as if a storm blew by, Wyatt lowered himself next to her and became still. His chest moved up and down. Quinn was motionless, unmoving.

Wyatt moved toward her and she flinched. He didn't appear to notice, because he wrapped his arms around her, pressed a kiss on her shoulder and promptly fell asleep. Quinn told herself to move. But she was so warm and satisfied. She would just rest her eyes for a moment. Just sleep and bask in the glow of fabulous sex.

Q
uinn opened her eyes at the sound of a telephone ringing. The sound abruptly ended and she snuggled back into the plump pillows surrounding her. There was a pleasant buzz in her bones, as if she had just eaten a really good, high-calorie meal…with dessert. She smiled and stretched her arms over her head, purring like a cat, and then Wyatt's clean, fresh scent stirred from the sheets.

She cursed, feeling a combination of renewed desire and utter fear. She had slept with Wyatt. Not just slept with him, but made love to him. Laughed with him. And shared her secrets. And he had told her his secrets, too. He had treated her like she had imagined men treated their girlfriends, not their trophies, as she usually was.

She glanced towards his side of the bed. It was empty. She looked out the window at the moon high in the sky, then at the clock radio on the nightstand. It was almost eleven o'clock. She had been at Wyatt's almost four hours. She cursed again and covered her face with her hands. She had to get home as soon as possible. She didn't want to face her sisters' knowing grins, but she also couldn't exactly face Wyatt. What was she supposed to say to him? She had never completely released herself in bed with anyone. She didn't know how to deal with the repercussions.

The bedroom door abruptly opened. Wyatt walked into the room, carrying a tray loaded down with food. He flipped on the lights with an elbow, then walked across the room towards her. She gulped at the sight of his muscled chest. He had pulled on a pair of dingy sweats that only made him look more adorable because he looked so at home and relaxed.

Quinn quickly sat up in bed, keeping the sheet tightly clutched between her breasts. She smoothed down her tangled hair, refusing to even picture what it might like. She tucked hair behind her ears because Wyatt truly didn't seem to care about her huge ears.

He grinned at her, noticing her movement, then placed the tray on the bed between them. He leaned over and traced the shape of one of her ears. Without a word, he pressed a quick kiss against her lips. He stared at her for a moment, then returned for another longer kiss. Then another one, until she opened her mouth. His tongue worked its way through her mouth, feeling foreign and familiar and erotic. She almost dropped the sheet to wrap her arms around him. Almost.

Wyatt pulled away from her with an even bigger grin, then pointed to the tray. “We missed dinner.” She stared at the tray. He had made scrambled eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, biscuits and diced fresh fruit. There was enough food on the plate to feed a small army. “I'm not much of a cook, but I make a pretty mean breakfast.”

“It looks delicious,” she said and realized that she actually meant it.

He handed her a fork and she reached for the bowl of fruit, but then grabbed bacon. She hadn't had bacon in almost two years.

Wyatt grabbed another piece of bacon and laid across the bed on his side to stare at her.

“Did I hear the phone ring?” she asked as she swallowed a mouthful of eggs.

“It was Graham.”

She nearly choked on the eggs and drained the glass of orange juice on the tray. “Graham called here? Please tell me that you didn't let him know I was here.”

“Of course I did,” Wyatt said, with a shrug. “He called to see if I knew where you were. He said no one had heard from you since you left four hours ago.”

Quinn set down the glass and hung her head in shame. “I am never going to hear the end of this.”

“The end of what?”

“This,” she retorted, motioning wildly towards the bed and him. “As soon as Graham tells Charlie, which we both know he will because he can't keep anything from her, she'll tell Kendra and then I'll get a phone call.” As if on cue, the sound of a cell phone ringing came from the living room. Quinn shook her head. “I knew it.”

“Sisters,” Wyatt said sympathetically. He took the other fork on the tray and dug into the eggs.

Quinn stared at him for a moment, annoyed with his cavalier attitude. Then her stomach growled. She started on the fried potatoes.

“How's the party going?” Quinn asked.

“Graham says that half the town is there.”

Quinn pretended to focus on the plate as she murmured, “You're missing a chance to score points with Dorrie. If you hurry, you can still catch her.”

Wyatt froze, and anger flashed in his eyes as he stared at her. His voice was deep with barely concealed rage, “I don't know what type of men you've dated in the past, but I don't sleep with a woman and then pursue another woman the same night or the next day.”

“She is your dream woman, remember? The mother of your future children?”

“Stop while you're ahead, Quinn,” he said through clenched teeth.

“I'm just reminding us where we both stand. We slept together, but it doesn't change anything. You still want Dorrie, and I still want my movie filmed here. We just had a truce, like I said when I walked in.”

“We just made love and you bring up Dorrie? Nice, Quinn. Very nice.” With a look of disgust, he stormed out the room.

She heard the front door of the apartment slam closed. She quickly slipped from the bed, grabbed her clothes and sprinted across the hall to the bathroom, slamming the door. After she had relieved herself, thrown water on her face and wiggled into her clothes, she cautiously opened the bathroom door. The apartment was completely silent. Wyatt still hadn't come back.

Quinn grabbed her heels from the bedroom, then hurried through the apartment and grabbed her handbag. She opened the front door and glanced down the stairs. The driveway was still empty, except for Graham's prized Porsche. The funeral home was still dark since Beatrice probably was at Charlie and Graham's party. The coast was clear.

Quinn ran down the stairs, then pulled on her heels. She walked on her toes to the car so her heels wouldn't clack on the cement driveway. She was home free until she noticed the lights on in the greenhouse that stood about two hundred yards in the field behind the house. Quinn hesitated with her hand on the car door.

Wyatt obviously didn't want to see her. She should just leave. Except Quinn released the door handle and headed toward the greenhouse. Maybe she was a glutton for punishment. Or maybe she just needed to see Wyatt one last time. To kiss him one last time. If he would let her.

She crossed the field on a stone walkway that had been placed into the manicured lawn. She opened the greenhouse door and was nearly overcome by the variety and colors of flowers and plants in the large building. It was like a fantasy, a tropical paradise. The air was slightly damp and warm, compared to the chill outside, and it smelled like wet dirt and fragrant flowers. Soft muted lights glowed on tracks on the ceiling. There were several aisles that led to each grouping of flowers. She took her time looking and oohing and aahing and gently touching delicate leaves.

Then she saw Wyatt. He stood at the back of the greenhouse at a large worktable that had a single, solitary lamp. He was potting bulbs of tulips into small clay pots. She stopped several feet from him, then saw him look up in the window at her reflection. She waited for him to acknowledge her, but he leaned back over and began to pack dirt in the pots.

“Wyatt,” Quinn said softly.

He stopped moving and leaned on the table. “I thought you'd be gone by now.”

“I wanted to say goodbye.”

“And thanks for the memories,” he muttered, dryly.

“Don't put words in my mouth, Wyatt.” When he started working again, she sighed and walked to the table to stand next to him. He refused to look at her. “What do you want from me?” she asked desperately.

He turned to face her, and she stepped back at the hurt apparent in his eyes. “Just sex, Quinn. Isn't that what you think of me?” he snarled. “I just want sex. I've gotten it, so you can leave.”

“I don't like your tone.”

“Tough shit,” he snapped. Her eyes widened and, in a burst of fury, he slapped a small ceramic pot off the table. It crashed into a wall and fell to the ground in numerous pieces. He glared at her. “I'm sick of tiptoeing around you, around us. The question isn't what I want. You know what I want. You've always known what I've wanted. The question is what do you want?”

“I don't know what you want, Wyatt,” she retorted, her voice rising until she was screaming at the top of her lungs. “You've been panting after me since we first met. You didn't even know me. I was horrible to you, and the more awful I was to you, the more you seemed to want me. And when I finally talk to you like a human being, you tell me that you're in love with some woman you barely know—who's allergic to flowers, I might add—and that I'm not good enough for you. What am I supposed to think?”

Wyatt took several deep breaths, then said calmly, “I never said that you weren't good enough for me.”

“Oh, please,” she snorted in disbelief. “That's exactly what you were telling me when you said that I was not Sibleyville wife material. Because like every other man I've known, you only wanted the image. The fake breasts, the short dresses and the high heels. You didn't want to get to know the real me and that's why I treated you like dirt, Wyatt. Not because you're a mortician, or because you're from Sibleyville, but because I expected more from you.”

She cursed as tears blurred her vision. She turned her back to him and swiped at her tears. She did not cry over men, but that didn't change the fact that here she was crying over a man.

“You're right,” he said softly. “You're exactly right.” He gently grabbed her arms and turned her to face him. “And I'm sorry, Quinn. I didn't mean to hurt you.”

She rolled her eyes in response and focused on a corner of the room to fight back more tears.

“That's how I felt in the beginning, but after tonight, you have to know that I don't feel like that anymore. I think you're amazing and funny and smart. And that's why I…that's why I want you even more now than the first moment I saw you.”

She stared at him for a moment, not wanting to believe him. “It's been a joke between us for so long.”

“Not anymore. I really care about you, Quinn.”

Sephora would have walked out the greenhouse, never to look back, while delivering a cutting monologue that would have left Wyatt a trembling mess. But, of course, Sephora had a team of award-winning writers to help her, and Quinn…Well, Quinn didn't want Wyatt to be a trembling mess. She just wanted him.

She took a deep breath, then took his hand. He pulled her against his chest and wrapped his arms around her. He buried a kiss in her hair.

“I'm sorry, baby,” he whispered.

“Me, too,” she whispered, then buried her face in his chest.

He smoothed hair from her face to tuck behind her ears. “So, we're both sorry. What do we do now?”

She wiped at the tears on her face and said instantly, “You have to talk to Dorrie.”

“That's the first order of business?” he asked with a teasing smile.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “You have to tell her that you're interested in someone else.”

“That would be you, right?” he asked, uncertainly, then laughed when she stared at him.

She hesitated, then plowed ahead, “And then we need to talk about the movie.”

He smoothed his thumb across her lips, sparking butterflies of pleasure down her body. His voice was soft as he said, “You have to know by now that anything you want that is within my power to give you, you can have. If you want to film the movie here, you'll film the movie here.”

Quinn felt the tears well up in her eyes again and she kissed him. Hard and fast. “Wyatt,” she whispered, unable to say anything else through her surprise.

He lowered his mouth to hers. It was a kiss of promise, of hope and a stake of ownership. And Quinn reveled in every second of it because she was his. She had never been anyone's before, because she had never wanted to be, but she wanted to be Wyatt's woman. His whatever. As long as she had the same claim to him.

One of his hands moved to her behind to press her closer to him. She moaned as he hardened against her and pressed into her center. His hot tongue and his hot length between her thighs were driving her insane.

She tore her mouth from his and whispered, “We need to go back to your bedroom.”

“Too late,” he muttered before claiming her mouth again in a deep, erotic kiss that instantly flooded her center.

Wyatt didn't break contact with her mouth, but swept the worktable clean. Clay pots and plants crashed to the floor. He lifted her onto the table and pushed up her dress. When he saw her bare, he laughed dryly.

“You kill me, Quinn. Where are your panties?”

“I couldn't find them,” she admitted, then pulled him toward her for another kiss.

He ate her mouth raw. She didn't see him pull down his sweats, but suddenly he was inside of her. She screamed his name, then dug her nails into his lower back, urging him to go harder and faster.

Their moans and grunts filled the greenhouse, rising to the ceiling. He plowed into her without mercy, his expression tight, his eyes closed. Quinn forgot to be self-conscious, to think about her body. She matched his strokes, meeting his kisses when he remembered to kiss her, holding onto his bottom lip. And then she exploded in sheer ecstasy, screaming his name at the top of her lungs. Several more powerful strokes and Wyatt followed her over the edge, her name torn from his lips in a hoarse cry.