Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus Creek) (25 page)

CHAPTER NINE

RYLAN REACHED OUT
and snagged Quinn’s elbow on the sidewalk outside of Ocotillos, narrowly preventing her escape. “Leaving so soon, sugar?”

She stiffly averted her eyes and kept her lips pinched silent.

He eyed her mutinous expression. “What evil is that busy li’l head of yours convincing you I’ve done?” he asked with forced calm. “Because whatever it is, you’ve got it all wrong.”

“Get your hands off me.” She tried in vain to pull herself out of his grip.

“Not until you tell me why you’re giving me the cold shoulder.”

“Why don’t you go back to Dani’s office? It looked pretty warm in there,” she bit out.

Rylan swiftly tugged her against his chest and effectively vaporized the distance she was trying to put between them. “Warm, huh?” He tilted her stubborn face up to his. “Well then I guess I’d better show you what
hot
looks like instead.”

His mouth seized hers in an unyielding kiss that didn’t just burn, it
scorched
. Igniting new levels of heat he never knew existed, he didn’t relent until he felt her anger finally dissolve. “I’d never hurt you like that,” he whispered roughly. “What you saw was comfort for a friend, nothing more.” He shook his head with gruff tenderness. “You make me crazy, you know that? From now on, don’t stomp off without checking if your baseless ideas about me aren’t in fact insane.”

Steadying his gaze on her liquid blue eyes, he brought his forehead down to rest on hers. “I’ll be here tomorrow night for the concert but I’m bringing a Valentine’s Day dessert to your house afterward.” His voice brooked no refusal, throbbed with undeclared emotions now tattered round the edges. “We can watch a DVD, play cards, whatever. So long as we’re together, I don’t care what we do. And if you and Coop are free this weekend, I thought the three of us could camp out in your yard like he’d gone on about last week. I got us a big tent so we—”

Quinn grabbed him and halted the rest of his words with her lips.

Surprise immobilized Rylan for all of one heartbeat before he pitched his arms around her and crushed her to him. He never wanted to let go, couldn’t if he’d tried. The pent-up passion she was unleashing slayed his ability to do anything but hang on for the wildest ride of his life. She kissed them both into a side alley and he nearly swallowed his tongue when she mindlessly slid one knee up his leg. Knowing what her movements were doing to her prim little business skirt was unmitigated torture. Quinn had amazing legs. And she never wore hose or stockings, a fact he knew from looking but not touching per the old ‘nothing below the waist in back and absolutely nothing in front’ rule he’d been tormenting himself with on each of their pseudo dates. He knew she’d been hurt by a lot of jerks in her life and he hadn’t wanted to rush her or make her feel like she had to do anything she wasn’t ready to do again.

But now here she was, ready and offering, and damn it all but he wanted to accept.

Unable to stop himself, he smoothed his hand over her hip until he came in contact with the warm, bare skin of her thigh. Even better than his fantasies. She shifted forward and his knees almost gave out when his fingers slipped under the edge of her skirt completely, dangerously close to curves he really shouldn’t be touching out here in plain view of the world.

He yanked his hand back and pulled away from the kiss at once.
Criminy.
It would be his luck that the first time he actually got to feel those gorgeous legs of hers they’d be in public, unable to do a damn thing more about it. “Quinn, honey, this alley isn’t all that private.”

It was as if she didn’t care. She leaned forward and slid her lips across his jaw, tracing her tongue down his neck before clamping her mouth onto the hard, beating pulse at his throat.

A coarse groan, soft and low, rumbled out of him.

“I love the sounds you make,” she whispered against his skin.

He’d have made the same declaration to her if he’d had any mind left to voice, but he didn’t. She’d stolen all thought from him when her curious hands slipped under his shirt and flexed into his tense lats before scoring his obliques.

But she didn’t stop there. Her fingertips slid down to tease the gap between his painfully clenched stomach and belt buckle, where much hotter flesh was rapidly gravitating to her fingers.

Christ. He barely caught her wrist in time.

Great,
now
Quinn let her inner sex kitten out of the cage. He’d seen that hidden fire in her all along, but evidently, he hadn’t known the half of it. “Sugar, I’m seconds from taking you to my truck and just plain taking you,” he rasped, his voice hoarse.

Her blue eyes eclipsed, and all his good intentions shot straight to hell. A ragged curse spilled from his lips. “You’re supposed to say no, honey.”

“But I want to say yes,” she whispered.

Instantly, everything turned fuzzy. “Good god, woman.” Somehow—and he had no idea how—he still managed to force himself back, his body fighting every step he took.

Then he heard the delicate, feminine sound of disappointment from Quinn and his feet simply refused to move another inch. He slid his hands around her waist and pulled her back to him again. “I need one more kiss, sugar. One more to make waiting for the rest bearable.”

When her face lit up, his eyelids lowered tenderly. Damn, this was going to be a hell of a long kiss. “Concerts never start on time anyway,” he muttered as he bent down and captured her lips in a kiss so sweet he didn’t ever want it to end.

A half hour later, during his band’s set, Rylan finally grasped what it meant to sing from the soul as he felt his throaty ballads resonate from depths his music had never reached before.

All because of Quinn.

* * * * *

THE CONCERT
turned out to be a raging success. Ocotillos had been packed, the musicians had all had a blast, and Dani had been thrilled to see the appreciative crowd of singles and couples alike all dancing and having a great time.

Exhausted, Dani fell into her office chair and spun around so she could prop her feet up on the bookshelf behind her desk. Glancing at her phone, she saw she’d missed a call from her brother Derek. With a tired shrug, she ignored his voicemail for the time being. Really, the only voice she wanted to hear right now was Luke’s. But for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to call him, an affliction she’d been dealing with all day. As a result, this was now the longest they’d gone without talking to each other...and the fact that she’d felt every lost minute was an unsettling portrait of how much she’s changed in the last month and a half.

Yet another reason to feel discombobulated today.

The news reporter asking her about being madly in love with Luke had really messed with her brain. All day since, she’d questioned everything—and doubted even more. Like the plague, spreading until it consumed her, the doubts and questions mocked her, reminded her that she wasn’t at all the woman a romantic like Luke deserved. Her eyes slid to the glaring evidence of that fact sitting on her bookshelf—the Valentine gift she was planning to give Luke.

Her first Valentine ever.

Choosing it had been a weird experience—thrilling-until-you-felt-naked sort of weird. She’d spent more time on this gift than on dozens of birthday and Christmas presents in the past combined. Each possible gift idea she’d rejected before this one had undergone tireless scrutiny and prompted endless unanswerable questions about their relationship.

How did people do it each year? It was ridiculous.

Leaning against the chair, she peeked at the gift again through one eye, seeing the second laughable evidence of her questionable sanity. She’d swathed the gift in red wrapping paper with pink and gold hearts and loads of shining curly ribbon. What had she been thinking?

She
hadn’t
been thinking. That was the problem. Lately, she wasn’t thinking like herself at all. Stranger still, as lost as she felt lately, when she was with Luke, she felt
found
as well.

Not exactly a less scary revelation.

Picking up the Valentine gift, she peered at it and saw a stranger reflected back at her.

Without knowing exactly why she did it, she found herself slowly untying the bow, watching as it fell to her lap. She slid her nail under the clear piece of tape next, pulling it off to peel back the bright wrapping paper. Soon, the gift box was stripped bare, totally unadorned.

That was more her, right? No surprises to look forward to but no disappointments either.

“Who’s the valentine gift from?”

Dani gasped and spun around.

Luke stepped into her office, his expression growing darker as he watched her shove the book-sized box into a drawer. “Who gave you that gift, Dani? The one you were just opening like it held all of life’s secrets.” His voice was raw, gritty.

And hurt.

Her eyes widened in confusion. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“No.”

She shot up and went over to him, shutting the door. “What happened?”

“I saw the woman I’m falling in love with give more of herself to another man than she’s ever given me.”

She flinched at the stark pain tearing through her chest...until her emotions boomeranged back and changed to shock when she realized he was talking about her. “Me?”

“Of course you.” His expression turned exasperated. “Who else?”

“I j-just wasn’t sure that you...I mean, you’ve never said...” Her face went blank. “Wait, what exactly do you think I gave to another man?” Now
she
was the one annoyed. In fact, she became outright pissed. “What the hell are you accusing me of, Luke?”

His sad, dark laugh clouded the air. “Nothing as simple as betrayal. Nope, you’ve been perfectly clear about what you want, and you’ve stuck to those expectations of us exactly.”

“Luke, seriously, you aren’t making any sense.”

“I came by earlier. I saw you and Rylan here together.”

“
And?
” Her arms flew up in the air at his stony expression. “You’re
jealous
? Because you saw us talking?!” She was nearly shouting in frustration now. “Rylan and I are just friends.”

He stepped forward, crowding her. “I saw it.”

“Saw what? We were
talking
!”

“It was more and you damn well know it.”

“It was not! Nothing else happened. I can’t believe you don’t trust me!”

“Unfortunately, I do trust you, more than I’ve ever trusted any woman in my whole life. I’m not under the misguided impression that you were cheating on me.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Confused weariness quieted her tone.

“The problem is that you were confiding in him, sharing parts of yourself with him that you’ve never once shared with me. Not once. I’m crazy about you, sweetheart. And as strong as my feelings for you are already, being kept out like that is damn lonely.” His voice lowered. “And hurtful as hell.”

Shocked, she didn’t know what to say.

His eyes softened. “Why, sweetheart? Why won’t you let me in? You’re willing to give Rylan, Xoey, hell most of your workers a place in your heart. But not me. Why?”

“We just met,” she reasoned quietly.

“Bullshit answer. Try again.”

He was pushing her, and she knew he wouldn’t back down this time. She couldn’t look at him as she shook her head in a silent no.

“I need to know.” He brushed the side of her face with his fingertips. “Please.”

An impossibly long minute passed and Luke just stood there with the most caring look in his eyes, comforting her unconditionally for reasons he didn’t even understand yet.

“Because none of
them
will leave,” she whispered finally.

He stared at her, silently demanding more.

“I know none of them will suddenly decide they don’t want to be a part of my life, tear the foundation out from under me, and leave me unable to stand back up again.” She stopped, her breathing broken, her eyes no longer hiding anything as they met his. “None of
them
will steal back the place in my heart I’ve entrusted to them and leave it so it can’t become whole again.”

“And you think I will?” Luke looked at her incredulously as he hauled her into his arms.

“No...I don’t know. But you’re the first person who’s gotten close enough to be able to.”

He said nothing more, just held her patiently. Waiting...

His silence eventually rattled her nerves to its boiling point. “I never used to have any hang-ups like this. I never once saw the need to look beyond the present with the guys I dated before you. Then you come barging into my life, being so freakin’ perfect and turning my wonderfully comfortable life on its ass—
Stop smiling, dammit!
I can feel you smiling!”