Once Touched (15 page)

Hot, when she'd been labeled cold so many times.

She reached the waistband of his jeans, and for the first time in her life, her fingers itched to continue on, sneak beneath the denim and touch the firm globes of his butt.

And do what? Jump a guy who'd shown no interest in her? She couldn't manage sex with guys who were
willing.
What was she thinking, to try what would surely be a pathetic and clumsy sexual pass at Ethan?

She was out of her depth—way, way out. Drawing a shaky breath, she forced her hands to travel back up his spine and over his shoulders in a brisk sweeping gesture before stepping away from the table. “There, all done,” she said in a chipper tone that sounded all wrong.

He rolled off the table so quickly it might have been glass shards he was lying on rather than a combed cotton sheet. Keeping his back to her, he grabbed his shirt and shoved his arms into the sleeves with rough efficiency.

With the body she'd worked on—so beautiful, so pain-ridden—hidden from view, she wrapped her hands tight about her middle. The feelings roiling inside her weren't so easily contained, however.

“How do you feel?” she asked, unable to stop herself.

Ethan answered in a low, jagged growl, like a trapped animal looking to escape. “How do you think I feel?”

That was just it. Quinn didn't know. From the rigidity of his muscles when she first touched him, she'd have hoped the short session would have helped him feel better. But of course that wasn't what she really wanted to know. She wanted to hear him say he'd felt that electric awareness, that sense of connection, that blast of excitement, the heat of which lingered.

The thrill must have been wholly one-sided.

Bowie saved her from having to mumble some inanity about restoring elasticity to the fasciae. Now that Ethan was upright, he went over to him, wriggling his hindquarters with happiness.

The dog got a glimmer of a smile from him even if she didn't. Since broaching the topic of what Ethan thought of her was impossible, she returned to her campaign to convince him to care for Bowie.

“He likes being with you,” she said. “You must remind him of his previous owner.”

He tipped his head to look at her. The angle made the slash of his cheekbones and the thin blade of his nose even more pronounced.
Oh, crap,
she thought with despair; she was getting hung up on his looks, too. How humbling. No more would she be able to smile with a secret superiority at women who went as gooey as a bag of sun-warmed caramels over a handsome man. It was true that Josh could make her thoughts fuzzy, but then again he was
trying
to charm her. He
wanted
to kiss her. Ethan was just being his difficult self.

“All right, I'll take him with me until he's used to that crazy-ass parrot. No longer,” he warned.

She nodded tightly. It didn't make her necessarily happier that she suddenly understood why Josh could never have the same effect on her as Ethan did. Josh might charm, but he couldn't make her feel so intensely that one minute she was gnashing her teeth at his stubbornness, the next moved to tears by a glimpse of the anguish lodged inside him. Not once had he said or done anything to make her heart swell to bursting.

But at least she now had the answer to the morning's question of what to do. There would be no further “experimentations” with Josh. The weight that slid off Quinn's shoulders as she made the decision told her it was the right one.

Tomorrow she'd find Josh and let him know that they could be friends but no more than that. What she would do about Ethan and her growing attraction to him…well, she had no clue, since Ethan seemed unmoved by her charms.

T
HE COLD MORNING
air made the tips of Quinn's ears tingle. She should have grabbed a jacket and scarf, but a five o'clock call from George Reich, the manager of the guest ranch's restaurant, asking her to fill in for one of their waitresses, Liz, who'd come down with a nasty cold, made her top of choice—a hooded sweater—a nonstarter. Instead she'd had to rummage in her closet in search of an ironed white shirt.

She'd have had better luck finding a four-leaf clover or a unicorn. At last she remembered the load of whites in her dryer, but then lost another fifteen minutes ironing the wrinkles out of a fitted button-down. When the shirt was finally up to Silver Creek Ranch's sartorial standards, she'd whipped it on, brushed and braided her still-damp hair, and bolted out of the house, the braid thumping the space between her shoulder blades as she hurried up the path to Josh's cabin.

By her estimate, she had just enough time before she had to report for waitressing duty to let Josh know she wasn't interested in pursuing things further with him—and boy, she hoped that when the words came out of her mouth they wouldn't sound quite so lame.

But all words, brilliant or cringeworthy, flew out of her head when he opened the door to his cabin. He was dressed, but his denim shirt clung to his torso. From the vee of skin where it was unbuttoned at the neck, she caught the scent of soap. Hurriedly, she looked up. His lashes were still wet, clumped together in thick, dark spikes, and his chocolate brown eyes shone with happy surprise.

“Hey, Quinn.”

“Um, hey, Josh.” She swallowed. Determined to sound less rattled, she tried again. “I, um, wanted to see you because, um—
mmphh—
”

The rest of her sentence was locked away, sealed by Josh's lips. The kiss seemed to go on forever, and when at last he released her and stepped back she could only stare stupidly at him.

“Yeah, I've been wanting to see you, too, Quinn. I've been thinking about you, hoping I'd catch you soon, and here you are.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “I'm real glad you came by. The bummer is I've gotta go. Pete wants me to take some advanced riders out. Folks named the Dorseys and the Watts.”

“Oh yeah. They've been coming here forever. They're friends—they live in the same neighborhood in L.A.”

“Pete told me one of them's a movie director.” He pronounced “movie director” with the same awe a six-year-old said “Santa Claus.”

“Yeah. Campbell Watt. He directs action films. His wife, Patricia, works in TV. Josh, I wanted to talk about us. I like you—”

His face blocked out her thoughts once again as he swooped in for another kiss, this one mercifully briefer than the last. But when he raised his head and whispered, “Damn, Quinn,” his voice had a husky rasp. “I sure do like the way you taste. Sweet and salty at the same time.”

“Peanuts.”

At his blank look, she explained, “I was in a rush and grabbed a handful of peanuts as I went out the door.” She hadn't expected to be sharing them.

“Best nuts I've ever had.” He grinned and traced a finger down her cheek. But then something must have caught his eye, for he abruptly looked up and past her. “Awesome dog, Ethan,” he called. “Where'd he come from?”

She spun around. Even from this distance the fierce disapproval in Ethan's glare reached her, answering the question she hadn't yet formulated. Yes, he'd seen her and Josh kissing. Again. She went cold and then blushed fiery hot with embarrassment as without a word—not a “Good morning, Quinn” or even a “Hey, this dog snores like a truck driver”—he turned and stalked off in the direction of the barns, Bowie's silky coat rippling as he trotted alongside.

“So I'll catch you later, okay, Quinn?” Josh was already moving past her.

“No, wait.” She caught his shirtsleeve. Determined to get the words out before he hurried off, lured by the glitz of showbiz people, she spoke in a rush. “It's about us, Josh. I'm sorry, but it's not going to work.” She paused, casting about for something more intelligent and original to say than
It's not you, it's me,
since she'd already uttered that tired phrase to a half dozen or so guys, but her brain came up empty.

Josh must've thought she'd finished. “Oh.”

For a second his face looked blank. She steeled herself, ready for his disappointment, perhaps even an argument. What she wasn't prepared for was his casual shrug and even more careless response.

“Well, okay, if that's what you want. Listen, I really gotta run. The horses should be spotless for the VIPs. See you around.” With a quick smile he was off, jogging toward the barns.

She stared at his retreating figure in astonishment. Well, this was a first in the chronicles of her disasters with men. What had just happened? Josh had been the one to kiss her in the first place, right? He'd been the one to say he wanted to see how things went between them. Shouldn't he have shown a smidgen of disappointment at hearing that she didn't want to go out with him?

It was perverse, she knew, to be miffed that he'd taken the news so well. She should be doing cartwheels that his ego wasn't bruised, that he hadn't vented or, worse, decided she needed persuading.

At least it was done. Now all she had to do was clear the air with Ethan, and suddenly that struck her as a much more daunting task. Even if she had the time to run after him and explain, what would she say precisely? That she hadn't actually been kissing Josh but trying to break things off with him? How would she broach the topic? She couldn't think of a single opening that wouldn't result in a garbled mess of awkwardness and embarrassment. And how vain of her to think that he'd care what she said.

But there was no time to run after Ethan. She'd used up all her spare minutes with Josh. She had to go up to the lodge and serve the hungry guests.

Why did her relations with the opposite sex often feel like for every step forward, she took two steps back? Was it any wonder that she avoided anything deeper than casual friendships, let alone sexual relationships, when she was lousy at every aspect of them?

Ethan had learned from his time in Afghanistan that few things cut a situation down to essentials like military jargon. His present state definitely qualified as FUBAR—fucked up beyond all recognition.

Last night Quinn, with just five strokes down the length of his back, had given him his first hard-on in months. When a guy hadn't achieved an erection in that long a time it was kind of a big deal. A big fucking deal.

But Quinn's gift tortured, filling him with conflicting impulses. As he felt his cock thicken and swell, pressing against the fly of his jeans, a part of him wanted to throw his head back and shout in triumph. And had the woman who'd performed this minor miracle been anyone but Quinn Knowles, he would have done his damnedest to get her naked, beneath him, and wet for him before seeing to it that he gave her as much pleasure as one body could give another. But it was Quinn whose touch was magic, and he'd declared her off-limits. Sweet-talking her into letting him put his hard-on to work was out of the question. She deserved better than to have someone as damaged and messed up as him inside her. Yes, he might bring her pleasure; it was guaranteed he would ultimately bring her pain.

Yet he wanted her, ached to bury himself so deep he couldn't tell where he ended and she began. That sweet, slick warmth sheathing him the closest to heaven that he would ever come.

Almost any guy on the face of the earth would rejoice at recovering the ability to use his penis for anything besides putting out campfires. Not him. For him it raised some difficult and uncomfortable truths that were as impossible to ignore as the wood he'd sported inside his jeans.

He didn't like that Quinn was able to make him feel things no one else could. He'd gotten so good at shutting himself off. Damned if he wanted her to wield that kind of power over him.

There was another, deeper explanation why he wasn't doing backflips and yelling hallelujah now that his cock was rising to the occasion. He didn't deserve an erection. A person didn't have to be Sigmund Fucking Freud to recognize that it was a symbol of life, the promise of a future, the tool of
creation
—and why should he get one when he'd deprived others of ever experiencing anything again?

That should have made his penis go as soft and wrinkled as a three-day-old balloon, but no. He'd remained hard and aching for her.

If that weren't enough to make him curse the capricious fates, this morning he'd taken the dog Quinn had maneuvered him into pet-sitting out for a morning pee and nearly bowled into her and Josh. From the kiss she was giving him, Ethan bet she'd given
him
a boner, too.

Unlike the first time he'd caught them in a lip-lock, the dawn's light allowed him to see everything all too clearly. An hour later he was still choking on the wave of jealousy that had swamped him.

Damn it, if he'd been the one kissing her, his hand wouldn't have rested limply on her shoulder. He'd have had his fingers twined deep in her long braid, holding her still so his mouth could devour hers with long, deep kisses, feeding the pent-up hunger consuming him.

There'd be no daylight between their bodies. He'd have Quinn up against the cabin's wood siding, his chest plastered against the soft mounds of her breasts, his free hand cupping her sweetly rounded ass, his cock probing the welcoming cradle of her thighs. His need for her would be hot enough to melt the layers of denim separating them. Then there she'd be, open and wet for him. With one hard thrust he'd be inside her.

He could spin enough fantasies around her to last a year of nights. They all boiled down to this: he wanted to know her taste, to memorize the feel of her every curve, of her every scented hollow, and fill himself with it.

And he couldn't have any of her.

Given the way his luck was running, it came as no surprise that the first person he spotted after leaving the goats milked and fed would be good old Josh. But there was no opportunity to compound his jealousy with colossal stupidity by going over and trying to rearrange the Texan's pretty face. Since Josh was astride his horse, Waylon, a roan that shone like blue steel, Ethan wouldn't have been able to reach it in any case. Four other riders were with him. From their relaxed but alert postures, he guessed they were advanced and about to enjoy a good, hard ride.

When a second wave of jealousy hit him, he shook his head in disgust. Damn it all, what was happening? Why was everything making him
want
?

Daniel Knowles came out of the horse barn and approached the group of riders. From the laughter and banter, Ethan guessed they must be regular guests at the ranch. Daniel stepped back, allowing the riders to fall in line behind Josh as they moved out. Spying Ethan, he gave a wave and began walking toward him.

Just then, a voice addressed him. “Good morning, Ethan.”

He turned and was greeted by Adele Knowles's warm smile. Her eyes were so similar to Quinn's that it was hard to meet them.

“So this is the new dog?”

“Yeah, this is Bowie.”

Adele extended her hand so Bowie could sniff it. “Pretty boy. I saw Quinn up at the lodge. She's still serving a few guests who came down late to breakfast. She was worried about Bowie making things difficult for you around the horses. I'd be happy to take him for you—”

His fingers tightened around the leash. “He'll be fine with me. I'm taking him to clear brush. He can fetch sticks.”

“That's very good of you.” Adele's voice rang with approval.

It wasn't good of him. He was simply a perverse bastard. Quinn had foisted Bowie on him. Now he didn't want to give him up.

“Quinn said she talked to you about Thanksgiving the other day. We have such wonderful memories of the holiday with your parents when you were young. Do you remember them?”