low laugh escaped her. “Well, okay, then. I get it. You’re trying to tell me the reason—so go ahead. I’m ready for it.”
“You sure?”
She groaned and executed a major eye roll. “Will you please stop teasing me?”
Now he looked at her so steadily, a look that made her warm all over, especially down in the center of her. “All right.” And then, just like that, he said, “I want to marry you, Chloe.”
Quinn wasn’t finished. “I want to build a life with you, have kids with you. Like I said, I’m a guy who follows my intuition, a guy who has trouble sounding out a word—but also a guy who gets the big picture. And once I know what I want, I go for it. I want you, Chloe, for my wife. I want you for my little girl, too, because I know you’ll be the mother Annabelle needs.”
Chloe just stared at him. Words? They’d completely deserted her.
He put up a hand. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything now. All you have to do is take your time. Think it over. And you should know the kids aren’t a deal breaker for me. I want more. But if you don’t, I can live with that. Annabelle will be enough.”
“I, um...” She had no idea what to say next.
That didn’t seem to bother him. He simply waited.
And she found that she couldn’t sit still. She got up, eased from behind the coffee table and then kept going to the sliding door, the one she’d slipped out that first night, when he came up the hill and she took him to her bed.
He didn’t try to stop her. He didn’t say a word, only sat there, patiently waiting for her to process all he’d just said.
She appreciated his silence and stillness now, appreciated it every bit as much as she did all that he’d told her moments before. She flipped on the deck lights and stared out at the two empty cedar chairs.
Was this really happening? Just like that, out of nowhere, he wanted to marry her?
But then again, no. Not out of nowhere, not really. He was such a focused sort of man. Of course, he would decide what he wanted and lay it all out for her so honestly and directly.
She fiddled with the pearls her dad had given her years ago, when she thought she knew everything and saw so clearly how her life would go.
What about love? Quinn hadn’t mentioned love.
Should that bother her?
Well, it didn’t. She’d had enough declarations of love from her rotten-hearted ex-husband to last her into the next century. And where had all that love talk gotten her but wounded, divorced and bitterly disappointed?
This, what Quinn offered, was better.
It wasn’t a fantasy, not perfect. But it was honest. It felt real.
Quinn spoke then. “One more thing. About Manny...” He waited for her to look at him, and then for acknowledgement that she’d heard what he said. When she gulped and nodded, he went on. “Manny’s part of the family. So you would not only be getting me and Annabelle. There’s Manny, too. He can be a pain in the ass, I know. But he’s not going anywhere. If you said yes, you would need to deal with him, work with him.”
She felt a soft smile tremble across her mouth. “I would never for a second expect it to be any other way.”
He didn’t smile. But his eyes were so bright. “Well, all right, then.”
The part about Manny had been so easy to answer. But the rest of it... She really didn’t know what to say. She stared out the sliding door again.
He asked into the heavy silence, “Want me to go?”
Turning from her study of the empty deck chairs, she faced him once more. “No way. I want you to stay.”
He stood. “Will you think about it, consider my offer?”
“I will.”
He came for her then. She waited, her whole body humming with sweet anticipation as he approached.
And when he was close enough that the heat he generated seemed to reach out and touch her, she canted her chin higher and gazed straight into those beautiful eyes. “You are like no one I’ve ever known.”
“That’s good, I hope?”
“Oh, yes. It’s very good.”
“Angel.” He lifted a big hand and brushed a finger down the curve of her cheek, stirring up goose bumps, making her sigh. And then he lowered that wonderful mouth of his and brushed those lips, so gently, back and forth across her own.
She smiled into his kiss, brought her hands up between them and went to work undoing the rest of the buttons down the front of his shirt. It didn’t take long. She spread the shirt wide and pressed her palms to his broad chest, to that beautiful tattoo with his little girl’s name in the middle of it. His skin was hot, wonderfully so. Sandy hair formed a tempting T across.
And down.
Best of all, she could count the strong beats of his big heart. She whispered against those velvety lips of his, “I should have made a move on you back in high school.”
He chuckled, the low rumble sending a thrill shivering straight to the core of her. “That wasn’t your style—and I wasn’t your type.”
“Oh, but Quinn. You were my type. What a fool I was then. I took what I thought was the safe way—and it wasn’t safe in the least. It turned out all wrong.”
“Hey.” His voice was heaven, the perfect blend of rough and tender. He kissed the tip of her nose. “No regrets, huh?”
“But I do have regrets.” She slid her hands up over his thick, hard shoulders, and clasped them around his neck. “And I can’t just wish them away.”
He shrugged out of his shirt and let it fall. Then he bent his head lower, smoothed her hair aside and pressed his hot mouth to the crook of her neck. “Forget ’em, then.” His breath so hot across her skin, branding her, burning her. “For now, at least?”
She threaded her eager fingers up into his hair. “Help me with that?”
“Happy to.” He breathed in through his nose. “You smell so good...” And then he scraped his teeth where his lips had been.
She shivered and moaned as he kissed his way back up over the curve of her jaw to claim her lips again. She opened for him. Heat speared through her as his tongue swept her mouth.
He lifted her hair off her neck with one hand. With the other, he took down the long zipper at the back of her dress and guided the dress off her shoulders. It dropped to the floor. She broke the lovely kiss in order to step out of it. He bent, picked it up and tossed it on the nearest chair.
Unbuttoning and unzipping, flinging articles of clothing toward the chair as soon as they had them off, they undressed each other.
Finally, when the only thing left was her pearls, he ordered gruffly, “Turn around.”
She showed him her back. He unhooked the diamond clasp and took the necklace away. She faced him again in time to watch him reach over and lay the double strand on the nearby side table.
That was it. They were naked. Completely naked. And it seemed such a very long way to the bedroom.
Good thing she’d planned ahead.
He asked roughly, “What are you smiling about?”
And she pulled open the little drawer in the side table and took out the condom she’d tucked in there. Just in case.
“God. Chloe.”