Skin Deep: The O'Hurleys

by Nora Roberts

  “You’re so beautiful.” His voice was strained as he brought his gaze back to hers. “You take my breath away.”

  She stepped forward into his arms.

  The material of his shirt was rough against her bare skin. With her eyes half-closed, Chantel moved against him, urging his mouth to take its fill. Her tongue found his and began a silent, exotic seduction. All the while, his fingertips played over her as exquisitely as hers had played over the piano keys.

  Through the window the breeze stirred, threatening rain. Chantel inhaled the fragrances of the night as they tangled with the musky scent of passion. Slowly, and with as much care as he had shown her, she undressed Quinn.

  She rubbed her palms over the hard, coiled muscles of his shoulders, delighting in the feel. Temptingly she pressed her lips to his chest. There was a power and discipline in his body that urged her to touch, to tease. The ridges of muscles in his torso fascinated her. With a murmur of approval, she bought her lips back to his.

  They lowered themselves onto the bed.

  No hurry. No rush. The moment was drawn out, dreamlike, as they pleasured each other. Chantel shifted to look down at him. How could she tell him what he’d come to mean to her? How could she explain how much she needed him to be with her—now, tomorrow, forever? Did a man like Quinn believe in forever? She shook her head quickly, thrusting the questions aside. She couldn’t tell him; she couldn’t ask him. But she could show him.

  Softly Chantel brought her mouth to his, then ran her fingertip over it as if to test the warmth she’d elicited. Approving, she brought her lips to his again, to savor.

  He hadn’t known it could be like this. Even in the wildest rages of passion they’d incited in each other, he hadn’t known there could be such wonder. He’d told himself before that she belonged to him, but now, with her pliant and soft in his arms, he could finally believe it. And what was more, he was hers. Completely, utterly. Love fueled by tenderness was more consuming than any madness.

  He slipped into her easily, naturally. With a sigh, she accepted him. They rose together in a harmony of movement that was its own kind of beauty.

  When there was nothing left to give, they gathered each other close and slept.

  * * *

  “Don’t rush me; don’t rush me.” With a spring in his step, Frank waltzed in front of the skycap desk. “I’m going to make sure they don’t send my banjo to Duluth.”

  “La Guardia.” With a grin, the skycap showed Frank the stubs. “Don’t worry about a thing.”

  “Easy for you to say. I’ve had that banjo longer than I’ve had my wife.” Then, with a chuckle, he squeezed Molly’s shoulder. “Not that you mean less to me, my love.”

  “But we run neck and neck. Did you take your Dramamine, Frank?”

  “Yes, yes, don’t fuss.”

  “Frank’s a hideous air traveler,” Molly put in as she pocketed the tickets and boarding passes. “That’s where Chantel got it from.”

  Surprised, Quinn stopped in the act of hefting his small carry-on bag. “You don’t like to fly?”

  “I’m fine.” She’d already downed half a roll of antacids and two air-sickness pills.

  Molly glanced at the watch on her wrist. “We’d better get moving.”

  “Women. Always rushing.” Frank gave Quinn a slap on the back. “Why do we put up with it, boy?”

  “Only game in town.”

  “Right you are.” Delighted with the world in general, Frank cackled as he strolled through the automatic doors.

  “You’re feeling chipper this morning,” Chantel commented dryly, refusing to acknowledge the leaden feeling in her own stomach.

  “And why not?” Frank beamed as they rode up the escalator toward their gate. “A good night’s sleep’s just the ticket.” He quirked his brow at Molly and wondered if she’d wear that little black number again anytime soon.

  As they passed through gate security, Chantel began the slow and even breathing technique that helped her get on board.

  “Angel.” Quinn drew her off to the side. “Don’t you have a tranquilizer or something?”

  “I don’t take them.” She twisted the strap of her bag in her fingers. “Besides, I’m fine.”

  He unclenched her fingers and soothed them with his. “Your hands are like ice.”

  “It’s chilly in here.”

  Quinn noted a man mopping his brow as the room filled with body heat. “I didn’t realize you were nervous about flying.”

  “Don’t be silly, I fly all the time.”

  “I know. It must be rough.”

  Disgusted with herself, she stared over his shoulder. “Everyone’s entitled to a phobia.”

  “That’s right.” He brought her hand to his lips. “Let me help.”

  She started to draw her hand away but found it held firmly. “Quinn, I feel like an idiot. I’d rather you just let it go.”

  “Fine. But you wouldn’t mind holding my hand during the flight, would you?”

  “It’s six hours,” she muttered. “Six incredibly long hours.”

  He tilted her face to his. “We ought to be able to think of something to pass the time.” As he lowered his mouth to hers, neither of them noticed a man wearing dark glasses slip into a seat in the corner of the departure lounge. Neither of them noticed the way his hands clenched into fists as he watched them.

  “If we do what you’re thinking of, we’ll be arrested,” Chantel murmured, but the tension in her shoulders eased.

  Quinn nipped at her lip. “I’m surprised at you. I was thinking of gin rummy.”

  “Like hell.” When their flight was called, she drew a deep breath and kept her hand in his. “A dollar a point?”

  “You’re on.”

  Laughing, she walked with Quinn and her parents through the gate.

  The man in dark glasses rose and pulled a low-brimmed hat over his head, then took out his boarding pass. He merged with the crowd that surged onto the plane.

  Chapter 10

  “Are you sure you don’t mind being drafted into the family?” Chantel carefully zipped a dress into her garment bag. She’d hired one of Hollywood’s leading designers to create it, but it wasn’t for the stage or the screen. It wasn’t every day she was maid of honor at her sister’s wedding.

  “Is that what you call it?” Amused, Quinn sat on the unmade bed, dressed only in a towel. There was a freshly pressed suit in the closet that he didn’t even want to think about.

  “I don’t know what else.” Preoccupied, Chantel checked her makeup bag. If she’d forgotten anything, Maddy was sure to have it—probably still in the box. “Pop said you had to be at Reed’s suite an hour before the ceremony.” She paused and glanced back at him. “Just what is it men do before a wedding?”

  “State secret, and no, I don’t mind.”

  She stopped again, tapping a brush against her palm. “What did you think of Reed, Quinn? I know we only had a few hours together last night, but you must have formed an impression.”

  “Worried about your sister?”

  “It goes with the territory.”

  He settled back against the pillows and looked at her. Trim slacks, a silk blouse, silver blond hair pulled back from an extraordinary face with hammered-gold combs. Chantel O’Hurley didn’t look anything like a mother hen, but he’d learned to see further than skin deep. When it came to her family, she was a marshmallow.

  “Dependable, certainly successful. Meticulous, I’d guess. Conservative.”

  “And Maddy?”

  “Scattered, theatrical and a shade wide-eyed.”

  “That’s Maddy,” Chantel murmured. “It doesn’t seem as though they’d have enough in common for more than a ten-minute conversation. But—”

  “But?”

  “It feels right.” With a sigh, she dropped the brush into her bag. “It just feels right.”

  “Then what are you worried about?”

  “She’s my baby sister.”

  “By how ma
ny minutes?” he asked dryly.

  “Time has nothing to do with it.” She said it with such offhand certainty that he was sure the question had been put to her before. “She is my baby sister, and she’s always been the most trusting one, the most loving one. Abby’s so … solid,” she said. “And I’ve got enough meanness in me to keep my head above water. But Maddy … Maddy’s the kind of woman who believes the check is in the mail, the alarm didn’t go off, or the gas gauge was broken.”

  “I think your sister knows exactly what she wants and how to make it work.”

  “So do I, really. I guess I’m just being sentimental.”

  Quinn arched a brow. “Why don’t you come over here and be sentimental?”

  She sent him a slow smile. “I thought you were waiting for room service.”

  “Hate to wait alone.”

  “Quinn, if I get back in that bed …”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to make incredible love to you.”

  “Threats, huh?” He lay back and crossed his arms behind his head. “Why don’t you come over here and say that?”

  She tossed her cosmetic bag aside and walked to him. “You haven’t got a chance.”

  “Big talk.”

  “I can do more than talk,” she murmured, and ran her fingertips up his leg to where the towel skimmed the top of his thigh. “Much more.”

  Before she could prove it, Quinn grabbed her wrist and yanked so that she tumbled across his chest. Her laughter came first, then was muffled to a sigh against his lips.

  It didn’t seem possible that she could want him as much as she had the night before, when they’d first slipped between the linen hotel sheets, but the excitement was just as new now, just as vital.

  The scent of his shower was on him, fresh and tangy. His hair was slightly damp as it brushed across her face. His body was there for her, strong, virile, unclothed. With another laugh, she pressed her lips to his throat.

  “Something funny?”

  “I feel safe.” She tossed back her head to smile at him. “So wonderfully safe.”

  He brushed the hair away from her face, holding it a moment, then letting it stream through his hands. How had she come to mean so much to him in so short a time?

  “Safe’s not the only thing I want you to feel.”

  “No?” She lowered her lips to his shoulder and let her tongue glide across his skin. “What else?”

  Love, loyalty, devotion. It was frightening that those were his first thoughts. To protect himself, and maybe to protect her, he didn’t tell her that. The physical loving wouldn’t hurt either of them—not the way emotions could.

  “Why don’t I show you?” In one quick move he had Chantel on her back beneath him. The towel around his waist was held in place only by the press of their bodies. When his lips found hers, she began to tug the towel aside. Aroused, he laughed and made quick work of the buttons on her blouse. A knock on the door of the adjoining parlor had them both groaning. Chantel rose on her elbow and tossed her mussed hair back.

  “You had to have breakfast, didn’t you?”

  “Let him bring it back later.” Quinn slipped a hand under her skirt to explore her thigh. The knock came again, more insistently this time.

  “I’ll get it.” Shifting away from Quinn, she adjusted her blouse. Then, with a grin, she picked up the towel and tossed it across the room. “You stay here.” She kissed him again, quickly. “Right here.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  “Keep that in mind.” Chantel was smiling as she hurried into the parlor. Quinn would have his breakfast, but he was going to eat it cold.

  In bed, Quinn reached over and idly turned on the radio. A little music, he thought. With the drapes still drawn, the room was dim. They might be anywhere. For a moment he let himself imagine they were in their bedroom—not in her house, not in his, not in some plush hotel, but in a home they’d made between them. When you loved, he realized, you didn’t just think of now, but of always.

  Maybe it was time to tell her, time to admit to her, not just to himself, that he loved her and wanted to share his life with her. His life—that meant past, present, future, not just the fleeting urge to satisfy passion, to quench desire. There was passion, but it would never be satisfied. Desire would never be quenched. And more, much more, there was emotion that swelled and expanded every moment he was with her.

  He wanted her for his wife. That should have terrified him, but it almost amused him. He wanted her in all the traditional ways, the ways he’d always shrugged aside as restrictive and unimportant. A home, a family, his ring on her finger and hers on his. Quinn Doran, family man. It suddenly seemed to fit.

  She might balk. She probably would. He’d just have to apply the right kind of pressure. Thinking of it made him smile a little. Persuading Chantel O’Hurley to marry him might just be the toughest nut he’d ever cracked.

  “Quinn.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Would you come out here a minute?”

  He heard it in her voice, just a hint of tension. Quinn pushed aside his fantasies and reached for his robe. He saw the flowers as soon as he stepped into the parlor. A dozen bloodred roses with their petals just opened sat on the table by the door. Chantel stood beside them, her face as white as the card she held in her hand.

  “He knows I’m here.” She managed to keep her voice even, almost calm. “He says he’d follow me anywhere.” Her fingers were steady as she handed the card to Quinn, but when his brushed over them, he found them cold. “He says he’s waiting for the perfect time.”

  Quinn took the note and glanced briefly at the message. In the corner of the envelope was the printed name of the florist’s shop. “He’s made his first mistake,” he murmured. “Who brought these up?”

  “A bellboy.” She stared at the far wall, at a Monet print, and wondered why she felt nothing, nothing at all. “I didn’t even tip him.”

  “Stop it.”

  His voice snapped her back. After one long shudder, Chantel looked at him. She wouldn’t get sympathy from Quinn, or soothing words or empty promises. She didn’t want them. She wanted the truth. “He’s here, isn’t he? He might even be in this hotel.”

  “Sit down.” He started to take her arm, but she backed away.

  “I don’t need to sit down. I need some answers.”

  “Chantel—”

  At the next knock, she pressed a hand to her mouth to muffle a scream. Swearing, Quinn pushed her into a chair, then went to the door. Through the peephole he saw a room service waiter with a breakfast tray. “It’s all right,” he tossed over his shoulder. “Just room service.”

  Quinn opened the door to let the waiter roll the cart to the table by the window. After scrawling his name on the tab, he followed the waiter to the door to take a quick scan of the hall.

  “You could use some coffee,” Quinn said, moving past Chantel to the breakfast tray.

  “No, answers.” Though her knees were wobbly, she rose. “I’m not sure why, but I think you have them. You knew he’d be here.”

  Despite her refusal, Quinn poured two cups. “Yeah.”

  “Yeah.” A dry laugh came from nowhere as she pressed her fingers to her temple. “You’re not a man to elaborate, are you, Quinn? How did you know he’d be here? Sixth sense, gut hunch, instinct?”

  “Any of those would do.” He felt a sick curling in his stomach as he turned to face her again. “I expect him to go where you go, but in addition to that he said he’d be here in the last few notes he sent.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. The chill had sprung to her skin quickly. She was beginning to feel now, and feel sharply. “You didn’t think I should know?”

  “If I’d thought you should know I’d have told you. Why don’t you eat something?”

  Yes, there were feelings now. They were boiling inside her, threatening to bubble out with the first word she spoke. Chantel walked to the table and, keeping her eyes on Quinn’s, picked
up a plate and very deliberately dropped it on the floor.

  “Just who the hell do you think you are?” Her voice carried more venom when it was low and steady. “How dare you treat me as though I’m some brainless, gutless female who needs to be led around by the nose? I had a right to know he intended to follow me, that things would be the same here as they were on the West Coast.”

  He could let his temper go or he could control it. Quinn sat down and picked up his coffee. Anger had taken the dazed look out of her eyes. He’d let her take it as far as she could. “I handled it my way. You pay me to handle things my way.”

  Caught off guard, she stepped back. She paid him. How could she have forgotten he was only doing a job? An arrow of pain passed through her. Even that, somehow, was better than the numbness. “I expect to be kept informed of your progress, Doran.”

  “Fine.” He picked up a piece of toast and began to heap on jelly.

  “I’ll just leave you to enjoy your breakfast.”

  “Chantel.” His voice was soft, but it had enough punch to stop her before she crossed the room. “You might as well sit down. You’re not going anywhere by yourself.”

  “I’m going down to Maddy’s room.”

  “You can try to leave.” He set his knife very deliberately on the side of his plate. “You won’t make it. I’ll take you down myself as soon as I’m dressed.” He sent her a cool, challenging look. “And you’ll stay there, inside the room, until I come back for you.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I’ve got a man stationed in the room across the hall, and another in the room across from your sister’s. You’re perfectly safe inside, but I want to take you down myself.”

  She was almost angry enough to take her chances. Chantel measured the distance to the door, and the look in Quinn’s eyes. Without a word, she dropped down onto a chair and ignored him while he finished his breakfast.