by Maisey Yates
“I’m fine. You startled me is all.”
“You’re jumpy.”
“Yeah. And? You were sneaky. Do we need to go over sneaky again?”
He shook his head. “Not for my benefit. Though I fail to see how walking out of my kitchen and into the living room qualifies as being sneaky. And I brought you coffee.”
“Sweet nectar of life.” She stepped down from the stairs again and reached out for the mug. And he drew it back, just out of her reach, her hands following the trajectory. She froze when she nearly touched his chest. “What are you doing?”
“Not yet.”
“Coffee tease.”
“Kiss me.” He pulled it back further and she followed the motion, her lips a whisper from his. “Lark. If you want the coffee, you have to kiss me.”
Heat suffused her cheeks, then flooded through the rest of her body. He wanted a kiss. From her. “If you insist.”
She pecked him on the cheek.
He growled, the glint in his eye dangerous and sexy. “Not good enough.”
“You’re changing the rules,” she said.
“When did you start thinking I was the kind of man who played by the rules?”
“Good point.” And because rebellion would only hurt her, and because he smelled like soap and skin and Quinn, and that was a combination she couldn’t resist, she leaned in and pressed her lips to his.
“Mmmm,” she said, reaching out and snatching the cup from his hand. “Good morning, indeed.”
“I made breakfast.”
“Oooh.”
“Come with me.”
“I did that last night,” she said, feeling way too proud of her use of double entendre as she followed him into the kitchen and sat at a little square table that was positioned by the window.
“I see what you did there.” He picked up a plate of waffles from the counter and brought it, along with two other plates and a jug of syrup, to the table. He sat across from her, the expression on his face odd.
“What?” she asked, pulling three waffles off the stack and putting them on her plate, putting syrup between each one.
“I’ve never had breakfast with a woman before.”
“Really?” She picked up the fork that had already been sitting on the table, waiting for her, and cut a bite off of her waffle stack, shoving it into her mouth. “How is that possible? And wow, these are good.”
“Because breakfast comes after sex. And after sex, I leave.”
“And I didn’t let you last night.”
“No. You didn’t. You tempted me back into bed.”
“That makes me feel like a wicked siren. I kind of like it. Lark Mitchell, scarlet woman. Enticing men to make her waffles. Not quite enticing men to their doom on the rocks, but hey, it’s still pretty good.”
“I think this is why I don’t normally have breakfast with women,” he said, taking a bite of his own waffle.
“Oh, really, why specifically?”
“Because then I have to talk to them. Although, I actually like talking to you. I don’t think I could have talked to those other women. But then, maybe I could have. Maybe they weren’t all airheads. Maybe they were just playing a part.”
“We all kind of do that, right?”
Quinn shifted in his chair. Lord knew he did that. He’d played the rough, simple bad boy for all the women he’d slept with in the past. And they, for all he knew, had just been playing the part of dumb buckle bunny for the evening. A chance to be stupid and have fun.
Boy, didn’t he bring out the best in people? And himself. He was an ass.
Not that that was a huge surprise.
“I guess so. What’s your role?”
“Um . . . I don’t know that I have one anymore. I think I left it on your bedroom floor. With my panties.”
“Yeah, you never did tell me why.”
“I wanted you?” she said, her mouth full of waffle. She was so damn cute. And since when had he been interested in cute women?
Vampish. Sexy. Sexual. Yes, all those things—but cute?
Well, except all of those descriptive words could be used for her. It’s just that she was cute too.
“You’ve wanted me since you met me,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “What I want to know is what brought you here, last night, clutching a tub of ice cream like it was a magical talisman.”
“I . . .” she leaned forward and put her elbows on the table. “It’s bad.”
“What happened?”
“I got into a fight with my brothers, who are massive idiots and deserved every bit of my rage. I basically told them to go to hell, and I came here to make sure I was headed in that direction too.”
“I see. And what was the fight about?”
She let out a long breath, her nostrils flaring a little bit and why the hell was he noticing that? More to the point, why did it fascinate him?
“I . . . The stupid thing is that I didn’t even get all the details. Cade, who is . . . just . . . such an asshole, didn’t want me to find out because he didn’t think I could deal.”
“Well, he’s just crazy, because clearly, fleeing into the night with a gallon of ice cream and giving your virginity to your brother’s mortal enemy is dealing just fine.”
“Har. Har. You’re heavily concerned with this virginity thing, aren’t you?”
“Don’t change the subject on me, Mitchell.”
“We’re putting a bookmark in this portion of the conversation and we will return to it later.”
He shrugged. “If you insist.”
“I do.”
“What did you fight about?”
“Specifically about them not trusting me. About them choosing to lie to me to protect me, which I think is condescending as hell.”
“Okay, and what did they lie to you about?”
She blinked, furiously, and to his horror, a tear slid down her cheek. “They were . . . trying to hide the fact that my father . . . had another daughter.”
“Another daughter? One not with your mother, obviously.”
“Obviously,” she bit out. “And they wouldn’t give me any more details. I overheard them talking and . . . she wants to come and visit us, but Cade didn’t want her to. Because heaven forbid my life be spoiled by reality.”
“Reality is overrated,” he said. “But secrets . . . especially the kind that everyone knows but no one will talk about, those are worse. Because you feel them. I was the kid your half sister is. The one no one wanted to talk about. Of course, since it was my mother who had me, there was no hiding me.”
“I don’t want secrets. It . . . it sucks, Quinn. I don’t want to think that my dad cheated on my mom. I don’t want to face the idea that he knew he had another child and somehow, even though he took care of us, and loved us, he was able to justify never seeing her. Who wants to deal with that? Who wants to know it? But if it’s true, then I don’t deserve to believe something different. To have memories that aren’t even real. That isn’t fair. It makes me feel like an idiot. They think they were protecting me. But how is letting someone believe a lie protecting them?”
“They thought they were doing the right thing.”
“Well, maybe. But now I just feel like . . . I was telling you about how great my parents were. How wonderful my father is. And I feel like the biggest fool on the planet because it was all such a lie. What I thought. Who he was. How could the man I remember ignore a child for . . . for . . . I don’t even know how old she is.”
“Maybe you should go and talk to them.”
“I tried, but Cade is digging in and insisting I don’t want to know, even while I’m standing there telling him I do.”
“Maybe he wishes he didn’t know.” Quinn wasn’t particularly in touch with emotions, but if there was one thing he did know abou
t, it was being the subject of a secret. It was having everyone know your secret shame and whisper about it behind your back.
So he knew. He knew just how destructive secrets could be. How the wrong revelation at the wrong time could destroy a family. And why a man who had other children would sometimes close the door in the face of his son, a son who so desperately needed someone to accept him, to save the life he’d built on lies.
Quinn knew all of that.
“Maybe,” she said, tugging on a lock of dark hair.
“And maybe you should go home and talk to them.” Why the hell was he prescribing her a moment of “Kumbaya” and hand-holding? It didn’t make any sense. None at all. He should be enjoying the family discord, except one thing kept him from total enjoyment: Lark.
She was hurt. And he didn’t like it.
“I’m not going home,” she said. “I have work to do.”
“I’m the boss. I can send you home.”
“You agreed to give me a scorching affair.”
“Did I?”
“Getting into bed with me last night signified a nonverbal agreement to conduct a scorching affair with me, as I had suggested only a moment before.”
“Is this a . . . binding . . . nonverbal agreement?”
“Yes. Binding. I didn’t write contract law.”
He crossed his arms. “I didn’t sign anything.”
“You spooned me. All night. That’s as good as a signature. Any lawyer would take my case.”
“So, I’m now contractually obligated to engage in sex with you,” he said.
“Scorching sex. In various locations.”
“They can’t get too varied—I have fifteen teenage boys coming to stay at this facility at the end of the week.”
“Then we only have a few days to be varied.”
He stabbed his waffle with his fork. “How long do you see this affair lasting?”
“How long are you staying here?”
“A few weeks, I expect.” But she would be done with him before he left. About the time she realized what he was willing to do in order to get Cade to clear his name. She might be mad at her brother now, but Quinn doubted she would appreciate him putting her family into dire financial straits.
“Then . . . until then?”
“Now we come back to the bookmark,” he said.
“Do we?”
“Yes. This is sex for me. I already told you that, but at the time, I didn’t realize how little experience you had.”
“I have experience.”
“I have blood on my bedspread and a lingering trauma that beg to differ.”
“I mean, I’ve . . . okay, I was a virgin, obvs, but it’s not like I had no experience.”
“What are we talking here? Second . . . third base?”
“What are the bases anyway? I always wondered. Second is boob action and third is like . . . is it oral, or a hand job? Or anything south of the belt line, so to speak?”
“Tell me about your experience.” Weirdly, he wanted to knock the guy who had given her her “experience” in the teeth. He liked being the only guy. There, he’d admitted it. He was an asshole, so it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise.
“Well, there was this guy. Aaron. Underscore. 234.”
“Wait, what?”
“That was his name. Handle. Whatever.”
“His handle? What was he, a trucker?”
“A recruit. In our clan. For zombie killing.”
“Wait, what? You didn’t know him in real life?”
She looked down at her lap. “Not exactly.”
“And how did you . . . gain experience with him?”
She bit her lip, her brown eyes far too wide and far too innocent. “This is the, um . . . cybersex . . . I mentioned last night.”
“Oh, really?”
“Don’t sound all scandalized. You and I had phone sex.”
“True, we did. But he’s the only experience you’ve had?”
“So what if he is?” she said, craning her neck and looking down her nose at him before taking another bite of waffle.
“I find that very interesting.”
“Well, cuz you’re a man. Men are predictable about things like this,” she said around a mouthful of waffle.
“So I’ve heard.”
“It’s boring,” she sniffed.
“I know, baby, I know I bore to you orgasm.”
“Ha. Ha.”
“So,” he said, setting his fork down, “what do you do with cybersex? I’m a Luddite, remember? Did you send pictures?”
“Oh. No, I would have died. We just . . . told each other what we looked like and . . . and went from there.”
“I need an example,” he said, shifting in his chair, embarrassed by the fact that he was actually getting hard anticipating her giving him some examples.
“You know . . . you don’t need an example.”
“I do, Lark. I find myself very jealous that this guy was on the receiving end of your dirty talk skills.”
“You do not,” she said.
“My masculine pride demands satisfaction.”
“Liar.”
“Tell me.”
Her cheeks turned read and she gnawed on a piece of waffle that was dangling from the end of her fork, then set it back onto her place. “I might have lied to him.”
“What about?”
“Well, I told him I’d done it before. Lots. Cuz I’m hot. And then I told him I had on a thong. Which I didn’t. I don’t own a thong.”
“You should get one.”
“Shush. I am telling a story. Anyway, then it was the usual, my cock is so hard for you, baby, et cetera.”
“Typical.”
“Right?” Her blush deepened, even while her tone stayed casual.
“And you got off with him?”
She looked down. “Yeah. It was easy. He said to imagine him doing certain things to me, and it was up to me how to . . . to . . .”
“Touch yourself.”
“Yes,” she said, looking at him now, her eyes a little defiant. “So, there. I have experience.”
“Sorry, that doesn’t count.”
“What? That’s not fair, you can’t say my experience doesn’t count. I have it. And what’s more, it was purely physical. Virtual. Whatever. It was only for sex. I used him. He was very sad when I was done with him, but when I was bored with him, I was bored with him. I feel no emotional attachment to him whatsoever.”
“You don’t ache for him when your fingers stroke your . . . keyboard?”
“No,” she bit out. “Not in the least. So go ahead and make your point, but recognize that I have a fork sitting near me and I will stab the fleshy part of your hand with it if you get too proprietary and . . . bleah, brotherly.”
“Fleshy?” he looked down at his hand and pinched the place between his thumb and forefinger. “That is not fleshy.”
“Missing the point.”
“Actually, you’re missing the point, and making mine really easily. You don’t know as much about sex as you think you do. You were a virgin last night. You’ve had sex once. Sex tends to make virgins a little bit crazy. Even I remember that.”
She rested her chin in her hands. “What was your first time like?”
“Off topic. But it made me a little emotional, and I never am. Which means I’m a bit concerned about you.”
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Dear Lord.” She straightened, looking appropriately horrified. “You’re a slut.”
“Yeah, kind of.”
“Well, I’m twenty-two, so I think I’m a little more mature than a . . . ew, you were too young.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you. I was seduced by an older w
oman. Who may not have known how old I was.”
“Quinn Parker, you are a bad boy.”
“I told you that. You seemed all right with ignoring it. Or maybe you like it.”
“I kinda like it, I won’t lie.”
“But you don’t see the reality of it. You see the fantasy. And for women I’ve taken to hotel rooms for one night? The fantasy is fine. I’ve done that—I need you to know that. I’ve spent a couple hours at a time with women I barely knew, screwed them, left, never thought of them again. I’m that kind of guy. I don’t do romance. I don’t do relationships.”
“What’s this?” she asked, looking around the kitchen.
“Waffles,” he said. “And that’s it. I’m not going to fall in love with you, and that has nothing to do with you. It’s me.”
“I appreciate your honesty.”
“I know it’s important to you.”
“It is.”
“I’m not going to protect you. I’m not going to lie to you. But I’m giving you a disclaimer. I need you to know that what I said to you, what I reminded you of last night, is still true.”
“Well, Quinn,” she said, leaning back in her chair, arms over the back of it, her breasts thrust forward into prominence, “I thank you for the warning. No love, no marriage. I get it. And you keep reminding me of what you told me. Well, has it occurred to you that maybe I don’t want love or marriage? I don’t, Quinn. Not now, not with you.”
“Then what do you want?”
She stood up and leaned over the table, her hair falling forward and shielding them from the outside world, her lips a whisper from his, dark eyes so deep he wanted to get lost in them. “I just want to fuck you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Quinn Parker had never been accused of being a gentleman. But he knew that there were certain ways you treated a lady. And when a lady asked for something as nicely as Lark just had, he knew it was downright ungentlemanly to turn her down.
So he did what any gentleman in that situation would do. He hauled her onto his lap and started kissing her. Deep and long, his tongue sliding against hers. He speared his fingers into her hair and came up against a nest of tangles, but he didn’t care.
Because he was kissing Lark. And no matter how bad of an idea it was, he couldn’t bring himself to stop. Couldn’t find any motivation to.
