Quinn started thinking about all the other rules he had broken since beginning this mission and wondered why he was trying to redeem himself at this late date. And as he was wondering, he slung his damp towel around his neck and walked toward the kitchen, wearing nothing but his jeans.
When he reached the threshold of the kitchen the man was half-blocking Houston from view, standing much too close, and Houston was saying in a cold angry voice, “Let me tell you what’s never going to happen, Mike. You’re never going to move back in here and let me pay your bills while you sit around watching game shows all day. You had your chance and you blew it big time, so don’t come around here trying to charm your way back into my bank account. Because I’ll tell you the truth—you’re just not that charming.”
“Honey, you know you don’t mean that. It’s obvious we were meant for each other. I mean, four years later, I’m still alone, you’re still alone—what do you think that means?”
“Good morning,” Quinn said.
Mike turned around, his expression startled, and Houston took the opportunity to move away from the counter against which he had all but pinned her. She looked upset, but there was relief in her eyes when she saw Quinn.
Mike’s eyes narrowed as he took in the sight of a strange man, half dressed and obviously straight from the shower, standing in his wife’s kitchen. “Who the hell are you?”
Quinn replied, “I could ask the same of you.”
The two men faced each other down for a moment, measuring, assessing, testing their territorial claims with a body language that was as old as the cave.
Then Houston spoke up quickly. “Quinn, this is my ex-husband, Mike. Mike, this is—”
“Quinn, I know. And you are…?”
Quinn did not know exactly when he had become angry. This kind of anger—righteous and primal in defense of a woman—was a new and satisfying experience for him, and he had no intention of trying to overcome it. It wasn’t his place to interfere. He was going to interfere, anyway.
Quinn stepped forward deliberately and put his arm around Houston’s shoulders. “A friend,” he replied.
He felt Houston’s surprised stiffening, but she didn’t pull away.
Mike seemed to be struggling between belligerence and suspicion and finally settled for a combination of the two. “Oh, yeah? Well, what are you doing here this time of the day?”
Quinn managed to inject surprise into his tone. “Didn’t Houston mention? I live here.” He pulled her a little closer and dropped a kiss on her hair. “You should have told me he was coming over, sweetheart. You know I’ve been wanting to talk to him.”
Houston relaxed against him, catching the spirit of the game. “I didn’t know,” she confessed. “Mike likes to…surprise people.”
Mike was looking a little less sure of himself. His tone fell a little short of belligerent this time, though it tried. “What did you want to talk to me about? I don’t even know you.”
“Well, that’s true. And frankly, I don’t think you want to get to know me,” Quinn said pleasantly, “because I really don’t think we’d get along all that well. As for what I wanted to talk to you about, it’s just this—the next time you feel you have no choice but to ask money from a woman who, thanks to you, is raising a child all alone on a severely limited income, come to me. You see, Houston can’t afford to support you anymore, but she’s too nice to tell you so. I’m not.”
Mike swallowed hard, obviously trying to think of something to say and failing.
“And,” Quinn continued, “although I personally find this hard to believe, I understand there are some men who would use a child to get to the mother. I certainly hope that’s not the case with you. Mark is an exceptional little boy who can’t help who his father is and who certainly deserves better than you. The next time you break a promise to him will be your last, so if I were you I’d think carefully before I made any promises at all.”
Mike’s fists clenched and unclenched, the tendons in his neck tightened and his lips compressed. His eyes were a darting mixture of fear and indignation. “You can’t talk to me like that! Who the hell do you think you are?”
Quinn smiled. “I believe we’ve covered that.”
“Well, we’ll just see about that! We’ll see what a judge has to say about that! You can’t threaten me!”
As he blustered, he charged for the door, turning back with his hand on the screen to deliver some final stinging epithet.
Houston said pleasantly, “Next time, call before you come.”
Mike pushed through the screen door and let it slam behind him with a bang.
The silence in his wake was weighted. Houston didn’t pull away from Quinn, and though Quinn knew he should step away himself, he was afraid that doing so would only make the moment more awkward. Holding her was easy. Apologizing was not.
They heard the car start up outside and the spray of gravel as it left. Finally, Quinn said quietly, “I know it was none of my concern. I heard you talking and you seemed uncomfortable. I let my anger get the best of my judgment. I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.”
Houston turned, slipping both arms around his waist, and looked up at him. Her eyes were bright—with tears, Quinn realized with a start—but she was smiling. She said, a little thickly, “Just when I needed a hero.”
“Houston, don’t cry.” He put his arm around her, and she pressed her cheek against his bare chest. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“No one has ever stood up for me like that before.” Her voice was muffled, her breath hot and damp on his skin. Her fist lay curled and closed over his heartbeat in an oddly endearing way.
Quinn closed his hand around a mass of her curls and kissed the top of her head gently. “If I had a choice, you would never fight another battle alone.”
The small sound she made sounded like a cross between a laugh and a sigh. “Sounds good to me. Oh, Quinn. Why aren’t there more like you? And where in the world have you been all my life?”
Her words went right to the core of his soul. Quinn took a long deep breath, drawing in the scent of her, the essence of her. Spice and vanilla. He would never forget it. It would float inside his head, haunting his dreams and his silent moments for all eternity.
She stepped away, looking up at him with a little smile of regret and gratitude. The flesh around her eyes was damp, but the tears were gone, leaving only a sweet rosiness about her nose and cheeks. Before he could stop himself he leaned down and tenderly kissed the corner of her eyes where teardrops had stained.
He straightened up slowly, tasting salt and softness. She did not move, but watched him with quiet, star-bright eyes. The moment seemed to be suspended between them, heartbeats, breaths. Waiting…but for what, neither one would say, even to themselves.
Quinn said, “I’d better go.”
She said nothing. He could see the slow rise and fall of her breast and feel the heavy pounding of his heart. Her hands were on his back, near his waist, her fingers against his waistband, the curve of her thumbs brushing his skin. Every muscle in his body tightened with awareness, and even his pores seemed to expand, taking her in.
His voice dropped just a fraction in timbre. “I’ve been impulsive once today.”
And she replied, “That didn’t work out so badly, did it?”
Her eyes were big and searching, asking but not answering. All he could think about was holding her.
“Houston.” His hands slid up her back almost as though they were controlled by a power greater than his own will. “I thought we had agreed.”
“On what?”
“This isn’t good…for either of us.” But her face was so close, her breath so warm and her lips so soft and moist that he leaned forward and tasted her, softly breathing into her. “You make it hard to think.”
“Don’t think,” she whispered.
“Houston…”
Her fingers curved inside his waistband. Her eyes were heavy lidded, her face faintly flu
shed. “I’m never impulsive, Quinn. I think I should be…just this once.”
His muscles ached with trying to keep from crushing her against him; wanting her actually hurt, deep inside his skin. He said, “Houston, don’t.” But he could not make his body obey the command of his words. He could not make himself step away. He couldn’t even make himself look away. He wanted to draw her closer and closer still; he wanted to drown in her closeness.
“I want to be your lover,” she whispered.
He said hoarsely, “That’s…not possible.” But nothing had ever seemed more possible, more right, more real.
Her breath was quick, and he imagined he could feel the beat of her heart, fast and strong, against his. “It’s possible,” she said. “It’s crazy, it’s dangerous, it’s wrong…but it’s possible. And you want it, too.”
“Yes.”
“Now…we just have to decide what we’re going to do about it.”
“Nothing,” he said. “We’re going to do nothing.”
And then he drew her into his arms and covered her mouth with his and he was lost in her, suffused with her, drowning in her. Her mouth opened beneath his, he felt the press of her tongue and the sweet tangy taste of her, her hand on his face and in his hair. His head spun. He tried to remember all the reasons this was wrong. He could remember nothing, not his past, not the future, not the rules. Least of all the rules.
It had been so long since Houston had been held like this, with power and purpose, been drunk on a man’s kisses, felt the very blood in her veins ignite her senses and known the promise of what was to come…. So long. Too long. And never had it been this potent, this mind robbing, this insistent. For every cell in her body, every sensory ending and nerve fiber demanded him, insisted on him, could not continue to exist without him.
She wasn’t impulsive. She wasn’t reckless or careless like her mother. But Quinn was more than an impulse, he had been since the moment she had first seen him. He was her destiny.
They parted for breath and the room was bright and feverish, pulsing in an odd and wonderful way. His face was close to hers, flushed with passion, dark with desire. She wound her fingers through his and whispered, “Come with me.”
She led him to the bedroom with its sun-splashed walls and dark polished floors, its white cotton counterpane and peach striped sheets still faintly scented with the warmth of her sleep. She closed the door and turned to him.
He stepped close, almost touching, embracing her with a promise rather than in fact. His eyes were dark and alive, his face wonderfully strong, wonderfully familiar. His hands were poised on either side of her shoulders, a mere breath away. “Don’t be sorry,” he said huskily. “Don’t…be wrong.”
It was hard to talk, her throat ached so. But she knew the words had to be said. “If…you leave me, or hurt me, or betray me…I’ll be sad. But I won’t be sorry.”
A shadow of pain darkened his eyes. His hands cupped her shoulders ever so lightly, barely touching at all, yet communicating a universe of emotion with his touch. “I will do all those things.” His voice was strained. “Please understand, Houston. I can’t stay. I will leave you. It may be today, it may be tomorrow…but I will leave. I have no promises to make, nothing to give you…except this moment.”
“That’s all I ask,” she whispered.
His hands slid down, arms embracing her, cradling her against his chest. She opened her mouth, inhaling his fragrance, tasting the smooth heat of his chest with the tip of her tongue. She could feel the strength of his arousal, separated from her only by the thin layers of their clothes, the tightness of his muscles, the fan of his breath, hot and strong on her face. His fingers tangled in her hair, and he pressed a kiss against her neck. Her knees went weak. Nothing had ever felt so right. Nothing.
They sank to the bed in a slow-motion turn, splashed with sunlight and swirling colors. Their clothes came off and Houston did not remember how; she only knew the sensation of warm bare skin against bare skin, of muscles and ridges, planes and curves. Pleasure and need flowed into one another and if there were any lingering doubts or uncertainties they spiraled away on the morning breeze.
They melted into each other, as though they had always belonged together, their bodies perfectly fitted, hearts perfectly synchronized. Houston gave herself over to sensation, thoroughly awash in it, completely lost. His skin, hot and slippery beneath her fingers. The exquisite waves of pleasure generated by his mouth on her breasts, his fingers on her thigh. The low rush of his breath mingling with her own, the pounding of heartbeats. And the sharp aching pleasure of his entry, filling her, melding with her, becoming a part of her as she was of him.
She watched his face and let him see hers as they came together—with intensity and desire, pleasure and wonder, tenderness and care. His hands cupped her face, smoothed back her damp tangled curls. He kissed her eyelids, and her cheeks. She wrapped her legs around him, drawing him deep within her, holding him there, arching into him. She felt his response in every muscle, in his breath and pulse and even in his skin. His pleasure was hers and hers his.
They moved together in perfect rhythm, letting the love they made carry them to its own predestined peak. It was as though something outside them both had taken over, cradling them in its embrace, weaving the threads of trust and harmony into a silken web that bound them both. And when the pinnacle of pleasure was reached it cascaded around and through them in undulant waves, and they clung together helplessly, suspended in emotion, until they came to rest in each other’s arms.
Time stopped. Quinn measured the passing of minutes by the pace of his breathing, but even his breath seemed to flow into hers, leaving nothing separate unto himself anymore, nothing that mattered outside of her. The sun sparkling on her hair. The curve of her shoulder, sheened with perspiration. The rise and fall of her chest with each breath.
She lay on her side with her cheek cradled in the curve of his arm, tangled in peach striped sheets and his embrace. He looked at her and his heart ached. Now, he thought, I’ve done everything. Broken every rule, flouted every law. He wondered what became of a man when he turned his back even on his own code of ethics.
He tried to summon regret. He could not.
He understood the morals of her century, and they were different from his own. It was not uncommon in this time for a man and a woman to share this most intimate of human experiences as casually as they might exchange a handshake and walk away unchanged. In this time, sexual encounters were for the most part meaningless, having to do more with recreation than with emotion. For that he should have been grateful.
But he could not make what they had just shared meaningless. And he did not think Houston could, either.
She raised her face to him and smiled. “I wish I knew what you were thinking,” she said softly.
He brushed a strand of hair away from her mouth. “Weighty moral issues,” he replied, twisting the strand around his finger. “Dull stuff.”
She laughed softly, her eyes taking on the sparkle that he loved. “You are a very unusual man, Quinn,” she said.
And then the laughter faded into uncertainty, a shy and gentle curiosity as though, even after all they had shared, she wasn’t sure she had the right to ask the question. “What is back in Clarion, Minnesota, that is going to take you away from me?”
He said, puzzled, “Where?”
“Clarion, Minnesota. That’s where you’re from, isn’t it?”
He relaxed. “That’s where I was born. It’s not where I work.”
“Where do you work?”
He thought about the place so far in the future that it could not even be called a city, its name a word that wasn’t even a part of the language yet. Thinking about it made him sad. He could leave her nothing, not even a picture of him in her head in the place where he belonged. He said, “You wouldn’t have heard of it.”
She shifted her position, her head still on his shoulder, eyes toward the ceiling. He could feel some of the
easy closeness between them slip away. “This isn’t easy for me,” she said. “Sleeping with a man I don’t know. I’m trying but…it’s not easy.”
His arms tightened around her instinctively. He had not thought before what a simple act of courage it had been for her to surrender to her emotions and share this moment with him. He was a stranger to her, a mystery, maybe dangerous, always uncertain. He had walked away from her once, just as her husband had, and had all but promised to do it again. Yet she had opened herself to him.
How could he not love her for that?
He kissed her forehead, his heart beating slow and hard. “I don’t want it to be easy for you,” he said. “If it were, you wouldn’t be Houston.”
He lay back against the pillow, holding her. He gazed at the ceiling, just as she did. “I wish I could tell you more. I wish I could tell you everything. Most of it you wouldn’t believe, parts of it you wouldn’t understand—but I wish I could tell you, anyway.”
She inquired hesitantly, “Do you work for the government? Are you some kind of…agent?”
He smiled. “Do you mean spy? No. It’s nothing like that.”
“I don’t mean to sound silly. A lot of guys would have gone with the old ‘CIA agent’ line, though, once I offered it to them.”
“Maybe I should have.”
“No,” she answered seriously. “Don’t lie. Not if you can help it. Please.”
He turned his head on the pillow and found her looking at him. He curled his fingers against her cheek. “That I promise.”
“Do you think…” She swallowed. Her eyes searched his. “Do you think you’ll ever tell me?”
He had broken all the other rules. Would it really mean so much to break one more?
He answered as honestly as he could, “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
She dropped her eyes, her struggle to accept this apparent. Then she said, “Could I ask you one more question?”
He nodded, his chin brushing the top of her head.
She glanced up at him. “Your name. Is Quinn your first name or last?”
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