California Man - The Author's Cut Edition

by EC Sheedy

She turned in his arms and put hers around his neck. "You've only been gone an hour," she teased. "But I'll admit to a touch of jealousy. What is it between you and James anyway?"

  "The bonding of two jocks. What can I say?"

  "If I take up a sport, would you coach me, bond with me, the way you do with James?"

  "That's exactly what I'm going to do. Coach you—in the most beautiful hotel room Victoria has to offer. Tonight. As for the bonding, that takes two, remember." He kissed her nose. "But before anything, I need to grab a shower before we catch the ferry. Okay?"

  Emily nodded in the direction of the bathroom. When he went in and closed the door, she sat heavily on the edge of her bed. She rubbed her arms where his hands had been and sighed.

  Tonight was too far away.

  There must be something she could do. Their time was so precious, so short. Her heart started to pound, an alternating rhythm of fear and excitement.

  Could she do it? Dare she do it?

  Aggressive, that's what he kept saying. She stood up and started to take off her clothes. Aggressive was what he'd get.

  She dropped her T-shirt on the floor and closed her eyes and did some seriously deep breathing.

  Goodbye, shy Emily. She headed to the bathroom.

  Quinn felt her before he saw her. His shock was quickly replaced by excitement when he felt her shower-slicked arms wrap around him and her trembling body against his back. He knew she'd crossed a boundary to come into the shower. Her pounding heart was testament to that. He turned and smiled down at her, making no secret of his own pleasure.

  "This is much better than showering alone." He pulled her close and ran a hand down her back. The heat came strong and fast. He leaned against the shower wall, pulling her with him. Slow, Quinn, take it slow. Right now, at this moment, he could have moved with a speed that would have scared the sap out of her. He had to take it easy.

  "You feel good, lady, damn good." His voice was rough velvet as he kissed her wet hair and smooth throat.

  At his words, the touch of his hand, she relaxed. She knew then that she'd been terrified he would reject her. Instead he'd welcomed her. She nestled against him, relishing the feel of skin against skin as the shower pulsed against her back. His body was sleek with water and soap, and she ran her hands up the tight muscles of his forearms. So firm. So strong. He was magnificent.

  At her touch, Quinn leaned his head back against the shower wall and closed his eyes, give her freedom to explore him. All of him.

  Pulling back to look up at him, she spread her fingers to run her hands flat-palmed through the damp hair on his chest. The curly hair veed to the level plane of his stomach, and she followed that vee downward. When Quinn tensed, she stilled her hands, then veered off to run them down the sides of his thighs. She raised dazzled, dreamy eyes to his as she brought her questing palms back to the expanse of his chest, lightly skimming his nipples. His hands, until now resting at the curve of her waist, dug into her softer flesh.

  "Emmi..." he started but didn't finish when her pink tongue flicked first at one flat nipple, then the other. A lick. A taste. A nibble when she took one between her teeth. He was letting her play with him, and she was taking maximum advantage of it, growing more... aggressive and courageous every second.

  His voice darker and richer than she remembered, he said, "Do you know what you're doing?"

  She lifted her head from his chest, tried to breathe. "Not exactly. What am I doing? Tell me."

  "You're raising my temperature at a rate of fifty degrees a second, and I think you know it."

  And whatever control Quinn had convinced himself he had was falling under the onslaught of her soft questioning hands.

  His hands moved down to her buttocks, and he pulled her to him, his erection hard and strong against her. He half expected her to draw back, instead she pressed into him and insinuated her hand between, getting it as far as the crease at the top of his thigh, perilously close to the source of Quinn's control problem.

  "That's it," he gasped. "Let's get out of here." He reached past her and turned off the shower.

  When the shower was off, she took his face in her hands and stilled him. "I don't want to wait. I want to make love to you—now."

  If Emily didn't see the raw need in his eyes, he knew she'd hear it in the huskiness of his voice when he answered, "We do that, we're going to disappoint a lot of people."

  Her headed tilted in question.

  He took a large white towel from the rack, and began drying her, rubbing down her back to her wet buttocks. "First, there's the hotel reservation. We said we'd be there by seven." He was drying the back of her thighs, moving the towel downward. When he reached her calves, he started up again, taking the inside route.

  "We can sleep on a park bench," Emily murmured, swallowing visibly. He slipped the soft towel through her legs, bringing it to the sensitive juncture of her thighs. With aching slowness he dried her there before turning her to face him.

  "Then there's dinner," he went on. "You know how maitre d's can be when you show up late."

  His teasing stopped when he looked at her breasts, full and high, lustrous with shower water. Beautiful... He dropped the towel, cupped her breasts; they were perfection in his hands.

  Not content to hold, he explored, moving his hands until a bud from each breast touched the center of each palm. Gently, softly, barely keeping contact with her nipples, he rotated his hands. Watched as she closed her eyes, let her head fall back. He felt her knees give way and when she sagged against him, he came undone. He needed her, all of her, against him, under him. Her hands all over him. His all over her.

  "Let's get to the damn bed," he growled, more to himself than her. He stopped long enough to retrieve a flat silver package from his shaving kit, before picking her up and carrying her out of the steamy bathroom. His words of a few days ago came back to him. Words about him stopping anytime she said so. All he could do now was pray he wouldn't have to live up to them. Not now with blood raging through his veins with such unholy force his muscles ached. Not now, when he was so hot his flesh was melting. Now all he wanted was to be in her, so far, so deep he'd touch her center.

  With Emily stretched out on the bed, he stood over her, scanning, setting in memory the curves of her body. His gaze came to rest on the patch of dark hair between her legs. With an intensity new to him, he blazed with need, stark and raw.

  When she read his eyes, the way he was looking at her, she reddened, closed her legs, and shifted to her side, using one arm to cover her breasts.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, he said, "Don't. I want to look at you. All of you." He lifted her arm and as gently as possible, urged her to her to her back again. His eyes swept over her, bold, hungry, and, he knew, blatantly sexual. Pinning both arms above her head, he bent his own to brush soft kisses on her throat and breasts before again lifting his eyes to hers.

  "You're beautiful. Every curving, sexy inch of you. I could look at you forever"—he smiled—"if I didn't have better things to do." He caressed her breast, rubbed one hardened, very upright, nipple. She surged into his hand, and her excitement, her innocent abandon, came near to undoing him. His groin tensed when he'd thought it could tense no more.

  "I want to touch you. All of you. You okay with that?" He ran his hand down and across her stomach, then back to roll the other nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Her skin was electric hot. Still his eyes held hers looking for an answer.

  She ran her tongue over her lips and placed her hand over his at her breast, stopping its seduction. "I'm okay with you, Quinn. Everything about you."

  "Then I'm about to become one very lucky guy." He lowered his head, licked the hardened bud of her nipple, then took it fully into his mouth. She cried out when he suckled, pulling her nipple deep into his mouth and stroking it with his tongue.

  When he heard her moan, he lifted his head from the moist, swollen tip, shifted from the edge of the bed, and stretched out beside her. Spiral
ing kisses up from her breasts to her throat, he took her mouth. His tongue thrust, penetrated as the length of him, hard and throbbing against her thigh, ached to do.

  Emily, caught in a fever unknown to her, was coming apart, drifting on a sea of physical sensations so new, so alarming, her only haven was Quinn's body. She dragged her nails across his back and cried his name. It couldn't get any better than this. It couldn't. Trying to shift his weight, bring him fully over her, she raked her nails over his buttocks.

  Quinn resisted, kept his arousal tight against her, but didn't move. He knew if he covered her, what restraint he had would crumble. He looked into her gray eyes, now silvered bright with desire. "Lie back. Let me touch you. I want you to go the distance."

  She started to speak, then nodded, knowing but not knowing what that distance was.

  He moved his hand down, warmed the length of her leg to her knee before starting upward to caress her inner thigh. She tensed when he bent her knee and coaxed her legs open, gasped when he cupped and caressed her at the hot joining point of her thighs, ran a finger along her crease—already moist for him.

  When she writhed under his hand, he fingered her, dipping inward. Deeper. Catching the nub of her clitoris. Again. Then again.

  She pressed herself to his hand, choked out tiny cries, half growl, half purr. In her heat and moisture, her frantic thrusts, her need transferred and he groaned, his lungs barely giving him breath. Quinn's own need now a solid incessant pound in his groin, he continued to stroke her.

  Wild. Crazed. Emily tore at the sheets, then his shoulders. Her body screaming for a release too long denied. A release only he could give her. Frantic, she reached for him, curling her hand around his erection.

  He groaned, added a curse when he had to stop long enough to put on protection. Again settling himself between her open thighs, he took her face in his hands, kissed her. "Look at me, Emmi. I want you to look at me."

  She complied with glazed hot eyes.

  And he entered her.

  Her eyes closing, she took him in, breathing out his name on a rocky sigh.

  When he'd filled her, he stopped, tried to breathe and let her adjust to him. He wasn't a small man. He felt her lips pressed to his shoulder, heard her muffled cry.

  Jesus, I've hurt her. He pulled back.

  "No. No! Don't stop," she whispered against his skin, the words sharp and low. "Don't ever stop." She rocked her pelvis upward, took him back. Took him deeper.

  His mind was blanking. She was burning and crazy tight. He was losing it fast—too fast. His breathing shallow and too short, his control in tatters, he thrust deep, still trying to hold back. But when she cried out, squirmed against him, what control he had shattered.

  Jesus...

  His mouth found the taut bud at the peak of her breast and took it, sucking hard in tandem with strong thrusts.

  "Quinn," she gasped, her fingernails raking his naked back as she clawed him closer. Closer still. "Oh, no... Yes. Yes."

  Suddenly she thrust up against him, her inner walls closing around his pounding length like a velvet vise. He felt her body reach, hold fast to him, then fold into itself in the spasm of completion.

  His sweat dampened body trembling with the effort, he slowed his movements, stilled himself inside her. Waited. She closed her legs around him, moaned and worked herself against his oak-hard cock. Took from him. A second climax. God, she was fantastic. A soft deep shattering, the finale after the finale...

  With a groan, he cupped her buttocks, lifted her to him, and plunged deep and hard, then deeper again, his own release immediate and as powerful as hers.

  Utterly unlike anything he'd ever felt before.

  For a long while, they clung to each other, letting their overheated bodies adapt to a cooler, quieter world.

  When Quinn shifted off of her, Emily shivered. He reached over her and dragged the quilt over her naked back before pulling her back into his arms.

  She snuggled against him. Her eyes were closed and he studied her openly and without distraction, loving the tiny secret smile playing across her lips. When she opened her eyes, those mysterious rain-colored eyes, they were filled with so much satisfaction his heart damn near broke free of his chest—like it wanted to fly. He inhaled deeply, calmed himself. It wasn't as if he'd never satisfied a woman in bed before—far from it. But damned if making love to Emmi didn't make him feel as if he were the first man to moon walk.

  "I didn't know..." She closed her eyes for another brief moment as if to gather up stray feelings. "I didn't know it could be like that. So... so cataclysmic."

  Good word. "It isn't always." He trailed a finger down her cheek. "We're good together. Better than good."

  "It was... okay for you then?"

  He smiled into her hair. "Okay? Are you looking for the award for understatement? It was spectacular. You're spectacular." He put his mouth to her ear, added in a whisper, "And very, very hot."

  "Maybe it had something to do with the coach."

  "Nope. You're a natural."

  "I knew there had to be some sport I was good at."

  "Blue ribbon material definitely."

  She laughed lightly, then stretched, a full languid stretch. And his gaze fell to her breasts. Lush, full breasts, he couldn't get enough of. When he kissed each nipple in turn, she shuddered. "Do you have any idea what that feels like?" she said, her tone sober. "How you make me feel?"

  He propped his head up on one hand, curious. "Why don't you tell me?"

  "You make me feel fluttery, hot, and... sexy. Like a whole new woman. Like the old Emily just... evaporated. And when you touch me with your mouth, I can't breathe. I go crazy like..." She closed her eyes for the image. "A high-tension wire cut in a storm, thrashing and sparking in a wet city street. And when you kiss my breasts, like you just did, I feel it..." She glanced up at him, saw his grin, and blushed. "I guess you know where I feel it."

  "I think I do."

  She touched a finger to his lips. "Why the smile? Do you enjoy seeing me squirm and turn red?"

  "I'm smiling because you make me happy. Though I'll admit I do like it when you squirm. Especially under me. I like that a lot." He stopped. "I like what you feel, and I like this new woman you say you've become—but don't let that old Emily totally evaporate. Okay?"

  "Okay." She smiled. "Besides, someone has to run the bookstore."

  But the idea of the old Emily brought a chill and the new sexy, satisfied Emmi didn't want her to intrude. She'd be back soon enough with all fears and phobias. She hated the idea of that and shoved it aside. For the time she had him, Quinn was going to have a woman with no fears, no panics, and no regrets. She loved him so much. God, she was crazy. Totally crazy. Without warning her eyes filled with tears. She closed them but not soon enough.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing. Nothing's the matter." She pushed the heels of her hands against her eyes to dam the tears. Stop! "I guess I find making love like we did a bit overwhelming—find you a bit overwhelming." That part was close to the truth anyway. She remembered reading that somewhere. If you have to lie, incorporate as much truth as possible to make it more believable.

  Quinn tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. So gently. "If you're crying because of overwhelming sex, then I should be shedding buckets."

  Emily watched his sober expression a second or two before speaking. There was so much she wanted to say, so much to leave unsaid. She searched for more neutral ground and found it in his eyes. "I love your eyes. Did you know that? They're the color of the ocean during a twilight storm. All dark and moody." She ran her finger along the line of his eyebrow and down his cheek, loving the freedom to touch and stroke him at will.

  He turned his head and caught her finger in his mouth, biting gently before turning her palm to his mouth for a kiss. "With all those pretty words, you could easily turn a man's head." One hundred and eighty degrees and already done. But it was too soon to tell her that. "Now what about that dinn
er and hotel room waiting for us in Victoria?"

  Emily snuggled closer and ran a hand across his chest. "What about it?" Her hand slipped lower.

  With iron will he stopped her exploration. "No, you don't. One more inch and I'll never see your hometown." He leaned over to give her a light kiss. When she started to deepen it, he pulled back, took a short breath. "You don't exactly play fair, do you? Are you telling me you've lost interest in going to Victoria?"

  Emily threw herself back on the bed. She knew Quinn wanted to see Victoria. He'd made all the arrangements. She was being selfish. He was on a holiday, after all, with only three weeks left. She sat up then and grinned at him. "All right. Victoria it is. If we hurry, we can make the next ferry."

  He kissed her again before shifting to sit on the edge of the bed. When he turned his back to her, she cried out, "Quinn! Your back!" Emily's hand flew to her mouth and her stomach did somersaults. Oh, no... What had she done?

  "What's the matter?"

  "Your back, it's all... scratched."

  "I expected it would be. Don't worry about it." He looked amused.

  Stunned, Emily couldn't believe she'd marked up his back. And a couple of the scratches were deep. "I must have hurt you. I'm so sorry." She sat up in the middle of the bed with the cover pulled to her chin, miserable and mortified. "God, I need to be in a cage!"

  When Quinn only laughed, Emily blushed deeper, looked down. He took her face in his hands, smiled into her eyes. "Will you please stop worrying. It's a couple of scratches. It happens—and not often enough. Hell, I'll probably walk around for the next few weeks with my shirt off just to show them off."

  "You wouldn't!"

  "Why not?"

  "I'd die. That's why. Promise me you won't take your shirt off until they're gone. Promise me, please!"

  "You mean you don't want everyone on Salt Spring to know you're a long-nailed tigress in bed? That in the heat of passion you tore me apart?"

  "I want only you to know that, and if you don't keep your shirt on, I will tear you apart." Emily gave him what she hoped was an evil eye. "Promise me. You'll keep your shirt on—no matter what."