by Peggy Jaeger
Moira could be objective about herself as well, and she knew she was considered good looking. All she needed for confirmation of that was to look at her twin. If ever there was a more beautiful man than Pat, she hadn’t met him and she knew they looked almost identical.
But there was no way Quentin could be in love with her.
Was there?
Wasn’t it simply more they’d known each other forever, felt comfortable and easy with each other, and were now exploring their relationship as adults?
They’d both been raised with the notion family came before everything else in life. Quentin was as close to his parents and brothers as she was to hers. That kind of total love and devotion was, she knew, rare. Both of them had been given and shown unconditional love for their entire lives and it was a treasured gift. Moira knew one day she would marry, as would Pat, Quentin, and the rest of the boys. They were all hardwired for family and would want their own. It was an expected fact of life they would all, one day, find the person they were destined to be with.
Quentin being in love with her, as Serena had stated, didn’t mean the outcome for the two of them would be marriage and Moira didn’t let her heart imagine it would.
But could he really be in love with her?
She was still trying to figure out an answer when she parked in his driveway and picked up the small housewarming plant she’d bought him.
She didn’t knock, instead just entered through the front door. After calling his name, she listened but didn’t hear a response. He was home because she’d parked her car behind his truck.
“Quentin?”
“Moira, I’ll be right down,” he called from the second floor.
She walked into the living room and stopped to admire the painting over the fireplace. As she had been the night before, she was again taken with the clarity and exactness of the scene her mother had created. It was as detailed as any photograph.
In the next instant, she heard barreling footsteps racing down the stairs and Quentin saying, “I’m sorry. Got stuck at the Dunkling’s farm. Then I forgot a med and had to go back to the clinic.”
He was in the process of buttoning his shirt, his hair was wet, and he was barefoot.
“Then Dunkling’s cow decided to, well, I don’t need to tell you that part, but I really needed a shower,” he bent and kissed her cheek, and then bolted passed her into the kitchen. “I wanted to do this right. Candles. Soft lighting. God, I hate being late. I’ll fire up the grill. It’ll just take a few minutes. The salmon’s been marinating all—” He stopped when the sound of her laughter echoed in the room.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, pulling open the refrigerator door.
“Quentin Stapleton, if I wasn’t seeing this with my own eyes I wouldn’t believe a word of it.” She giggled and grabbed her stomach.
Moving toward her, his shirt still unbuttoned and untucked, giving her an ample view of his fabulously cut chest and abdominal muscles, he rounded the kitchen island and took her in his arms. “What are you going on about?” he asked, leaning against the counter and pulling her with him to sprawl the length of his frame.
She rested her hands across his chest, his bare chest and, a giggle threatening to burst forth again said, “I’ve known you twenty-eight years and I have never, never seen you nervous or babbling before. It’s adorable. And ridiculously sweet.”
“I’m not nervous, just upset at being late. I wanted everything to be perfect tonight.”
“Okay, so this is you not being nervous.” She smiled as he bent to slide his lips over hers. The heat rushing up from within her whenever he touched her was becoming a very welcomed sensation.
“I rushed around all afternoon,” he said, nipping at the corners of her mouth. “I was way ahead of schedule.” He nibbled at her bottom lip. “I was gonna come home and set the table. I got flowers, candles,” he stopped and kissed her again. “Then Brendan Dunkling’s cow had to…never mind.” He swiped his tongue across her lips. “I just wanted us to have a quiet, romantic evening,” he said, pulling her head down to his chest and rubbing her back.
“With a gory slasher movie for after dinner entertainment.”
The low chuckle she heard drubbing up from within him was intoxicating. She pulled back and added, “You wanted to set the stage for a romantic, seductive evening.”
“That was the plan,” he said, his mouth pulling into a bemused grin.
“So, dinner, dessert I hope, and a movie, although not the prime genre choice for romance, and then what? We’d wind up together upstairs in your bed?” She’d kept her voice low, savoring the way his eyes changed from emerald green to a deep, glistening moss as she spoke.
“Well, I am a guy, M. Most guys plan an evening like that with the woman they lo—they’re involved with.” The edges of his mouth tipped up at the corners just enough her toes curled with the idea of pulling them back down to hers.
“Is that what we are, Q? Involved.” She’d cocked her head to one side, holding her breath for his answer.
“We are so much more than just involved, and you know it.” He kissed her hard and quick. “I can’t think about anything without your face popping into my head. Last night when I was lying in bed, trying to get to sleep, all I could think was you weren’t there with me…next to me…under me. I was so crazy for wanting you, I almost drove out to your parent’s house and climbed up the back trellis like I used to do with Pat when he went over curfew and had to sneak in. I wanted to head straight to your room and just make love to you until dawn.”
She let his words wash over and through her. His honesty staggered her. Any lingering doubts or worries about their relationship changing flew right out of her head. “The fact you want me like that still boggles my mind,” she said, simply. She cleared her throat. “So. Back to tonight.”
“Back to tonight,” he repeated and kissed the column of her throat, skimming his lips across her jaw.
“Where is it written we have to do everything in order?”
It took him a moment. Moira saw the instant he understood what she was asking. His eyes sparkled like winking diamonds and she could feel his chest rise and fall quicker under her hands.
“Moira.” His voice was so low and hot she almost melted where she stood. “Are you sure? I mean, it’s okay if we don’t…we don’t need to…”
She took pity on him and answered, “There you go babbling again. The salmon’s not cooked yet, right?”
“Still marinating.”
She nodded and looked at the table. “The candles aren’t lit, and we can watch the movie anytime. You’re not absolutely starving, are you?”
“Only for you,” he told her, tightening his embrace.
She stood up on her toes and molded her lips to his, pushing her tongue against his mouth, begging to be let inside. When his tongue wrapped around hers, tugged and pulled, she lost her balance again, a feeling she was getting very used to around him. “Take me upstairs, Q,” she whispered into his mouth. “I never got to see your bedroom last night and I want to. I want to so badly.”
Without a word, he bent and scooped her up as he’d done the night before.
With her hands curled around his neck, she sighed and told him, “Do you have any idea how absolutely marvelous it is to be carried this way? It takes my breath away.”
When she nuzzled his neck, he skipped a step or two.
At the top of the stairs he turned. The bedside lamp was still lit so Moira was able to view the spacious room.
“Why am I not surprised you have a bed this big?” she asked when she saw it. A king sized, four poster canopy filled the enormous room, seated in front of floor to ceiling windows lining the entire wall behind it. A rich, dark mahogany, the color of the wood was offset by linens in the same muted, soft tones Moira had seen in the living room. “Did you have a decorator do this house?” she asked, when he set her on her feet, his arms circling around her waist and pulling her into his body for a hug.
“Yeah,” he said, kissing her hair, “Two, in fact. Both named Mom.”
She pushed back to stare up at him. “You’re kidding?”
Bending, he planted a sweet kiss to her nose and shook his head. “The minute I signed the bill of sale they barged in and started. The one area I wouldn’t let them touch was the basement. That room’s mine.”
“Who did this room?”
He put a finger under her chin and pulled her face up to his. His lips caught hers and he gently rubbed against them with his own. “Mine.”
Moira breathed a silent sigh of relief, and couldn’t for the life of her figure out why if it had been her own, how she would have felt. Just as Quentin deepened the kiss, Moira spied the fireplace across from the massive bed.
And what hung over it.
“Oh. My. God. Quentin, where did you get that?”
His smile was devilish as he turned to look over his shoulder and then back at her. “I was wondering when you’d notice.”
“Mom painted you a copy?”
“No. It’s the original.”
“But she sold it. How’d you get it?” She left the warmth of his arms and walked over to the fireplace, mesmerized by the painting. It had been done from a photograph taken when she, Pat and Quentin were all thirteen. Delilah had captured them in their swimsuits, out by the lake, wet and sun drenched. The three of them were standing at the water’s edge, arms around one another’s shoulders, Moira next to Pat, he next to Quentin. Pat was smiling brashly at the camera, Moira’s head was cocked slightly to the side, and Quentin’s face was turned toward hers.
It was Delilah who’d then started calling them “M, P and Q” when referring to them, after taking the photo. It was an apt moniker because, first, it was the order of their birth, Moira being three minutes older than her brother, and both of them two days older than Quentin. But secondly, it was also a correct alphabetical signature.
The afternoon sun was high and the light bounced off the calm water, shimmering like a thousand gems behind them. When Delilah snapped the photo, Serena, once seeing it, had immediately committed it to oils. Moira remembered she’d sold the painting at a gallery showing for over ten thousand dollars, fifteen years ago. It had to be valued at two to three times the cost now.
“I heard it was coming up for auction last year and I got the winning bid.”
“Quentin,” she turned back to him, bit her bottom lip and asked, “how could you afford something like this? It had to cost a fortune.”
His shrug was easy. “I wanted it. I’ve always wanted it, since the first time I saw it.”
Not to be swayed, she persisted, “Answer me. How can you afford something like this? And for what it’s worth, how can you afford this house? I know veterinary medicine pays well, but not like this.”
“Does it really matter so much?” He placed his hands on his hips and tilted his head to one side as he regarded her.
“Yes. I don’t know why it does, but it does.” She crossed her arms over her chest, her breasts pushing up over them. Quentin’s gaze drifted down and then back up to her face, but not before she saw his pupils dilate.
“It’s nothing big, if that’s what’s worrying you. When Grandpa Bloom died, he left trusts to the three of us. Me, Ted, and Colin. We were to come into them when we hit twenty-five. My brothers don’t have theirs yet, but I took mine when I came into maturity. I put some into the equine center and the clinic improvements and some into this house. The rest is socked away for the future.”
“Oh.” She dropped her hands to her thighs, turned back to the painting and stared at it. Quentin came up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders, kneading the soft skin beneath his palms.
“Do you remember the day the picture was taken, Moira?” he asked, tracing a kiss along the back of one shoulder. His soft, hot breath caused the hair on her skin to stand at attention. “Because I do. Every part of it. It was one of the best days of my life. When Mom took it I remember thinking what a perfect day it was.”
Moira turned to face him and her breath was taken from her when she saw the expression gamboling across his face. His eyes had dilated to the point where she could only see small shimmers of green around his pupils as he looked at her. His lips were moist and pulled back at the corners in that lazy grin she loved beyond all reason.
“I remember it,” she said, softly. “But I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary about it. It was just another great day, like the thousands of others we’d had. Why do you remember it as so perfect?”
He bent his head and kissed her lips with such tenderness, Moira felt all the tension leave her body.
How could he so claim her, body and soul, with a mere touch?
“It was perfect,” he said, scooping her back up into his arms and walking to the bed, “because it was the day I realized I loved you.”
“Quentin.”
“I know it’s hard to believe you can fall in love when you’re still barely a kid and feel the same way so many years later,” he told her as he sat on the bed and rested her onto his lap, “but it’s true. In fact, I love you more now than I did then.”
Moira traced a finger reflexively across his lips. “I don’t know what to say to you.” A fat tear slipped down her cheek. “You humble me.”
He swiped at the tear and then lifted her chin so she could look at him. “I love you, Moira. Plain and simple. I don’t want to spend a second away from you and when I do, I’m thinking about you, dreaming about you. Wanting you.” He gently tugged her face to meet his and kissed her. Everything he felt for her, everything he wanted, he told her with one kiss. “I wasn’t going to tell you tonight. I wanted our first time together to be just about us, no emotions, no promises, only us.” He took one of the hands she held around his neck and, turning it upwards, kissed her palm tenderly, as he rubbed a finger across her knuckles. “I didn’t want to pressure you with declarations. I simply wanted to be with you. But you have to know what’s in my heart. You have to. I love you so much sometimes I can’t breathe with the want hammering through me. And I’m not asking anything of you, just to simply let me love you.”
His lips came to hers again and she lost her own breath with the desire, so bold, and so open, she felt slip from him. Her own needs and wants were equally as strong and she wanted him to know it.
“I’ve known you my entire life,” she said, cupping his face between her fingers. He laid his own hands over hers and squeezed them. “I don’t have a memory that doesn’t include you in it. You’ve always been there, right there, in front of me. I loved you when we were five and you gave me a frog you found at the lake for a birthday present. I loved you at ten when you taught me how to ride a bike. At thirteen when you gave me my first kiss.”
“Badly, it seems.” He chuckled and kissed her fingers again.
“I was totally in lust with you from fifteen until I left for college, and even afterward. You’ve always been right here,” she took his hand and laid it, open palmed, across her heart. “But since I’ve been home, since we’ve been together, like this, I’ve realized one thing more.”
“What?” he asked, skimming his lips across her jaw.
“Although I’ve always loved you, loved you dearly, Quentin, I never realized how much I was in love with you until I looked over a new born baby at your face and fell head over heels in love with you as a man.”
“Moira—”
She laid a finger over his lips. “Let me finish now, please.”
He took her finger into his mouth, gently sucked on it and nodded.
Moira swallowed. Hard. The bead of desire that had dropped into her stomach when he’d first kissed her in the kitchen kick-balled through her system igniting every nerve in her body. She licked her lips and heard his breath catch when she did. “I want you to make love to me, Quentin. So much I can barely stand waiting any longer. But I need to know this won’t change what we have. You’re my best friend and I need you in my lif
e. More than I ever realized. I don’t want what we’re going to do to change anything. It can’t.”
“It won’t, Moira,” he told her. “It won’t.”
“Promise?”
“With all my heart. I’ve loved you forever. Nothing will ever change my love for you. Nothing.”
He leaned her back on the bed, dropping kisses down her face and neck. When he came back to her mouth, he mated his lips with hers and Moira’s body began to shudder at the desire so strongly bouncing within her.
Slowly, gently, Quentin drew the thin straps of her sundress down off her shoulders, trailing wet, open mouth kisses everywhere his fingers glided across her pale skin. When her breasts were exposed, he bent to each, and in turn, suckled, bringing them to hardened, swollen points. Moira fisted her hands in his hair, gently tugging as each new sensation danced around in her body. A coil of need sprang up from her within her and she felt herself grow wet in a heartbeat as his teeth scraped across the enlarged nubs of her areola. When he pulled her dress down further, she lifted her hips so he could remove it. Clad only in a flesh colored thong, Moira watched as he sat up, gazing down at her, his eyes dilating again, filled with a craving and a palpable longing.
“You’re so beautiful. Even ten pounds too skinny,” he added with a grin, “you’re absolutely the loveliest woman I’ve ever seen. And the most desirable.” He bent down and kissed the tiny patch of lacy material still covering her. Her hips shot off the bed as a live wire of heat so potent and electrifying blasted through her. His hands pulled the scrap of material down as his mouth trailed over her thighs, calves; even the tops of her feet as he pulled the panty off completely, tossing it to the floor behind him.
“This isn’t fair,” she said, pushing up on her elbows. “I want to see you. All of you.”
She came to her knees and pulled his open shirt down his arms and off. Her fingers lightly stroked up and down his chest, marveling at the natural heat that oozed from him. Everywhere she touched; her hands felt warmth and strength beneath them. His chest was granite hard, the muscles tight behind the patch of blond/white hair covering it. She threaded her fingers through the mat, finding his nipples and gently rolling them between her thumb and index fingers.
