Harper sniffled. “Well, you could’ve just said that from the beginning.”
“I did say that from the beginning.”
“I forgive you!”
“Ooomph.” All the air was forced out of Marina’s lungs as Harper grabbed her in a bone-crunching hug.
And after I-love-you’s were exchanged and Quinn was ordered one last time to stay put and protect Marina with his life if necessary, Harper was gone.
Marina sucked in a deep sigh. Next to her, Quinn did the same, and Marina almost laughed. It was as if when Harper was in a room, she took up all the space’s oxygen, and all the average people were forced to hold their breath until she left. She loved her sister dearly, but Harper was completely exhausting at times.
“Your sister is, uh…”
“Yeah, I know.”
With Harper gone, the gravity of the current situation and the previous night’s events started weighing on Marina. She felt her scalp tightening, which was the first sign she was getting ready to have a panic attack.
Someone had tried to kidnap Haven. That same someone might have been who attacked her last night. She now had to spend a week with the kiss-and-run jerkwad who had not only saved her life, but ruined the act of kissing for her forever because she was sure—sure, damn it—that no other kiss would ever measure up. What the hell was she supposed to do with all that information?
Where was she even supposed to start?
“Marina,” the subject of her panic attack murmured. She closed her eyes as the rough rumble of his voice skimmed over her skin, raising goosebumps in its wake. “Are you ever going to look at me?”
It seemed ill-advised. Looking at him would only trigger her insta-lust and force her brain into hibernation. But what choice did she have at this point?
Chapter Eight
Quinn didn’t blame Marina for not wanting to look at him. Hell, he didn’t really want to look at himself after Harper had hit him with the guilt trip to end all guilt trips. But for reasons he couldn’t fathom, the forgiveness he really needed right now was Marina’s.
But how in the ever-lovin’ fuck was he supposed to get her to forgive him if he couldn’t even get her to look at him?
“Marina, please,” he tried again, this time putting as much I’m-sorry-I-was-an-arsehole into his tone as possible.
She took what he could only assume was a fortifying breath before slowly pivoting to face him.
His thoughts at seeing her face-on in broad daylight were twofold. The first was damn, she’s pretty. The second? Well, that was full-on, fuck, she wants to rip me apart with her bare hands.
And the sad part? Both thoughts turned him on in equal measure. It would seem that, as so many had suspected over the years, there truly was something severely wrong with him.
A loose strand of hair fell across her forehead. He wanted to brush that thick, chestnut hair back and tuck it behind her ear because it was threatening to obscure his view of her face, but he shoved his hands in his pockets instead. Something about the tense set of her jaw and shoulders told him she was spoiling for a fight, and touching her just might send her over the edge.
“Shit, Angel, I’m so sorry for last night,” he blurted out, any hope of eloquence escaping him. “If I’d had any idea any of this was going to happen, I never would’ve done it.”
Color rose to her cheeks and she reared back as if he’d slapped her. “Oh, so you admit you regret it?”
Was that a trick question? “Of course I regret it! How could I not?”
He thought for a minute she was going to nut-punch him. She just had that look about her. The fiery glare, the thinned lips, the muscles practically vibrating with tension…it all spoke of an impending nut-punch. He steeled himself for it. He’d totally let her nut-punch him if it made her feel better. He deserved it.
But, shit, he really hoped it didn’t come to that.
“Well, that’s just perfect,” she spit out. “Dumped by the boyfriend who cheated on me, nearly kidnapped by vampires, treated like a four-year-old by my baby sister, and kissed by a guy who admits he regrets kissing me. My life has officially just become a shitty soap opera.” She threw up her hands in frustration. “Fucking perfect.”
Marina spun on her heel to flee, but Quinn caught her wrist and tugged her back around to face him. When she stood close enough that she had to crane her neck back to continue glaring up into his eyes defiantly, Quinn gave in to the urge to brush that stubborn strand of hair behind her ear. It felt like silk, just as he’d suspected it would.
“There was a lot wrong with what you just said,” he murmured.
“Oh, really?”
He held back a grin at the sarcasm dripping from her tone. “Aye, really. First of all, anyone stupid enough to cheat on you isn’t good enough to breathe your air. So, he didn’t dump you, he set you free. You should be thankful you’re not still stuck with the blind, ignorant arsehole.”
An adorable little furrow knit her brow, and he added, “And I wouldn’t say you were almost kidnapped by vampires. It’s true that you were attacked, but from what I saw, you were far from a victim. It’d be more accurate to say you kicked vampire arse last night.”
She sniffed. “I have had some self-defense lessons from my brother-in-law.”
Oh, yes, Quinn thought. The lethal-looking biker dhampyre who was married to a crazy psychic who’d threatened to pull Quinn’s balls off and shove them up his nose.
And Marina thought her life was a bad soap opera.
He nodded. “That much was obvious to me. Probably more obvious to the vampire you tased, but still. It was impressive. And as for your sister…well, it’s true she talked down to you a bit. But it was obviously out of love and concern. You’re lucky to have someone in your life who cares that much.”
God knows no one would be threatening to pull anyone’s balls off in Quinn’s defense. Crazy family was better than no family at all. He should know.
Marina broke his gaze, glancing down at his hand on her wrist. His scarred, calloused, giant meat hook of a hand looked completely out of place encircling her delicate wrist. “And what about…the other thing?”
The tentative, almost shy note in her voice was as endearing and sexy as her fiery anger had been. Which meant, with this woman, he was well and truly fucked because she was off limits, too good for him by a mile, and every damned thing she did or said turned him right the hell on.
“Ah, yes, the other thing,” he said, pausing long enough to force her to look back up at him. When her eyes met his once more, he added, “I regret not staying with you and talking to the police. I hate that I left you alone to deal with that fallout. But I never said I regretted kissing you.”
Her eyes widened slightly and she pulled in a sharp breath. “So, you don’t regret kissing me?”
His gaze fell of its own volition to her lips. If he concentrated hard enough, he imagined he could still taste her. “No. Not even a little bit. How could I regret the best kiss I’ve ever had?”
“Oh,” she said on a wispy sigh.
Damn right, oh.
She bit down on that lush, rosy lower lip of hers and it was all he could do to manfully hold in a groan. He wanted to bite that lip more than he wanted his next breath.
And he couldn’t do it. This wasn’t about stealing a kiss from a pretty girl he’d never see again anymore. Marina was real—all too real—and his entire focus needed to be on keeping her safe, not on pawing her like a damned teenager with his first hard-on.
So, instead of kissing her like he so badly wanted to, he did something that just about made his body weep with loss. He took a step away from her.
“We got off to a bad start,” he said. “Can we start over? Pretend I didn’t fuck everything up for you and your family?”
Marina blinked up at him for a moment, confusion marring her perfect features. He didn’t blame her. He was pretty damned confused, too. It wasn’t too often that his heart, body, and brain all wanted him to
do different things.
But to her credit, she recovered quickly. “Of course,” she murmured. “Starting over with a clean slate seems like a good idea. Now that you’re working for Harper and I’m, well, part of one of her cases, I guess it’s probably best that we keep things professional, isn’t it?”
No, his body said. Professional sounds awful, his heart agreed. Professional meant no kissing. No touching. No moving her hair off her shoulder and tracing the line of her collarbone with his tongue…
Quinn cleared his throat and gave himself a sharp mental slap across the face. “Aye. Professional. We can be…friends, right?”
Now he wanted to punch himself in the mouth. Friends? Where the fuck had that come from? How was he supposed to be friends with a woman he wanted so much it hurt? Of all the dumbass, arse-backward things to say…
She straightened her spine and answered, “Of course. It was only one kiss, after all. Nothing that would keep us from being friends.”
And with that, she smiled brightly and offered to make some coffee, which he accepted in somewhat of a daze.
He’d been about to withdraw the friends statement—because it was so utterly, inconceivably ridiculous—when she accepted. Was it relief that had her smiling so easily? After all, she hadn’t admitted the kiss was as good for her as it had been for him. Maybe…
Oh, for the love of all that’s holy, shut the fuck up. You sound like a fuckin’ teenaged girl, you arsehole. Might as well pass her a note in study hall and ask her to the prom, then doodle her name in a notebook while you’re at it, loser.
It was at that moment Lanie decided to call and check in with him.
“Harper told me you got the job, just like I knew you would. Aren’t you going to thank me?” Lanie asked.
He glanced into the kitchen just in time to see Marina bend down to grab some coffee filters from one of her lower cabinets. Her black pencil skirt hugged her tight, perfect curves like a second skin. He wanted to peel that skirt off her body with his teeth.
Keeping his hands off his new friend just might be the death of him.
With a growl of frustration, he told Lanie, “I don’t know yet.”
Chapter Nine
There was one thing Marina consistently did better than Harper, and that was act. Harper could lie like a pro, but when it came to actually acting, she just wasn’t that good at it. Her eyes were too expressive. Her emotions were mostly written all over her face like the giant letters in a large-print library book.
But not Marina. Nope. Marina could be screaming and raging on the inside and all the world would see was placid, Zen-like calm. It was partly because of her acting ability that her entire family thought she always kept a cool head in a crisis. Sometimes that was true. And other times, she was panicking and falling apart on the inside just like the rest of them were.
And her Oscar-worthy acting skills—honed recently by pretending she didn’t want to jam an eyebrow pencil up Dex’s nose every time she saw him at work with his new girlfriend—were on full display when she’d readily agreed to be Quinn’s friend.
Friends. Pfffttt. She had plenty of friends. You know what she didn’t have plenty of? Orgasms. Hadn’t had one of those in a long time.
And damned if her newest friend Quinn didn’t look more than capable of delivering high-quality orgasms. Hell, she could just about come listening to his deep, gravelly voice and that stupid-hot accent. Not to mention those eyes, that face, those biceps…
Marina let out a frustrated sigh. None of that mattered now. All that mattered was staying safe while Harper figured out what was going on with whoever tried to grab her and Haven.
It just didn’t make any sense. Marina could understand why someone might want to take Haven. The daughter of a psychic and a dhampyre, granddaughter of an empath, goddaughter of the heads of the Vampire Council…yeah, Haven was somebody special. Shit, who wouldn’t want Haven?
But Marina? She was just the daughter of a deadbeat dad who skipped out on her family over two decades ago. A paranormal dead zone who hadn’t inherited any of her mother’s empathic gift. The other sister. A college drop-out who did low-level cosmetology work at a run-down television station that got worse ratings than late-night PBS. Who’d want to kidnap her? What could they possibly have to gain?
But, as curious as she was, it didn’t really do any good to speculate at this point. Harper would figure it out. She always did. All Marina had to do was stay vigilant, stay safe, and keep from knocking her new friend to the ground and dry-humping him right there in her living room.
Easy peasy, right?
She glanced over her shoulder into the living room and found that Quinn’s eyes were planted firmly on her ass. When his gaze lifted to hers again, he offered her a little smirk and a semi-repentant shrug. It was meant to be a casual gesture, she realized, but the heat in his eyes…well, that was anything but casual.
Quinn wanted her as much as she wanted him.
So why in the hell did he suggest they be friends?
Well, as she saw it, she had two choices. She could play along with the whole ridiculous friends scenario, or she could call him out on his bullshit. Playing along definitely seemed like a very…Marina thing to do.
Yeah, and what has playing along and playing it safe ever got you?
Well, playing along had earned her the role as the responsible one in her family. The one who cleaned up everyone else’s messes.
She’d played it safe her whole life, and was she happier as a result? Fuck no, she wasn’t.
Calling him out on his bullshit was a very Harper thing to do. And Harper was the happiest person Marina knew. She had a job she was great at, employees who’d follow her into the battle if she asked them to (and actually had on occasion), a husband who looked at her like she’d hung the moon with her own two hands, and a beautiful little girl who wasn’t afraid to kick a bad guy in the ‘nads to protect herself.
Maybe it was time for the other sister to stop cleaning up after everyone and get a little dirty herself.
Decision made, Marina abandoned the coffee and marched right back into the living room, not stopping until she was close enough to Quinn that one deep breath would shove her breasts into his chest. So she went ahead and took that deep breath.
Quinn’s quiet groan was exactly what her battered self-esteem needed, and it urged her on.
Her hands went to her hips and she tipped her head back to meet his gaze. “I’ve thought about it, and I don’t want to be your friend.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “You don’t?”
“No. I have plenty of friends.”
“I understand. I’m—”
She slapped her hand over his mouth. “If you apologize to me again, I’m going to nut-punch you.”
Under her hand, she felt his smile, so she went on. “I realize this is bad timing, what with the whole I-just-got-attacked-by-a-vampire-and-no-one-knows-why thing, not to mention the you-work-for-my-sister thing. But when you kissed me, I felt more alive than I have in, well, maybe ever. I don’t know what this thing between us is. Maybe it’s just some kind of weird sexual chemistry that’ll fade as quickly as it flared up. But what I do know is that I can’t possibly be your friend when pretty much all I can think about when I’m around you now is ripping your clothes off and mapping your entire body with my tongue.”
Marina’s inner shy girl cringed. Oh, dear God. I can’t believe I just said all of that out loud!
Maybe she should’ve worked up to being more open and honest like Harper instead of diving in head first. Taken some baby steps or something. Jesus. This could really get embarrassing if he didn’t…
But then, heat flared in his eyes and she felt his lips part under her hand. She gasped when he slid his fingers around her wrist, pulled her hand away from his mouth, and dropped a hot, open-mouthed kiss on the inside of her wrist.
“Can I talk now?” he asked, his voice even lower than usual.
; Marina wasn’t sure she should let him. What if he rejected her? Wouldn’t that just be the cherry on the shit sundae that was her love life these days? But she supposed she didn’t really have much of a choice in the matter. It’s not like she could hold her hand over his mouth indefinitely.
“I guess so,” she finally mumbled, not looking him in the eye. “Unless you’re going to tell me you don’t feel the same. And if that’s the case, I’d rather you just pretend I didn’t say any of that.”
The sound he let out was somewhere between a groan and a chuckle—a gruckle? A chroan?—and so hot she almost felt the need to fan herself.
“Oh, love, I won’t be forgetting anything you just said. Especially not the bit about your tongue. I’ve had a few really hot, dirty fantasies about that tongue.”
Her jaw dropped. She couldn’t remember another man in her life ever admitting to having fantasies about her. Especially not hot, dirty ones. “You have?”
He dragged the tip of his tongue over his lower lip and she had to bite back a whimper of sheer longing. “Aye. But…”
She held up her hand again. “Wait. If our timing weren’t so awful, what would we be doing right now? How many of those fantasies would we be acting out?”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “That’s a long list, love.”
“Then let’s quit wasting time and get started,” she whispered.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
His answering laugh was so grim it hurt her heart just to hear it. “That’s an even longer list, I’m afraid.”
“Is it because of Harper?”
“That’s one reason.”
“Why else? Because of your past? Because you were in prison?”
He let out a deep sigh and rubbed a hand over the stubble on his jaw. Marina desperately wanted to know what that stubble would feel like on her skin.
Semi-Obsessed Page 5
