Dirty Games (Tropical Temptation)

“I know.” Her mother breathed heavily. “In my heart, I know you’re right. It’s just so hard, as a parent, to watch your child struggle.”

Favorite child, Quinn silently inserted, despite having made her peace with that hierarchy a long time ago. “It’s hard for me, too, Mom.” She wasn’t sure if empathy or self-defense motivated the comment, but her mother wasn’t trying to pick a fight, so she added, “You’re not alone. We want the same thing for him. We may not see eye-to-eye all the time about how to get there, but, ultimately we’re on the same side. His.”

“I know that, too. I do, Quinn.” A hollow laugh followed. “Some mother I am. I never seem to have the right magic for one of my kids, and the other never needed any. At least not from me. I—Quinn—I’m sorry if I’ve been holding that against you. You were always so self-directed. So determined. You never undermined yourself the way he does.”

Never undermined herself? Ha. Someday it might do them both good if she told her mother that wasn’t strictly true, but now wasn’t the time to dive into her needs and the bad habits they fostered. “You don’t have to justify anything. I mean, there’s nothing to justify. Magic takes many forms. If I learned to be self-directed, I probably have my parents to thank for it. Same goes for determination. Claim a little more credit for our successes, and a little less responsibility for every stumble, okay?”

“I’ll try.”

“Good.” She ended the call with a promise to get in touch as soon as she talked to Eddie, and an exchange of “I love you’s.”

Her thumb hovered over the screen as she considered calling him now, and leaving a message, but decided against it. She wanted to speak to him. Better to call the office in a couple of hours. Lisa would make sure she got through, even if he was busy.

She lowered her phone and looked around the empty room. Where was Luke?

Auras and energy currents and psychic links weren’t her thing, but she didn’t need any woo-woo powers to sense the villa was em

pty. Luke McLean had left the building. Whatever morning-after fantasy she’d woven last night as she’d fallen asleep in his arms evaporated.

Get over it. This isn’t the first time you’ve woken alone.

It wasn’t. But it was the first time she’d cared. Last night he’d told her those hard-and-fast rules he’d been enforcing between them no longer mattered. Heck, together they’d eliminated another hard-and-fast rule—one she liked to refer to as the condom rule—by confirming she was on the pill and they were both risk-free. And for her, at least, that was not a one-night-stand kind of discussion. Had the first cringes of dawn found him regretting his words? Was he sending her a message with his absence?

Cold tendrils of doubt wound their way through her. She straightened her spine and batted them back. Screw that. She intended to deliver a message of her own. Directly. She loved him, dammit. Her insides quivered a little at the thought. She loved the arrogant, bossy, inflexible bastard, and she didn’t give a single shit about his lines. She would say her piece, and he would listen, and then, if he didn’t feel the same, fine. She’d gather up the slivers of the heart she’d shattered for him, and try her best to put them back together. But if he was backing off out of some misguided notion of not taking advantage of her, she was going to kick his finely chiseled ass.

Blood fired, she tossed the covers back, threw on a robe, and stalked downstairs. When she reached the landing, she heard the murmur of a voice. Through the open doors she saw Luke sitting on the patio, talking on his phone. The realization that he hadn’t escaped to his own space settled the boil of her temper to a simmer. She approached, lingering in the doorway to take in the sight of him profiled against the dawn. Bed-rumpled hair, the morning stubble shadowing his jaw, and the soft light caressing the telltale red marks on his shoulders left by her fingernails. A few frayed threads from his wash-worn jeans looked stark against the tanned skin of his foot. Belatedly, she noticed his shirt and shoes on the living room floor, along with her robe from last night. His getaway wardrobe was right there, if he’d been inclined to use it. She looked back at him, talking away in nothing but his haphazardly pulled on jeans. Apparently he wasn’t.

She stepped out onto the cobblestone, but he didn’t sense her presence. The phone conversation absorbed all of his attention. And hers. She didn’t come out with the intention of eavesdropping, but she heard him say her name. Moving closer, she waited while the person on the other end of the line spoke in what reached her ears as a tinny, indecipherable ramble.

Luke’s response, however, was clear enough. “I’ll square it with her. Tear up the contract, Eddie. There are a lot of things I’ll accept from Quinn, but money isn’t one of them.”

Tear up the contract? Their contract? Something he’d said last night replayed in her mind.

I’ll deal with the lines we have left.

She waited patiently and silently while he concluded the call, and then asked, “What did you just do, Luke?”

The hesitation of his thumb over the screen of his phone offered the only outward indication she’d startled him. He raised his head and turned to look at her, eyes calm, but full of resolve.

He didn’t need to respond. The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. Her real question wasn’t what, but why. “Why did you tell Eddie to cancel our contract?”

…

Paradise Bay ought to hire Quinn to model their robes. They’d sell a million with a single image of her standing in the courtyard with her hair tumbling down in sexy disarray, and her body drenched in white silk that the first rays of daylight turned semitransparent. Fierce eyes glared with what could, at first glance, look like pure, unadulterated sexual heat, but he knew better. She was riled up, all right. To fight.

“You know why.” He stood, and slid his phone into the back pocket of his jeans. “Feel free to argue yourself breathless. It won’t change anything.”

She crossed her arms and lifted her chin, but he caught a shadow of something else in the blue depths of her eyes. Anxiety? Fear? Instinct told him to drill down on it. He closed the distance between them, and took her proud little chin in a light grip. “What’s wrong?”

“You just took a big loss, because of me. What’s right about that?”

Okay. Apparently they’d have to get through this first. “This is what’s right about it.” He covered her stubborn lips with his. A little pressure broke the stern line. They opened on a sigh, and admitted him with the eager escort of her tongue. He moved in, bodily, holding the back of her neck, cupping her ass through the slippery silk, trapping her against him until slender thighs parted for his and lush breasts plumped against his chest. Quick hands trespassed into the back of his jeans, and held. Her heartbeat vibrated through him like an echo of his own. When he lifted his head, she didn’t move, except to let out a soft breath.

“I can’t think when you do that to me.”

And he could, with her snuggled against him, head tipped back, lips wet and swollen from his kisses? “You don’t need to think right now.” He kissed her again, and again, suddenly starved for the hot slide of her mouth under his. Following a half-formed notion of laying her out on the chair where she’d bestowed one of his fondest memories and returning the favor, he turned them and then backed her up a step.

His phone pinged from his pocket, signaling a text.