Quinn let out a long groan of pleasure as I ran my chin down his cotton-covered cock and nuzzled my cheek against it. I peeled his shorts off and licked along the length of him before pulling him into my mouth for several long sucks. The curved and dark-haired muscles of his thighs tensed under my palms, and I gripped him tighter to keep him still while I worked him over with my mouth.
His small whimpering sounds and the hush of shifting sheets joined together to fill the room. I took my time kissing my way back up his chest to his nipples, his earlobes, and finally, his full lips. While we kissed, I yanked my own shorts off and fumbled in the bedside drawer for supplies. His body language was eager and willing. His muscles were tense with anticipation, and his eyes were bright with need.
Almost, baby. Almost time.
I covered my cock and slicked it up before reaching between his legs to prep him. We didn’t speak, only shared moments of eye contact that were intense enough to make my jaw ache with all the words left unspoken between us. Promises I couldn’t make. Plans I didn’t dare consider. Tender words of affection that had no place in this… whatever it was between us.
Neither of us wanted this to turn into something serious, but somehow, my heart didn’t seem to be on board. It wanted to fling itself out of my chest and into his in a way that would make this messy and impossible.
I pressed inside of him with a groan of relief and pleasure. Quinn’s fingers grabbed my hair in tight fists as he held me close until our foreheads and noses touched.
His body was everything. Tight and hot and mine.
I reached under his back and around to cup his shoulders before increasing the pace of my thrusts. Instead of saying something I’d regret, I kissed him hard on the mouth and invaded his space until I was as much a part of him as I could possibly be.
We clung to each other with a breathless determination until each of us gasped through our own release and began to return to nothing more than a sweaty, jizz-slick heap.
Eventually, when we’d both caught our breath, I led him to the shower, where I spent many long minutes washing him with the diligence of a Marine preparing for his first boot camp inspection. No crevice remained unaccounted for in my ministrations.
By the time I finished, he was a shower-warmed puddle of goo. I dried him off and put him back in bed, where Herc and I snuggled him like particularly lazy sentinels.
I simply needed a little longer with him.
And then I would go.
7
QUINN
I woke up in the morning to the sound of the shop door closing downstairs with a firm clack, followed by the thud-thud-thud of heavy, booted feet on the front steps.
I was alone—again—because Champ had left without saying goodbye—again.
I sighed and flopped onto my back, and Hercules gave an answering sigh from the floor.
Because naturally, the dog was still here… again.
My ass still throbbed pleasantly from the night before, and my muscles twinged with the good kind of ache that came from a long, deep sleep, but there was a dull, empty feeling in my chest too. A feeling that was becoming way too familiar… and I didn’t like it.
“You’d think this whole Groundhog Day scenario of him hurrying out the door in the morning wouldn’t bug me after the first twenty-seven times,” I told the dog matter-of-factly, looking over the edge of the bed. I pushed my messy hair off my forehead and frowned in thought. “Wait. Is it twenty-eight times? Twenty-nine?” I sat up in a panic. “It hasn’t been thirty, has it? I’d definitely remember if it was thirty.”
Wouldn’t I?
Hercules cocked his head like he wanted to help but didn’t have enough toe beans to count that high.
“Who cares, right? The exact number doesn’t matter.”
Except it did. Somehow failing to keep an accurate count of precisely how many nights Champ had spent in my bed seemed really problematic. Like his presence was something I’d almost come to expect. Which maybe explained why I hated when he left without saying goodbye.
Fuck.
I swung around so my feet were on the floor.
“Okay, clearly the stress of the secret-mission thing is getting to me,” I told the dog. “That’s the variable that’s changed in all this. I was meant to plan weddings, not to infiltrate pig farms for semi-nefarious purposes.”
I scratched behind Herc’s ears, and his whole body shivered with uncomplicated happiness.
“Champ needs me to cooperate, so he’s being extra nice, what with all the tacos and the information sharing. I’m buying into it because the constant adrenaline rush of, you know, potentially watching my business go up in flames has made me susceptible. All those chemicals flying around my brain have caused this to feel real when it’s not. Science is to blame here, not feelings.”