A Convenient Proposal

'Or is it just me you don't trust?'

Tabitha, traitor that she was, was busily winding herself round Quinn's legs in an ecstasy of purring pleasure, and Candy bent quickly, lifting the sleek little cat into her arms to give herself time to think. But her thought process had frozen.

'I haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about,' she managed, after a moment of screaming silence.

'No?'

'No!'

'You are defensive and wary under that outward façade of woman of the world,' Quinn said with devastating directness. 'And I know you've been to hell and back with the accident and your fiancé dying, but it's more than that, isn't it?'

'Perhaps.' She stared into his eyes proudly as she found her tongue. 'But that's my business, Quinn, the same as the reason for your marriage breakdown is yours.'

Quinn shifted position slightly, his dark face showing no emotion whatsoever. 'Touché,' he said softly. 'Although I never said my marriage broke down, as I remember.'

'You said you had been married, and you don't have a wife with you now so what other assumption is there?' Candy asked coolly.

'My wife died, Candy, along with our baby son.'

'Oh, Quinn.' If the ground had opened and swallowed her it would have been a relief. She stared at him, her throat working and her mind searching for something, anything to say that would make amends. 'Quinn, I'm so sorry.'

He shrugged indifferently but the action didn't hide the pain stamped on his face. 'It wasn't a marriage made in heaven, as it happens,' he said with a tightness that was indicative of the emotion he was keeping under wraps. 'But that's another story.'

'Quinn, I shouldn't have said anything. I'm so sorry, I really am,' she stammered frantically, the colour that had flooded into her face leaving it just as quickly and showing her skin to be white with shock.

It's all right.' And then, as she continued to stare at him with appalled eyes, Quinn reached out and took Tabitha from her, setting the cat on the floor before straightening and taking her arms in his hands as he faced her. It was three years ago,' he said quietly, 'and I'll tell you the story some time, but not now, not tonight. Okay?'

She nodded slowly, fighting back the tears. His son. His baby son. How did someone get over such a tragedy?

'And it was me that started the ball rolling so don't go putting on sackcloth and ashes,' he added huskily.

'Oh, Quinn.' She couldn't have described the tumult of emotion surging through every nerve and sinew but she had never felt so mixed up in all her life.

Quinn expelled a quiet breath, cupping her jaw gently with one hand. He had meant the kiss to be a brief farewell, a mere brushing of her lips before he left, but the second his mouth touched hers it changed to something different Something warm and sensuous, heated, his fingers moving to tangle in her hair as he moved her close into his hard frame.

It took them both by surprise, the fire that shot between them, but it triggered sensations that fuelled more sensations, his tongue searching and exploring as her lips opened fully beneath his and her hands moved up round his neck.

Candy couldn't believe what she was experiencing as his hard body, the smell and feel of him, seemed to set her ablaze, and Quinn was holding her even tighter as his lips plundered hers. She was aware she was kissing him back with a kind of abandoned eagerness she wouldn't have thought possible, and his thighs were hard against hers, his hands stroking her back and causing soft little moans to rise and quiver in her throat as desire flooded through her blood like hot mulled wine.

As his tongue probed the secret places of her mouth she felt an electric current charge through her body, something alien and exciting and altogether overwhelming. She was alive in a way she had never been before and the knowledge was as frightening as it was thrilling. This power he had, she had never felt anything like this with Harper, not for a second. It was as though she had no will of her own, as though every curve and rounded part of her had been created to mould into the strong, tough angles and planes of his maleness.

She was trembling, she could feel it, and his heart was slamming against the wall of his chest like a sledgehammer.

It was Quinn who stopped and pulled away, his hands moving from stroking the small of her back and becoming restraining instead. She opened her eyes in bewilderment, still captivated by the new sensations he had aroused and half in the world of exploding colour and light he had created behind her closed lids. She stared at him, her eyes wide and dilated and her mouth bruised, and he returned the look, a mask sliding down over the naked passion.

'We're not thinking straight; it's the evening, the wine

and the lateness of the hour,' he said thickly. 'I had better go.'

She looked at him blankly, utterly unable to respond with the light, defusing comment the situation called for.

'I'll give you a call about Jeff and Lynn's party next week, okay?' he continued after a moment or two.

'Okay.' It was a faint whisper but the best she could do.

And he nodded abruptly, his face rigid with control as he turned without another word, without even a goodbye, and strode down the path towards the car.

She shut the door before he had reached the gate, leaning against the wood for a moment with her eyes tightly shut and her heart pounding with the enormity of what had just happened. Fool, fool, fool! The words thudded in her head with ever increasing recrimination. She had behaved like a fool, worse than a fool.