Though it wouldn’t solve anything, she told herself, and surrendering to this move without a protest would probably make Quin think he had the power to push her into whatever he wanted. “You told your mother you were taking me home and would soon be back,” she rattled out.
It made no impact on him. He turned the car into Elizabeth Street, heading towards Circular Quay instead of out of the city centre. “My mother has my cell-phone number,” he stated reasonably. “I doubt she’ll worry about where I am but she can always call me to find out.”
There was no answer to that.
“And your mother won’t be expecting you home tonight,” he added, shooting her a derisive look. “Right?”
He was referring to the deal.
It was the thirteenth night—a night for which he’d paid an exorbitant amount of money and she had to deliver what had been promised. No argument. The weird part was she had wanted the deal back in place, resenting his involvement with their daughter and the intrusion of his mother, yet now that Quin was obliging her…why was she feeling so at odds with it?
Because too much else was involved now.
And as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t just forget how far he seemed determined to push himself into her life.
They turned into the entrance driveway of a very grand hotel facing Hyde Park. As soon as the Audi halted, a doorman and a parking attendant offered their services. With the car taken care of, they wer
e ushered into a palatial lobby and Quin wasted no time in securing a suite. Within a few minutes, they were in a plush elevator, zooming up to their designated floor.
“Amazing what having lots of money can accomplish,” Nicole remarked cynically, thinking of the speed with which Quin’s requirements had been met.
“Yes, it wiped out my mother’s disgrace, your mother’s debts, got you back into bed with me…”
The harshly cynical retort jerked her gaze up to his. Soul-searing anger looked back at her. It stirred all the fermenting emotions that had been plaguing her since he had found out about Zoe.
“You’re trying to take more than your pound of flesh, Quin.”
“I have a right to more than you agreed to give me.”
“You want to be a father to our daughter…fine! But that doesn’t mean I have to be your wife.”
The elevator doors opened. Quin grasped her arm, steering her out of the compartment, along a corridor, halting briefly to unlock and open the door to their suite, then pulling her inside and kicking the door shut behind them. The fierce turbulence emanating from him was all too evident when he swung her into his embrace for a close face to face confrontation. Stormy-grey eyes raged at her brittle defences.
“Why not? Why not be my wife? You want this as much as I do.”
His mouth crashed down on hers, igniting all the pent-up lust that should have been simple and straightforward and easily satisfied with Quin making himself sexually available for this thirteenth night. Nicole responded to his savage plundering with a passionate abandonment of every other concern, but she could not stop her heart yearning for more than a physical union.
Her arms wound around his neck, holding him with a wanton possessiveness. Her body plastered itself to his, seeking its heat, its strength, wanting its rampant need to envelop her, seep into her, fill her with the sense that only she could be his life mate. Her breasts were crushed against his chest, her stomach furrowed by the hard roll of his erection, her thighs quivering under the muscular power pressing against them. A wild chant was running through her mind—love me, love me, love me…
He rained kisses on her face, her hair, her neck, her shoulders, and she gloried in the feeling that his mouth was branding her as his. His hands slid down and clutched her bottom, pressing her closer and she ground herself against him in a delirium of desire. He lifted her off her feet, keeping her pinned to him as he strode across the room. They landed on a bed, his body covering hers, their hands tearing at each other’s clothes in a frenzied need to be rid of all barriers between them.
At last they were naked, panting from the wild haste to come together. Quin took her hands and slammed them above her head, assuming a domination she would not allow him to have. As he hovered over her, his face close to hers, his eyes blazing an arrogantly male ownership, she lifted her legs and locked them around his hips, her own eyes hotly defying him to deny the possession was mutual.
“Tell me it’s never been like this with anyone else,” he demanded, his voice a harsh rasp, as though scraped from feelings he didn’t want to acknowledge, but they were bursting through him and couldn’t be contained.
“You tell me the same thing,” she fiercely challenged.
“There’s been no other woman in my life who could match you in any respect,” he conceded.
“Well, you top the list, too,” she retorted, jealously wondering how many women that amounted to. “So far,” she added to stop him thinking he had it made with her and nothing more was required of him in the longer term.
“Are you expecting to do better?” he growled.
“Maybe the best is yet to come,” she answered, goading him to take their relationship to deeper levels.
“You’re right,” he said unexpectedly, a wolfish grin breaking out on his darkly handsome face. “We haven’t got there yet. Just let me get a condom out ready.”
“You don’t have to use one tonight.”