Crazy for You Read online

  “I’m not mad,” she said. “I’m grateful. I love the house. Thank you. I’m going to pay you back, of course, but thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  His eyes were still on hers, and the more he looked at her, the warmer she felt. But he was looking at her a lot, and that made her uneasy, too. She sipped her Chivas, trying to think of a nice topic of conversation. The weather had been good lately. Maybe—

  “So why are you here?”

  Quinn choked on her Chivas and then swallowed, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. “To say thank you.” His eyes were intent on her, watching her, predatory, not like he’d ever looked at her before. Even the time he’d kissed her, he’d been more reluctant than anything else. Something had changed. He wasn’t reluctant any more.

  So maybe this wasn’t a good time. She could be reckless another day when he didn’t look so much like a serial killer. “Well, now that I’ve said thanks—”

  She handed the Chivas back to him and he put it on the bookshelf, still watching her, half amused now because she was flustered.

  “—I’ll just be going.” She looked up at him again, at his lovely hot eyes on hers over his glass, smug. She waited until he was drinking and then said, “Actually, I came to sleep with you.”

  Nick choked on his Chivas.

  Good. “But of course, you’re not interested—”

  “Once.” Nick put his glass down a lot faster than she’d ever seen him move before.

  She felt the ground tilt under her. “What?”

  “Just once, to get it out of the way.” Nick sounded completely reasonable, as if he were telling her to get her teeth checked twice a year. “That way we can both stop thinking about it.”

  Once, to get it out of the way.

  So much for the great affair that would make her exciting. She opened her mouth and closed it again, trying to think of a witty and urbane way to tell him to go stuff himself and his little one-night stand, too. “So you’ve been thinking about it, have you?”

  “Hell, yes.” He leaned against the bookcase so sure of himself she wanted to smack him. “So have you.”

  “Once, to get it out of the way, huh?” Quinn’s voice shook a little with rage. Over her dead body. No, over his, the bastard. “That’s your plan?” She glared at him. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  “I think I’m the fuck you want,” Nick said, and when she swung on him, he ducked under her arm and caught her to him, taking her mouth with his so completely that she stopped swinging to enjoy the heat and shudder he kissed into her, so relieved to finally have his arms around her.

  Then she pulled away and said, “I’m furious with you,” and he said, “You’ll still say yes,” and pulled her back and kissed her again, sliding his hand under her sweater, moving his hands hard over her breasts and making her moan while she grappled with sanity.

  The problem was the pleasure, she decided as she tried to get her mind out of the gutter. He was acting like a twit instead of Nick, all superior and macho, but he had beautiful hands, and he was finally really kissing her, kissing her stupid for that matter, his hands so hot on her that she shuddered and twisted, and when he slipped his tongue in her mouth she gave up and leaned into him.

  “The bedroom is this way,” he said when they came up for air.

  She said, “We’re still going to have that fight,” and he said, “Later,” and she thought, Right. Later.

  Eleven

  Nick pulled her onto the bed and rolled her under him, and the weight of him was so erotic that she wrapped herself around him and arched up into him. She could make him pay for that “I’m the fuck you want” crack later; right now she just needed him. He yanked her sweater up over her head and then kissed her hard on the lips, licked her throat, found her breast and drove her crazy, pushing her toward a hot darkness, a place she’d never been before because she’d never been with anybody like Nick before, the dangerous kind of guy, the kind of guy who’d say, “I’m the fuck you want,” which turned her on and made her want to kill him all at once, the kind of guy who made a woman mindless—

  Almost.

  There was a part of her that wasn’t cooperating, that was still a little mind-whacked that she was with Nick, that wouldn’t give up hanging on to reason, that wouldn’t give up thinking. His mouth would move on her breast, and she’d go under, loving it, squirming under him as the dark closed in, and then she’d remember, wait a minute, this is Nick, and she’d feel herself break through the surface, do I really want to do this? the hassle could be enormous, and then he’d suck harder, or bite her shoulder, or yank her zipper down—oh, god, that feels good—and she’d go under, mindless until logic would pop her to the surface again, are we sure about this? is this something I’ll regret? After half an hour, she felt like a fishing float. What did they call them? Bobbers, that was it. She felt like a—

  Nick slid his hand into her underpants and she went under again, only to bob up again in a minute when he shifted to yank her jeans down.

  Okay, I’m pretty sure this is what I want, it’s why I came over here, but Zoë is going to kill me—

  Actually Zoë wasn’t her problem, it was this concentration thing: lust or logic, lust or logic. If she didn’t get her mind around one or the other soon, she was going to go crazy from carnal whiplash.

  She really wanted the logic, she decided as Nick tugged her jeans down past her knees, the part of her that could step back and say coolly, “Well, he’s a little rough, but he seems to know his way around a vulva,” the part that wouldn’t go into the dark beckoning void she started to slide toward if she wasn’t thinking. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t had sex before, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t had orgasms before, plenty of them, lovely little vanilla orgasms, and now there was Nick and he seemed to be dealing in dark chocolate and she just wasn’t sure she was the dark chocolate type and if not—

  Nick licked her stomach and went lower, and she let her head roll back and dumped logic for a minute. Then she shoved his head away so she could kick her feet free of her jeans without braining him, and he stripped off his shirt and pants, and they were naked. He was gorgeous, lovely and lean and loosely muscled, reaching for her—

  “Well, this is different for us,” she told him brightly, trying to be urbane and cope with the situation as he rolled against her.

  Oh, hell, we’re naked.

  “Different, fine,” he said, his voice husky and his eyes unfocused, and he pulled her close on top of him—all that hair on his chest where Bill had been smooth—and slid his hand down her stomach so that her mind flipped and flopped—lovely hands, really—slid his hand between her thighs so that she lost a good five minutes just moving against him—yes, there—his fingers slipping inside her—don’t stop—he rolled on top of her, the stroke and the pressure of his hand dragging her under again—

  This is Nick, logic said. Isn’t this interesting? Note the differences from the other times—

  She felt him lean across her, his weight squashing the air out her lungs—not very erotic—and then realized he was going for a condom in the bed table drawer—there, see, a gentleman—

  And then he spread her legs with his hips, his hand slipping between them, making her crazy, mindless again, his fingers finally parting her—wait a minute—and then he was inside her, and she arched under him because it was so good being filled like that, solid, hard, and full, arched to take all of him she could, digging her nails into his shoulders because he felt so amazingly good.

  He said something, choked it out, and she couldn’t hear through the haze of heat, but the sound of his voice was enough to get her mind back.

  Am I doing this right?

  He thrust harder inside her and she fell into him again and then climbed back out—let’s not lose our heads here—then he moved again and she went back to heat and shudder and rhythm—his rhythm—I think I’m off a beat, if he’d slow down, I could catch up, it’s sort of a rumba—She’