Crazy for You Read online

  She rubbed her hands up and down her arms and wished he were there and they were talking the way they used to, that they were making love, and then she told herself that it wouldn’t make any difference if he were, she couldn’t make love here. If the BP was getting his knickers in a twist about Jason throwing longing glances her way—not to mention Meggy and Edie in the privacy of their own home—imagine what he’d do if he caught Nick throwing body parts her way.

  She bent to pick up her bag, and it felt good to bend over, to stretch a little. She straightened and turned to press her back against the cool tiles of the stage wall, rolling her shoulders to ease the muscles in her back and shoulders, muscles that still ached from her week on crutches. It felt so good that she dropped the bag and kept stretching, pushing her arms up the wall over her head, flexing her calves, making her whole body feel the stretch and the cool, cool tile. She let her arms slide down the wall until her crossed wrists rested on top of her head, and closed her eyes and imagined how Nick would be the next night, strong beside her, under her, on top of her, doing things that threw her off balance and made her hot and then made her come. Just Nick, the pure pleasure of sliding against him, listening to his low laughter against her neck and the deep sigh of his breath as he moved inside her—

  “What are you doing?” Nick said.

  She almost let her arms drop when his voice came out of the darkness, but he didn’t sound amused, he sounded distracted, and as she gathered her scrambled thoughts, she realized that she must look pretty interesting with her arms above her head like that.

  “I’m stretching,” she said. “Where are you?”

  She heard his feet hit the floor—he must have been on the catwalk ladder—and then heard him walk toward her across the hardwood floor, finally coming into the pool of light cast by the last overhead lamp. The light made the planes of his face sharper, made his hair gleam black, and he looked tall and lanky and strong in his paint-stained T-shirt and jeans, the hottest thing she’d ever seen.

  “You shouldn’t be here alone,” he said. “You know that. It’s dangerous,” and she said, “I’m not alone. You’re here.”

  “That’s even worse.” He came closer to stand in front of her, not smiling.

  Come and touch me, she thought.

  And he came closer.

  “Thank you for the daisies,” she told him, meeting his eyes. “They’re perfect. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  Nick’s voice was husky in the dark. “Oh, yes, you do.” He took another step closer, until he was almost against her, his eyes black, casting her in the darkness of his shadow.

  “I have no idea what you mean.” Quinn met his eyes and didn’t look away, lifting her chin when the staring match moved past comfortable and made her heart pound. Then he smiled, and she shivered a little and smiled, too, a slow curve of an invitation, daring him while her heart thudded.

  “Well, you could let me do this.” He put his hand on her crossed wrists and rested against them, just firmly enough so she couldn’t move them. It had been so long since he’d touched her that she let her eyes go closed just from the sheer pleasure of the heat of his hand on her wrists. “And this.” He took his free hand and hooked a finger inside the opening of her chambray workshirt to pop the first button.

  “Hey.” Quinn leaned forward to pull her arms down, and his hand closed hard on her wrists.

  “And this.” His free hand was on her breast, his thumb tracing a circle over the cotton of her shirt while he smiled into her eyes, his breath coming faster. She shivered, and he let his thumb slip into the vee of her shirt, into the warm hollow between her breasts, popping another button, making her breasts tense and lift against him.

  Quinn felt her breath go. “Just for a couple of daisies? I don’t think so.” Keep going.

  He popped another button. “Think again.”

  He leaned to kiss the hollow of her neck, and she sucked in a sharp breath as his lips tickled her throat. Then he kissed her again, lower this time, as he popped the rest of her buttons, one after another, slowly, echoing the buttons with kisses above, until her shirt fell open as he licked into the warm place between her breasts. He pulled her shirt open further, his hand sliding against the satin of her bra, baring her to his eyes—“Hot pink plaid, huh?” he said—and looked at her with such satisfaction and possession that she went dizzy with anticipation. Then, after what seemed like hours, he bent to trace the swell of her breast with his tongue, and she began to shudder and soften inside.

  She could see the curve of his bicep against the edge of his T-shirt sleeve as he pinned her hands to the wall, the strong line of his neck, feel his hand on her wrists, the other pressed hot against her ribs as he moved his tongue across her skin. She ached to feel him under her hands, to pull his T-shirt up and pull him to her, to feel the fur of his chest tickle against her breasts and the muscles in his back flex under her fingers. “Let me go,” she whispered. “Let me go so I can touch you.”

  He lifted his head to stare into her eyes—don’t stop—and shook his head, smiling at her and sending heat into her bones. “Not a chance,” he said, and kissed her on the mouth, taking her voice and her breath as he licked into her, making her squirm against him as he pressed her against the cool wall. His hand curved around her breast, his thumb stroked across her and then hooked around the edge of her bra, and she felt the satin slide across her nipple as he pulled the cup down, felt her whole body stiffen against him. Then his hair tickled softly on her throat as he bent to her, and she shuddered at the damp heat of his mouth on her, shuddered harder when he began to suck, shuddered harder still when he didn’t stop.

  “Let me go,” she said, and tried to pull her hands from his grip so she could touch him as she rolled her hips toward him, but he tightened his hold, crushing her wrists together, stretching her arms higher, his lips moving against the swell of her breast, moving to bare the other, to tease her again with his mouth. His free hand moved to her zipper, easing it down, and she said, “No,” but she pressed against his hand because it felt so good and she wanted to feel him everywhere. His hand slid around her waist, into the back of her jeans, into the stretchy silkiness of her underwear, around her curves there and under to hold her tight against him, shoving fabric down until she felt the denim and rayon crumple around her thighs. He pressed her back into the cold, smooth tile with his hips, pulsing against her while he smiled against her mouth. Then she felt his fingers slide into her, the hot slick inside of her, and she moaned softly because he felt so good.

  “Louder,” he said in her ear as he stroked her. “Scream,” and she shook her head but breathed faster, sighing with his hand.

  Somewhere something moved, muffled, and she tensed. Nick stopped, too, still looking into her eyes but distracted, as if he were listening for something. It was so quiet, all she could hear was Nick’s breathing.

  He was breathing pretty hard.

  “We better stop,” Quinn whispered, but there were no more sounds, she wasn’t even sure she’d really heard the first one, she wasn’t really sure she cared, so she pressed against his hand, and when he moved his fingers inside her again, she let her eyes go closed.

  “I don’t think so,” Nick whispered against her ear. “I think we do this now. Right up against this wall.”

  She shivered. It was dumb to do this here, she should be saying no, telling him they could do this at home, at his place, even in the truck, but it felt so good right now, and she thought about what it would be like to not think about it once, to just be, to take into herself the darkness he’d tried to give her the last time, the darkness her mind had kept pulling her out of, the darkness she could feel moving into her now.

  “It’s been so long,” he said, his voice low. “So long since I’ve been inside you, watched you come, made you come.”

  He slid his fingers higher, stroked her faster, made her breath go and her throat dry. “Nick—”

  “So we do it now.”