Читать книгу Holding My Breath - AM Hartnett - Страница 7

Quinn.

She mouthed his name. She hadn’t asked before, not when Nick had given her the number, not when she’d sent those texts to arrange this meeting, and not earlier when he’d entered the room.

She hadn’t wanted to know, not really, and now that she did, an odd feeling crept across her shoulders. Knowing his name made this raw and real.

The sense faded with the first swipe of his tongue over the puffy hood surrounding her clitoris, then vanished completely as his fingers curled, pushing and pulling the wet folds. Even though she lifted her hips to him, Quinn drew back and maintained his slow torture. Fingers and tongue conspired to build her longing but the man, the mastermind behind it all, wouldn’t give her release.

One glance down at him turned her ravenous. His gaze was upon her, eyes shining and brows raised slightly. As though he had been waiting for her to give him back her attention, he flexed his fingers and curled his tongue.

For a moment he merely cradled her aching clit on the tip, but that moment seemed timeless. She was perfectly still on the outside, not even breathing, but on the inside a feral thing raged. It swelled at the back of her throat, roaring and spitting, commanding her to take control, to push down on his head and grind his mouth against her wet pussy.

The hand that remained on her knee slipped out of sight. The feeling of being penetrated unlocked her silence. She reached out and pushed her fingers through his gelled hair, but she didn’t push down. She didn’t have to. She simply curled her fingers against his scalp, then moaned as he licked around and around.

Molly had entered this suite at least two dozen times since coming to the St James Suites, but to her it had always been a white box filled with ordinary furniture. She wondered how some people out there could be so turned on at the thought of coupling in a hotel room. After all, it was just a room.

Yet as he pushed two fingers deeper, she felt the sin dripping from the walls and creeping to surround her. The curtains were open and, although all the lights were off in the office building opposite the hotel, Molly tingled at the thought of someone watching in the darkness, hand on their cock or pussy as they watched. She moaned louder and fantasised about being heard by some passer-by who couldn’t resist the urge to press their ear to the door – a fellow guest or, better, one of the porters who would pass her in the hall and never know it was Molly making those noises.

And this man, this Quinn, this male prostitute with the long fingers gliding against her inner wall and tongue stroking back and forth …

He dragged his tongue downwards and slowly, sinfully withdrew his fingers. His gaze finally left her, lids fluttering closed as he fucked his tongue in and out of her.

A hungry sound came from him. It vibrated through her pussy and spread in her abdomen. She clutched at him, closing her fingers around the tacky clumps of hair. The sting she must have delivered spurred him on, and thrust his tongue deeper.

‘You big tease, is this the impression you wanted to make?’ she hissed through her teeth, then shuffled her legs until they draped over his shoulders.

He opened his eyes and drew back, wet mouth twisted in a grin. ‘You paid for two hours, and I like to make sure you get your money’s worth.’

Moving quickly, he slipped his hands under her ass. Molly released him as he dragged her aside, then unseated her until her shoulders were against the cushions and her head tucked into the crevice at the corner of the sofa. Her grip on him loosened, she reached over her head and grasped the pillows as he raised her up.

Forearms speckled with copper hair formed twin bars across her thighs. As disorienting as it was to be suspended nearly upside-down, it was the lapping of his tongue around her clit that gave her the sense of bobbing aimlessly in a vigorous surf. She tucked her ankles between his shoulder blades and rocked in tune with the hot sweep of his tongue.

He followed the slick trail back down to the mount of her cunt, but Molly wanted no more of his teasing. She slipped one hand along her body and used her fingers to spread herself out as he had done. This time he did as she beckoned. His gaze on her hot face, he dragged his tongue back and forth over her clit and over her fingers.

Now she didn’t care about anything else, not the open curtains or anyone who might be peeping outside, not the pile of crisp bills on the table and how the money was what had brought him there. The only thing in her world was the building heat between her legs.

‘Oh, yes, suck me like that,’ she managed to say through the thickness at the back of her throat.

Another growl poured out of him and through her, into the atmosphere, and she moaned as the suction of his mouth became insatiable. She became light-headed with the rush of blood through her body. Quinn twisted his head, widening his slick mouth and sealing his lips around her.

She couldn’t get enough air in her lungs, and so, as the intensity of his mouth built and built and reached its pinnacle, she stopped breathing.

With a flick of her wrist she clamped her hand over his and dug her nails in, then let her body take over. His tongue revived and danced over her clit. He squeezed her thighs to keep hold of her as she began to buck against him.

On and on it went, wave after intoxicating wave until she drowned in it.

Molly gasped, releasing the last air she had trapped inside her, as the swell abated and left her sensitive. He held on, not as firmly as before but held on nonetheless, and licked down to her throbbing gash.

That decadent tongue fuck began again. She turned her head, and through the splotches of light before her eyes she saw the leaves of paper fluttering with every breath she took.

One hundred … two hundred … three hundred …

She counted with every thrust of his tongue, every penny she had paid him to be here, then closed her eyes.

Down he went and shrugged off her legs, letting her knees hook into his elbows. Through her lashes she watched him study the slippery conclusion of the glorious climax that still throbbed in her clit.

‘When was the last time someone spread you open and gave you a hard fuck? Not a fast one that would rattle the teeth in your head, but a slow screw you can taste.’ He leaned forward, holding her open once more as he beamed that smile at her. She shook her head, and he gave a little shrug. ‘Maybe I was wrong about you. Maybe you want to be bent over with a hand in your hair and a cock stretching your ass.’

‘Must you …’

‘Mindfuck you? I have to admit, I get off on it a little.’ He let her legs drop and dragged her closer. He was suddenly serious, mouth firm and eyes hot. ‘Or maybe you want me to lie back and let you do what you want with me. Women like you can be hard to figure out. You always want one extreme or the other. Why don’t I take you into the bedroom and find out which side of the coin you are?’

Molly sat up and looked down between her legs, at the shining tip of his erection. As sated as she was, the temptation was killing her. She had to muster every bit of resistance in her just to speak.

‘Why don’t we take a breather?’

The tip of that hot tongue touched his upper lip, and something settled in his expression that made her heart pound even faster. He merely held her in place. His cock rested against her belly, and with its urgent throb she felt the need to relent and let him slide deep into the wet passage he’d made.

With a shake of her head, she managed to send some of the ash into the atmosphere, but the fire inside her kept burning. Now that the euphoria he had left her with started to fade, something unpleasant crept up. Unable to look at him, she writhed out of his grip and turned away from his inquisitive gaze.

‘Ah,’ he said at last, and got to his feet as she gathered up the money she’d laid out. There was a change in his demeanour. He had become softer in spite of the hard thing that jutted from the copper curls between his legs. ‘Gone shy on me, have you?’

‘It’s not that,’ she murmured, and resisted the urge to scoot away from him as he sat down next to her. ‘Really, it’s not. That was beyond spectacular, but –’

‘But nothing.’ He took the money from her and reached across her to put it back on the table. ‘If it’s what you need, I’ll stop talking. I’ll do what you say.’

‘I shouldn’t have done that.’ God, did it have to bite so much to say it out loud? ‘I really shouldn’t have done that, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.’

He took her hand, too quickly for her to draw back, and closed it around the crest of his erection. ‘You can let me do it again. You’ve paid for two hours, and you’ve barely used one. You might as well.’

It struck her how genuine and boyish he seemed now when he smiled. There was just the hint of the scoundrel at the corner of his mouth, but otherwise he simply looked pleased as he used her hand, slicked by his precome, to jerk himself.

It was impossible to resist. His magnetism was much too powerful. What was left of her common sense packed its bags and took off and, just like she’d never had reservations at all, Molly squeezed down.

‘Tricky boy.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

That smirk shimmered on his mouth, but was gone again as she kneaded inch after inch.

‘You got yourself all worked up and now you want me to take care of it.’ She twisted her head around and glanced over his shoulder at the digital clock on the table. ‘I suppose I can spare a couple more minutes. The damage is done already.’

Part of her wondered if she had gone mental, jerking off a gigolo she was paying to leave the premises, but as he tilted his head back and closed his eyes, Molly realised that this was one part of sex she had forgotten about, forgotten that she adored: watching a man as his orgasm built and built.

It had been a year and a half since she’d done anything with a partner that didn’t need rechargeable batteries, and the arse-end of her marital sex life wouldn’t have won any gold medals. Lying dormant for all this time had been this compulsion to see what she was doing to him written on a lover’s face.

And this one, well, he was holding nothing back. Eyes closed, mouth slack save for when he pursed his lips to gather moisture, the sound of pleasure poured out of him like he was a faucet she’d turned on. Regardless of how good he’d been with that tongue, his need for release was something that had no price tag.

Intending only to spit into her palm so she could work him a little harder, Molly leaned down. His hand instantly landed on her neck, the pressure urging her mouth closer to his cock. She turned to stone in her resistance, and he immediately relaxed his grip and lifted his head.

‘Sorry, I –’

Molly simply released him, and dropped to her knees before him.

‘I must be out of my mind,’ she murmured, and flashed him a smile as she grasped his cock and thrust forward. ‘I must be out of my fucking mind.’

A deep line formed between his eyes as she took hold of his cock at the balls, then softened once she closed her lips around that hot crest. His head wobbled, as though he was torn between the urge to resume his passive pose and his desire to watch her.

She held his gaze as she mouthed him, and when he let out a bubbling laugh she couldn’t help but return it. ‘What?’

‘I like you,’ he replied, the last word hitching as she dragged her tongue through the moisture oozing from the groove. ‘I like you, and it just occurred to me why I like you. You’re just like me, in a way.’

Molly licked her palm, then jerked the soft skin around his shaft. ‘Explain.’

‘You put on the same costume I do: the hair sleeked and flattened, the smoky eyes, the red lips and the matching nails. Men see you walking through the lobby while they’re sitting at the bar and they picture you like this, on your knees and sucking their dicks. It’s good business. It keeps them spending their money on the property, and it keeps them coming back. You and I both sell sex, but in different mediums.’

He was wrong. Maybe once upon a time she’d dressed and painted to attract the opposite sex, but those days were over. The slim skirts and perfect make-up were for the woman looking back at her in the mirror and no one else. The desire she wanted was her own; because it made her feel good to see that on the surface she was in complete control.

And yet the more she thought about it, she liked what he had said. She liked the comparison he’d made. That person she became every morning when she put on her face, raised the hem of her skirt just a few inches and never buttoned herself completely, so as to leave a little shadow of cleavage. He’d seen himself in her, and he’d used it to strip her down.

Molly took a mouthful, deeper and deeper until she could no longer hold his gaze. As she lifted her head she sucked him hard, and chuckled as he sucked in a hissing breath through his teeth.

She pushed up onto her knees and cradled the length between her tits. Quinn chuckled. His expression more victorious than smug, he tucked his hands behind his head and stretched his legs out around her.

‘Make me come on your tits.’

‘Are you reading me? That’s what I think you want by doing this?’

He gave a little shrug. ‘No, I thought we were doing what I wanted now, and I want to come on your tits.’

If he had asked her again what she wanted, by now her answer would have been for him to push her down onto the carpet and pump away until she no longer felt the need to be filled up.

As she wrapped her hand around his cock and bent her head to suckle him, she knew that she could still ask – no, tell him what she wanted, and he’d give it to her. And now, even though her cunt dripped fresh for a hard fuck, what she wanted was to give him what he wanted. He’d transformed his want into hers.

This time, when he cupped the back of her head, she closed her eyes with a moan and worked every inch into her throat, then joined her other hand to the first.

‘God, yes, that’s good,’ he expelled in a low rumble, and as she drew back he lifted his hips and pushed down.

She took him again, and again and again as he rocked upwards. She still sucked him, still squelched that hot length between two palms slicked by saliva and precome, but he drove her with his thrusts and filthy words.

‘That mouth. Jesus, that pretty red mouth. More. Faster. Suck me harder.’ He twisted her hair in his hand like she had done to him and drove over her tongue. ‘Come on, Molly, you can do better than that.’

Even though his words were broken by the huff and puff of trying to keep his breath, he still managed to run his mouth. His voice had taken on a mocking tone that spurred her on.

With his grip on her becoming more precarious, Molly took charge. She became his little sex toy, rocking up and down on her knees and bobbing her head to meet his thrusts, all the while tugging the soft, slick skin around his shaft.

He finally lost his words, instead spitting out frantic, nonsensical, sounds. He dropped his hands to his sides. A quick glance told her this wasn’t an act of submission. He clenched the sofa cushion between his fists; if he had been holding her head he would have torn her hair from the roots, or at least choked her.

Molly took him balls deep one last time, then sucked him hard as she slowly withdrew until there was only the tip resting on her tongue. She smiled up at him as she swirled her tongue over the smooth head, then squeezed down on him.

‘If you want to come on my tits, you could at least be a gentleman and watch,’ she murmured.

Wild blue eyes flashed at her as she took him in the crevice between her breasts once more and cupped his balls. Beneath her hands she felt the eruption begin, the mad tattoo of blood rushing through veins. She rolled her shoulders and pushed up, thrusting his dick into the tight valley she had created, and nearly laughed with elation as he lurched forward with the first hot spurt.

Molly tipped her head back and let him rain over her. It had been ages since she felt so dirty. She bowed her head and let the last drops ooze onto her lips. Looking back up at him, it pleased her to find him still looking down on her with a mixture of admiration and defeat. She licked her lips and pushed down on his bare thighs as she got to her feet.

She turned and he stopped her with just a hand on her hip.

‘That mouth,’ he whispered, then his smile returned. ‘The money you could make with that mouth.’

‘You couldn’t afford me,’ she replied, then turned out of his reach.

She grabbed her purse on the way to the bathroom, glancing back only to be sure he was still watching. She wasn’t sure why it was important, but she liked the lingering hunger on his face.

‘Will you have someone make up the room again?’ he called to her as she scrubbed her mouth in front of the mirror.

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘I’m just curious. I thought it might be a waste to have someone come in just to do the bathroom.’

‘Meaning?’

‘It wouldn’t take them that much longer to do the bed, would it?’

She laughed as she scrubbed her chest clean, then delved into her purse for her face powder. ‘You’re tenacious, aren’t you? You just blow your load all over me and you still want me on my back.’

‘On your back, on top of me, on your knees.’

He appeared in the doorway behind her and leaned against the jamb, arms crossed over his chest. He looked absolutely predatory as he looked down her body.

‘It won’t take me long to get hard again. I could play with you and keep you wet and coming until then.’

Even if she’d been able to hide the flush spreading over that woman in the mirror, she saw little point in denying it. She had just sucked his cock with such enthusiasm she could still see the marks of her lipstick smeared across the shaft. She clipped the compact shut and went for her lipstick.

‘I’m sure you could, and I’d like that very much, but no, and the clock is ticking.’

‘Forget about the money.’ He took two steps and pressed against her, pinning her between his body and the vanity. ‘I like you. I like you and I want to fuck you for the fun of it.’

God, he makes it so hard, doesn’t he?

She focused on filling in the bow shape of her mouth as he pressed his chin into her shoulder. If she did, who would tell? Nick? Hell, no. If she called down to the desk and told him to mark the suite as full for the rest of the night, he’d keep quiet and she could stay right here with Quinn until he had wasted her to nothing with that delicious body.

As he squeezed his fingers between her legs and glided easily into her sex, she almost relented.

Instead she squirmed enough to push him off. She didn’t look at him as she went to work on combing her fingers through her hair. ‘I can’t. I still need my job in the new year.’

Once in the living room, she started to collect her scattered and crumpled clothes. She needed a good scrub-down, but now that she’d put the brakes on this … sweet Jesus, this sordid episode, she needed to put some space between them. A jingling sound drew her attention back to him, and she was oddly disappointed to find him drawing his slacks up his thighs.

‘About our arrangement …’ he said.

Molly dragged her dress over her head and spoke through the fabric. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any harm in giving you until the new year. After that, I don’t want to see you again.’

She shoved her head through the neck and jumped to find him standing in front of her.

‘Our arrangement.’

‘We don’t have an arrangement.’

He looked unconvinced, and completely gorgeous with his chest still bare and his hair all rumpled. She itched to reach up and smooth down the ruddy spikes she had made.

Instead, she hiked her purse onto her shoulder and took a deep breath. ‘Take your time. I won’t have housekeeping up here until the morning – and don’t forget …’

She glanced at the envelope on the sofa.

‘Trust me, I won’t,’ he said, but his smile said it wasn’t the money he was talking about as he shrugged into his shirt. ‘I’ll see you around, Molly.’

She could have purred over her name lilting, liquid, off his tongue. It ran through her as she headed for the door and left her light-headed.

‘If you change your mind, you have my number,’ he called to her. ‘You know my working hours. Otherwise, I’m yours for a little more of that “or something”.’

* * *

What had long been a habit for Molly had evolved into a deliberate routine she was certain she’d feel lost without.

Every workday she’d close and lock the door, drop her purse, kick off her shoes, then lean against the door with her eyes closed. In a series of deep breaths, she’d push the day away: the boring hours of paperwork, the bitchy guests and the gripes from the staff, the mountain of bills she’d ignore, and all the other garbage in her life. A long sigh and all of it would flake away.

Nothing was different today. She still sealed herself in. She still let her purse fall onto the doormat and pushed her shoes off, but this time when she leaned back she lifted her gaze to the ceiling.

Her sigh was different. It wasn’t relief or exasperation. This slow exhalation was lush and satisfied, and with her second breath she let out an airy, disbelieving laugh that shook her shoulders.

She’d had sex with a stranger who made his living with that talented tongue and hard body.

When she’d left work that morning, she certainly hadn’t intended to indulge in some illicit encounter in the honeymoon suite, though she wouldn’t have been the first. In fact, when she’d first started at the front desk she’d developed a camaraderie with the lothario bartender: her friends got one free round every time she passed him a key card to an empty room so he could spend his break with whoever he had been flirting with. From kitchen staff and deliverymen, to housekeepers and porters, Molly doubted there was a nook left in the hotel that hadn’t been used for the purpose of sexual congress.

She’d always abstained from fucking at work. The fear of losing her job trumped the high of being bad. The closest she’d ever come was giving Aaron a hand job in the parking garage after a Christmas party.

So far she’d evaded regret about what had happened with Quinn. She expected it to creep upon her as she moved through the darkness to the living room, but when she turned on the light and sank down on the sofa, nothing like it manifested.

Out of the shadows came a haughty little figure with glaring yellow eyes. Up until today, Scot had been the only male in her life since Aaron moved out. It was a simple chieftain/servant relationship, and as far as roommates went the feline was tolerable. He sat primly in the archway where the living room met the dining room and stared. This was supposed to be her cue to get up and feed him, but with her tap against the edge of the sectional he strutted forward. Apparently the promise of a belly-rub was as good as the promise of food, maybe better.

With the cat sprawling on her lap, Molly scratched his stomach and turned on the television, but paid no attention to the 24-hour news station. While the sensible side of her enumerated the risks of indulging with someone who sold sex, the wilder side ached at the memory of Quinn’s hot mouth on her sex, and rolled her eyes like a petulant child being scolded.

She conjured that James Bond package he sold. She remembered him telling her he had his limits, and he didn’t need to specify that risky sex was off the menu. Like any other dealer in the illicit, Quinn kept his product pure. It wouldn’t do for one of his well-paying clients to discover she’d been left with an unpleasant souvenir of her time with him. Word would travel fast, and he’d be done.

Scot broke her reverie with a twist off her lap and an annoyed croak. She relented and followed him to the kitchen. She couldn’t tell if she was still slippery from their time together or if this wetness rubbing against her panties was from remembering it. After filling Scot’s bowl, she delved into the fridge-freezer and pulled out a frosted bottle of vodka.

It was fire and ice as it went down, and just what she needed. There was a time when she used to add a splash of soda and juice, but since her marriage failed and two had become one, she took her liquor neat.

In fact, the last time she’d diluted her liquor was the same night she last had sex. It had been her anniversary, and she and Aaron had returned from an uncomfortable dinner. As he’d showered, she’d gulped down a screwdriver – her second – and resigned herself to the inevitability of sex that night. She was sure that Aaron was as unenthusiastic as she was, but when they’d got into bed together he was hard. Less than a minute of foreplay preceded sex that not even lubricant could make bearable. When it was over he had slept, and Molly took herself downstairs. Sore between her legs, her soul dried and brittle, she’d poured herself another drink and wiped away tears that squeezed out from behind her eyelids like acid.

It was an episode she tended to dwell over when she’d had a bad day and needed a drink. She’d sit at the kitchen table and sip, brimming with resentment at Aaron for not making an effort to make her come. As the vodka soaked into her brain, she’d drag up all of his faults, sexual and otherwise, before turning to hers until she passed out drunk.

Not tonight. Tonight, something wonderful and electric ran thick through her veins.

She leaned against the island and thought of Quinn’s tongue gliding between her pussy lips. For as long as she’d live, she’d never forget it.

She pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth as her thoughts turned to how unabashedly he’d watched her while she sucked him, like he’d needed to forge the same connection she craved, in order to get off.

Was it always like that for him? Was it a part of the package? Flick a switch and he’d turn on all that virility that made a woman feel like fucking her was the best goddamn thing to ever happen to him?

She didn’t want to think about it. Not with the bite of her drink mingling with the lethargy he’d left her with and creating a delectable potion in her blood. She left the bottle to perspire on the tiles and pulled her dress over her head as she went barefoot down the hall.

An odd feeling struck her just before she reached the bathroom. She halted and turned, stomach churning and hands turning cold as she reached out. The knob on the spare-room door was old and loose and rattled when she wrapped her hand around it.

Every so often, usually on a Saturday morning when a long weekend stretched bland and empty before her, she’d get it into her head that she’d replace the whole door and sometimes would even make it to the hardware store. Wandering the aisles, she’d be dazzled by paint chips and crown moulding and think about what she could do with the room inside if she could hold onto that ambition that crept in. Yet she always left the hardware store empty-handed and weak-kneed.

It had been weeks since she’d stood before this door like this, but only hours since she’d thought about it. Usually its presence rushed at her towards the end of the day when her feet began to ache and her thoughts would turn to home, and the room would linger.

She’d last thought about it as she rode the elevator up to the honeymoon suite, and then Quinn had wiped her life’s entire residue away. She hadn’t thought about the room at all.

Molly reached up and with her index finger traced the shape of the rubber-duck sticker on the outside of the door. Guilt about having forgotten about the room made her arm tingle and threaten to go numb. Rather than welcome it like she usually did, she took a step back and squared her shoulders.

‘Not today,’ she said almost cheerfully.

Not today, she repeated in her head as she ventured into the bathroom. Not on a day when a man as wicked as Quinn had awakened that part of herself she never thought she’d see again.

Today she was going to be that woman whose knees were a little burned from the carpet and whose thigh muscles gave an aching whimper with every step, and who was immensely proud of both.

It was that woman who emerged from the bathroom in her kimono, still damp and leaving small puddles as she made her way back to the foyer. She collected her purse from where she’d dropped it by the door and pulled out her phone, then returned to the sofa.

One didn’t simply pick Quinn out of the adult personals. The night she’d called Nick into her office, she’d sat with her hands folded on the desk in front of her as he made the call. She’d read about websites dedicated to connecting with gigolos, but according to Nick this small network of men who worked the local hotels found their clients via referral. Front-desk clerks and bartenders kept names and earned their cuts, more affiliates than pimps. They made the calls and provided contact details. Quinn, Nick explained, wasn’t available at short notice. He had a list of clients he served several times a week, and he took on new ones at his discretion.

A detailed message had been left on Quinn’s voicemail, and a few hours later, as Molly was settling into bed, he sent a text to his ‘prospective client’. The exchange had been short and businesslike. He named his price, noting that any special requests would cost extra. Particular fantasies could be sent via email. She texted back that she just wanted to sample the fixed menu, and a date and time was agreed upon.

As the newscast on the television provided white noise just beyond her attention span, Molly scrolled back and forth through those messages. She’d been frustrated at the time of the exchange, but now she understood it. He was The Boss, the CEO of a very lucrative business, and the biggest fucking deal in his world, and he conducted himself as such.

Was that why she had done what she had done? She couldn’t work it out, and she couldn’t stand not knowing why she had taken him up on his offer.

But she didn’t have the same conviction that she should regard today as a one-off as she’d had when she left him in the room to clean himself up. The allure of meeting him again had become a constant burn that grew hotter and hotter every second she spent thinking about it.

She rested her head against the sofa back and blew out a sigh. Eyes closed, she let herself slip back into that honeymoon suite. She tingled with the same anticipation she’d felt when she’d exposed that hard chest. She tasted the salt from his skin on her tongue and her mouth watered. The low timbre of his laugh penetrated her blood and made her breath quicken.

She squeezed her fingers around the phone and clamped her knees together. The thought of him turned her on so much that she couldn’t imagine not getting another fix, and soon.

It’s only for another month and change, she reasoned as she tapped the screen so that the keyboard popped up.

A ticklish feeling raced through her, as powerful as the arousal she couldn’t and didn’t want to shake.

I like you.

His smile as he said it, the one that took over his whole face and made his eyes light up, was what made her want to take on what a select group of women had to pay for. Quinn overflowed with conceit, but was … pleasant, and she liked him right back.

It was foolish, but Molly couldn’t help but feel that his interest was genuine. Sure, she’d agreed to give him until the new year, and his apparent eagerness to further their arrangement could have been self-preservation, but that option didn’t feel right to her.

Maybe it was just wishful thinking from a woman who hadn’t had a lover, or even a truly good friend, in a long time, but she felt that something had truly sparked between them, and she was sure she wasn’t mistaken.

The screen on her phone faded to black, and Molly found herself thinking about his hands and those scars that formed a crosshatch over his knuckles.

They were far more proof of his manhood than his abilities in bed. Those scars, and the man they made him, were why she had been compelled to stay when she could have walked away. They no longer hinted at something rough and bestial, but perhaps something more complex than just a man whose game was seduction.

As she tapped the phone and roused it again, she groaned.

The smart thing to do was to forget that today ever happened, to turn around and look away when he came into the hotel, and teach herself to think about this afternoon’s episode as something to cringe over during daylight and relive in a fever when night fell. The smart thing to do was to go back to her grey life and forget about that spot of colour she’d found in the honeymoon suite.

But not today, she thought, and began to type.

About that ‘or something’ …