Chapter 12
Harlan
I ’m on my laptop in my home office when Quinn nudges the door open and leans in.
“There you are!” she says, like she’s happy to see me or something. “This place is huge . I thought I might never find you.”
Then she wanders right in without an invitation, looking around, at the books lined up perfectly on my shelves, all the dust jackets removed so that they appear more uniform. There isn’t much else to look at in here. I don’t like clutter around me while I work.
“I’m surprised you don’t turn them backwards,” she marvels, “so the white pages are showing.”
I stare at her.
“You know, so they all look the same.”
She’s reaching to touch a book, maybe pull it out and browse, when I snap, “I’m working.”
She stops abruptly. “Oh. Good idea.” She pulls out her phone. “I should take care of some emails for Quinn’s Cakes this morning.”
I can only assume she’s making herself comfortable when she sits down and stretches out like a cat on her belly—on the floor.
I didn’t know grown adults did that.
I suppose the absence of any chairs besides the one I’m sitting on didn’t get the message across that I don’t want company in here.
I allow my eyes the indulgence of traveling up her bare legs and over her dress to her ass. The ass I smacked and squeezed last night, while I fucked her.
I’m glad to see she’s at least wearing the same blue polkadot dress, and didn’t help herself to one of my shirts. She was still sleeping when I woke up, so I decided to do some work while I waited for her to get moving.
But it’s put me on edge, leaving her in my bed, like she belonged there.
When she looks up at me, I fix my gaze on my laptop screen. But all I can seem to see is her face in profile as she gasped, choked and screamed while I pounded into her, and I whispered filth in her ear.
And now I’m uncomfortably hard, and my mood is turning black.
I have work to do.
But she’s talking, making morning-after conversation, like we’re fuck buddies or friends or something. “I have to say, that bed of yours is amazing. I don’t even remember falling asleep.”
I do. After fucking her senseless, she was quite a mess. I dragged her into a warm shower and soaped her off, and she was barely conscious when I carried her to the bed, where I tucked her in.
I wasn’t planning to keep her overnight, but she was asleep before her head hit the pillow.
I slept beside her, off and on, but not well.
When I don’t respond, she says, “I hope I’m not making it weird. I think we can be cool around each other, right? We’re both adults.”
I grumble something I hope satisfies, but it’s definitely not words. I’d rather we didn’t talk at all.
“Also… thank you for the shower,” she says carefully.
Maybe she’s finally picking up on the fact that I don’t want, or need, her thank you’s.
When I say nothing, and hopefully appear to be absorbed in work, she hums softly to herself as she presumably checks email on her phone.
I can’t concentrate, too obsessed with the curve of her lower back. I can handle less than a minute of it before getting up and telling her, “I need to make some calls.”
She looks up. “Oh. Of course. Should we have breakfast after?”
“I don’t have time.” I leave the office, and head through the family room and out to my backyard.
I stalk across the patio, and settle onto one of the stools along the bar by my immaculate but unused pool, in silence.
Something brushes against my leg, and I glance down; black fur.
I stroke the cat absently as I consider that last item on the list of criteria I gave Manus with his special assignment. Emotionally unavailable.
Logically, I understand why she appeared to meet that criteria. She wasn’t single. Presumably, she was emotionally involved with her boss at the bakery. Dating her boss was a risk. Dating him in secret was yet another risk. And those risks she was taking, for him, suggested a depth of connection.
Clearly, that part was wrong.
And maybe the biggest mistake I made was not taking into account that I might get attached.
However, there is no world in which I can afford to attach myself to Quinn Monroe.
If my family sees me with her, they’ll ask more questions about her. They’ll dig in, because they can’t help themselves. And even if they can look past the fact that she used to work for us, I’m sure they’d love nothing more than to gossip about the love life of the brother they nicknamed the beast —because they decided, years ago, that I was too ill-tempered for any woman to put up with.
And if they dig enough, maybe they’ll find out the truth; that Quinn is not Darla.
I can’t have that.
I met with my siblings last weekend so we could draw the next name from Granddad’s cigar box, and the next challenge. Now, it’s Savannah’s turn. My one-month deadline officially passed yesterday. So, my allotted time to complete my challenge is now finished, and Savannah’s challenge is underway.
My lie is sealed. It’s far too late to ever go back on it now.
I wonder, suddenly, what Quinn thinks of me lying to my family. Which is fucking annoying. I’ve never wondered that before.
Maybe it’s just the guilt that’s getting to me. I don’t feel great about lying to my family, that’s all.
And what would Quinn think if she found out the truth?
Would she hate me for lying to her ?
It bothers me that I care.
I shouldn’t care.
We fucked, and now it’s done.
Maybe we were both denying our attraction from the start, because it was inconvenient, but now we’ve taken it to its logical conclusion. We released all that pent-up lust.
Closure.
We have no reason to ever see each other again.
I make a couple of calls, and when I finally head back into the house, the cat tries to follow. I make her stay outside, closing the sliding door.
What the hell is that smell?
The house smells sweet and inviting, like cinnamon and maple syrup.
And what the hell is that music?
It’s coming from the chef’s kitchen. But that is not my chef’s music. He sometimes listens to classical music while he works, but this is eighties pop.
I push the door open, and find Quinn making pancakes to “Hungry Like the Wolf.”
“What are you doing?”
“Pancakes,” she says cheerily, lifting one on the spatula to show me before adding it to a pile of them on a plate. “I was going to bring some to you. You really shouldn’t skip breakfast.”
I can’t even respond to that. I’m too thrown off by this whole scene. Her, flipping pancakes, in her polkadot dress, with one of my chef’s aprons on. Where the hell is he?
What did he do, hand her the keys to my house and leave?
She can’t get comfortable here.
“Don’t they smell good?” she goes on. “It’s a family recipe. My mom makes the best pancakes. The secret is a little real maple syrup, right in the batter, amber if you have it, and Ceylon cinnamon. I was so happy to find you have both. That pantry is well-stocked! Apparently the recipe actually came from my dad. Mom said he made them for her on their second date, and that’s when she knew she was in love. Although… maybe that means she spent the night with him on their second date? I never really thought that through before. Is that TMI?”
Yes. Yes it is.
All of it.
This woman is the queen of TMI.
Once again, she just told me way the fuck more than I ever wanted or needed to know. Because the more I know, the more I have to think about, and the more I think about her… the more I need her out of here.
“I don’t have time to eat. I’m needed at the office.” Mostly, I need to get away from her. “I’m leaving.”
“Oh.” She turns to me. “Well, just let me finish cooking these last ones? And I could catch a ride with you? I have a cake order to fill, and then I’m starting my new job tonight.”
And now she thinks I want her itinerary?
But fuck, I do .
There’s something seriously wrong with me.
She chews on the side of her lip, like it’s finally occurring to her that she might be oversharing. “You can warm up the pancakes later.”
“Fine. I’ll have the car ready out front.”
When she turns back to the pancakes, I go put my shoes on. Manus pulls the car up for me, and I get in, waiting for her in the backseat with the door open.
A few minutes later, she emerges from my house, disturbingly beautiful in the morning sun. Bright turquoise hair, blue polkadot dress. She slides in next to me with a cheerful “Thank you!” to Manus as he shuts the door for her. “What a beautiful morning,” she says to me.
“I want to make it clear,” I tell her as we pull out of the driveway, “that last night was a one-time thing.”
Her bright expression fades a little. It’s like clouds drifting in front of the sun. “Okay. I was just trying to be nice.”
I look out the window. “I don’t like people in my space.”
“I know,” she says softly. “I can tell.”
That night, I work late, trying to bury thoughts of Quinn and what we did last night—and failing. When I get home, I find the dinner my staff left for me in the chef’s kitchen, as requested.
Her pancakes are on a plate in the fridge, along with a handwritten note with warm-up instructions.
I refuse to get used to this. I won’t eat her pancakes. I won’t let myself start missing her. Craving her niceties, longing for her attention.
You can’t start counting on things like that.
I knock on the door of Manus’ apartment over the garage, and give the pancakes to him.
I should’ve just given her bracelet back when she mentioned she’d lost it. Or before that, like I told myself I would. Lying to myself.
I don’t know why I lied to her and kept it.
I don’t know what I was thinking having Brant run it over to my family’s jeweler today. The diamonds in my pocket are a terrible reminder that I can’t control these things like I need to. That I’m already out of control.
I already want to see her again.
Every time I let myself think of her, remember how she feels, how she smells, the way she reacts to my touch, I get hard.
When I go up to bed, I can’t sleep.
I end up folding clothes in my walk-in closet. Folding and rearranging the socks and underwear in my drawers in perfect lines, because no matter how long my housekeeper has worked for me or how neatly she puts them away, I have to redo them.
Not because they’re wrong.
Because they’re not quite right.
Meanwhile, I keep telling myself I won’t see Quinn again. That she’s out of my system. Now that I’ve fucked her, I don’t want or need anything else from her.
I meant it when I told her that last night was a one-time thing.
I know it’s becoming hazardous to my health to even think of her at all.
I just can’t stop.
I’m still awake at almost one in the morning when Manus texts me, to ask if I’m still up. He tells me I have a visitor.
I stare at the text, absorbing his meaning.
Manus: I wouldn’t have bothered you, but it’s her.
There could really only be one her .
One woman who he’d let into my house at this hour, without my permission.
One woman he’s seen me with lately.
One woman he thinks I hired for some dubious job after running surveillance on her, then made out with her in the back of my car, brought her home, and let her stay the night.
I head downstairs to find Quinn standing in my foyer.
Manus is nowhere to be seen.
She grips her purse and jacket, wearing a little black dress, with a short skirt and juicy cleavage.
Did she wear that for me?
She already took off her shoes and stands barefoot on my floor.
I stand on the bottom stair, leaving space between us. Her eyes rake over me. I’m not wearing anything but a pair of black pajama pants that I pulled on when I received Manus’ text.
And with her eyes all over the front of my pants, I’m already getting hard.
“Hi,” she says softly.
My heart is thumping, blood is rushing to my dick, and I’m not sure she understands what she’s getting into here. If she thinks she came hard last night, that was nothing.
I’ve spent countless hours today vividly imagining ways to make her scream.
“I thought you were starting your new job tonight,” I say evenly.
“I did. I went home after my shift. But then I just couldn’t sleep, so…”
Her unfinished sentence hangs in the air between us.
I wonder what panties she put on for me.
Or if she’s wearing any.
“This is stupid. I should go.”
But she doesn’t go. She just stands there, gazing at me with those wide-open blue eyes.
“Has anyone ever told you,” I ask her, stepping down the last stair and stalking slowly toward her, “that you have lost kitten energy?”
“Uh… no.”
“I told you not to come here.”
“I heard you.”
“You should leave.”
“I know.”
I stop in front of her, and she makes no move to leave.
“I was just thinking that maybe we should do it again, you know?” she says tentatively. “I mean, you’re really good at it…” As she speaks, she inches closer to me, her eyes roaming hungrily over my bare upper body. “And it seems kind of lonely in your house. It’s a shame.” Her pretty eyes meet mine. “You really shouldn’t let such talents go to waste, all alone in here…”
I swallow. “Careful, Quinn. Talk like that will get you fucked.” I mean it as a warning.
But her eyes flare with heat.
My pulse is slamming in my cock.
I’m wrestling with whether to throw her over my shoulder again or throw her out, when she launches at me. Her mouth slams against mine, and I catch her.
She moans, sliding her sweet tongue into my mouth.
I’m supposed to say no to this?
Send her away?
I’m already drowning in the way she kisses me as she climbs me like a tree. Like she’s been thinking about this all day.
The way she sucks on my lips, like she’s hungry for it…
“Just one more time, okay?” she breathes.
“Yeah,” I manage between kisses. “Just one.”
The next thing I know, I’m carrying her up to my room and kicking the door shut.