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  He drew his finger upward, working it over her clitoris. She threw her arm over her eyes, not bothering to suppress her sounds of pleasure, not caring about anything but she felt. How good he made her feel.

  Suddenly, he sat up.

  “What?” she asked, feeling dizzy, disoriented and so turned on it was painful.

  “What I have planned requires more room.” He opened the driver’s side door and stepped out of the truck, standing facing her. He pulled her shoes off and let them fall to the ground.Then he reached in and tugged her jeans and underwear down her legs, balling them up and throwing them into the truck behind her.

  Then he gripped her hips and pulled her forward, raising her butt off the seat of the truck, his eyes intent on her. So intent that, even with how dark it was, she fought the urge to cover herself up.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said, his voice rough. “Oh, Lark . . .” He leaned in, pressed a kiss to her inner thigh. “What did I tell you? All the better to eat you with.”

  A hot flash of embarrassment burned through her, just as his tongue touched her. And then everything went white behind her eyes, a flash of light, of fire, so intense she couldn’t breathe through it, couldn’t think. Couldn’t do anything but feel.

  He tasted her, deep, long. She should be horrified. To have him do this, something so intimate, something she’d never even gotten around to fantasizing about. But she wasn’t. It felt perfect. Indulgent. Amazing.

  His tongue was wet, the slick friction sending crackling flame through her, coiling low in her stomach and settling there, burning steadily. Building. Growing. Threatening to rage out of control.

  He shifted his weight, wrapping his arm around her so that his forearm was supporting her weight, and then he took his other hand and stroked her, gently, just enough to add fuel to the flames.

  Then he pushed one finger inside of her. And the fire exploded. She was consumed by it. Burning up, completely and totally. And she welcomed it, bathed in it. Heat and pleasure so far beyond what she’d imagined possible.

  She’d had orgasms before, but not like this. She had no control here. She had nothing more than complete and total surrender. And she reveled in it.

  Slowly the flames receded. Slowly, she started finding her breath. And then suddenly, it all dropped away.

  And she realized she was flat on her back in Quinn Parker’s truck, in the middle of her driveway, albeit her secluded driveway, with the door wide open and her legs spread.

  And she’d just done a whole lot more than kiss him.

  She blinked and then jerked out of his hold, moving into a sitting position and scrambling madly for her jeans.

  Shit. She was going to cry. She was going to cry like a little girl who wanted her mommy. Because she felt like one. And she did. She wanted someone to hold her and tell her it was okay, and there was no one to do that.

  Because it wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay.

  With shaking hands she tugged her jeans on, stuffing the panties in her pocket. She stumbled out the passenger’s side door and went around to the driver’s side. “Shoes,” she said, her throat dry.

  “Lark . . .”

  “Shoes.” He bent and picked her shoes up, handing them to her. She jammed her feet into them, her stomach pitching.

  “Are you going to walk off all pissed again like I did something horrible to you?” he asked, his voice low, deadly.

  “No,” she said. “You didn’t . . . I did . . . I did it. I . . . I don’t know what I’m doing.” She wrapped her arms around herself and started walking away from Quinn’s truck.

  “Lark.” She heard the door slam shut behind her. “Lark. Dammit, stop.”

  She whirled around to face him. “No. I can’t. I can’t do this with you.”

  “But you want to,” he said, his voice rough.

  “So what? So what?”

  “Doesn’t what you want matter?”

  “Not in this case, Quinn. No, it doesn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to want you!”

  “But you do.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “So what? You get off with me, even though you can’t stand me? And now you’re going to run off, sick to your stomach because you wanted me, and because you indulged that want? Because I disgust you that much?”

  “Yes!” she shouted.

  For a second, she thought the moonlight revealed a flash of pain in his eyes. But just as quickly as she saw it, it disappeared again.

  He shrugged. “Then you should be even more disgusted with yourself. Because no matter what you think you want, baby, I can make you come. Easy. Think about what that says about you.”

  “Believe me,” she said, wiping at her dry eyes. “I have thought about it. I don’t like myself very much right now either.”

  “Join the club.”

  “I’m not coming in tomorrow.”

  “Suit yourself. I’m docking a day’s pay off your contract.”

  She flung her arms wide. “Freaking spiffy, Quinn, do what you have to. Please yourself.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Sure I do.”

  “No, you don’t. Because pleasing myself involves getting you naked again.” He smiled and laughed, but there was nothing happy or humorous about either expression. “I wonder what that says about me?”

  He jerked open the door of the truck and then pulled the passenger door shut before starting the engine. Lark turned away from him and started walking down the driveway, toward her house, her entire body numb straight down to her soul.

  When Quinn had been touching her, she’d never felt so alive. And now that reality had hit, she’d never felt so empty.

  Quinn Parker was a very inconvenient paradox. She’d never had a better reason to hate a man. But there had never been a man in her life that she’d craved so much.

  Chapter Nine

  “Don’t you have work today, Lark?” Cade walked into her bedroom with a soda in his hand and sat on the edge of her bed.

  “Nope,” she said, knocking back her energy drink and grimacing as the fizz burned in her nose. “I took the day off.” She set the can back on her desk and exited out of her game.

  “Why?”

  Because my boss, your sworn enemy, is a dangerous, sexy jackass who went down on me in his pickup truck, if you must know. “Because I needed it.”

  “Well, shit, does that pass for a good reason to take a day off? Because I feel like I need one.”

  “Cole would give you one.”

  “Yeah, if I played cripple, which I won’t.”

  “You’re to stubborn for your own good, Cade.” The mention of his injuries made her feel even worse, which she hadn’t imagined was possible.

  How could she want something this much when she knew it was so wrong? So bad?

  You are a bad girl, aren’t you?

  She blocked out Quinn’s husky, sinful voice. The truth was, she wasn’t a bad girl. She was a girl whose whole life was in a bedroom in front of the computer. Because living virtually allowed her to feel like she had a life she didn’t have.

  It allowed her to dabble in sex without risking anything. It let her go on adventures without being in any danger. It let her make choices and do things she would never actually do in real life for fear of the consequences.

  Well, last night she’d done something in real life. It had been raw, hot, amazing, far beyond anything she’d ever imagined. And it had been a huge mistake.

  How ironic that half of why she never did anything was to preserve her relationship with Cade and Cole, and when she finally did do something, it was the one thing that was almost guaranteed to blow that relationship all to hell.

  “Yeah, I probably am. Amber thinks so.”

  “Really?”
/>   “Yes. She thinks I need to figure out disability or some such bullshit, but I’m not disabled.”

  “You can’t do the job you used to do.”

  “But I can work.”

  “You don’t make what you did. And . . . and per our financials for the ranch, we’re sort of missing that income.”

  “But when these contracts take off, the horses we’re breeding for the circuit . . . all that money will be back. And it’s thanks to my connections.” He shrugged. “See? Not so disabled. Anyway, I got the world’s biggest effing insurance payout, I don’t have to make what I did. And I’m not disabled.”

  No, of course he wasn’t. He couldn’t hike for long distances, or ride a horse that did anything beyond a kid’s birthday party circle, or stand at all for long periods of time, but no. Not disabled. Dumb man and his male pride.

  This should remind her why she hated Quinn. But she kept thinking about his claims of being innocent. And for some reason . . . she didn’t think he was lying.

  “Cade.” She didn’t know what she was doing or why, but the words were coming out anyway. “The man you think . . . the man you think was responsible for your accident . . . you’re sure he did it?”

  “It’s not even an accident, Lark. He did he it on purpose. And I know it was Quinn Parker, trust me. You’ve never met a meaner son of a bitch.”

  “Really?” she asked, looking down at her hands. Her whole face was numb. Which was weird because she’d never been overly conscious of her face having feeling, but she felt the absence of it keenly.

  “Everyone else was my friend, Lark. Quinn never said more than two words at a time to me, and when he did, they weren’t nice words. He was antisocial. He has a criminal record. Hell, nobody liked him. And they barred him from competition, so that says it all, I think.”

  Her throat tightened. “I guess it does.”

  Except it made her wonder which was the real Quinn. Actually, she knew what her brother said was probably true. Quinn was the kind of man who could be that way, she was sure about that.

  But she also knew why. She knew he’d never felt like he fit. Knew where he’d come from.

  She didn’t think that made him be kind of guy who would hurt anyone. Because while she’d seen evidence of the meanness, and of the way he could be hard and blunt, she’d never thought he would hurt her, or anyone else.

  “You seem deep in thought, Lark.”

  “Yeah,” she said, looking over at her energy drink can and staring at the logo on it. “I just . . .”

  “Is it Tyler?”

  “What?” Tyler was like a distant memory. A hurt that seemed to be a part of someone else’s life. Quinn was too large in her present; he eclipsed any feelings she’d ever had for anyone else.

  “Tyler. I know you liked him, and now he married someone else.”

  “I just liked him, Cade, that’s all. I didn’t love him.”

  “Just checking.”

  “Well, you don’t need to check. I’m fine.” She was so not fine, but there was no way she was telling him what was going on either. “I appreciate it. You checking in on me. I know you care, and that’s really . . . thank you.”

  “No problem. This is all we have, right? Each other? So even though Cole is an asshole, we have to stick together.”

  Yes, they did. And that was the reason she lived the way she did. Because Cole and Cade had sacrificed so much to raise her. Even before her father died, they’d been major influences in her life. They’d driven her to events, especially Cole. Taken care of her. And deep down, she’d always been afraid that if she made things too hard on them, she’d lose them too.

  And she didn’t want to lose them.

  Because if she lost them, what would she have left?

  “Yeah,” she said, her throat dry. “We do.”

  “You know if anything’s bothering you, you can tell me.”

  “I know,” she said. But she couldn’t.

  “Great. Well”—he pushed up off of the bed and headed toward the bedroom door—“I have to go work. I can’t just blow it off like some people.”

  “Whatever, man.”

  She turned back to the computer and didn’t move until the door clicked closed behind him. And then she put her forehead on the keyboard and ignored the low level bumping noises her computer made in protest.

  Why was she so determined to ruin everything? Well, not her specifically, but her body. Traitorous traitor.

  “Hey, Lark . . . whoa, hey.”

  “Does anyone knock anymore?” She rolled her head to the side and saw Cole standing in her open doorway, then she sat up.

  “Sorry, Cade said he was just in here.”

  “Yeah. He was. What?”

  “Why are you . . . face. Keyboard.”

  “I’m just tired.”

  “I was wondering if you knew where your car was or if I have to file a police report.”

  Oh, dangit. “I left it at work. I was blocked in and I got a ride home.”

  “Who gave you a ride?”

  “M-my boss.”

  Cole arched a brow, crossing his arms across his broad chest. And there was Protective Older Brother Stance Number Three. “Nice of him,” he said, his jaw clenched tight.

  “Yes, it was nice of him. As he pointed out my alternative was being eaten by wolves.”

  “And you didn’t call me?”

  “It was late. I didn’t get finished until late, and I didn’t want to pull you away from dinner or anything. I respect that you have a life. And I don’t have to always be all up in it. Novel concept, right?”

  “I see. So why didn’t you go into work today?”

  “I’m tired.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “What?” Cole was like a mothereffing bloodhound. It was hideously annoying.

  “Your boss. What’s the deal with him? Why is it he gave you a ride back last night, you’re all defensive and you didn’t go to work today?”

  “Nothing, Cole, gosh. My car was blocked in—nonworking tractor and a coworker who left his car. Nothing nefarious.” Except oral sex in the driveway and a huge screaming match after.

  Cole looked at her hard, and she knew her cheeks were turning pink.

  “At least respect me enough to know when I don’t want to tell you, Cole,” she said, her throat tightening. Because she knew she looked upset. She knew she was turning red. She knew she looked like she was hiding something. Because she was.

  So she just had to try to appeal to Cole’s human side. And hope he’d developed one in the year since he’d met Kelsey.

  “Lark, if anyone ever hurts you—”

  “It’s more complicated than that. And I know you probably get what that means. But please don’t ask me, if you think you know, or think you don’t, but want to. I’m not ready to talk about it.”

  A muscle in his jaw jumped and his hand tightened around the doorknob. “Do you remember when I offered to run Tyler out of town because I thought he’d hurt you?”

  “A woman doesn’t forget the time her brother offered to kick a man’s ass for her.”

  “With that in mind, you know I would gladly inflict violence on any man that hurt you. And a man who is paying you to work for him? I’m sorry, Lark, but I swear, if he touches you, I will end him.”

  “He hasn’t,” she said, lying. And she knew she looked like she was lying. But it wasn’t Cole’s business. She’d asked him, pretty respectfully, to back off.

  “Lark . . .”

  “Cole, how old am I?”

  “Twenty-two,” he said.

  “So you do know that I’m not a child.”

  “Lark, it’s my job to protect you.”

  “Not from everything in life, Cole. I have to be allowed to live.”

  He shook his head
. “Living like you mean, that’s overrated. People can talk blithely about mistakes and how they made them who they are. But my first marriage? It was hell, Lark. If I could spare you mistakes like that . . .”

  “If you hadn’t have had that first marriage, you wouldn’t be having your second one now. With Kelsey. Because without Shawna, you would have banked your . . . y’know. And if you didn’t do that then Kelsey wouldn’t have gotten pregnant with Maddy, and you wouldn’t have your wife or your daughter. Check. Mate. Ass. Hole.” She turned back to her computer. “Now let me make my own mistakes, or not make them, or whatever. I will neither confirm nor deny.”

  “Lark,” he said, his voice rough. “Fine. You’re right. It all worked out for me. But I don’t want to see you hurt. Ever.”

  “You can’t cover me in Bubble Wrap, Cole.” And the minute she said it, she felt like a hypocrite. Because wasn’t that what she did to herself? All the time?

  A little virtual Bubble Wrap. To cushion her encounters and relationships. To make everything feel safe and secure.

  “I know.”

  “Well, then stop trying to.” That was just as much for herself as it was for him.

  He nodded and backed out of her room, closing the door behind him.

  “Save me from nosy brothers,” she muttered.

  And from herself. She felt like she was on the edge of something. A shift, a change. In herself and in everything around her. She didn’t like it in the least.

  She had spent her life playing it safe, and now her body seemed to be taking matters into its own hands. The simple fact was, when she was with Quinn, things between them exploded.

  He was the first thing she’d ever wanted, really, really wanted, that she really couldn’t have. The first thing she’d ever wanted that might compromise her little cocoon of safety.

  But she didn’t love him. She was just addicted to how he made her feel. And no amount of good feeling was worth compromising her family.

  No matter how very good they were.

  ***

  “So, did you see anything?”

  “No,” Sam shifted his weight and glanced over at Jill, who was standing over by their truck. “Sorry, Quinn. I did keep an eye on Cade, but he seems . . . injured. He never rode more than a couple of feet, he limps, he looks like he has a lot of pain. He’s not faking anything.”