age, mid-thirties. And I heard somewhere that you’d grown up in a foster home.”
He spread out his fingers on his thigh, snagging her gaze for a moment. Tension curled his fingertips around his muscled leg, tension that radiated toward her in a hot cloud. Dani tore her eyes away and braved a look at his face, hearing the waves just a few metres away as if they were sloshing against her ribs.
Quinn gave no sign that he agreed or disagreed, but a rising sense of incomprehensible excitement pushed the next words from her mouth. “What, did you go to him with your theory and he laughed you out of the room?”
He stilled for a long moment, then slapped one hand on the log right beside her leg and heaved to his feet, turning to loom over her. The smell of him, sweat and soap and desire, swamped her. Then his other hand slammed down on the log on her other side.
She was trapped.
His face descended quickly to within an inch of hers, so close she could almost feel the scrape of his morning beard.
“You’ve got it very wrong, Danielle,” he said, his soft voice at odds with the dangerous blaze of warning and desire in the espresso depths of his eyes.
Her stupid joke had pushed him too far.
“I’m not the missing Blackstone brother,” he murmured, his chin dipping as he inched closer. His pupils were enlarged, the centres pinpoints of fire that hypnotised and immobilised.
“Because if I was,” he continued in a low murmur that made the hairs on the back of her neck leap to attention, “I wouldn’t do what I’m about to do.”
Dani knew what he was about to do. She saw it coming like a train wreck—and she was chained to the tracks. It was inevitable that her head tilted back and her fingernails dug in to the rough surface of the log, bracing her. The cords on her neck stretched, rigid and tight. She watched, wide-eyed, as his face and mouth crossed the last millimetre, the point of no return.
If she’d been standing, her knees would have buckled at the first taste. They stared at each other until his salty mouth with its silky tongue started teasing hers, then she felt her eyelids flutter and close. He kissed firmly, not touching her except for his mouth, yet involving her senses totally. Every kiss she’d ever experienced was just window dressing; she’d been waiting for this, the real thing. Every man she had ever kissed before was a boy, and Quinn was here to show her how a man kissed.
Where were her cautionary affirmations? Where was her regard for that unknown woman, waiting somewhere for her diamond? That woman, at least, would understand, would realise that to be kissed like this was impossible to resist.
Dani wouldn’t have stopped it; he taught her that in just a few seconds. How beautiful and right it was that she sat on a log in her favourite place in the world at sunrise, and the door to perdition was open and inviting. With his tongue stroking hers, his lips commanding hers to give him more, desire pushed her to where the sunrise would claim her, consume her with pleasure.
Then he raised his head abruptly and she sagged back onto her log, gasping for breath. The young sun disappeared behind him as he straightened, and all she could think was “I’ve done it now.”
Quinn looked down at her, his eyes a swirling brown storm of intent. “Did that feel like a cousin’s kiss, Danielle?”
While she was still trying to collect coherence and dignity—and maybe some form of protest—he turned and jogged away, his strong legs pumping, his back bristling with tension.
She registered a sharp pain in the tip of her middle finger and raised her hand to her mouth to nibble at the splinter.
She was so out of her depth.
Five
Thankfully Quinn left her alone for the rest of the day and she completed the first of several wax models she would make in these initial stages. Dani worked late, said her good-nights from his office door and went to bed, trying to dampen down the memory of the kiss. But even though she’d had little sleep the night before, it still eluded her tonight.
She tossed and turned, listening to the waves through the open window. She considered a walk along the beach, something she did sometimes when troubled or unable to sleep. But she discarded that idea, knowing all she’d see was his face, all she’d feel was his mouth on hers.
Finally at about 1:00 a.m. she rose and threw on her robe, hoping that chocolate milk might help.
Downstairs, Quinn’s office light was on, the door ajar.
She halted for a minute that seemed to stretch on forever, her heart thudding in her ears. All was quiet so she crept closer and pressed her ear carefully to the wooden door. Then his voice sounded and Dani nearly leapt into the air. She only let her breath out when she realised he was on the phone.
Who could he be talking to at one in the morning? A nasty combination of guilt and jealousy clawed at her as she wondered about the special woman in his life. Perhaps it was a long-distance love affair and that’s why he was calling so late. Hi, honey, I kissed someone today….
But it was soon apparent this was a business call—exciting business. From what she could make out, he was in the middle of a live auction, bidding by phone. When she heard him murmur “Five million,” her decorum abandoned her and she straightened and inched forward, snaking her head around the door.
Quinn sat at his desk, the phone to his ear. She felt the leap of interest as his eyes swivelled toward her, a palpable, inescapable sense of awareness, zeroing in on her. He’d rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows and undone his top buttons. One hand rested on a file in front of him, under a half-full glass of some amber liquid. The desk lamp was on, but otherwise the room was in darkness.
Dani lingered in the shadows, although he gave no sign that he was either displeased or happy with her presence. But he did not release her from his gaze. She leaned against the door, her heart thudding along in the silences that punctuated his infrequent responses.
After a couple of minutes, Quinn sipped his drink and then laid the receiver down and turned the speaker phone on, all without taking his eyes off her face. She took that as something of an invitation. Here was an opportunity to have a glimpse into his world, see the negotiator at work.
She moved a few steps farther into the room and rested her hands on the edge of a chair to keep that barrier between them.
The voice on the speaker was unmistakably English. She heard the name of a well-known auction house and the words lot seven. Presumably the auction was being conducted in London. Dani wondered if the man on the phone was a bid clerk from the auction house or an employee of Quinn’s.
The item being bid for was a famous painting by a contemporary Irish artist who’d died in the sixties. She only knew that because Howard had one of his paintings. She wasn’t sure how many bidders there were for this particular item. The bids were relayed to Quinn as they happened, although Dani heard nothing of the activity in the auction house, only the man’s voice. The pauses in between bids seemed interminable. They probably weren’t, but she guessed there was a lot of tension on the other side of the world. Lord knows there was enough in this office.
Would he smile if he won the bid? Celebrate with a drink? She held his gaze, and no doubt her face was alive with questions. His, however, was framed in intense
