it’s not a disaster in comparison to your usual life.” She knew he was part of some special operations thing in the air force. To Penny, that was just code for some really dangerous thing in the air force. “But it is to mine. I have no desire to be anyone’s wife. Certainly not like this.” Not to another man already married to the military. She’d been through that before. Thanks to the army in which Andy had served and a close encounter with an IED on his way home for their wedding, she’d never even had the opportunity to be a widow. Much less a wife.
She went down onto her hands and knees to look under the bed. But the ivory carpet there was smoothly vacuumed and untarnished by discarded undies. She sat back on her knees.
“What are you looking for?”
“The rest of my clothes, obviously.” She hitched up the sheet again and stood. “I need to get back to my room. Clean up. Make sure everything’s set for the flight home tomorrow.”
“What about my grandmother’s lunch?”
“That’s for all of you. I’m the hired help, remember?” She shoved her long hair away from her face again as she walked back into the bathroom, carrying her second shoe.
She shut the door.
Pushed the door lock for good measure.
She dropped the sheet and pulled her stretchy dress over her head, dragging the dark purple fabric down over her bare hips and thighs. She hoped it wasn’t too obvious that she was entirely commando under the dress.
She raked her fingers through her hair, trying to restore a little order to the dishwater-blond mess, and splashed water over her face, using one of the plush towels stacked on a glass shelf before she pushed her bare feet into her high-heeled sandals and opened the door again.
Quinn was leaning against the wall opposite the door, his arms folded over his wide chest. “Feel better?”
She could feel herself flushing, but she gave a brisk nod anyway as she walked out of the bathroom. Without high heels, she was taller than average. With them, she stood close to six feet, putting her generally eye-to-eye with most men.
But not Quinn. He was still several inches taller than she was.
Which was a completely irrelevant point, she reminded herself as she scanned the room, hoping to spot her purse, because she truly did not want to have to go down to the lobby and get a new room key. Not looking the way she did.
Her relief when she finally found it half-hidden among the ivory leather couch cushions was almost comical. Her room key was tucked safely inside one of the pockets, exactly where she’d put it before joining Vivian and her family for dinner the evening before.
She felt her eyes drifting toward the bed and yanked them front and center.
Quinn hadn’t left his position against the wall. Which meant she had to walk past him once again to get to the door of the suite.
“You can’t run far, Penny.”
“I’m not running. You, however, are supposed to be sitting down to lunch with your grandmother.” She opened the door.
But he reached out and closed his hand around her wrist before she could leave. “Viv can wait. It’s not every day I wake up to a wife.”
Heat rushed up her throat into her face. “I’m not your wife.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Really? I know they say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but we’re talking marriage here. And we’ve got a certificate that strongly suggests you’re most definitely my wife.”
She didn’t know if it was deliberate or not, but his thumb was pressed right against the racing pulse in her wrist. “Then we’ll get another certificate that undoes it! Annulments must be almost as popular in this state as weddings.”
“Annulment means there’s been no marriage—or anything associated with the marriage—at all.”
“That’s right.” She pulled on her wrist, but his fingers held fast. They weren’t hurting. But they weren’t giving so much as a centimeter.
Instead, he reeled her in closer. He tucked one finger beneath her chin, and her mouth went dry.
He turned her face until she was looking back into the hotel suite.
Right at the bed.
“You sure an annulment is going to be all that easy?” His voice was low. Intimate. “We have a consummated marriage here, sweetheart.”
A flush ran through her veins, and her skin seemed to tingle.
“We don’t know that for sure,” she reminded, wishing that she sounded a lot less hoarse and a lot more certain.
His callused thumb moved slowly over her inner wrist. “You don’t remember the way we woke up?”
She wanted to block out his words as badly as she wanted to block out the truth. Because she did remember exactly the way she’d awakened.
Engulfed in his warmth. His hand on her breast. His hair-roughened thigh between hers.
He hadn’t been inside her. But he could have been. Everywhere she’d been soft and wanting, he’d been hard and insistent.
And for a moment, a wonderful, blissful moment, she’d imagined Andy weren’t dead. That he was there with her. They were together, finally, just the way they’d planned to be.
And then she’d realized the dream wasn’t a dream at all. But a nightmarish reality.
Because it wasn’t Andy’s arms surrounding her, causing her to feel so deliciously safe and cherished. It wasn’t Andy’s soft blue gaze and sweet smile she saw when she opened her eyes.
It was Quinn.
Quinn, with the seductive grin, and the devil-dark eyes that had always made her want to do anything and everything with him. Sanity had thankfully kicked in then, and she’d jumped out of bed like the hounds of Hades were nipping at her feet.
“I don’t care what that marriage certificate says. And I don’t care what went on in that—” she swallowed hard “—that bed. I am not your wife. You are not my husband. We are not married.”
Then she finally twisted her wrist free and rushed through the doorway to escape.
Quinn sighed, watching Penny race away from him. Her golden-streaked brown hair bounced around her shoulders. Her shapely hips swayed with every step.
Then she reached the end of the hallway and turned with almost military precision and marched out of sight altogether.
She didn’t look back at him.
Not that he’d expected she would.
He rubbed his hand over the throbbing pain inside his
