Hands on her bony hips, she allowed her eyes to wander up and down Quinn’s lean frame.
Rowena couldn’t argue that point. ‘He scrubs up almost respectable,’ she snarled, experiencing an abrupt dignity meltdown the instant she looked at him again.
‘Why, thank you, Rowena,’ Quinn murmured provokingly.
‘It wasn’t meant to be a compliment. Let’s face it, put Jack the Ripper in Armani and he’d most likely look respectable,’ she announced dismissively—actually Quinn in Armani or anything else was almost impossible to dismiss or ignore! With a forced smile she turned to the other women. ‘We went to university together.’
‘Oh, an old boyfriend.’
‘I object to the old,’ Quinn complained with a hurt-little-boy look that had the other women grinning.
Nostrils flared, lips pinched tight, Rowena rounded angrily on a startled Sophie. ‘Not an old boyfriend!’ she announced emphatically. She looked to Quinn for support—not surprisingly, none was forthcoming. ‘We were part of a group,’ she began to explain laboriously. ‘A group of like-minded—’
Quinn’s deep velvet drawl cut her off. ‘A group of earnest, élitist snobs who liked to congratulate each other at frequent intervals on how brilliant, how cultured, how much better than everyone else we were. Many’s the time we’d sit there contemplating our glittering futures.’
‘Quinn!’ Rowena exclaimed, shocked.
Quinn met her outraged glare, an amused glint of humour in his eyes—eyes which she knew could unexpectedly change from deep emerald to subtle aquamarine. ‘You trying to tell me I’m wrong?’
Rowena’s face softened. Her lips were halfway to forming a rueful smile before she realised she couldn’t afford to relax around Quinn. ‘No, you’re not wrong,’ she admitted with a sigh. ‘We were unbearably pleased with ourselves.’
Quinn switched his attention to the three other women. ‘In our defence I have to add that we were all very young, and most of us aren’t quite so arrogant nowadays!’
‘If that’s a dig at me…’ Rowena bristled, growing angrily pink.
A disturbing lopsided smile tugged at one corner of Quinn’s mouth as he contemplated her stormy face. ‘It wasn’t.’
Rowena wasn’t willing to be convinced. ‘Talk about a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black,’ she muttered truculently. Her colleagues, who had never heard their leader sound truculent, exchanged glances—and as for pouting…!
‘And I don’t know how you managed to weasel your way up here, but I’ve a good mind to call Security and have you thrown out!’ He had the audacity, not to mention ill judgement, to grin. ‘You think I’m joking, Quinn—just try me.’
‘No, I don’t think you’re joking—that would require a sense of humour, not to mention an ability to laugh at yourself.’
All those weeks of deprivation she’d put him through—he could have strangled her! His darkened eyes travelled from the smooth curve of her neck to the soft outline of her wide, generous lips—or maybe kissing her would be more appropriate…? The muscles in his throat worked hard as he visualised sliding his tongue between her lush lips—she’d make that hoarse little whimper low in her throat, the one that drove him a little crazy.
Rowena’s even white teeth came together with a jaw-aching crack. ‘Shall we leave my inadequacies out of this for the moment?’ Her eyes slid of their own volition to the expanse of silky dark skin and her sensitive stomach muscles tightened. ‘For heaven’s sake, Quinn, cover yourself up!’ she pleaded hoarsely.
She wasn’t sure which was the worse, coping with her own weak, lustful reaction to the distracting sight of Quinn’s powerful torso or coping with the knowledge that the other women present were leching over his smooth olive flesh and sculpted muscles too.
She didn’t pause to consider the consequences of her impulsive actions—around Quinn that happened to her a lot—the urgent need to shield him from their lascivious eyes was just too strong to resist.
Actually the three other women were no longer looking at Quinn at all; they were too fascinated by the sight of their cool, composed editor desperately pressing a crumpled white cotton shirt protectively against the dark, hair-roughened chest of the tall, gorgeous man.
‘I suppose you think this is funny?’ she hissed. The physical contact had been a big mistake! For starters, being this close she couldn’t avoid breathing in the warm, male, distinctly Quinn scent of his body—it had a dizzy, addictive quality.
‘I don’t know how you got here, or why you’re here…’ she huffed, tears of angry frustration springing into her blue eyes as Quinn stood there totally impassive while she attempted to cover him up. She was struggling with all manner of insane urges, most of which involved plastering herself against him. ‘I take that back; you obviously came here to humiliate me!’ she accused wildly.
As if I need any help!
Quinn responded with a quirk of one dark brow and a cynical twist of his sensual lips.
‘You know exactly why I’m here, Rowena.’ Threat, promise and warning, his deep voice held all three.
She stood by helplessly, her insides quivering as he took the shirt from her shaky hands and in a fluid motion pulled it over his head. He slid it into place, tucking it into the narrow waistband of his trousers.
What was he trying to do to her? Those leather trousers left nothing whatever to the imagination; they showed off every inch of his long, powerful thighs. Rowena tried to avert her eyes, but the glint of dull silver caught her eye and held it.
It was the same silver engraved buckle he’d been wearing that night, the night that she had unclipped it with trembling fingers. He’d taken her hand and pressed it against…don’t go there, Rowena! she warned herself frantically.
Too late! Erotic images complete with taste and touch and smell rose up in her head. His smoothly textured olive-toned skin covered in a fine layer of sweat…the raw rasp in his voice that had reduced her to a compliant, quivering heap of neediness…the unbelievable combination of triumph and tenderness on his face as he’d responded to her pleas and thrust powerfully up into her body, filling and stretching every part of her…
Hand pressed flat against her heaving bosom, she fought for breath, and a semblance of composure. The stabbing sexual desire that hit her was so tangible it was like walking into a solid wall of heat. She could feel the cold trickle of sweat as it slid damply down her back.
Quinn’s slanted eyebrows quirked as he smoothed down the white fabric over his flat, leanly muscled midriff. ‘Happy now?’
The action had mussed up his thick dark hair and without thinking Rowena reached up to smooth down his tousled locks. Her antagonism faded for a moment as her fingertips sank into his hair and brushed against his scalp.
She realised the implied intimacy of her thoughtless action at the same moment Quinn’s head jerked back, the violent rejection making her lift her hurt eyes to his.
For a split second their glances collided before Quinn’s heavy lids came downwards, veiling his expression. Rowena had seen enough
