Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You (v1.2) (23 page)

She wasn’t sure what she was doing, why she was about to do it. She only knew it felt right to be here, with Quinn, talking easily, feeling caught between that comforting feeling of not having to be on her best behavior and wanting to be on her very worst behavior—at least as it pertained to engaged ladies.

Was Quinn her adventure? Was this why she had left Philadelphia? Had she been in search of real life, or just of a real person? In other words, the opposite of Parker Westbrook III. A man of desires he wasn’t afraid to show, a man who seemed capable of protecting her and enjoying her company, a man totally unimpressed by her birth or wealth, and a man willing and able to make love to her until she couldn’t see straight.

A man she was stupidly falling in love with, knowing that the moment she told him the truth he’d either run as far and as fast as he could, or smile a hungry smile while she watched dollar signs flash in his gray eyes.

Could she chance either reaction? Could there be
a
third, a reaction she had not considered? Could he actually be falling in love with her? Or did he travel the country, writing his books and having his own adventures in every town?

Shelby swiveled back on the couch as Quinn walked around it and sat down beside her. He poured some beer in her glass and handed it to her. “So tell me about this dinner you’re planning.”

She frowned for a second, trying to remember what they’d been talking about. Which wasn’t easy, now that he was sitting close beside her in the near-dark, his aftershave tickling her nose, the warmth of his long, lean body invading her every pore.

“Oh,” she said after a moment, “the dinner.” She took a sip of the cold beer, winced as she tasted it, and remembered how much she really had never cared for beer. She placed the glass on the small coffee table—on a coaster.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it for a few days—nothing serious, you understand. But then today, as Tony seemed to be in a fairly good mood, I asked him.”

“To host a fund-raising dinner at the restaurant? And he said yes? That’s hard to believe.”

“Not really,” Shelby told him in all seriousness. “Brandy said he was solid marshmallow inside, and she’s right. Beneath that lanky, slow-moving, crusty exterior, Tony’s really a wonderful, generous man. He said yes immediately. Well, he said yes after I explained the usual percentage of the profit that would be his.”

“The usual percentage?” Quinn asked, studying Shelby’s face. Was this the opening he hoped for? Should he press her as to how she’d know that? And should he do it now, before he made love to her? Before he held her in his arms and knew, for sure and forever, that this was the one woman in the world he could never walk away from, could never leave?

She bowed her head, plucking at a wrinkle in her skirt “I read about it in a magazine I found in that pile Brandy keeps stacked in the living room,” she said, still avoiding his eyes.

“Oh,” Quinn said, thinking that at least Shelby knew she was a terrible liar, then feeling pretty good about the fact that she couldn’t look at him and lie at the same time. Did that mean anything, or was he so desperate he was clutching at any straw that came his way?

“Yes, and we’ll have three sittings, so if we get the full eighty-five each sitting, well, we’ll make a tidy profit, both the regulars and Tony. The restaurant is always crowded on Friday nights anyway, and the town’s so small that we don’t have to worry about advertising too much. We’re pretty much relying on a sign out front, and Tabby, of course. Although there are a few sticking points still to be worked out.”

“You certainly have had a busy day while I was out researching. But you said there are a few sticking points still to settle? Such as?” Quinn asked, truly amazed at Shelby’s mind, how it worked, how she just stepped in, took over, and did it in such a way that even a crusty curmudgeon like Tony became putty in her hands.

“Well, for one, I told Tony that he really should consider renting real table linens for the event You know, tablecloths and, most especially, cloth napkins. I told him cloth napkins make a
statement.
I told him that paper napkins also made a statement, but then—”

“But then who’d listen to anything they said?” Quinn finished for her, laughing.

“Yes! How did you know?”

Quinn coughed into his hand. “Just call it a lucky guess,” he said, wanting to hold her, kiss her, love her. She was so innocent, for all her Main Line sophistication. “So did Tony cave?”

“If you mean are we having real linens, then yes, he did,” Shelby said smugly. “Although I’ll admit to less success with the regulars. I had thought black tie would be nice…”

“Black tie? The regulars?” All his earlier thoughts about the regulars came rushing back. “You’re kidding, right?”

Shelby could feel her cheeks flushing. She had been so nice to the regulars, and they had been so nice to her. Hardly the sort of men who would send an anonymous note to her, trying to frighten her into leaving East Wapaneken. But if not them, who? That thought had rattled Shelby badly, so that she had dived into the planning of the charity dinner headfirst, putting the memory of the note into a drawer in her mind, then locking it.

“They did show me the error of my thinking,” she said at last, beginning to see the humor in the situation as she remembered the horrified looks on the faces of the regulars when she had first broached her ideas on formal dress. “They said they couldn’t possibly afford to rent formal wear
and
buy tickets to the dinner. And, as Tony doesn’t have a liquor license but patrons are allowed to bring liquor in with them, they said they really thought it would be better if, instead of black tie, the dinners be two keg affairs. They’ve very simple tastes, the regulars.”

“That’s a pity, actually,” Quinn told her, finishing his beer and putting it down on a coaster. “I think I would have paid double to see George in a starched stand-up collar. So when’s the party?”

She was back to avoiding his eyes, playing with the wrinkle in her skirt. “Because we’re always busy then, we scheduled it for this Friday night,” she told him, knowing that the party would also mark her last night in East Wapaneken.

She had to go home.

Somerton had been wonderful, not calling out the National Guard or whatever to find her, but Thelma was coming back after seeing her new grandchild, she’d have no job, and it really was time she went home. She’d wanted three weeks, maybe four.
She’d have less than two. She’d only have a few more days in East Wapanekan, a few more days with Quinn.

She was going home.

Right after she found a way to settle Brandy and Gary once and for all.

Right after the fund-raiser, which she would then supplement with an anonymous monetary gift once she had access to her money once more.

Right after she made love with Quinn Delaney for the first and last time, told Quinn Delaney the truth, and then returned to Philadelphia to tell Parker that she could never marry him before locking herself in her rooms and crying for a month.

Unless she told Quinn now, tonight? She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, considering this idea.

What could she tell him? That she was a fairly considerable heiress out on a spree and she had decided that going to bed with him would just be the icing on the cake of her adventure?

Hardly.

Could she tell him about the note? Tell him that she had been worried that the regulars had sent it, but that she’d soon seen the ridiculousness of that assumption?

Could she tell him that, instead of the regulars, she had a feeling there was someone in East Wapaneken who somehow knew who she was, and that the first letter would be followed by another, probably demanding an outrageous sum of money to keep silent?

Could she tell him that she thought she was falling in love with him, really in love with him, and that she couldn’t
make
love to him until she told him the truth?

And chance him telling her to get out, never darken his door again… and never know what it was like to be held in his arms?

“Shelley? Earth to Shelley; come in, Shelley.”

“Um, what? Oh, I’m sorry. I was woolgathering, wasn’t I? Did you say something?”

“I just asked if there was something wrong, something you might want to tell me?” And that, Quinn knew, was true enough, as she might have been debating with herself as to whether she wanted to tell him about the note. But the moment the words were out of his mouth, he knew he’d made a mistake, as she stiffened beside him, her hands twisting together in her lap.

He reached over with both hands, taking hers in his, lifting them, one after the odier, to his mouth. “We probably shouldn’t be talking, should we?” he asked, looking deeply into her expressive brown eyes. Those eyes that would haunt him to his grave, those eyes he never wanted to see looking vacant and expressionless again.

“Probably… probably not,” she said quietly, her breathing suddenly uneven. Scarlett O’Hara had the right idea. She’d think about everything else tomorrow. But tonight… tonight the last thing she wanted to do was think.

He took her into his arms, moving slowly so as not to frighten her, for he instinctively knew that this was a woman who might have been taken to bed before now, but who had never really been made love to the way she deserved.

“Are you sure?” he whispered, his mouth inches from hers, her eyes already fluttering closed. Which was stupid, because if she said no now he’d have to go somewhere and kill himself for asking such a potentially dangerous question.

In answer, Shelby lifted a hand to his face, cupped his cheek, allowed her lips to curve upward in a small smile. A welcoming touch. A tremulous, welcoming smile.

He felt like a louse, making love to a woman who had no idea who he was, what he was. Ethics and fair play and his guilty conscience and all that sort of thing rose up in his mind, protesting. He told them all to go to hell.

There was a small explosion as their lips met, as their bodies melded together, as he slid his arms beneath her and picked her up and carried her into the bedroom on legs that were not quite steady.

Somehow the pins were out of her hair, so that its sleek blond beauty fanned out around her head on the flowered quilt. He would have undressed, except that he couldn’t leave her, couldn’t chance leaving her. So he followed her down onto the mattress, keeping his arms around her, kissing her again and again and again.

He had never tasted a mouth so sweet, felt a body so soft and pliant as hers. So yielding. So giving. And yet demanding everything of him. Everything and more…

Somehow their clothing disappeared, piece by tantalizing piece, until they lay there naked, pressed together from chest to knee, still kissing each other even as their bodies learned each other, as their hands traveled, explored. Found.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered against her ear as he tried to control his breathing, give her yet another chance to tell him they had gone far enough and she didn’t want to go further.

“Love me,” was all she answered, rather inexpertly but very provocatively pushing her hips against his. “Please.”

Shelby kept her eyes closed as she heard herself plead with Quinn, as part of her became mortified as it stood back, watched her, told her that impulsive actions always had their punishment. But there was another part of her, newly discovered and already heady with desire, that was much more powerful in its arguments:
Take what you want
now, while you can. Take it all. You deserve this. You need
this.

She felt his lips against her throat, on her breast Taking her nipple into his mouth, laving it with his tongue.

Sensations she couldn’t describe, had never felt before, exploded in small bursts from her skin, trailing all the way to her belly and beyond, creating a warmth, a softness, a burning need that could not be ignored.

She held him close against her, ran her hands through his night dark hair, learned the muscles of his back with her fingertips. Taking, taking, while she gave and gave, while his hands in turn found her center, brought her to the brink of something wonderful, some strange mystery she had to know or die in the trying.

Quinn knew she was ready for him, more than ready. Her soft, throaty moans had nearly driven him over the brink minutes ago, and it was only his firm promise to himself that she would know the fullness of completion that had kept him from driving himself into her, finding a release that he knew would be more than he had ever experienced, ever dreamed.

With one hand he somehow prepared himself, protected her, even as she moaned again, her eyes still closed, blindly trying to pull him down to her. Then he inserted a knee between her thighs, leaned down to kiss her as he levered himself completely on top of her and settled himself between her legs.

The small explosion on the couch faded into memory as the entire world exploded, imploded, burst into flame, shattered into a million pieces, raced through the universe at twice the speed of light Everything. Loving Shelby was everything, all, the entirety of experience.

He plunged deep, and she answered him with a movement of her own. He slid his tongue into her mouth, and she began a duel with her own tongue, mimicking the thrust and withdrawal of their bodies. A lump of raw emotion formed in his throat, a sensation so alien, so fraught with thoughts of protecting, and loving, and forever, that he knew he was a goner, that he could never, ever walk away from this woman.

“Love me, please,” Shelby sighed into his mouth.

And he did. Oh, God help him; God help them both. He did.

Shelby wandered into the apartment a little before midnight, still rather dreamy-eyed, having been loved by Quinn not once but twice, their second union so slow and languid, so explosive at its ending…

“So tell me something,” Brandy said from her curled-up position on the couch. “If Snapple got into really big money trouble, as I think they were a while ago, could you buy them? I mean, you like their iced tea a lot. Are you
that rich?”

“Gosh, I don’t know,” Shelby answered, then headed for the kitchen and a bottle of iced tea, since Brandy had reminded her that she was thirsty. And hungry. She picked up a pack of Tastykake chocolate cupcakes, too, on her way back into the living room. “How much money would it take? Because you’re right; I really do like this stuff. But it would be a toss-up, if Tastykake was ever in trouble, because I don’t think I could live without their chocolate cupcakes.” She collapsed onto the couch. “And I thought I knew so much. Brandy, how did I ever exist for twenty-five years without Snapple and Tastykakes?”