Mile High Weekend (Opposites Attract Book 1) (12 page)

“It’s okay,” Ginnie told him far more firmly than she meant it.

This time it was Quinn who put a bit more space between them, his brows knitting together and forming a soft crease in the center of his forehead.  The thoughtful expression somehow made him all-the-more sexy.

“Are you one of those girls, Genevieve?” he asked softly.

“One of which girls?”

“Who says things she doesn’t mean, just to make someone else feel like it’s okay to treat them like shit?”

“No.”

“So tell me the truth then.”

“You tell me something first.”

“Whatever you want to know.”

Ginnie tipped up her chin, feeling again like she might cry and wanting not to, desperately. “Why did you leave me at the airport?”

“Because I’m not good enough for you,” Quinn said, his voice rough and sincere at the same time. “And quite frankly, I’m afraid that the more I get to know you, the less that’s going to stop me from taking you.”

And Ginnie’s heart stopped for a moment, then tripped over itself as it started up again at double time.

“Quinn,” she whispered. “I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around.”

Fourteen

Quinn stared down at Ginnie’s sad, bright eyes.

What in God’s name would make her think she didn’t measure up to
his
worth?

He couldn’t think of one damned thing, and she wasn’t giving much time to consider an answer anyway.  She was on the move.  She snapped up her suitcase from the hotel room floor, spun toward the door, and had her hand on the handle before Quinn even realized what was happening.  In the time it took for him to collect his slow thoughts –
Is she leaving? –
the door was open and she was almost gone.

Shit.

No.

Without thinking about it any further, Quinn vaulted across the room. 

Ginnie was only two steps into the hallway when his arms closed around her thighs.  In the same split second he made contact, he realized his tackling instinct was a bad one, and abruptly took the only alternative available.  He scooped her from the ground and tossed her over his shoulder, caveman style.

Ginnie let out a startled shriek, and her bag dropped to the ground. 

Luggage be damned,
Quinn thought.

He spun to take her back to the room, but her hand found a doorknob on the other side of the hall, pulling them both of them forward instead.

Quinn wasn’t expecting the resistance, and it threw him off.  He stumbled backwards, and when he tried to slow the momentum, succeeded only in changing their course slightly.  He stumbled again, this time toward the wall. 

In a frantic attempt to keep Ginnie’s perfect, round ass from taking the bulk of the impact, Quinn adjusted again, letting her slide down his chest.  He slammed his palms into the wall behind her, leaving them inches apart.  Quinn could feel each of her curves pushed into his bare chest.  Her clothes were damp and cool, but under that, she was tantalisingly warm.  She took a breath and Quinn had to beat back a groan as her nipples bumped his skin and sent all the blood rushing to his groin.

Holy God, this woman has power over my body.

For ten long, perfect seconds, she stayed there, sandwiched between him and the wall, her eyes wide and her lips parted.  Then she wriggled and made an attempt to slip under his arm.

Automatically, Quinn slid his hands down, blocking her in.

“I really don’t think so,” he murmured.

Ginnie glared up at him, her face pink and her chest still rising and falling rapidly. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Keeping you from running off.”

“You’re holding me hostage?”

Down the hall, a door squeaked open.  Quinn ignored it.

“I’m stopping you from hurting yourself by taking off in a snowstorm in a town you don’t know.”

“It’s not up to you to decide whether or not I’m going to hurt myself!”

Quinn bit the inside of his mouth to keep from smiling. “So you admit that you’re endangering yourself?”

“No, I – just let me go!”

Quinn shook his head. “Uh-uh. You forgot the magic word.”

“Please,” she snapped.

“That wasn’t very nice.”

“And you
are
being nice?”

Another hotel door swung open.  This one drew Ginnie’s attention.  Her eyes flicked to their growing audience, then back to Quinn.

“I’ll scream,” she warned.

“Try it,” he countered, his eyes fixed on her lips. “See what happens.”

Hell.  He
wanted
her to yell.  He
wanted
an excuse to slam his lips into hers.  He leaned in, daring her to make a sound.  She returned his stare, her breathing getting quicker by the second, her pupils threatening to drown out the green of her eyes.  When she did speak again, it wasn’t a scream.  It was barely more than a whisper.

“People are staring.”

“Come back in the room then, Ginnie,” he suggested, bringing his arms closer together – close enough that any move on her part was going to initiate contact. “No one will have anything to stare at anymore.”

She sucked in another breath. “I
can’t
.”

“Can’t? Or just plain
won’t
?”

“I can’t, Quinn.” Her voice was almost ragged. “I can’t possibly live up to what a person like you expects.”

Something about her statement made Quinn draw back. “What kind of person do you think
I
am?”

“I have no idea,” she told him.

“I didn’t ask you if you
knew…
I asked you what you
thought.
I know you’ve got me pegged in some way in that head of yours or you wouldn’t be running away like this.”

“That’s not true,” she replied, the lie clear in her the deepening of her flush.

“You haven’t shoved me into one of those mental, black or white boxes of yours?”

“No.”

“So then how do you know what I’m expecting?”

“Because – ” She stopped, pulled her bottom lip between her teeth in a way that made Quinn want to growl, then exhaled and started again. “For starters, I’m not the kind of girl anyone calls
baby
.”

“You’re the kind of girl
I
call baby,” Quinn pointed out.

“I’m the kind of girl you
think
you want to call baby.”

“Are you trying to control my thoughts, baby?” he teased.

She didn’t laugh. “I don’t just want to control your
thoughts.
I want to control everything.”

“Now
that
…I see.”

“So why are we standing here, having this discussion?”

“Because you refuse to come back inside.”

“You don’t really want me to do that.”

“I always know what I want, Genevieve.”

Her color deepened. “That’s not what I meant.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “What then?”

“I was talking about me giving you the wrong impression.”

“Which impression is that? That I can call you baby?”

“That. And making you think I’m the kind of girl you should fantasize about in the bathtub,” she blurted.

At that, Quinn couldn’t hold in a chuckle. “What makes you think that’s what I was doing?”

There was blank silence for a second, and then Ginnie’s face went impossibly crimson, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I assumed…Just forget it.”

He let her squirm for another moment, then growled in a low voice, “I was doing exactly what you think I was doing. I was
about
to do exactly what you think I was about to do.”

“Quinn – ”

He cut her off. “I was thinking about how you’d feel, pushed against me like this. I was thinking about your lips. On my mouth. On
me
. How it would be if what happened between us on the plane was real.”

Ginnie gasped, but she still shook her head. “But it wasn’t. And I’m not the girl who does crazy things in airplane bathrooms and seeks revenge on her former –
ex
– husband.”

“I never thought you
were
that kind of girl.”

“So why the hell are you bothering with me?”

His hands slid down, then in, and he placed his palm in the small of her back.  She arched into him, and her body fit his like a glove.

“Ginnie?”

“Mmph,” she mumbled back.

“You think you’ve got it all figured out, and you don’t. I want to show you that’s okay. Since the first second I saw you in that bar,
all
I’ve wanted is to get you here, like this. You’re the sexiest, most desirable woman I’ve ever met. And if you don’t come inside with me right this second, I’m going to prove it in front of all these people.”

Quinn bent down to seal the truth with a kiss, but paused as a tear leaked from first one of Ginnie’s eyes, then the other. 

She was
crying
?

“Hey,” Quinn said, wiping a big, wet tear from her cheek. “I know that I kind of suck at this serious stuff, but I don’t think I’ve ever made a girl
cry
by calling her sexy.”

He wasn’t the kind of man who felt compelled to smooth out a woman’s insecurities, or the kind of man to shower a woman with compliments just to stroke her ego.  But staring down at Ginnie’s face, he didn’t think either thing applied to her. 

“I’m
not
sexy, Quinn,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “You just think that because you don’t know me.”

She sounded like she genuinely believed what she was saying.  Truly thought that he was wrong to want her. 

He fought the urge to tell her that he knew far more than he needed to form an accurate picture of who she was.  That Jase had supplied him with a shitload of information – quirks, abandonment issues, favorite foods. 

He knew admitting that right this second would send her running in the other direction.  No way was he letting that happen. 

He took the easier road – the safer one – and offered her a crooked smile. “You’re not Genevieve formerly-known-as-Michaels?”

“I mean the person
inside
.”

Quinn opened his mouth, but she beat him to the punch.

“Don’t you
dare
say something about what should or shouldn’t be inside me.”

“Would I do that?” he replied innocently.

“Yes!”

“Okay. I
would,
” he conceded.
“But I won’t right this second.”

“Thank you.”

“Only because I still need to convince you that you’re sexy as all hell.”

She made an exasperated noise. “If I
were
sexy…My husband wouldn’t have left me and cited my lack of ability in the bedroom as the primary reason for the annulment.”

Quinn went very still. “He did what?”

“He said we weren’t compatible in the bedroom. That I wasn’t capable. He told a roomful of lawyers that I was – and I quote – unfuckable.”

“Ginnie, that’s he most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” he said it slowly and quietly, but a tirade raged through his mind.

What kind asshole was this guy?  Doctor Fucking Lawrence Michaels.  What was he the doctor
of?
Douchebaggery?  Who the
hell
took a girl with a history like Ginnie’s and then crushed her like that?  Based on a pack of flaming bullshit no less.  Quinn had been forced to work alongside criminals for years.  He’d befriended them as part of his job.  Drug dealers and thieves.  During his undercover time at the prison, he’d even been temporarily housed with an accused murderer.  But for some reason this…
this
filled him with a fury like no other.  He hated people who knowingly honed in on others’ weaknesses.  Who manipulated them.

“Quinn?”

Vaguely, he heard the worried tremor in Ginnie’s voice, but it couldn’t quite cut through the anger surging through Quinn’s veins. He’d dropped his hands from the wall and balled up both into fists.  In fact, his whole body was tense with fury.  He breathed in and out, trying to even out his mind along with his inhales and exhales.

Sneaky, underhanded, self-centered, soul-sucking sonofabitch.

If Quinn ran into the man again – ever – he wasn’t going to give him a phony high five.  He was going to throw a fist straight into his face.

“Quinn.”

This time, Ginnie’s call was a little louder, a little firmer, and it managed to bring his attention back to the moment.  Back to the emerald eyes, full of concern.  For him.

Oh, hell.

It was supposed to be the other way around.  He was supposed to be looking out for her.  And Quinn knew exactly how he wanted to do that.  To show this girl just how wrong she was about herself.

Anger morphed into passionate need.

With a growl, Quinn reached down, gripped her ass, and lifted her to his waist.  He pushed her against the wall, hard. 

Ginnie’s legs closed on his hips, and she tipped her head up, her eyes already half-closed in anticipation, and Quinn allowed himself a moment to peruse her face, devouring her features with his gaze.  Graceful neck.  So supple, so delectable.  Arched cheeks, beautiful and highlighted with that perma-blush.  And those lips.

Oh, fuck. Those lips.

He had to taste them.  To claim them.  Now.

As he leaned down, a door somewhere up the hall slammed, and her eyes flew open.

Goddammit.

Ginnie opened her mouth, and Quinn braced himself for another protest. 

“Please,” she said. “Please take me back to the bedroom, Quinn.”

He’d never been happier to hear the magic word in his life.