A Week From Sunday (31 page)

“Set a goal?” he echoed.

As Jesse thought over her words, the stark realization struck Adrianna that she needed to follow her own advice as well. She had decisions to make about a lot of things: Richard, Shreveport, and the life she had begun in Lee’s Point. Most important, she had to make a decision about Quinn. And stick to it.

After the evening meal, Adrianna retired to her room and settled down to read. She looked up from her book when Quinn came and leaned in her doorway. He was dressed as he had been at supper, a clean shirt tucked into his work pants. His dark hair was hanging loosely over his forehead. He’d shaved that morning, but now there was a slight stubble of whiskers on his face. Her heart started to beat faster at the mere sight of him.

“What are you reading?” Quinn asked with a warm smile.

She shut the book and laid it on the table beside her. “I was just going over some material for Jesse’s lesson tomorrow. He’s a fast learner. I thought he would be interested in
The Last of the Mohicans
. It’s a good view of the French and Indian War.”

“I’m proud of how he’s taken to homeschooling,” Quinn said stepping into the room. “Jesse’s smart, I can say that much for him. You’ve made the lessons interesting.”

“I don’t know about that.” She blushed. “I think I’ve learned about as much as he has.”

“You’ve done an amazing job getting him to help himself. He’s getting out of the bed and into his chair on his own, which is more than he could do a few weeks ago.”

Adrianna took in her ability to teach Jesse, but there was another matter that she wanted to discuss. “Quinn,” she began, the words sticking in her throat. “About Jesse . . .”

“Yes, what about him?”

“Have you ever wondered . . .” Even though she had imagined talking to Quinn about Jesse’s reluctance to work at the Whipsaw many times, she found it hard to give voice to the words that had come so easily to her mind. Her brow furrowed at her failure.

“Ever wondered what?” Quinn prodded.

“Have you thought about whether Jesse actually wants to take over the Whipsaw?” she finally managed to say. “What if he wants to do something else?”

“What, for instance?”

“He’s smart, Quinn. He could go to college and be whatever he wants, a lawyer or a teacher.”

Quinn looked at her for a moment with an odd expression on his face. She braced herself for another explosion like the one in the Whipsaw office, but it never came. Finally, the clouds broke, and he beamed at her with a broad smile. “He finally told you, huh?”

“Wh-what?!”

“I’m guessing he told you that he doesn’t want to work at the Whipsaw.” Adrianna could do little more than stare. There was Quinn before her, telling her the very thing that she had dreaded speaking to him about, with a look on his face that was far more amused than disappointed.

“How . . . how did you know?” she stammered.

“He’s never actually told me as much himself, but I can read him about as easily as you can read one of those schoolbooks,” Quinn explained. “I’ve known for a while now. It’s not like I just fell off the turnip truck, you know! I’d have to be a blind, deaf fool not to see that Jesse’s not exactly thrilled by the idea of standing behind a bar.”

“Then why are you so insistent about it?”

Quinn fixed her with a hard stare and took a deep breath before closing the door and crossing the room to stand directly before her. Gently, he took her hands in his own.

“I’m trying to prepare him for life. Real life. The life that exists outside of this house and off the pages of those pulps he’s always reading.”

“But he told me—”

Quinn cut her off. “He needs an income even while he’s going to school and he needs to be able to take care of himself should something happen to me.” Softly, he took her chin in his fingers and turned her face toward his, his eyes boring down into hers. “Life is full of hard knocks. A fellow has to follow his head and not his heart.”

Adrianna was certain that Quinn wasn’t talking about Jesse; he was talking about himself. What he was telling her at that moment was that he wanted to be with her, but because of who they were and their different lifestyles they couldn’t be together. As each searched the other’s face, many thoughts were exchanged without words; one asked, the other pleaded, and then their roles were reversed.

Adrianna couldn’t find the phrases to say what was in her heart. On impulse she stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his in a kiss. At first, he seemed surprised by her actions, but no more surprised than she was, but he soon pulled her to him, his lips tenderly touching hers. It began gently enough but soon grew in intensity, as if they were both starving and needed the other in order to live. Sparks and passion passed between them. When they broke the kiss, they stood for long moments locked tightly together. Adrianna had never felt so alive in her life. When she felt a tug on her hand, she followed, knowing that she would follow him to the ends of the earth if he wanted her. He led her to the bed. As they passed the light, he reached over and extinguished it.

Even as the light that had filled the room disappeared, it was replaced by the faint glow afforded by the moon and stars that shone through the window. She could see the emotion play across his face like a dance, equal parts desire and confusion.

“Annie,” he started. “If you don’t want . . .”

She hushed him with a finger pressed firmly to his lips. “Shhh.”

In truth, she had never wanted anything more in her life than to lie with this man. As she sat down on the bed, Quinn sliding effortlessly beside her, no action she had ever taken in her entire life had seemed so right. Her skin felt as if it were on fire, and her body began to tremble with want. When she once again placed her lips to his, her fingers ran wildly through his hair. As their kisses grew in intensity, Quinn’s fingers slowly undid the buttons on her blouse; with every snap that freed another button, waves threatened to crest the barriers of Adrianna’s heart. Soon they were all undone, and his rough fingers ran lightly over her alabaster skin.

“Oh, Quinn,” she moaned into his open mouth.

“Annie,” he answered breathlessly.

His hands searched her body as if he were looking for treasure. He cupped one of her breasts with a delicacy that made her suck the summer night air through clenched teeth. Passionately, yet teasingly, he ran one of his thumbs over her nipple, sending shock waves of pleasure roiling throughout her body. She arched her back to meet his hands. Suddenly she wanted to touch him in much the same way he was touching her. With none of the deliberation he had showed, she tugged at the buttons of his shirt, tearing them free with a fierce insistence. Soon her hands were tangled in his thick chest hair, the taut workman’s muscles hard beneath her touch.

Never had she touched a man in this way. She’d always wondered what it would feel like to lie with a man, to share in the carnal pleasures that came from two whose bodies burned one for the other. But this was different, somehow even greater than she could have ever dreamed possible. This was the most natural act that a man and a woman could undertake with each other.

The next few moments went by as a blur; the movement of a hip here, a deep probing kiss there, an item of clothing tossed blindly into the darkness. They lay naked on the bed, completely exposed each to the other’s touch.

Adrianna felt no embarrassment; her state of undress with this man was what she wanted, what she desired. As his hands roamed across her flesh, touching her soft parts and exploring her wetness, she knew that there were no more secrets, no more words left unsaid, but only an honesty she would never share with another.

In the same way, she felt no flush of awkwardness letting her fingers explore Quinn’s body. Tentatively, she took his manhood into her hands, surprised by both its velvety softness and its hardness. It seemed to pulse in time with the beating of her own heart. The heat that it created was also surprising, and she clung to it as if it were a fireplace on a chilly January morning. As she moved her hands up and down its length, she was startled to hear Quinn groan.

“Am I hurting you?” she asked tentatively.

“On the contrary,” he gasped. Even though she looked up into darkness at the sound of his voice, Adrianna was certain that he was grinning down at her, and it filled her with joy. There was a shifting on the bed, and then Quinn loomed above her, his muscular arms holding him aloft. She was open before him, ready to take him inside of her and become a woman. The thought set her limbs to trembling, her legs quivering not with fear but with anticipation.

“Quinn. I’ve never. . .” she stammered.

“I know. I know. Hush, my sweet Annie.” His whisper came out of the darkness. “Everything will be all right. I swear it.”

The tenderness of his words rolled over her like a wave. Never in her life had she ever felt so treasured and safe. Raising her hand to touch the side of his face, she whispered what she had longed to say her whole life. “I love you.”

“And I love you, Annie.”

With that declaration, Quinn eased himself forward and was suddenly inside her. There was a sharp twinge of pain at the beginning but it soon disappeared as if it had been blown away by a soft summer breeze. In its place was pleasure the likes of which she could never have imagined! As Quinn began to move, tentatively at first but soon with more determination, passion began to explode across Adrianna’s body and she melted into him, desperate to be joined to him forever.

“Darling, Quinn,” she cried into his ear.

As he moved into her, Adrianna clutched at his broad shoulders, digging her hands into his hard flesh. It was as if the rest of the world had suddenly vanished, leaving the two of them and their senses as the only living things under the sky. She could feel him radiating inside of her, smell the musky odor of his body, taste the salty sweat of his skin, and hear the deep breaths that rose and fell with his movements. As his hand ran the length of her bare thigh to slide beneath her, pulling her upward to meet his thrusts, she was aware of it all, and it only heightened her arousal.

None of the problems that had plagued her since her father’s death could find her at that moment. Instead, snippets of her time with Quinn flooded her mind: the night that he had kissed her on the porch, his easy smile as he watched her play the piano at the Whipsaw, the way that he spoke to Jesse, and even the hardness that had been written on his face the first time she had laid eyes on him. All of it had led to this very moment, and for that she treasured each and every one of them.

“Quinn!” she moaned.

Suddenly, his body shook as if seized by a deep tremor, his taut muscles growing harder. Even though she could not see him in the room’s inky darkness, she knew that he was staring at her, and she looked back with the intensity of the stars above. She clung to him tenaciously, as if he were the only thing keeping her afloat in a roiling and raging sea of emotion. Quinn shuddered once more, and she was filled with a warmth that seemed to pass through her entire body, sating her in every way.

Quinn collapsed on top of her, the sweat of one body mingling with that of the other. Adrianna’s hands held him tightly. As she was wrapped in his body, so too was she wrapped in happiness and love.

“Oh, Quinn!” she finally managed. “It was so wonderful.”

“My Annie,” he whispered.

As they peppered each other’s faces with kisses, Adrianna knew with certainty that she had made a decision. She had finally refused to allow others to dictate the direction of her life; she had chosen her own path.

She had turned her back on Shreveport, on the life she had led with her father, and on Richard Pope.

My life from this night forward will be with Quinn Baxter, if he will have me.

Chapter 26

A
S THE EARLY
afternoon sun beat down, Quinn walked the streets of Lee’s Point with his head held high. Everything around him, from the sound of the birds calling lazily from the trees to the color of his neighbors’ houses, seemed somehow different, more vivid. There was a spring in his step that carried him along as if he were being pushed by a breeze. He knew that it was all because of one very special woman.

It was because of Adrianna Moore!

He had played every second of the night before in his head time and time again, savoring each detail. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel her skin beneath him, experience the desire of her searching kiss, and even inhale the smell of her hair as he had lain upon her, spent and exhausted. It was as if it were a dream . . . a dream come true.

When he had wakened beside her, he had lain as still as he could, content only to watch her chest rise and fall as she slept. In the early morning sun bright and golden, her long hair had framed her face, haloing it to make her look like an angel. If it had all been a dream, then he’d certainly never want to wake. At that very moment, Quinn had known that he would do anything to keep her forevermore in his bed and at his side.

He hadn’t wanted to leave her, but there were matters at the Whipsaw that required his attention. Thankfully, he had been able to take a leave from his logging job because of an oversupply of logs. Since Adrianna’s collapse, he had spent so much time at her side that he had put off his other duties, a neglect that needed correcting. Still, it had pained him to leave. As he had bounded down the steps of the porch, he had looked back to see her peering out the window at him, watching him go. It was that sight that he carried with him now, a snapshot of a time he couldn’t wait to return to.