Knock Me Off My Feet (16 page)
"Would she be going alone?"
"Yes."
"Is it possible to cancel?"
"Oh, certainly."
"Then
that sounds like a wise thing to do."
Marjorie sighed and stood, still rubbing her forehead. "Then I'll try to handle Russell." She smiled at Quinn bravely on the way out the door, but Quinn could see the discomfort in her eyes. "Maybe it's time I ask for that raise."
When Quinn stepped into the reception area, Audie was there, waiting for him. Her eyes were red and her face looked a bit puffy and all he wanted to do was cradle her in his arms, tell her everything would be all right, that he was right there and he'd keep her safe.
Instead he smiled at her and felt the relief wash through him when she tried to smile back.
"Got any plans for today, Miss Adams?"
She shook her head, her eyes so big and sad and beautiful.
"What do you say to lunch and maybe a nice long run? We haven't seen the lions in a while."
As he watched the edges of those lovely lips curl up in delight, Quinn thought again how much he wanted to hold her—but this time he also thought about crushing her with his mouth, covering her body with his, being inside her, protecting her from all the Timmy Burkes of the world, even if it were the last thing he ever did.
"That sounds absolutely perfect, Detective," she said.
And for a second, Quinn wondered what she'd just agreed to.
* * *
They had a long, exhausting run, and on the way back to the apartment they stopped at the grocery, and Audie was certain it was the first time she'd ever been positively giddy in the Dominick's produce section.
And now the man who made her that way was cooking for her, his hair still damp from the shower, his lean, muscled arms and hands chopping and slicing and mixing and stirring.
Audie remembered how she'd taken one home economics class in high school and the teacher had compared cooking to chemistry—the careful mixture of elements to achieve a predictable result, time after time.
Chemistry hadn't been her calling either, as she recalled, and so it made sense that her home ec projects boiled over, congealed, or exploded at random.
Helen had been very disappointed.
But right now, Quinn was showing her how to adjust the gas flame so that the onions would sauté clear, not brown, and she was actually interested—interested in standing close to him and hearing his voice, in breathing in his scent, in feeling him near her.
"Are you listening, Homey? I'll be testing you on this later."
"I'm just fascinated, Quinn. I didn't know what all those little knobs were for."
He shot her a sideways glance and pointed in front of him. "This is called a pan."
"Could you go over that one more time?"
"Just hand over the chicken, Miss Adams," he said. "Do you have a preference between breasts and thighs?"
As she reached for the plate of chicken Quinn had already seasoned, she felt her heart pound. "Which do you prefer, Detective?"
He turned to her, eyes searing like olive green lasers. "Don't make me choose, Homey. That would be cruel."
She nodded, feeling a rush of heat from her toes up through her solar plexus to the top of her head. She handed him the chicken, realizing she'd never been this nervous around raw poultry, or around a man.
All through dinner she kept wondering why Quinn hadn't kissed her that afternoon or that night. She wondered why he wasn't teasing her to the usual degree. She thought maybe it was because he was worried about her, and she wasn't sure if she liked the idea of that.
Later, they sat together on the leather couch, tucked into opposite ends, their legs and bare feet stretched out alongside each other. It was just a leg, she reasoned with herself, and there was no reason that the warm touch of his skin and the soft brush of his body hair should be sending crackles of electricity up her spine.
There was no reason such innocent contact should make her hands sweat. And there was certainly no call for her heart to slam under her ribs the way it was.
"Stop it," she whispered to her own heart.
"I'm not doing anything," Quinn said.
"Oh. Not you! I
…
forget it."
She watched helplessly as Quinn took a sip of his white wine, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. Wow. Lightning bolt time. He was one damn fine-looking man. She saw the sharp line of his jaw, the lean muscles down his neck, his Adam's apple, and the peek of his collarbone beneath the T-shirt.
Audie knew all she had to say was, "OK. Now," and Quinn would be on her like a cheap suit. She took a sip of her own wine and cleared the thought from her brain, reminding herself that this was uncharted waters for her. There was something waiting for her with Quinn—she could feel it. And it was big and scary and she didn't have a name for it.
The theme music from
Jaws
pounded in her brain.
OK, fine. She was attracted to him. But she could handle it. Besides, sex with him would probably be anticlimactic, run-of-the-mill stuff. She was building this up for no good reason. Quinn would be just like every other man she'd ever been with—somewhere between better than nothing and almost wonderful.
Wouldn't he?
She placed her wineglass on the coffee table. "Be right back," she said, standing up.
Quinn watched her do a header over the ottoman.
"You all right there, Homey?" He raised up lazily to see her scramble to her feet, yank down her tank top, and shake her hair.
"Couldn't be better," she huffed, walking toward the wine bottle on the kitchen counter. Quinn watched her straighten those wide, smooth shoulders and gracefully swing her arms. She looked extraordinary in a tank top, with all the good parts highlighted in case a man had poor vision.
Next he watched the sweet roundness of her body moving beneath thin cotton drawstring shorts. The shorts looked comfortable on her. His shorts were rapidly becoming uncomfortable on him.
Quinn slowly shook his head.
This woman was something else. She couldn't lie if her life depended on it. Obviously, every time she tried to be something she wasn't or walk away from the truth, she fell on her face.
She'd probably been sitting there telling herself she didn't want to go to bed with him. Then bam!—face-first on the floor.
Now that's the kind of woman a guy could feel secure with, unlike Laura. It still bothered him that here he was, a man who cut through lies and secrets for a living, and he hadn't noticed that his own girlfriend was unfaithful. She'd been a very smooth liar.
"Want some more wine?" Quinn looked up at Audie appreciatively. She was gorgeous—all soft and round shapes on a firm, solid frame—and right then he couldn't help but stare at the undersides of her breasts, and he was certain she wasn't wearing a bra.
Had he run his tongue over those breasts? Maybe the rise of her flesh just above her nipples? He couldn't remember. Did he get a chance on the sidewalk? No, not there. The deck? He might have…
She was smiling down at him. They'd had another good run today, and he loved to have an excuse to watch her pushing herself physically, sweating, breathing hard, those little wet curls sticking to the skin on her neck.
Autumn Adams was definitely going to be worth waiting for.
"Yo, Quinn. Wine?"
He looked up at her warily. "Sure. Thanks."
Audie poured herself another glass and went back to her corner, returning her legs to their previous position—skin to skin. She sighed.
"Uh, can I ask you a question, Audie?"
Quinn watched her roll her eyes, just as he knew she
would.
"What now, Stacey?"
He snickered a little, appreciating this little game they played. Audie pretended like she didn't want him inside her head, but she did. He could tell. She was only taking it slow, just like she said she had to.
"What part of the letter upset you the most this morning?"
She looked right at him but didn't answer.
"Was it the part about not having a family?"
She nodded almost imperceptibly. "Yeah," she whispered.
"I'm sorry, Audie. That was mean stuff."
She nodded again.
"I need to ask you how much you've talked to Timmy Burke about your family."
"What?" Audie jerked back. "Tim Burke?"
"Yeah. Did you tell him about your family? Would he know a lot of the details of what it was like for you growing up?"
"No, of course not." Audie was frowning. "Tim was
more interested in talking about himself. We never really got around to me."
Quinn smiled. "Sounds about right."
"He's not sending those letters, Quinn."
"Then how do you explain all the flowers, the phone calls, the late-night visits here to your place?"
Audie groaned and shut her eyes. "Marjorie has a really big mouth."
"She's worried about you, and I don't blame her. Why didn't you tell me about Timmy? It's a real important piece of information that I should have had from the beginning."
"Because he's not sending the letters, Quinn! God, you've got this thing about Tim Burke, don't you?" She tipped her head and stared at him. "What happened between the two of you? The day I gave you my stupid list I watched you practically boil over just at the sight of his name. What's the deal here?"
She watched Quinn hop up from the couch, taking his leg with him.
He paced for a moment before he came around and sat down on the teak coffee table right in front of her. Audie straightened up and looked at his face. She went cold.
Quinn leveled his gaze at her. "I'm going to tell you about me and Timmy."
"All right." She had a feeling this was about more than a schoolyard brawl.
"Part of it is old
stuff.
It happened seventeen years ago, but I live with it every day. It's about my brother John."
Audie frowned. "I didn't even know you had a brother named John. You've only told me about Patrick and Michael."
"That's because John died when he was eight years old. I let him die."
Quinn's expression horrified Audie. She'd seen arrogance, desire, anger, and humor in those green-and-gold eyes but nothing like this. She didn't know what to say, so she stayed quiet and just let him talk.
"John was the baby and he was a handful, let me tell you. He had a couple different learning disabilities and we couldn't turn our back on him for a second. He'd roam the neighborhood, go into other people's houses, eat food out of their refrigerators, disappear for hours. It drove my mother insane.
"I remember this one time he vanished at night, and from dinner to
"Finally, our neighbor Mrs. Geleski comes over to the house. She'd been getting into bed for the night and heard somebody breathing next to her—the poor woman just about had a coronary. She looks over and sees John crammed down in the space between her bed and the wall. He was sawing logs, peaceful as could be."
"Good grief," Audie said.
"So that was John. And one day when I was seventeen, I was supposed to be on John duty when Timmy and I started fighting over a girl—Mary Beth Horan. We were busy beating the crap out of each other and John got hit by a car, right in front of me, killed instantly."
Audie stopped breathing. She watched him hang his head. "Oh, Quinn."
"Timmy and I had been at each other's throats since elementary school." Quinn kept his eyes down. "Hockey, soccer, academics, girls—we competed in everything—but by high school it was usually just girls.
"So that day he was telling me all this crap about what he did to Mary Beth—I was wild about her—and I completely forgot about John. He rode his bike right out into the middle of
Quinn rubbed his face with both hands and groaned, looking up at Audie again. "I ran to my brother and started screaming for help, and that's when I see Timmy walking down the sidewalk, real slow, with a smile on his face. Then I heard him laughing."
The devastation in Quinn's eyes blasted a hole right through Audie's heart.
"I wanted you to understand why I don't like Timothy Burke."
"I understand," she said softly.
"And that's not all." Quinn ran his hands through his hair and slumped forward, letting his elbows rest on his knees. His face was just inches from Audie's now, and she could feel the rage building in him again.
"Recently, I was with a woman named Laura. She and I were together for almost three years."
"I know," Audie said.
He looked surprised.
"Stanny-O told me."