A Stranger's Touch

Her cheeks burned bright, heightening the hazel of her eyes. She looked caught between wanting to bolt…and longing to stay.

Quinn looked at her more closely. Oh, it had been a long time since he’d been with a bad-girl playing good. And this one was definitely a bad-girl. It was evident in the delicious curve of her neck when she turned her head just so. In the enticing jut of her erect nipples against her blouse. In the way her decadent tongue dipped out to touch the corner of her mouth as if eyeing a treat she really wanted but didn’t dare take.

The heat that had accumulated in his groin when she had dropped into his lap ignited into something hotter, and difficult to ignore.

“Oh God,” she murmured, trying to get up again and this time succeeding. “Nothing personal, but…this just isn’t something I should be doing.”

Quinn allowed his gaze to travel over her from forehead to ankle, liking every incredible inch of her but knowing the chances of his getting to sample any of her wares had just dwindled to zero. “Are you sure?” he asked.

She nodded so emphatically she nearly fell back into her chair. “Oh, I’m very sure.” She bit her plump bottom lip, then glanced in the direction her friends had gone. “Absolutely…positively…” Her gaze settled on him. “Um, sure.”

Quinn grasped his beer bottle, trying to cool himself with the condensation running down the green glass. “Well, it was nice meeting you, then.”

She gave him a fleeting smile that made him want to groan, then left him staring after her, even more in need of a woman than he’d been a half hour ago.

“ARE YOU INSANE?” Dulcy repeatedly splashed water over her face and stared in the rest room mirror at Jena, who was skillfully freshening her lipstick. She felt…anxious, shaken, and one-hundred-percent sober.

Jena pursed her lips and tried to hand Dulcy her lipstick. “Actually, I was just asking myself the same question. Of you.”

Dulcy violently yanked paper towels from the holder one after another. “For God’s sake, Jena, you can’t possibly be implying what I think you are.” She realized she’d accumulated a small pile and forced herself to stop, blotting her skin with a handful.

“What? That you spend your last night as a single woman in the arms of a complete stranger?” Her smile was decidedly wicked. “Absolutely.”

The flushing of a toilet sounded, then one of the stall doors opened and Marie’s curly red hair sprung into view. She claimed the sink on the other side of Dulcy. “In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a good idea,” said Marie.

Dulcy slumped against the sink in relief. “Thank you. At least someone sounds reasonably sane.”

Marie smiled at her in the mirror. “But you have to admit, the guy was downright…tempting.”

“Native American.”

Dulcy stared at Jena.

“What? Didn’t he look Native American?”

Marie nodded.

“Not full-blooded, mind you. But he definitely has some of that hot Native American heritage in his background.”

Dulcy really didn’t want to discuss this. She wadded up the towels and rounded Marie to stuff them into the wastebasket.

“That’s exactly what I thought,” Marie said, washing her hands and drying them. “All that wonderful brown skin. Those chiseled features. That…that mouth.”

“He’s not,” Dulcy said, closing her eyes against the seductive image that her friend’s words conjured. “Just because a guy has long dark hair and a great tan doesn’t mean he’s Native American.”

Jena’s gaze homed in on her in the mirror. “So you did notice what a wowie he was.”

Dulcy raised her chin. “I’m engaged, not blind, Jena.”

“Yes, but you’re not married yet.”

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m even discussing this with you.” She held up her hand. “No, let me rephrase that. I am through discussing this with you. I am not going to do anything with any strange man just because I’m getting married in a week. Get it?”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

Marie smiled and linked her arm with hers, then Jena hesitantly did the same on the other side of her. “Now that that’s out of the way…let’s go have some fun.”

FUN. THREE HOURS LATER Dulcy supposed that someone might have found the molten temptation flowing through her veins fun, but she found it downright alarming. A woman in love with the man she was about to marry wouldn’t salivate over another man, would she? She’d always thought love made one blind to all others, no matter how tantalizing…or how much one had had to drink.

In hindsight, she should have insisted she, Jena and Marie go up to their rooms and settle in with every last item on the room service menu and a pay-per-view movie immediately after the “anonymous male” incident. But she hadn’t. No. Instead, she’d downed more tequila—in moderation—scarfed down more corn chips and a large number of the nachos they’d ordered, and danced until she was sure her feet would fall off.

And during every single move she was heatedly aware of the stranger watching her from across the room. That is, when she didn’t catch her own gaze plastered to him and his strikingly manly physique.

Did he have a Native American background? She admitted that with his dark hair and eyes and skin, all made darker still by the intimate lighting in the club, he very well could have. And the contrast between his provocative dark looks and Brad’s handsomely waspish features couldn’t have been more profound.

Dulcy absently fingered the sexy silk negligée in a box at her elbow, a gift from Marie, and watched a woman approach the man she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from. He’d talked to no fewer than four other women during the course of the night, and danced with two others, but she couldn’t deny her relief when none of them joined him at his table. As if sensing her attention on him, he slid a dark, suggestive glance in her direction, and then led the woman onto the dance floor. She felt as if she were about to swallow her tongue whole when he skimmed his hands down the woman’s back as he pulled her close, even as his gaze was fused with Dulcy’s. Good God…

“Don’t be such a prude, Marie,” Jena was saying across the table. “Of course it’s all right to bring sex toys into the marriage bed.”

Dulcy forced herself to pay more attention to her friends, and less to the man who was touching another woman but seemed to be suggesting he’d rather be touching her.

Marie was twirling a spiked dog collar around her finger. “But there are sex toys…and then there are implements of torture.”

Jena smiled. “You mean there’s a difference?”

Dulcy caught herself rubbing her index finger and thumb against the decadent material of the nightgown and forced herself to place the lid back on the box. “I hope you got a receipt for this stuff, Jena,” she said softly, indicating the array of materials that seemed cruel even for a pet.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not you plan on returning the items yourself.”

Dulcy made a face and peered into the bag in which she’d instantly stuffed the highly wicked items that served as Jena’s gift. “Tell me you got them on the Internet?”

“Nope. There’s this great little shop downtown I know you’re going to love.”

Dulcy groaned and snatched the collar from Marie. “I don’t think so.”

“What’s this one for?” Marie asked, poking at a miniature version of the dog collar about two inches in diameter.

“Never mind.” Dulcy took that one, too, then put it in the bag with the other items that gave a whole new meaning to the word unmentionables.

She was aware of the slow song ending, which probably meant another fast song would soon start up. And Jena would undoubtedly pull them up for another fifteen-minute set. Dulcy didn’t think her feet could stand it. She found herself glancing toward the dance floor, only realizing why she’d done so when she spotted the man named Quinn being led off by the woman he’d just danced with. But rather than heading back toward his table, she was navigating a path toward the door and the lobby beyond. Dulcy quickly averted her gaze. She didn’t have to guess where they were heading. She looked down to find her hands clutching the bag, and released her grip. No doubt that couple could find something interesting to do with these items.

As expected, the band launched into another dance number and Jena virtually popped up from her seat. “Come on.”

Marie groaned but slid from the booth, while Dulcy shook her head. “I’m just going to go run these things up to my room before someone sees them and gets the wrong idea about me.”

What she really wanted to do was go strip out of her clothes and her heels, brush her teeth, pull the sheet up to her chin and veg with a really good movie…and think about what she could have been doing tonight had she had enough guts.

Jena leaned over the table toward her. “You’d better be back in fifteen or else I’m coming up after you.”

Dulcy smiled, knowing that despite her friend’s threat, she’d be more likely to curl up on the bed with her and steal whatever she was eating, along with the remote. “Deal.”

She gathered her gifts together and slid from the opposite side of the booth, giving Marie a sympathetic wave as Jena led her toward the dance floor. Well, she did have to give Jena some credit. The place was teeming with men who were exactly her type, but she hadn’t once wavered in her promise to make this Dulcy’s night. There had been one moment when Dulcy was afraid they were about to lose her—when a fresh-faced hockey player with a lopsided grin, a chin dimple and devilish eyes had stolen her for two whole dances—but Jena had finally peeled herself away from him and rejoined the party. Dulcy had decided to let slide the bit of paper, no doubt holding the player’s phone number, that Jena had slipped into her pocket.

The difference between the smoke-choked atmosphere of the club and the brightly lit, sparsely populated lobby was like night and day. And Dulcy felt immediately better. More like herself, more in control. She took a deep breath of the hotel air and blinked, slowing her step as the pulse of the music drifted farther and farther away. It had been so long since she’d actually been to a club, she had forgotten what it was like. The intimate lighting. The heat of too many young, single, needy bodies filling the room. The rhythm of the drum that seemed to vibrate across the floor and grip her heart. She and Jena had gone a few times when they were in undergrad school together. And again when Marie had come of age. But it had never really been her thing. Going to the theatre or out to a nice dinner, visiting with her friends—those had always been her preferred styles of entertainment.

And now she knew why. There was something about the wild environment…about merely being in a club that seemed to emphasize wantonness and willingness for experiences she only allowed herself to fantasize about, and never indulged in. What others, like Jena, saw as challenges, she saw as strictly dangerous.

She started to walk by the concierge’s desk, then backtracked, clutching her packages tightly to her side. “Excuse me, when does room service close for the night?”

The young, attractive man behind the desk openly eyed her and grinned. “Never, miss. They’re open twenty-four hours. With a limited menu after midnight.”

She found herself smiling back at him. “Good. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

She turned back toward the far hall and the elevators there, her heels clicking against the marble tiled floor. See, the concierge’s overt reaction to her, probably after having seen her come from the club, was proof positive of her verdict on clubs and clubbing. She thought the appropriate word nowadays was player but she couldn’t be sure. Whatever it was, she certainly wasn’t one, and never would be.

She punched the elevator button, then stood back to wait. No. In eight days she was going to be Mrs. Brad Wheeler III. She grimaced. Why had she thought of it that way? She shook her head and dug through her purse for her room card key. But even she had to admit that while Brad’s financial status hadn’t influenced her decision to marry him one iota, it would certainly impact her life from here on out. She’d just gotten used to balancing her own checkbook, yet now she’d have an accountant and house manager to look after all that for her. It had been a challenge to remember when she’d last had the oil checked in her car, yet now she would have use of Brad’s in-house mechanic, who looked after his half dozen or so cars on a daily basis.

She pulled out her card key. Oh, yeah. Her life from here on out was definitely going to change. For the better, she firmly told herself. Who cared if personal privacy would be virtually nil? Her mother would have the money she’d had to do without for too long. And Dulcy would have Brad. That’s all she needed.

The elevator dinged open, and she stepped inside and pressed the button for the seventh floor. The mirrored doors began sliding closed and she leaned against the back of the elevator and sighed. An inch before the doors would have closed altogether, a hand snaked through the opening. The doors bounced, then jerked back open.

Dulcy stared, suddenly dry mouthed, at the new arrival—all dark skinned, big grinned and looking so good she could eat him with a spoon.

Oh, yeah? If Brad was all she needed, why was she looking at the guy from the bar as if she wanted to order him up from room service?

3

TWO TIMES LUCKY, Quinn made a mental note to himself, because something like this didn’t happen to him every day. First this girl who could have come from one of those 1-900-babe hotline commercials literally drops into his lap…now he runs into her, alone, in the elevator.

He held the doors open with one hand and watched Dee scramble from where she was leaning against the wall. Her relaxed position had caused her skirt to inch farther up her long, long legs. The design of her white blouse was far too conservative to be called sexy, but the leather skirt hugged the body it was wrapped around to delectable perfection. No matter how hard she tried, he’d bet, she was never quite successful in covering up the sensuality that emanated from her like a seductive scent. A mystifying, evocative sexuality had ensnared him so completely in the scant few minutes they had spoken that he hadn’t been able to drum up enthusiasm for anyone else. He’d thought he might have something with the last girl he danced with. But when she propositioned him, he turned her down. So then she’d asked him to do her the favor of walking out of the bar with her because one of the hockey players was coming on a little too strong for her liking. He had, and after stopping off at the hotel gift shop to pick up a fresh razor, he’d decided to go upstairs…alone.

At least, that had been his intention. But now that he stood staring at the fantasy-in-heels staring back at him like she wanted to eat him whole…well, maybe the night wasn’t yet over.

“Hi, again,” she said, her voice soft and hesitant.

He noticed she was nearly bending in half the box she held, and his grin widened.

“Where’s…um, your friend?” she asked.

He cocked a brow and stepped into the elevator, allowing the doors to close behind him. The simple move caused her to step back farther.

“Friend?”

She nodded and tucked her hair behind her ear, looking everywhere but at him. Correction. Looking everywhere on his body except his face.

“Oh. You’re talking about the girl I left the bar with.” He shrugged. “I don’t know where she is. I guess she went to her room. Alone.”

Something he’d been facing himself until ten seconds ago.

He glanced at the control panel, then pressed the button for the sixth floor. “Your birthday?” he asked.

“Huh?”

He pointed to the boxes she held.

“Um, no, but…something similar.”

He turned so that he was facing the doors alongside her. The scent of something fruity, something fresh, reached his nose and he breathed it in. While city girl was stamped all over her, she smelled amazingly like the outdoors. And infinitely edible.

Quinn had never noticed how quiet elevators were before. Or how small. He swore he could hear the sound of his blood rushing full speed to his groin. Feel the heat of his body increase the temperature of the enclosure. Sense Dee’s growing tension as she swallowed.

How did one close a deal of this nature in the negligible amount of time it took for the elevator to climb to the sixth floor? He’d already guessed that one-night stands and becoming intimate with strangers went against Dee’s principles, although he suspected that if she listened to her heart, she’d probably follow it. But her running away from him in the bar proved she wasn’t anywhere near ready to do that.

But he also knew that she was as attracted to him as he was to her. Had watched her watching him all night. Had stared at her as she licked salt from her hand with that naughty pink tongue of hers, her gaze steadfastly on him, then downed tequila along with her friends.

The elevator bell dinged. The doors slid open.

Damn.

The way he saw it, he had two options. Push the emergency button and thrust her against the wall and have his way with her. Or leave.

He began to exit. He heard her intake of breath, as if she was about to say something, and hesitated on the threshold, another option emerging.

He turned, butting his shoulder against the open door. He gazed at where she still stood rigidly straight, clutching her packages as if they’d somehow protect her against him. Protect her against her attraction for him. An attraction that widened her pupils until her hazel eyes nearly shone black, and left her moistened lips parted.

Quinn cleared his throat, then smiled. “You, um, wouldn’t happen to want…”

He purposely let his words trail off, allowing her to define the parameters, if she chose any.

She quickly shook her head. “No. Sorry. I can’t.”

He glanced at his boots. “My loss, then, huh?”

The elevator door bounced against his shoulder. He started to straighten. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw the woman throw the packages she held to the floor. And suddenly she was up close and real personal.

Quinn wasn’t all that clear on the details of what brought her from the far end of the elevator to flush up against him, but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Almost instantaneously, her fingers were in his hair, tugging the strands from the leather strap. Her mouth rested awkwardly against his, the stiff peaks of her breasts jutting through the chambray of his shirt. Acting on pure instinct, he groaned and pulled her closer, slanting his mouth more comfortably against hers. With the tip of his tongue, he traced the seam of her lips, coaxing them open. And just like that, they were.

God, she tasted like pure temptation, just the way he knew she would. Mischievous, sweet, and hot as hell. He slid his tongue along the length of hers, reveling in the texture of it, the taste. He’d all but given up hope of kissing her like this. Now that he was…well, it was even better than he had imagined. In an instant he was rock hard and wanted her in a way that made him forget where they were—a condition that intensified when she wriggled and shimmied hungrily against him.

Quinn slowly slid his hands to her hips, holding her still as he pressed his erection into her soft flesh, leaving little doubt about how he was feeling and what he had in mind. When she not only didn’t object but shivered in response, his body temperature leapt another few degrees. He skimmed his hands from her hips, up along her slender midriff, then created a wall on either side of her full breasts with his palms. At her gasp, he stepped up the force of his kiss, then drew his hands all the way over her breasts, squeezing the straining tips between his thumbs and palms.

Take it easy, buddy. You don’t want to scare her off.

And he was all too aware of the risk of scaring her off. Of moving too quickly and having her balk. She had run from simple conversation in the bar. Pushing her too far too fast here, alone in the elevator, might ruin his chances altogether. But he simply couldn’t help himself. The instant he’d been given a taste of what he’d been longing for all night, he was filled with the need to take it all the way. For the past two hours he’d mentally envisioned every last thing he’d like to do to the woman now in his arms. And, by God, he couldn’t stop himself from making those plans a reality.

A slight pulling of fabric and her blouse opened. A dip of his hand and the material bowed, revealing a snow-white lace bra. He briefly broke off the kiss to gaze at the small mounds of flesh accented to perfection by the half-cups of fabric. Her nipples poked against the material, begging to be set free. And he found more than anything that he wanted to grant them that freedom. Dipping his index finger inside the cup and under the stiff peak, he lifted. The rosy tip popped up. He wasted no time fastening his mouth around it, licking and tugging and pulling until Dee’s breathing was so erratic that it nearly tore the succulent bit of flesh from his mouth. He blindly found and liberated her other nipple, groaning at the decadent way she held her shoulders back, straining for his attention. He caught the stiff peak between his thumb and forefinger and pinched, reveling in her sharp intake of breath.

Quinn closed his eyes. God, but her responsiveness was killing him.

Stroking her right breast, he dropped his other hand lower, skimming the backs of his fingers down her hip, then lower still, until they rested against the skin of her leg. The bare skin of her leg. The fact that she wore no nylons surprised and excited him. Maybe this bad-girl in good-girl clothing had a naughty streak she didn’t even know the breadth of. He drank in her moan. Oh, he was going to enjoy not only introducing her to that naughty side, but making her love it. He edged his fingers upward, slowly lifting her skirt until he was mere millimeters away from her sex. He paused, measuring the hunger in her kiss, the rapidness of her breathing, then he brushed the backs of his fingers against the crotch of her panties, finding her hot and wet and ready.

She shuddered so violently that for a moment Quinn thought she might have climaxed. But rather than collapse against him for support, she grasped his shoulders and pressed her hips more solidly against his, cradling his pulsing erection between her thighs. Quinn stretched his neck and groaned. Sweet Jesus, but she was going to end him right here and now.

WILD…hard…wet. Dulcy had never felt so out of control in her life. Yet so completely in control. Of herself. Of Quinn. Of the powerful emotions surging through her body, bringing to life a hunger, a need, she hadn’t known existed. The instant her sex made contact with his through their clothes, she knew she had to have him. Gone was any rational thought. Vanished was every last shred of self-doubt or concern about tomorrow. She completely gave herself over to the power of feeling. Nothing more. Nothing less. Of listening to her body and following its lead, trusting it not to lead her in the wrong direction.

She began fumbling with the buttons of his shirt, then gave up and tore at the material, sending buttons ricocheting through the elevator. Finally, the smooth, hair-peppered chest was bared to her gaze. She tugged the soft material down over his shoulders, marveling at the toned, sculpted quality of his pecs. She’d sensed his hardness when she’d fallen into his lap, but somehow not even that brief contact had prepared her for this. She placed a hesitant kiss against the heated flesh, then opened her mouth for a more thorough taste, thinking that if, instead of air, she could breathe him right that moment, she would.

She shamelessly jutted her hips against his, absently wondering what felt better—the fire licking through her veins, making her aware of every pulse of her heartbeat, or him. The long, thick ridge of his erection pressed against her swollen flesh, and she shivered, deciding that there was no longer any differentiating between the two. His actions fanned the flames, provoking even bolder reactions from her.