A Stranger's Touch

Quinn had her at his mercy…

The night Quinn had first met Dulcy, all he’d wanted was a quick roll in the hay. Then he’d discovered she was his best friend’s fiancée. Now…well, now he wanted to show her all the things Brad never could. Make her beg for him in a way that made her question her choice in men.

“I’ve always admired women who are comfortable in their own skin,” he murmured, stirring her hair with his breath. “Who feel as comfortable out of their clothes as in them.”

Her shudder seemed to ripple straight to the core of him.

“Tell me, Dulcy,” he whispered in her ear. “Would you like to be naked with me right now?”

She blinked at him, her eyes swimming with desire and confusion. Her lips parted, as if awaiting his kiss.

Quinn gave into the urge to groan. She hadn’t put her panties back on after their morning encounter in the ladies’ room. The thought of her walking around in public for the past three hours, naked under her skirt, air caressing her soft flesh, made him rock hard.

He didn’t know how he was going to pull it off, but he had to convince her that he really was the best man….

Dear Reader,

A few years ago, we had the opportunity to drive to California on the infamous Route 66. Haven’t you done it? You have to! And along the way, put aside some special time to explore New Mexico. By far, the state was the most magically romantic place we encountered along the way. Once you’re there, gaze out at the infinite rolling desert, broken only by breathtaking mesas at sunset, and tell us if you don’t see our characters, Dulcy Ferris and Quinn Landis embracing in the distance. (And be thankful you can’t see what else they’re doing….)

In A Stranger’s Touch, sexy litigation attorney Dulcy Ferris is one week away from entering a passionless marriage…until gorgeous Quinn Landis tempts her with everything she told herself she didn’t need but now urgently wants. One blazing night of passion leaves her questioning everything—including the mysterious disappearance of her fiancé, and the realization that her new lover is also the best man!

We hope you enjoy Quinn and Dulcy’s sizzling adventure. Let us know what you think. You can write to us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612, or visit us on the Web at www.toricarrington.com.

Happy (and hot) reading!

Lori & Tony Karayianni

aka Tori Carrington

A Stranger’s Touch

Tori Carrington

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This one’s for the foreign publishers who make our books available to readers around the world, including, but not limited to, the warm and wonderful people at Mills & Boon and Harlequin Hellas. And for those same readers, who are more similar to us than different. You prove that romance knows no boundaries….

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

1

MAYBE THERE WAS SOMETHING to the saying that women reached their sexual peak in their thirties. Dulcy Ferris shakily tried to light a forbidden cigarette as she sat in the bathroom stall of Rage—the nightclub that was all the rage in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that her two best friends had brought her to. The lighter she’d had forever didn’t seem to want to produce a spark. Not that it mattered. Lately her body seemed to be sparking enough for a thousand lighters.

Finally a tiny flame. Dulcy pulled deeply on the cigarette, then sat back on the closed commode seat, resting her head against the cool ceramic tiles behind her. She’d be the first to admit that she didn’t buy into the whole biological clock scenario. That’s not why she was marrying Brad Wheeler in a week. It wasn’t the reason why at thirty she was marrying for the first time. But it did strike her as strange that lately her hormones seemed to be running on overdrive, filling her with all sorts of decadent urges she’d never even thought about before, much less entertained. Then there were all the…weird physical side effects. Her skin seemed to tingle constantly. Her nipples were eternally taut. Her inner thighs seemed to generate a heat all on their own. And the mere act of taking a shower made her eye the soap in a naughty way, igniting in her a desire to do all sorts of wicked things to her own body.

She glanced at the glowing end of the cigarette, her gaze languidly sliding over her fingers and arm. Even now a light sheen of sweat coated her skin, though the central air system of the hotel that housed the club was likely adjusted to handle the dance-generated heat. If she didn’t know better, she would think she was suffering from an early stage of menopause. But she remembered when her mother had gone through her hot flashes. No, she definitely was not experiencing that. Catherine Ferris had been a murder away from becoming a homicidal maniac during that rough two-year period and her activity level had seemed notched up to warp speed. Dulcy, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to drum up enough energy to open the jar of dill pickles that had sat unopened in her refrigerator for the past month, despite countless half-hearted attempts that left her staring at the contents as if they were some unattainable dream.

Okay, she absently admitted, so maybe her sexual relationship with Brad, or lack thereof, was partially to blame for her current condition. If only she knew what it was like—

The outer door swung inward, letting in a blast of music. Dulcy stood up and tossed the cigarette into the bowl, then waved the smoke away, hoping she didn’t set off an alarm somewhere. A quick rap vibrated the pink metal stall door. Normally she would have jumped out of her skin at such an intrusion, despite her suspicion of who it was. But now she could only sigh and open the door to stare at her friend Jena McCade.

“Can’t a girl go to the bathroom?” Dulcy asked.

“Are you smoking? You were smoking, weren’t you? My God, when did you pick up that nasty habit? People are quitting smoking now, not taking it up.” Jena wrinkled her nose, then reached into her purse.

Dulcy tried to avoid the spray of her perfume.

“Only you would steal into the john for a smoke when the place is crawling with grade A men,” Jena added.

Dulcy snapped straighter and tugged at the hem of her short black leather skirt, an impulse buy she hadn’t had the guts to wear until tonight. The fact that the place was crawling with grade A men was all the more reason for her to be in the john. The cigarette she’d bummed off the barmaid was just an excuse, the lighter in her purse an old one she’d picked up eons ago when she’d briefly dated a smoker.

The truth was that all the men in the other room only served to heighten her awareness of her heated condition. She stepped to the sink and splashed cold water over her face. Jena grimaced at her in the mirror.

“What?” Dulcy asked.

“You do know you just messed up your makeup.”

Dulcy scanned her features. So she had. So what? She couldn’t bring herself to care. She wasn’t here to entice any of the guys out there to go out with her. In one week she was officially off the market, married and settled. And it couldn’t come soon enough for her. Maybe it was the thought of her honeymoon that was getting her all hot and bothered.

“Here—” Jena rifled through her purse and came up with a compact. Her perfectly made-up face was puckered in disapproval as she dabbed at Dulcy’s cheeks and nose.

Dulcy batted her away. “I don’t want to look like I’m on the make.”

Jena’s devious violet eyes twinkled. “This is your bachelorette party, babe. That’s exactly how you want to look.”

Dulcy wiped off some of the rouge her friend had applied. No, she didn’t want to look like she was on the make. Simply because she was afraid that if a particularly good-looking guy did approach her, she’d be hard-pressed not to wrestle him to the ground and have at him. And then where would she be? Or, more accurately, who would she be? Certainly not the woman she’d spent the past thirty years looking at in the mirror.

Then again, she was already having trouble with her.

She slowly touched up her lipstick, finding the silky way it glided on almost unbearably sensual. She squeezed her eyes shut. Now this was going too far. When she started thinking of her own lipstick as sensual, she was in big trouble.

God, Brad would think she was the biggest hussy alive.

Brad…

“Are you ready?” Jena asked, crossing her arms under her breasts and tapping her foot.

Dulcy recapped her lipstick then tucked it into her purse. She supposed she’d stalled as long as she could. She had agreed to this night out with Jena and Marie. She’d just have to see it through. She glanced at her watch. She only wished it were later than nine o’clock.

“HERE’S TO HOCKEY PLAYERS!” Jena toasted an hour later, then lowered her voice to a bawdy whisper. “And their big…sticks.”

Dulcy blinked and tucked her shoulder-length blond hair behind her ear. Her head felt as if it were stuffed with wool, her limbs felt peculiarly languid, and if she wasn’t imagining things, her friend had just made a brazen reference to hockey players’…private equipment. Not that she was surprised. Jena somehow managed to squeeze the topic of sex into any conversation.

Dulcy mentally repeated the word. Sex. Sex, sex, sex. She grinned. The magic of the liquor seemed to have squelched her hormone-ridden body. Or, if she was lucky, the unfamiliar feelings had bit the dust altogether.

“Dulcy, you dropped the ball,” Jena accused.

Balls and hockey sticks? She scrunched up her face, opening her mouth to correct the mixed metaphor, but somehow the words never made it out. Instead, she shifted in the corner booth of the nightclub and raised her shot glass, the tequila inside splashing out and coating her fingers, as she waited for Jena and Marie to pick up their shots. “To hockey… Hey, wait a minute. Haven’t we toasted hockey players already?”

Jena nearly gave herself whiplash watching three hot guys walk by the table. Well, at least they were what Jena considered hot. Which sometimes seemed to include any male under the age of forty who could financially support himself. These three guys weren’t Dulcy’s type at all. They were too…muscular, too…alpha, too…smug. She preferred a bit more of a challenge—a man whose own personal criteria in the women he dated extended beyond “breathing.”

Jena rolled her eyes heavenward, then groaned in lust. “Yes, we have toasted hockey players already. Three times. First, for their smooth moves. Second, for their large sports cups. Third…for their big sticks. Living in New Mexico, where hockey players are a rarity, you can’t possibly be complaining, can you?”

Dulcy glanced around the club, which was conveniently located just off the lobby of one of Albuquerque’s better hotels. From the real leather, deep-burgundy colored booths and stools, to the brass fixtures and mid-level rock band playing in the far corner, the place was teeming with NHL pro hockey players from a visiting L.A. team, a result of a season kickoff exhibition game against New Mexico’s WPHL division team. The instant Jena had gotten wind of their whereabouts, the location of Dulcy’s bachelorette party was a done deal. There was nothing she or Marie could do to change Jena’s mind. So all of them had checked into three connecting rooms on the seventh floor of the hotel, and headed straight down to the club to “get their party on,” as Jena had put it.

“To hockey players, then.” Dulcy clinked her shot glass against her two friends’. Licking the salt off the back of her hand and downing the fiery amber liquid, she grabbed for one of the dwindling lemon wedges on a plate in the middle of the table.

Dulcy shuddered. She’d never been much of a drinker. A beer here, a glass of wine there. And her lips had certainly never before touched a shot glass, much less tequila. Well, unless the glass was wide-rimmed and the contents were called a margarita. But this was her last real night out with the girls as a single, professional female, and she had agreed to give in to Jena and Marie’s hearty demands that she do it right.

She only wished they had chosen a better-tasting liquor. “Who said this was supposed to get easier after the second shot?”

“I said it gets easier. I don’t know. Maybe it’s after the third shot. How many have we had? Has to be more than three… But it will get easier.” As the youngest and the third member of the circle, Marie Bertelli had a smile, they all agreed, that could stop Tom Cruise dead in his tracks. Well, all except for Marie, anyway, who thought her looks rated as paper-sack material.

Dulcy leaned against the younger woman’s arm, Marie’s red hair nearly putting out an eye. She batted the curly strands away. “And you’re a terrible liar. Maybe that’s the reason why you’re not married yet.”

Marie made a face that only made her look cuter, if that was possible. “Yes, well, you probably wouldn’t be getting married either if you were still living under your parents’ roof. How’s a girl to get any man to stick around in that environment?”

Dulcy conceded the point. Marie’s parents, along with her three impossible older brothers, were convinced that sex was strictly reserved for the married—at least, when it came to women. All three Bertelli brothers had always had very active sex lives, from what Dulcy could remember. As for Marie, she couldn’t even kiss a guy at the end of a date without the entire Bertelli family swooping down and grilling him about his income and investments and religious affiliation. In that order.

“Arranged marriage,” Jena said.

Dulcy and Marie stared at her.

“Oh. Sorry. Guess they already tried that route, didn’t they.”

Not only had Marie’s family tried that route, but they had failed, virtually chasing her from town, until Dulcy and Jena had tempted her back.

Marie grimaced. “Anyway, in reference to my inability to lie, I’ll have you know that I talked my way out of a traffic ticket this morning, thank you very much. I told the nice police officer that I was late for a court date, batted my eyes and, presto—” she snapped her fingers “—he tore up the ticket.”

Jena waved her away. “That’s because you’re so damn cute, especially when you lie.”

Marie looked for support from Dulcy. “Sorry. She’s right, kid. You couldn’t lie to save your life.”

Finally, Marie smiled. “I resemble that remark.” She fingered nearly every one of the corn chips in the bowl she’d dragged closer, then picked the smallest one, always counting calories. “When are you two going to stop calling me ‘kid,’ anyway?”

Dulcy grabbed the largest chip. “I don’t know. When you move out of your parents’ house, maybe?”

Jena lined up the three empty shot glasses in front of her and began filling them. “You’ll also have to make up for the four years you’re younger than us. Don’t forget that.”

“So, in a word, the answer is never.”

Her martyr’s sigh never failed to amuse Dulcy.

“Yes, well, I wouldn’t be under my parents’ roof if not for you two. If you hadn’t called me six months ago with that proposal to move back and go into practice with you two and the infamous Bartholomew Lomax, I’d still be in L.A. in my comfortable little apartment in Redondo Beach.” She wiped the salt from her hands. “Not everyone has the money you were born with, Dulcy. Or makes a killing setting serial killers free like you do, Jena. I’ve spent two years keeping L.A. streets safe for John Q. Public by working in the DA’s office.”

“And making nothing in the process,” Jena added, sliding one overflowing shot glass in front of Dulcy, another in front of Marie.

“Yeah. Which is precisely why I have to live with my parents until we start turning a good profit.” Marie lifted her glass. “To success.”

Jena lifted hers. “To hockey players…and their tight buns.”

Dulcy laughed and hoisted her glass. “To love.”

She and Marie went through the salt-licking, fire-downing, lemon-grabbing process, then stared at Jena where she sat with her glass in the air.

“What is it?” Dulcy asked.

Jena shook her head so that her sleek raven hair swayed, then fell disgustingly back into place. “You had to go and do it, didn’t you. Say the L word.” She sighed.

“What’s wrong with the L word?” Marie asked.

“Nothing,” Dulcy said.

Jena twisted her lips. “Well, seeing as this is your night, I’m going to refrain from arguing that point with you.” She raised her glass again. “To hockey players.”

“And their tight buns,” Marie finished.

Marie started giggling, then slapped her hand over her mouth, appalled, which sent Dulcy over the edge. Dropping her head into her hands, she laughed until the bar was blurry. But that could also be a result of the cigarette smoke in the air, and the liquor, too, so she didn’t pay much attention.

“God, you two are pathetic.” Jena’s smile softened her exotic features as she pushed her glass away. “Anyway, Dulc, you haven’t told us yet how it feels to be eight days away from becoming a married woman.”

“Probably great.” Marie turned toward her. “Brad’s an absolute top-of-the-line hottie.”

Dulcy and Jena stared at her.

“What? He is.” Conviction vanished from her face. “Isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is,” Dulcy agreed, dragging the back of her hand across her mouth. She stared at it in horror. Had she actually just done that? God, her mother would die if she knew. She picked up a napkin, hoping she wouldn’t next be running the heel of her hand against her nose.

Then it dawned on her what Jena might be after. “Oh, no. You can just forget about it. I am not sharing any…intimate details about any part of Brad’s anatomy.”

Not that she could share details. At least, not specifically.

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from blurting out what she had essentially kept from her friends for the past few months. Namely, that straight off the bat, at the end of their first date five months ago, Brad had suggested they not have sex. First he’d told her he didn’t want to move too fast, then after they became engaged two months ago, he’d said they might as well wait until their wedding night.

She’d thought it quaint—for a whole two minutes. Then her overactive imagination began wondering what he was hiding. Could the breathtakingly handsome playboy be a minute man? Done the instant he began? She shifted awkwardly. Then there was the size issue. Something she’d immediately set out to disprove by launching a surprise attack on him after dinner at his mother’s house one night. She smiled to herself. Oh, no. Size was definitely not a problem. But at the time, Brad’s scandalized reaction was.

So the guy was traditional when it came to the woman he wanted to marry. She told herself she should be flattered. Still, a little part of her thought the whole thing was a bit…weird. Not to mention immensely frustrating.

There. That was it. The reason why her hormones were running amok. It was only natural that she’d want to make love with her fiancé, the man she planned to spend the rest of her life with, right?

She swallowed. The only problem was that lately everything but Brad seemed to set her off. Her recent highly charged state had even made her consider acquainting herself with the gag gift Jena had given her for her last birthday. She probably would have if the damn vibrator wasn’t so large it took enough batteries to run a small car.

Jena rolled her eyes. “Good, because I, for one, am not interested in hearing about them…it.” She snickered. “Whatever. No, I want to know how it feels, generally speaking. You know, your being on the verge of becoming Mrs. Bradley Wheeler III.”

Dulcy straightened. “As a bride, in general, I feel pretty good.” Damn good, actually. At some point over the past year she’d stopped ignoring her mother’s incessant speeches about her needing to find a prosperous prospect before there were none left, and started listening to them. And rather than tossing the bridal magazines Catherine Ferris had subscribed to and had delivered to her condo, Dulcy had started absently leafing through them. Then she’d met Brad at a cocktail party and everything had fallen neatly into place. Too neatly, she sometimes found herself thinking.

She smiled at Jena’s frown and waved her finger. “But I know that’s not what you’re asking. As for that, all I have to say is that his being Bradley Wheeler III has absolutely nothing to do with my feeling good. I’d be just as happy if he were a…bartender.”

“That’s sweet,” Marie said.

“That’s dumb,” Jena disagreed. “Honey, bartenders don’t make Bachelor of the Year three years running.”

“Neither do hockey players,” she pointed out.

“Depends on which publications you’re reading.”

Dulcy laughed. “Sorry. My subscription to Jocks-R-Us must have run out.”

Jena playfully slapped her palm against the table. “Then, you must renew, pronto. These guys take home some whopping salaries.”

Dulcy tugged the bowl of chips closer to her. “I’ve already got a groom. Remember? And money has nothing to do with it. I’m marrying for love.”

She caught Jena’s cringe and silently chalked up another one.

“That’s nice,” Marie said, sighing.

Dulcy and Jena stared at her again.

Okay, so Marie got romantic when she drank. Jena grew even bawdier. And Dulcy was a sloppy drunk. Dulcy didn’t know how they’d gone so long without discovering this before, but she tucked the information into the back of her mind for future reference. Some night when they were vegging in front of the television with a stack of old videos, frapuccino and popcorn, she’d pull it out and they’d have a good laugh.

She propped her chin on her hand and gazed at her two friends. “Thanks, guys—you know, for doing this for me. I’m…I’m having a great time.”

“You’re drunk,” Jena said.

“That, too. But I meant what I said just the same.”

“But we’re just getting started, Dulcy Ferris.” Then Jena fixed the kind of determined gaze on her that made Dulcy and Marie say “uh, oh” whenever they saw it. That gaze was what made her such a great criminal defense attorney. It’s also what made her a downright nosey friend. “So tell me, Dulc. Since in eight days, when you go in front of that altar and profess your undying commitment for Brad Wheeler in front of God and everyone, you’ll forfeit all possibility of seeing it come true…tell us, what’s the sexual fantasy you’ll miss most?”

“Yes,” Marie chimed in, the dreamy expression vanishing and an almost voyeuristic interest taking its place.

“And if Brad satisfies all my sexual fantasies?” Dulcy asked. Oh, please let that be the case. Let them get married, hit the honeymoon suite and have Brad shed his conservative behavior and turn into a virtual Tarzan in bed. pImages** of hard abs, ropes and a leather loincloth leapt to mind, and she sighed.

“Ha ha,” Jena said. “I’m serious.”

Dulcy dropped her gaze and cleared her throat, then told a bald-faced lie. “What if I told you I don’t have one?”

Jena scoffed. “Everyone has a sexual fantasy, even Marie here. Don’t you, Marie?”

“Oh, yes. But we’re not talking about me. I still have plenty of time to fulfill mine. Dulcy’s the one getting married.”

Dulcy stared at them pointedly. She’d never been very comfortable discussing items of a personal nature. Being amused and sometimes appalled by Jena’s behavior was one thing. Telling her friends when she had her period or how frustrated she was that she and Brad hadn’t slept together yet…well, that was quite another. She knew her discomfort was due in large part to her upbringing. You could live in a conservative, emotionally repressed household for only so long before some of it rubbed off on you. In her case, it was talking about intimate matters.