Hated every word that left my mouth. If I could have cut my own tongue off, I would have. The words sounded vulgar to my ears, because I couldn’t imagine anything more vulgar than Ripped filling her beautiful body with his kids. Hated the thought more than I hated any other.
“You think I’m beautiful?” she replied hesitantly, and my gaze shot to hers. She’d ignored every other thing I’d said—or she hadn’t heard them. All she’d heard was that I’d called her beautiful. Fuck. What was she doing to me?
I frowned at her. “Got blood in my veins, don’t I? Eyes in my head, right? Heart beatin’ in my chest? So yeah, I think you’re beautiful, Q. I’m a man, and I’m alive, livin’ and breathin’, ain’t I, and I know a beautiful thing when I see it.”
The words came to me fiercely, because I meant them fiercely. Quinn was a beautiful woman, and her lack of realizing that fact only accentuated her beauty to me.
Pink colored her cheeks as she held my stare, and I had the sudden urge to reach over, cup her cheek in my hand, and kiss her—hard. I wanted to feel her tongue on mine, her mouth opening to me as I stole the cries of pleasure from her. Wanted to feel her smooth skin under my palm as I ran it up her silken thigh toward her pussy. Wanted to feel her skin going hot under my palm as I slapped her ass and then soothed it with my tongue. But I couldn’t.
She still hadn’t said anything to me. Was still sitting there, her fat lips parted as she stared at me, her gaze heady and full of longing, and if I didn’t say something or get up I was going to really fuck shit up for both of us because I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from making a move on her.
“How’s that head of yours now?” I grunted, forcing myself to stand. I looked down on her, reaching out a hand to help her up.
She took it and I pulled, a little too hard because I hadn’t expected her to be such a little thing and to be so light because she practically crashed into my chest as I pulled her up.
Couldn’t hold back the possessive growl that rumbled through my chest as I held her in my arms, our chests heaving at being so close, the electric current that I’d felt that first time we’d touched running through every part of my body. I took a deep breath of her in, inhaling her seductive scent into my lungs like I could make her a part of me, and all the while she kept on looking up at me, lips parted, eyes wide, hands against my chest.
Wanted to keep her there too, her cheek up against my chest and her scent wrapping around me like smoke. I took in another great lungful of her apple scent, swallowing it down inside me like it was nourishment, before I stepped back from her and let go of her.
“You should sleep,” I grunted out.
“Chance would be a fine thing,” she replied, looking away from me.
“You can sleep in my bed if you like,” I blurted without thinking.
Her eyes widened, and I chuckled.
“I won’t be in it, Q. Your old man would gut me if he caught us in bed together.”
And that was it.
The absolute truth of the matter.
She nodded in agreement, a new blush reaching down her throat. It made me want to peel off her tee so I could check how far down that blush actually went. Did it reach her pert tits? Did it make her nipples pebble in desire? Did it flood her pussy with wanton lust?
Fuck.
I needed to get the fuck out of there before I did something stupid like bend her over the kitchen island and fuck her till she came in an explosion of curse words and thanks.
“Fifth door on the left,” I said over my shoulder as I walked away. “Door’s open and no one will be in there.” I opened the door.
“Battle?”
I stopped and looked back at her. “What?”
She frowned, looking uncertain for a quick second before she spoke. “I thought your room was next door to mine…I mean, the room that Ripped and I were sleeping in last night.” Her cheeks flamed full-on red, and there was no doubt in my mind that if I stripped her bare then her nipples would be hard and pink from that blush. I had no doubt that her little clit, nestled between her creamy thighs, was blushing at her own words. She’d heard me fucking Emmie the previous night, just like I’d heard her fucking Ripped.
I wondered briefly if she’d closed her eyes and pretended it were me fucking her and not Ripped.
A slow smile rose to my face. “No, that’s just where I like to fuck sometimes,” I said, making sure to accentuate the wordfuck.
Her eyes went wide and her mouth opened into anO, but nothing came out. And that was all I needed. With that one look I knew she’d been imagining that it was me fucking her and not Ripped.
I didn’t wait for her to reply. I couldn’t because I was worried I’d go back and grab her, snapping her panties off with my teeth and plunging my tongue inside that sweet snatch of hers that I had no doubt was soaking wet and begging for me right then. Instead I left the room and stalked toward the showers with a huge grin on my face and a hard-on you could probably see from space.
I couldn’t have her, for many reasons. Not just that she belonged to another man—a man I considered a friend, no less—but it still felt damn good to know that she wanted me. To know that while her old man had been slamming himself home, she’d been crying out for me, thinking of me, wanting me like I wanted her.
Yeah, it felt real good to know she wanted me just as much as I wanted her.
