Page 30 of Between Love and Honor

“Leave you two unchaperoned and risk the wrath of Terrie? I don’t think so.”

When he didn’t answer, Christine huffed a beleaguered sigh. “The things I do for you idiots,” she mumbled.

With a little more force than was necessary, she shut the door behind her. For a long moment the only sound in the room was the hum of tension radiating between him and Quinn.

“We need to talk,” he began.

“Thank you,” she murmured softly at the same time.

Her husky tone nearly took him out at the knees. He shook his head to refocus. “What?”

She inched forward giving Ben a bird’s-eye view of her dewy cleavage. He swallowed roughly.

“I said thank you. For saving my life.” She gestured toward the canopied bed. “And for . . . comforting me last night. Agent Groesch said you stayed with me.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t going to let you drown without finding out why the hell you trashed my boat.”

He wouldn’t regret his harsh tone, even when she took a step back. Although he did regret losing the enticing view.

“I didn’t trash your boat.”

He waited for the telltale signal she was lying, but there wasn’t one. Only annoyance. Both surprised him.

“Then who did?”

She looked away, but he was in no mood to put up with any more duplicity from her. He was tired and horny and both afflictions seemed to be forcing him into making rash decisions. Closing the distance between them, he wrapped his fingers around her chin and tilted it so they were once again eye to eye. He would make her talk.

But the alarm he saw shadowing her face had his gut clenching with guilt. She was afraid. Of who? Of him?

Wrapping his arms around her, Ben pulled her body flush against his. He brushed his lips over her forehead.

“He tried to kill you,” he murmured against her soft skin. “Don’t you dare try to protect him.”

“I’m not protecting him,” she whispered.

She was protecting someone. Every fiber of his body was telling him so.

“Talk to me, Quinn. Let me help you.”

Gripping the towel wrapped around her with one hand, she reached up with the other to trace her fingers along his jaw. “This is something I need to handle myself.”

Unable to tame his frustration, he gave her body a little shake. Who the hell did she think she was, Wonder Woman?

She caressed his cheek with her palm. “Please, Ben. It’s best for everyone. Let me go.”

Let me go.

Those three little words seemed to unleash something within him. The roaring in his ears was brought on by years of pent-up emotions wondering why she’d left and what had become of her. And agonizing over ‘what if?’ No way was he letting her go again. Not until he had answers.

And maybe not even after that.

“I didn’t pull you out of the damn Chesapeake Bay to let you go,” he growled.

And before either of them knew what was happening, he captured her mouth in a fierce kiss. He was tired of waiting. Now he was taking. And take he did. Shoving the towel from her head, he buried his fingers in her wet hair.

He tipped her head so he had a better angle to more thoroughly ravage her mouth.

Thankfully, Quinn didn’t put up any resistance. When he opened her lips with his own, she welcomed him in with a sexy moan from deep in the back of her throat. Her fingers scored the back of his head as though she was trying to fuse their bodies together. He let his own hands roam beneath the towel covering her body, skimming over the globes of her ass. She nipped at his tongue when he squeezed gently.

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