Page 12 of Frequency of Attraction

She walked out of the conference room with Rosie and Tate while Mr. Casual stayed behind with Elle. Her heart squeezed as she caught a glimpse of her cousin’s fingers brushing Rosie’s when they reached the bottom of the stairs. She was happy that their tentative relationship seemed to be gaining strength. For a second, no, not even that long, Quinn pictured Vadim caressing her just as tenderly.

The man in question appeared stealthily at her side as they reached the first floor. A squeak escaped her, and she banished her thoughts to the darkest dungeon of her mind. The man was already too skilled at reading her.

Tate glanced back at her. “Are you going to be home for dinner tonight? Chicken cacciatore.”

“Oui,” Quinn replied, coming to a stop outside her office.

“Where were you last night, anyway?”

“The bar.”

Tate’s brows flicked together. “You don’t drink.”

She heard Vadim snicker.

“Their food’s not bad,” Rosie said, smiling sweetly.

“Not as good as mine,” Tate replied.

Quinn just nodded, thrown by Vadim’s assessing smirk.

“Ready to go, Tate?” Rosie was clearly trying to draw attention away from an awkward Quinn, and she was grateful. Tate nodded, his hand on Rosie’s back as he shot Quinn another curious look.

She waited until they were gone before she turned to glare at Vadim. “What are you smirking about?”

“You don’t drink, but you were at the bar.” His smile bordered on wolfish. “Obviously, you were there for another reason.”

“You don’t know anything about me, Vadim,” Quinn huffed.

His eyes changed when she said his name. They shadowed, as if thrown into darkness.

“Were you there to meet a man, Quinn?” His tone was teasing.

She felt the color creep up her cheeks. In a way shehadbeen there for a man, but not like he was thinking.

He laughed softly, clearly taking her pause as proof positive. “Too bad he didn’t give you what you wanted.”

“Excusez moi?” What Quinn wanted was to find out why the man standing in front of her seemed tomatter. “What did I want?”

He inched closer. “It’s obvious to anyone with eyes, Quinn, that what you want, what you need, is release. To be taken care of. What you really need is to come.”

Heat flung through her as her heart started to hammer. “Oh, my God! Do you know—”

“Yeah, I know who you are,” he interrupted. “You’re the Geier princess in charge of everybody’s reputation. Doesn’t mean you don’t have needs. I can’t be the only person who’s pointed this out to you.”

Her mouth dropped open. When she collected herself, she shoved his brick wall of a body through her office door, kicking it shut behind them. “First, ‘Do you know who I am?’ That’s what you thought I was going to say? Gross. I would never say that.” She pushed him further into the room, knowing she was only able to because he let her. “I was going to say, ‘Do you know howloudyou are?’Tagueule!” Seriously, the man had no filter. No manners. No limit to his unexpected sex appeal.

He grinned. “You haven’t heard me loud yet, Quinn.”

She hated that her body pulsed at his words. She pushed him closer to her desk, his chest like granite under her hands. She didn’t talk to people about sex. About her problem. But this man clearly had no taboo topics or conversational scruples. Part of herwantedhim to keep talking like this. Part of her wanted to do some talking herself.

He perched on the edge of her desk and faced her, crossing his arms, looking way too comfortable in her office and way too sexy in his button-down with tattoos reaching out from the sleeves. “Am I right? You chose a man who couldn’t read your body?”

Quinn had never found someone who could read her body. And she’d never get Vadim’s tone, his words, out of her head. “You’re not right, actually. I was hungry, and not for sex.” She’d been hungry for answers. “There’s no reason for me to sleep with random strangers. No reason to have sex.” There. She’d parried back.

“No reason to have sex?” he repeated. Like shards of glass, his eyes pierced her.

Quinn shrugged. She was having a hard time maintaining eye contact that intense. “Yeah. I can’tdothat. What you said.”

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