Page 24 of Quentin
“Harlow,” he interrupted. “Just stop…stop putting up roadblocks. Stop looking for ways out when we aren’t eveninyet.”
She was doing exactly that, and she was ballsy enough to admit it to herself, if not to him. But that didn’t mean she was wrong to do it. Neither of them had great track records. He was right when he’d said he’d never tried commitment. Quentin Darcy was the ultimate playboy. Rich, good looking, always up for a good time but never one to stick around too long. He’d had a reputation for being the love ’em and leave ’em king.
As for her, it was like she’d made a habit of finding every man in a tri-county radius that she shouldn’t be with and was slowly making her way down the list.
“Just don’t break my heart,” she said. “Seriously, Quentin. Don’t do it. I’ll make you regret it.”
He grinned at that, and it was so devastatingly sexy, she wanted to climb him right there on the spot. “Why don’t you take me to bed and help me stop overthinking everything for a while?”
“I don’t need to take you to bed for that,” he said and stepped closer, backing her against the counter. His hand slipped easily into her hair, tugging it just a shade less than gently. It was all the incentive she needed. Hooking her fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans, she tugged him closer still.
“Just how naughty should we be in someone else’s kitchen?” she asked.
“As naughty as we want to be,” he replied smoothly as he lifted her onto the counter.
It was the most natural thing in the world to part her knees and cradle him between her thighs. Even then, she wanted more. She wanted him so close that not even air would exist between them. With that in mind, she reached for the zipper of his jeans, sliding it down with slow and deliberate movements.
“You’re rushing,” he said as he kissed the side of her neck, then followed it with a stinging nip.
“Do you want me to slow down?” she asked, sliding her hand inside his pants, cupping her hand around his hardening cock. “I can stop altogether if you want.”
“No,” he replied breathlessly. “Don’t ever stop.”
Stroking him, alternating the pressure by gently touching him or closing her fingers firmly around him, she reveled in hisresponse to her. It didn’t hurt that the entire time she was teasing him to a fever pitch, he was doing the same to her. His hands were never still. They roamed over her body, and his mouth followed suit. When he closed his lips around one taut nipple, still covered by the layers of her clothes, she let her head fall back and savored the sensation.
“God, you drive me crazy,” she said on a harsh breath.
He gripped the hem of her sweater, tugging it up and over her head before cupping her breasts in his hands, kneading them gently as his thumbs played her nipples expertly. God, he knew just how to touch her.
Lowey shoved his jeans and the boxers beneath them down over his hips before taking him completely in her hand. Closing her fingers around him, she stroked him firmly at the base of his shaft, gentling her touch as she reached the head. Running her thumb over the glistening crown, she smiled when he bit out a curse word.
“Dammit, Lowey,” he whispered harshly. “If you want this to last more than sixty seconds, you’re gonna have to ease up. A man can only take so much.”
“Stop talking and just fuck me,” she urged. “I don’t want to think or worry. I just want to feel good for as long as I can.”
Sixteen
Quentin was so far gone he couldn’t even tell which way was up. With her perched on the edge of the counter, her long legs locked around him, and her soft hand stroking his cock, it was a wonder he could string two words together much less say anything important. But he needed to tell her. The words had been pressing on him for so long that it would be a relief to finally just have them out there.
“Jesus, Lowey,” he muttered as she circled him with her thumb. She could tempt a saint, and he’d never been accused of being that. It took all his willpower to reach down and grasp her wrist, stilling her hand. “We need to talk, whether you want to or not.”
“Nothing good ever begins with the phrase ‘we need to talk.’ Nothing.”
He grinned at that. “Normally, I’d agree with you…but I don’t think this is bad. I hope to hell you don’t either.”
She leaned back, her palms flat on the counter to support her weight. It was sexy as hell, but he didn’t think for one minute that she was trying to be. That was the hell of it with Lowey. Everything she did was unconsciously, innately sensual.
“What do you want to talk about?” she asked softly, and there was no mistaking the trepidation in her voice.
“I think I love you,” he said. In his head, he’d prepared a great speech, but there in the moment, it was gone. Instead, the words just tumbled out and landed like a bomb between them.
She blinked at him for a second. “That is not what I expected you to say.”
“What were you expecting?”
She shrugged. “That what we have is great, but that we’re getting ahead of ourselves, that we should still see other people, that it’s not me, it’s you. The list is endless, but you saying you thought you loved me wasn’t anywhere on it.”
“You had to know that…you had to know that if I can’t walk away from you, there’s a reason. What other reason could it be?” he asked.
