Quinn's Woman Read online

  Pausing to wipe sweat from her face and neck, she studied him in the mirror. On the run, she’d been too busy trying to keep up to really catalogue the powerful muscles ripping through his body. Now she could see the definition and thickness of his chest and the strength in his legs. He wasn’t cut like a gym jockey. Instead his muscles had a purpose. He was the kind of man who knew how to make his living the hard way.

  He scared the hell out of her.

  D.J. swallowed the fear and kept herself focused through her tricep presses, then leaned back on the bench and exhaled.

  “That’s it,” she said, wondering if she had the strength to stand. Her bones felt as if they’d turned to putty. Her muscles were as resistant as cooked pasta.

  “Not bad,” he said, holding out his hand.

  She glanced from it to his face, then back. She understood the gesture. He was offering to help her to her feet. The logical, rational part of her brain said to save her own strength and accept the assistance. The less-in-control side of her psyche warned her that once he had her hand in his, he could easily flip her and get her in a lock that she could never break.

  Deliberately D.J. grabbed his hand and pulled herself up.

  Nothing bad happened, unless she counted ending up standing too near to Quinn. They were only inches apart—so close that she could see the various shades of brown and gold that made up the deep color of his irises.

  “You work hard,” he said. “You’re strong and disciplined.”

  His words pleased her. “Great. So now—”

  He cut her off with a smile. “Now let’s see what you can do on the mats.”

  She wanted to groan in protest. She wanted to flop down on the floor and sleep for a week. She wanted a full body massage followed by some time in a sauna. Her legs quivered at the thought of supporting her weight for even one more second.

  “Why not?” she said instead and led the way to the sparring mats.

  Quinn stood across from her. He was relaxed, his legs slightly bent, his arms at his sides.

  “Attack me,” he said.

  D.J. wished she was big enough so that just sitting on him would squish out all his air. Unfortunately she wasn’t, so she was left with no option but to do what he said.

  She considered several tactics. Her only chance at something close to a decent showing was to surprise him. She feigned a jab with her right hand, shifted right, made a quarter turn toward him and punched a kick right at his—

  Thunk. The floor came sailing up from nowhere as she found herself flat on her back. Now she was not only tired, but sore all over. She scrambled to her feet.

  “Again,” he said.

  She attacked, with no better luck at times two, three and four. On the last tumble to the ground she was too close to the edge of the mat and her elbow connected with the wood floor. Pain exploded with such intensity that she thought she might throw up.

  Quinn knelt down next to her. “You okay?”

  Speech was impossible, so she nodded. He reached for her arm and probed her elbow. Even the light brush of his fingers made her grit her teeth to keep from gasping.

  “Nothing’s broken,” he told her.

  Great. If “not broken” hurt this much she would hate to encounter actual bone shards. She’d had a broken arm as a kid and didn’t remember it hurting so badly. She forced herself back to her feet, expecting him to tell her to attack again. Instead he moved in front of her.

  “We’ll do this one in slow motion,” he said. “You start your moves and I’ll show you how I counter them.”

  He took her through the movement step by step until she saw how he had managed to stop her each time.

  “Now that you know what I’ll be doing, you can respond differently,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “Ready?”

  She nodded and moved in. This time when he spun and grabbed for her, she stepped out of reach. Nanoseconds later his leg shot out and connected, an arm moved and she was flipped and sailing onto the mat again. But instead of stepping back as he had before, he moved forward, bending toward her.

  D.J. hadn’t expected him to get so close. As the air rushed out of her body, her mind blurred at the edges. Quinn disappeared and in his place she saw her father looming over her. She could smell the liquor. People always said that vodka had no odor, but they were wrong. The scent seeped from her father’s skin and made her stomach get all tight and sore.

  She could see the man’s bloodshot eyes, and the angry twist of his mouth. The baseball bat in his hands rose and then slowly sank toward her. She braced herself for the crunch of hard wood against bone and tried not to imagine the pain that would explode when he broke not just her body but her soul.

  She blinked and he was gone. There was only Quinn staring down at her, his brown eyes crinkling slightly as he smiled.

  “You got the wind knocked out of you,” he said. “Can you breathe?”

  Could she? She tried an experimental breath and felt air fill her lungs. She felt both hot and cold, as if she’d just broken a fever. She could taste the terror—it was metallic, just like blood.

  “You’ve got potential,” Quinn said, as he held out his hand again.

  She wanted to run, to scream, to disappear. But she’d long ago learned that the only way to conquer her fear was to face it head-on. She took the hand he offered and let him pull her to her feet.

  When she was standing, she resisted the blinding need to bolt. Instead she crossed to the small refrigerator in the corner and pulled out a bottle of water.

  “Want one?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  She tossed him one, then took hers in her hand. After gulping down half of it, she placed the cool plastic on the back of her neck. Then she walked the length of the exercise room and tried to get calm.

  Irrational fear caused a chemical reaction in the body, she reminded herself. The fight-or-flight response was triggered, and her mind was no longer in control.

  She was fine. Or if she couldn’t believe that, she would be fine in just a minute or so.

  She walked back and forth three times, then risked glancing at Quinn. He was watching her. While she knew there was no way he could figure out what had just happened, she couldn’t help feeling vulnerable and afraid.

  Fear. She hated it. Fear was weakness, and the only antidote was to be strong.

  She stopped in front of him. “So?”

  She made the word a challenge.

  “I’ll take you on,” he said.

  She felt both relief and apprehension. She wanted to learn, but why did he have to be the one teaching her?

  “Great.” She drank the rest of her water. “How long are you going to be in town?”

  “A few weeks.”

  That surprised her. “Don’t you have to get back to your assignment, or whatever it is you call it?”

  He shrugged. “I’m on leave. Voluntarily. I’ll be around long enough to teach you a few new moves.”

  Leave? Why? But she didn’t ask. There was a more important question.

  “What do you want?”

  He twisted the cap off the water bottle and downed the liquid in several long, slow gulps. A single drop escaped from the corner of his mouth. She watched it trail down his jaw to his throat where it blended in with the sweat glistening there. When he’d finished, he turned his dark gaze on her.

  “Let’s see,” he said. “You’ve offered me money and sex. What else you got?”

  The blunt question stunned her. “You’re the one who has to define the price. I decide if I want to pay it.”

  “Good point.” He looked her up and down. “Okay. Here’s the deal. I’ll give you the lessons you want. In return, you’ll keep me company while I’m in town.”

  She relaxed immediately. “You mean sex.”

  “I mean dinner.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Dinner. It’s the meal that comes after lunch. I want you to have dinner with me ton
ight.”

  She took a step back. “Hell, no” hovered on her lips, but she sucked in the words.

  “One dinner in exchange for teaching me while you’re in town?” she asked.

  “We’re starting with one dinner. There might be more. I might even want you to join me for lunch.”

  She really wanted to say no. Nothing about this appealed to her. For one thing, it didn’t make sense. For another, she hated anything to be open-ended. She wanted the rules defined up front.

  “You can pick the restaurant,” he said. “This is your town, after all. But nothing cheap. No fast food, no burger places. Somewhere nice. And you have to wear a dress. I want to see cleavage and legs.”

  She nearly decked him for the last crack. “I don’t date.”

  “This isn’t a date. It’s business.”

  He moved close. She braced herself to ward off an attack, but instead he simply tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She found herself wanting to lean into the tender gesture. So, of course, she didn’t.

  “I’ve been out of the country a long time,” he said. “Is it so hard to believe I want to have dinner with a beautiful woman?”

  She nearly spit in surprise. “Somewhat attractive” she would have bought, but beautiful?

  “I don’t play boy-girl games,” she said. “They’re all designed to make sure the boys win.”

  “I’m not a boy.”

  There was a news flash. She narrowed her gaze.

  He grinned. “Dinner in exchange for lessons. What’s not to like?”

  She wanted to throw his offer back in his face but couldn’t say why. What was the big deal about having dinner? Logically it was easier than having sex with him. Except sex was little more than a bodily function. She could disconnect and it wouldn’t matter. Dinner...dinner was complicated.

  “Fine,” she ground out as she clenched her teeth. “Dinner.”

  “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  “No, I’ll come get you at your hotel.”

  “Works for me.”

  She glanced at the wall clock. “You probably have to be somewhere, huh?”

  He laughed. “Subtle, D.J., real subtle.”

  He made no move to leave.

  “I have to get to work,” she said. “I have a business to run.”

  “Fair enough. Just answer one question.”

  She braced herself, knowing she wasn’t going to like it. “What?”

  “Why did going out to dinner with me throw you more than what you’d offered before?”

  She might have known he would see her discomfort. She searched for a good lie, but couldn’t find one. Which left the truth.

  “Sex is easy because it doesn’t matter.”

  His expression didn’t change. “It can.”

  “Has it ever for you? Even once?”

  He hesitated. “Maybe a few times.”

  “Sure. It’s that way for guys. Why does it have to be different for me?”

  He studied her face. “I guess it doesn’t. See you tonight.”

  He walked out of the room and headed for the office. When the front door closed behind him, D.J. breathed out a sigh of relief. That was over.

  Except it wasn’t. Even though Quinn had physically left the office, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. When she thought about their dinner that night, she felt an odd combination of apprehension and anticipation.

  Crazy, she told herself. She barely knew the man. He didn’t matter in any significant way. Nor was he ever going to. Letting a man get close was a recipe for disaster.

  With a shiver, she remembered the flashback she’d had of her father. Cold seeped into her, but she ignored it. He was long since dead and she’d never spent a single day mourning the loss. She refused to waste another minute thinking about him now.

  * * *

  D.J. felt like an idiot...probably because she looked like one.

  She sat in front of the mirror and fingered the curlers in her hair. Rebecca lightly slapped away her hand.

  “You’ll mess up my hard work. Now try the darker lipstick.”

  D.J. dutifully picked up the tube Rebecca gave her and applied the color over the medium pink she’d already put on. When she was finished, she waited for her friend’s pronouncement.

  Rebecca tilted her head and wrinkled her nose. “Better, but not perfect.”

  “It’s lipstick. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

  Rebecca muttered something under her breath and reached for another tube from the bag she’d dragged over. While she searched for the right shade, D.J. studied her reflection in the mirror and wondered—for the seven hundred and fifty-second time—why she’d agreed to the date.

  Not a date, she reminded herself. Payment. Unfortunately the definition clarification didn’t make her feel any better about what she was doing. The smoky eye shadow and dark mascara didn’t help, either. Makeup, jewelry and high heels were typical female trappings she generally avoided for an assortment of reasons. Tonight she was hampered by all three.

  Simple diamond studs—a loan from Rebecca—glittered at her ears. Per Quinn’s instructions, she would wear a dress. Per Rebecca’s insistence, she would wear high heels. With her hair up in big, fat curlers, she felt like a contestant in a low-end beauty pageant.

  “Try this,” Rebecca said, handing over another tube.

  D.J. cleaned the brush and carefully applied the color. This time her lips looked full and lush. Surprised, she leaned back to judge the effect.

  “See?” Rebecca sounded triumphant. “It can be perfect. Now dab a little gloss in the center of your bottom lip. It will make you look pouty.”

  D.J. rolled her eyes. “I’m not the pouty type.”

  “You are tonight. You’re going to knock his socks off.”

  “I hate to disappoint you but everyone will be keeping his or her clothes on.”

  Her friend grinned. “So you say now. But that could change. Things happen.”

  Not likely. Quinn had already turned down sex as payment, and there was no way he would get it any other way. Her interest in the man was strictly business.

  “You’re too damn cheerful,” D.J. muttered as Rebecca began tugging the curlers from her hair.

  “I can’t help it. You’re going on a date with a gorgeous single guy. You’re even wearing a dress. I have high hopes that he’s the one.”

  D.J. felt badly for not explaining that the dress had nothing to do with her desire to impress her date, but she wasn’t comfortable telling Rebecca about her deal.

  “I’m not looking for ‘the one,’” she said instead.

  “You always say that, but I refuse to believe you. You need the love of a good man.”

  “Not even on a bet. I’m strong and independent. This two-by-two crap is simply social conditioning.”

  Rebecca unrolled the last curler, then reached for her brush. “You’ve missed the point completely,” she said as she fluffed curls. “While having someone love you would be nice, the more important lesson is for you to love a man. Cover your eyes.”

  D.J. didn’t want to be having this conversation in the first place, so she dutifully covered her face with her hands and held her breath as her friend doused her in half a can of hair spray. She felt a few picks and tugs, then was completely covered in a second fine, sticky mist.

  “Open,” Rebecca said.

  D.J. peeked through her fingers, then dropped her hands to her lap and groaned. “I look like a porn star.”

  Rebecca’s lips pressed together in disapproval. “We’ll get some clothes on you.”

  D.J. tugged at her robe. “I meant my hair.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  D.J. gestured with her fingers, but couldn’t begin to explain how she felt about the cascading curls tumbling down her back and over her shoulders. Fluffy bangs fell to her eyebrows. She felt all girly and inept.

  “You look fabulous,” Rebecca said. “Now for the dress.”

 
She disappeared into the closet where D.J. knew the pickings in there were fairly slim. While she would put on a suit for business presentations, that didn’t exactly fit the outfit Quinn had described. Most of her dresses were pretty conservative and—

  Rebecca reappeared with a box in each hand. The shoe box she’d been expecting, but the other one got her to her feet and glaring.

  “No way,” she said.

  Rebecca dropped the shoe box onto the bed and pulled the top off the other one. “You have to.”

  “I don’t.”

  Her friend pulled out a black lace dress that D.J. had bought on impulse from a catalog and had never worn.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  D.J. shook her head. “It’s practically nonexistent.”

  Rebecca shook out the dress. It was black lace, with a low neckline and a hem that barely covered her thighs. The long sleeves weren’t lined, and the back dipped nearly to her fanny. The only thing that kept the shoulders in place was a small section of elastic and prayer.

  “Not on a bet,” she growled.

  “You want to look good for your date, don’t you?”

  “It’s not a date.”

  “You have to.”

  “I don’t.”

  “For me?” Rebecca looked beseeching. “Please?”

  * * *

  The knock came right on time. Quinn crossed to the door and pulled it open. He had a smile prepared, along with a few inconsequential comments. But the sight of D.J. sucked the smart right from his brain.

  He opened his mouth, closed it and nearly reached up to rub his eyes. He had to be seeing things. Yeah, he’d demanded a dress, cleavage and leg, but he’d never thought she would listen. He’d expected to be challenged; he hadn’t considered he could be blown away.

  From the top of her thick, curly hair down to black pumps with a narrow heel sharp enough to be classified as a weapon, she was living, breathing, erotic temptation.

  Makeup highlighted her perfect features. The dress—a barely legal scrap of black lace—dipped low enough to expose the space between her breasts and more than hinted at the concealed curves. Long, long, toned legs stretched endlessly, making him wonder what it would be like to have them wrapped around him and pulling him close.