“Okay,” he said, his gaze smoldering. “I’m easy. Whipping sounds good.”

TESS CURSED the tremor in her hand as she lit the single taper in the middle of her intimate table setting. She never got nervous fixing dinner for a man-and she definitely didn’t get nervous merely thinking about it.

Maybe it wasn’t the dinner, she thought as she waved the match to extinguish the flame. Maybe it was what she knew would come after the main course.

She pressed a hand to her stomach to soothe the flutters of anticipation-and nerves, damn it. What was it about Quinn that cut through her composure and set her knees knocking?

After she’d had her way with him, she’d put him in his place and keep him there. She’d been too understanding lately. Too cooperative. Too sympathetic over his problems with his daughter and his worries about his crew. Too eager to compromise and avoid any unpleasantness between them that might add to his troubles. Just look at the fabulous dinner she’d tossed together so he could relax and unwind at her home instead of having to take her out on the town.

And what a dinner it would be. She returned to her kitchen to stir her soup and sniffed the rich aroma of caramelized onions and herbs. Perfect. And peeked at the marinated pork tenderloin roasting in the oven before lowering the temperature to warm. Excellent. And admired the spiral pattern of the potato gratin cooling on the rack. Gorgeous. Simple food, basics she’d found in her refrigerator, done up in style.

Too bad she was too nervous to consider eating a bite.

Her stirring spoon clattered to the floor when she heard the knock on the door. He was earlier than she’d expected. Eager for the evening to start, no doubt. She paused by the little mirror in her entry, fussing with the drape of her off-the-shoulder sweater and smoothing a hand over her slit-hemmed capris before glancing down at her darling new ribboned slides. Lifting her chin and giving her reflection one of her coolest smiles, she took a deep breath and pulled open her door.

And melted into a mess of fluttering goo when she saw the huge bunch of soft blue irises in Quinn’s hand.

“I would have brought you roses,” he said, thrusting the flowers at her with a stiffly awkward arm, “but you seemed to like these.”

He’d had his hair trimmed, and there was a reddened nick near the dent on his chin where he must have cut himself shaving. His navy-blue oxford shirt was tucked into a pair of tan trousers, his scuffed dress shoes were freshly polished, and the way he looked at her made her feel as if she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

The flutters intensified, and she swallowed to ease the strange tightness in her throat. “I do. They’re beautiful, Quinn. Thank you.”

She took the fat bouquet and stepped aside as he entered, and then closed the door. “Let me get a-”

He wrapped an arm around her waist, fisted a hand in her hair, shoved her against the wall and took her mouth in a kiss that flashed through her like wildfire. The flowers tumbled to the floor at their feet as she twined her arms around his neck and plastered herself against him, punishing him with her lips and teeth and battling for control as her system rocketed toward arousal at light speed.

“I want you,” he murmured against her throat.

“I can tell,” she said on a gasp as his tongue blazed a moist trail along the base of her throat.

“Now,” he said.

She tugged at the buttons on his shirt, and he yanked at her sweater, tugging the hem above her bra, lifting her arms above her head, imprisoning her wrists in thick manacles of cashmere while his mouth ravished hers. Holding her there, pinned to the wall, he stroked a long, callus-roughened hand down her center to her waistband and fumbled with the zipper closing while those hot blue eyes of his locked on hers.

“Let me go,” she said.

“Not a chance.” But he tore the sweater from her hands and flung it to the floor. She kicked off her shoes and reached again for his shirt buttons, popping one loose as she struggled to slip it through its hole, abandoning her efforts when he slapped her hands aside and ripped the rest of it wide. She slid his belt through its buckle and undid the catch above his zipper while his hands streaked behind her to undo the fastening on her bra. He yanked the straps down her arms, baring her breasts, and then he lowered his head and sucked one nipple deep within his mouth.

She moaned and arched into him, grabbing fistfuls of his hair, fighting to drag breath into her burning lungs. She battled to keep her balance as he ground his hips against hers, lifting her off the floor, her back to the wall and his solid, muscular body at her front.

The scents of aftershave and flowers, roasting meat and salt-tinged skin overwhelmed her. The sounds of labored breathing and desperate whimpers and limbs crashing against the wall beat in counterpoint to her beating heart. And the contrasts of coarse hair and smooth flesh and dizzying panic began to spiral through her.

“Not here,” she said.

“Not enough.”

He bent and scooped her into his arms and strode through the front room toward the darkened hall. When he found her room at the end of it he lowered her to the bed and followed her down, sprawling over her, shoving one leg between hers and clamping his mouth over her breast.

She bowed up, urging him to the side, and rolled with him. Rising over him, she fought with the zipper on his pants as he reached up to take her by the arms and drag her down. Down, down to his ravening mouth, to those dark and delicious kisses, her nipples rubbing over his chest with a tingling, scorching friction as his tongue swept through her mouth and his hands kneaded her hips.

“Pants,” he murmured against her mouth.

“Off,” she said as she struggled to her side and wrestled her waistband down her hips, clumsy with haste. The faint crackle of tinfoil, the list and lurch of the mattress beneath his weight, and then he was on her again, his hands rough and shaking as he slid the last barrier of silk down her legs. His fingers found her, wet and ready for him, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and raked her fingers down his broad, quivering back as he stroked her, hard and fast and wild. Too fast, too much, too soon.

She kicked out, and her bedside lamp toppled and crashed as she angled back, squirming beneath him. His big, heavy body shifted and stretched over hers, and he settled between her legs, and those rugged, workman’s hands gathered her close.

“Quinn.”

“Yes.”

He cradled her head in his hands as he plunged inside her, and though she couldn’t see his face in the shadows, she knew he was watching her, staring intently, looking through her with his piercing gaze. She wondered if he could see what she was feeling, what she wanted from him-things she couldn’t understand. And then, as if he knew exactly what they were, he began to move in long, deep strokes, touching her in places she hadn’t realized anyone could.

She arched again, straining for one final, agonizing, glorious moment on the keen edge between anticipation and abandon. And then the world exploded in strobes of sheet lightning and pounding thunder and sensation and Quinn’s hoarse, ragged cry as he tensed and pistoned into her.

QUINN LAY motionless, staring at the shadows rippling across Tess’s ceiling, one arm crooked beneath his head and the other resting across her long, narrow waist. Her hair tickled his chin, but he was afraid to move. Afraid if he did move, she’d stop running her fingernails in teasing circles around one of his nipples, or pull her soft thigh from the top of his, or shift away from his side. Or that she’d climb out of bed and leave him behind in the rumpled spread he’d pulled over them to form an intimate cocoon.