“Mere props.” His hand brushed up her back, and his fingers stroked her nape, sending ice chips and sparks skittering up and down her spine. “I’ve got more than music and mood to offer tonight.”

“I don’t need those things. I’m here. I’m ready and willing. What more do you want?”

“More.” He pulled her closer. “This. Everything we can do together. Be together.”

“I already told you,” she said in a voice gone breathless, “I’m willing to do whatever you want.”

“Be mine.” He stilled and lifted her fingers to his mouth to graze her knuckles with his lips. “For tonight. Let me make you feel as though it’s forever.”

Oh, no. No. Not this-not romance. She couldn’t take it, couldn’t handle it, not from him. Not from Quinn, of all people, and not now, not when she was trembling and weakening with every ridiculous dance step in this slightly shabby setting. “I don’t-”

“Tess.” He released her and cradled her face in his hands. “Kiss me, Tess.”

And then she was kissing him and sliding into his steady, strong embrace, and letting go, just a little. Enjoying the moment, as much as she could. Part of her was still terrified of what he could do to her, of what he could make her feel, if she let him.

He spun the kiss out, tender and sweet, testing and savoring. Another tune began, something hinting of heartbreak with the sly purr of a throaty clarinet. On the street below, a passing car tooted its horn, and someone shouted a rough response. She curled her fingers into his sweater, holding on, holding tight. Trying to hold back, to keep a part of herself safe and secure.

The effort made her dizzy. That’s what it was-it couldn’t be a mere kiss that had left her so lightheaded.

“I think I need more water,” she said when he inched back to stare at her. “I’m feeling a little…um…”

“Ready for more?”

“There’s more?” she whispered.

He swept her into his arms and carried her down the hall. “Don’t expect this kind of a ride every time,” he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I know you like variety.”

“Variety?”

He gently lowered her to his bed and showed her exactly what he meant, loving her as she’d never been loved before, with his heart in his touch and his soul in his gaze. And she gave herself up to him, loving him in return.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

QUINN CLIMBED into his truck well after midnight on Wednesday, bone-tired and brain-dead. Why was it that paperwork could wear a man down like nothing else?

He’d hoped to get back home sooner than this. Tess and Rosie were both there, having themselves a “girls’ night,” whatever the hell that was. He suspected the two of them were scheming, and he was unsure about what he’d find when he arrived.

He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, digging his fingers into his nape and wondering if he could convince Tess to give him a quick massage before she left. If she did, he’d probably pass out, snoring, before she walked out the door-not the kind of impression he’d want to leave her with.

He yawned and shook his head, and then he pulled through the gate and left the motor running while he jogged back to close and lock the fencing. Strips of night fog swirled around the streetlamps, gliding on traces of the day’s lingering warmth, and a couple of cats faced off in a yowling duet somewhere near the marina. No cars passed the waterfront, no lights glowed in the black windows up and down the street or on the boats moored at the docks. Except for Quinn and the cats, everyone in this part of town had turned in hours ago.

He returned to his seat and pulled his car phone from the glove box. He’d call Tess to tell her he was on his way back and try to keep her chatting. His personal talk radio. “Hey, Tess,” he said when she answered.

“Where are you?”

“Headed home.”

“At last,” she said.

He could hear the television in the background, something with a hyperactive rock beat and sarcastic commentary. “Rosie still awake?”

“Hope that’s not a problem.” Tess must have placed her hand over the phone, because her next words were muffled. The television volume decreased a few degrees. “She wanted to wait up for you.”

“No problem.” His truck idled at an intersection, waiting for the signal to change. “How did things go?”

“Fine. We made popcorn and did our nails and talked about boys.”

“Boys?”

“You’d prefer it if we talked about men?”

“No.” He grinned as he pulled through the intersection. “I was wondering what you contributed to the discussion.”

“Hey. I used to date boys.”

“So you provided the expertise.”

“On boys? No way. I don’t know the guys in Rosie’s class.”

Neither did he, Quinn realized. He was suddenly much less sleepy.

“By the way,” Tess said, “you’re out of milk.”

“We had half a carton when I left.”

“Sorry. Hot cocoa to wash down the popcorn.”

Quinn tugged on the wheel and angled around another corner, heading back in the direction he’d come from. “Guess I’ll pick some up at the twenty-four-hour place near the marina on the way there. See you in ten minutes.”

“Okay. Quinn?”

“Yeah?”

“Your kid’s okay.”

He tossed the phone on the paperwork spread on the bench seat beside him, his grin spreading so wide he thought his face would crack. A guy had to fall for a woman who was a sucker for his kid.

Happiness and hope were rusty things, snagging on the tight spots as they struggled up from somewhere deep inside him, scrambling toward the surface. Damn, it felt good. Light and tingly and nearly as heady as one of Tess’s kisses. He’d been afraid to set those feelings loose, to let them spread and settle, but things between him and Tess and Rosie had been going so well lately that it-

He coasted to the curb a couple of blocks from Tidewaters and switched off the ignition. Sinking low in his seat, he waited, nerves taut, for the automatic light to dim and give him another glimpse of what he thought he’d seen. There it was, on the second level, deep within the shadowy angles of Tidewaters’ hulking silhouette. A momentary streak of faint light.

A flashlight’s beam.

He opened his door, slid from the seat to the pavement and carefully closed the truck, holding his breath as the latch caught with a quiet snick. He paused again, crouched beside the black door, grateful for his dark clothing, waiting for another sign the intruder was still there. Again, that faint sweep of light, farther to the north.

The bastard wouldn’t get away with whatever he had planned for tonight.

Quinn darted across the street and down the block, keeping to the shadows beneath the trees dotting the sidewalk, avoiding the fog-misted spotlights below the streetlamps. Stealthily, scanning the construction site every few yards, he moved to the gate, and then he silently swore as he fumbled with the lock in the darkness. He’d forgotten his cell phone in his truck. He couldn’t be sure he’d have time to cut across the site to reach the phone in his trailer, and the squawk of the metal door might give him away.

The combination lock sprang open, and Quinn slipped inside and caught the gate with the latch, leaving it unlocked. He had to move across open space now, in clear view of whoever was up there. He slowly stood, his senses straining, his heart pounding and his breath coming in short puffs. Again, the light, shifting along the north side, and then disappearing.

He focused on the ground and ran a jagged path, skirting the edge of En-Tech’s massive dig. He aimed for the smooth spots where the gravel had settled into the mud, where he’d have less chance of crunching over loose rocks or catching a stone with his boot toe and sending it clanging against a piece of equipment. A dense layer of fog blotted the moonlight as he passed through one of the gaping doorways on the east side of the structure. He ducked behind a stack of siding and paused again, listening for some sound, some sign of discovery or a hint of what the intruder was doing here.