Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus Creek #1)(57)

He yanked his hand back and pulled away from the kiss at once. Criminy. It would be his luck that the first time he actually got to feel those gorgeous legs of hers they’d be in public, unable to do a damn thing more about it. “Quinn, honey, this alley isn’t all that private.”

It was as if she didn’t care. She leaned forward and slid her lips across his jaw, tracing her tongue down his neck before clamping her mouth onto the hard, beating pulse at his throat.

A coarse groan, soft and low, rumbled out of him.

“I love the sounds you make,” she whispered against his skin.

He’d have made the same declaration to her if he’d had any mind left to voice, but he didn’t. She’d stolen all thought from him when her curious hands slipped under his shirt and flexed into his tense lats before scoring his obliques.

But she didn’t stop there. Her fingertips slid down to tease the gap between his painfully clenched stomach and belt buckle, where much hotter flesh was rapidly gravitating to her fingers.

Christ. He barely caught her wrist in time.

Great, now Quinn let her inner sex kitten out of the cage. He’d seen that hidden fire in her all along, but evidently, he hadn’t known the half of it. “Sugar, I’m seconds from taking you to my truck and just plain taking you,” he rasped, his voice hoarse.

Her blue eyes eclipsed, and all his good intentions shot straight to hell. A ragged curse spilled from his lips. “You’re supposed to say no, honey.”

“But I want to say yes,” she whispered.

Instantly, everything turned fuzzy. “Good god, woman.” Somehow—and he had no idea how—he still managed to force himself back, his body fighting every step he took.

Then he heard the delicate, feminine sound of disappointment from Quinn and his feet simply refused to move another inch. He slid his hands around her waist and pulled her back to him again. “I need one more kiss, sugar. One more to make waiting for the rest bearable.”

When her face lit up, his eyelids lowered tenderly. Damn, this was going to be a hell of a long kiss. “Concerts never start on time anyway,” he muttered as he bent down and captured her lips in a kiss so sweet he didn’t ever want it to end.

A half hour later, during his band’s set, Rylan finally grasped what it meant to sing from the soul as he felt his throaty ballads resonate from depths his music had never reached before.

All because of Quinn.



*



THE CONCERT turned out to be a raging success. Ocotillos had been packed, the musicians had all had a blast, and Dani had been thrilled to see the appreciative crowd of singles and couples alike all dancing and having a great time.

Exhausted, Dani fell into her office chair and spun around so she could prop her feet up on the bookshelf behind her desk. Glancing at her phone, she saw she’d missed a call from her brother Derek. With a tired shrug, she ignored his voicemail for the time being. Really, the only voice she wanted to hear right now was Luke’s. But for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to call him, an affliction she’d been dealing with all day. As a result, this was now the longest they’d gone without talking to each other...and the fact that she’d felt every lost minute was an unsettling portrait of how much she’s changed in the last month and a half.

Yet another reason to feel discombobulated today.

The news reporter asking her about being madly in love with Luke had really messed with her brain. All day since, she’d questioned everything—and doubted even more. Like the plague, spreading until it consumed her, the doubts and questions mocked her, reminded her that she wasn’t at all the woman a romantic like Luke deserved. Her eyes slid to the glaring evidence of that fact sitting on her bookshelf—the Valentine gift she was planning to give Luke.

Her first Valentine ever.

Choosing it had been a weird experience—thrilling-until-you-felt-naked sort of weird. She’d spent more time on this gift than on dozens of birthday and Christmas presents in the past combined. Each possible gift idea she’d rejected before this one had undergone tireless scrutiny and prompted endless unanswerable questions about their relationship.

How did people do it each year? It was ridiculous.

Leaning against the chair, she peeked at the gift again through one eye, seeing the second laughable evidence of her questionable sanity. She’d swathed the gift in red wrapping paper with pink and gold hearts and loads of shining curly ribbon. What had she been thinking?

She hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem. Lately, she wasn’t thinking like herself at all. Stranger still, as lost as she felt lately, when she was with Luke, she felt found as well.

Not exactly a less scary revelation.

Picking up the Valentine gift, she peered at it and saw a stranger reflected back at her.

Without knowing exactly why she did it, she found herself slowly untying the bow, watching as it fell to her lap. She slid her nail under the clear piece of tape next, pulling it off to peel back the bright wrapping paper. Soon, the gift box was stripped bare, totally unadorned.

That was more her, right? No surprises to look forward to but no disappointments either.

“Who’s the valentine gift from?”

Dani gasped and spun around.

Luke stepped into her office, his expression growing darker as he watched her shove the book-sized box into a drawer. “Who gave you that gift, Dani? The one you were just opening like it held all of life’s secrets.” His voice was raw, gritty.