Christine Rimmer - The Good Girl's Second Chance

He couldn’t resist. He lifted a hand, nice and slow so as not to spook her, and ran the back of his index finger along the silky skin of her throat. She trembled and sucked in a sharp little gasp of breath, but didn’t duck away. And he asked, “You’ve noticed what?”

Her mouth twisted, as though the words were hard to come by. “Since you, uh, came back to town, you seem... I don’t know. So calm. Kind of thoughtful. I admire that, I really do.”

What could he say to that? Thanks? That seemed kind of lame, so he didn’t say anything, just ran the back of his finger down the outside of her arm, enjoying the satiny feel of her skin, loving the way her mouth formed a soft O and her eyes went hazy in response to his touch.

She said, “I’ve been with one man in my life—my husband, who was supposed to be loving and tender and protective, but turned out to be one rotten, abusive, cheating SOB.” She moved slightly away from him again, reaching over to pull open the bedside drawer. “I’ve been out a few times with nice men, in the year since I came home. I keep thinking I need to take the plunge again, take a chance again and be with someone new. So I bought these.” She raised her hand and he saw that she held a strip of condoms. They unrolled from her palm with a snap. “To be prepared, you know?” A soft, rueful smile. “I haven’t used a single one. I didn’t want to. It never felt right. But tonight, with you... Quinn, I...” Her fine voice gone breathless, she said, “Back in high school, sometimes, I used to think about what it might be like, to be with you...”

Those words hit him right where he lived. “I used to think about you, too, Chloe.”

Her amazing face glowed up at him. “You did?”

“Oh, yeah.” Not that she ever would have gone out with him if he asked her. She’d had her plans for her life and they didn’t include a wannabe cage fighter who could barely read. Plus, her snotty parents would’ve disowned her if she started in with one of Willow Mooney’s boys, the ones they called the bastard Bravos because his mother hadn’t married his father, Frank Bravo, until after Frank’s rich first wife, Sondra, died.

Uh-uh. No way Linda Winchester would have let her precious only daughter get near him, one of Willow’s boys—and the “slow” one, at that. And Chloe was always a good girl who did what her mama expected of her.

Chloe scanned his face, her expression suddenly anxious. “I have this feeling that somehow I should explain myself, give you a better reason to stay with me tonight...”

“Uh-uh.” He stepped even closer—close enough that her body touched his. Her soft breasts brushed his chest, and the dizzying scent of her swam around him. Slowly, carefully, he lifted his hand and speared his fingers into that glorious mane of yellow hair. Like a curtain of silk, that hair. He loved the feel of it so much that he balled his fist and wrapped the thick strands around his wrist, pulling her even closer, right up against him, nice and tight.

“Oh!” she said on a shaky breath, baby blue eyes saucer-wide staring up into his.

All that softness and beauty, his for the night. He bent enough to suck in a deep breath through his nose. God, the scent of her. She smelled of everything womanly, everything most wanted—everything he’d never thought to hold, not even for a single night. He buried his face against her long, silky throat. “You don’t need to explain anything, angel.” He nuzzled her neck and then scraped his teeth across her tender skin. She gasped. He muttered, “Not a damn thing.”

“I’m not an angel.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“Just for tonight, yeah?” She wrapped those slim arms around him, clutching him to her, tipping her head back, offering him more, offering him everything. “Just this one time...”

“However you want it.”

“Just kiss me. Just...hold me. Just make me forget.”

Chapter Two

Quinn took her by the shoulders and gently set her at arm’s length. She swayed a little on her bare feet, gazing up at him, breathless, eyes starry with need.

He said, “First, I want to see you.”

A soft gasp. “Okay.”

“All of you.”

“Okay.”

He took her big pink shirt by the hem. “Raise your arms.”

She obeyed without hesitation. He lifted the shirt up over her head, past the pink-painted tips of her fingers and tossed it away. Her hair settled, so shiny and thick, spilling past her shoulders, down her back, over her breasts. She let her arms fall back to her sides and gazed up at him expectantly.

Impossible. Chloe Winchester, naked to the waist, standing right in front of him.

He cupped one fine, full breast in his hand and flicked the pretty nipple. His breath clogged in his throat, and the ache in his groin intensified. “You’re so damn beautiful, Chloe.”

“I...” She didn’t seem to know what to say next. Which was fine. He was getting one night with her. And it wasn’t going to be about what either of them might have to say.

He leaned close again, because he couldn’t stop himself. He stuck out his tongue and licked her temple. She moaned. He blew on the place he’d just moistened, guiding her hair out of the way and whispering into the perfect pink shell of her ear “Take off those little shorts.”

She whipped them down and off in an instant, so fast that he couldn’t help smiling. And then she stood tall again, completely naked in front of him, an answering smile trembling its way across her mouth. “Quinn?”

“Shh. Let me look.”

She widened her eyes—and then she shut them. And then she just stood there, eyes closed tight, and let him gaze his fill.

Touching followed. How could he help reaching for her? She was smooth and round and firm and soft. And she was standing right in front of him, Chloe Winchester, who had starred in more than one of his wild and impossible sexual fantasies when he was growing up.

He pulled her close again, wrapped his arms around the slim, yet curvy shape of her and pressed his lips into her hair. “Beautiful.”

She lifted her face and gazed up at him. “You, too, please.” He must have looked confused, because she added, “I want to see you, too.”

He chuckled and stepped back. “Yes, ma’am.” It took about ten seconds. He kicked off the mocs, reached back over his shoulders and pulled his shirt up and off. He eased the sweats over his erection and pushed them down, dropping them to the floor and stepping free of them.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, Quinn...” She reached out and ran her palm over his belly and then over the series of tats that covered his left arm. And then she touched the one for Annabelle, the angel’s wings and the green vines, the trumpet flowers and his little girl’s name, written right where it should be written, over his heart. “I never thought...you and me. Like this...?”

“Hey. Me, neither.”

“Life can be so awful.”

“Yeah.”

“But then there are surprising, magical moments—like this one, huh?”

He nodded. “Yeah.” He turned and shoved the tangled sheets and blankets out of the way. And then he took her by the waist, lifted her and set her on the bed. “Lie down.”

She obeyed, stretching out on her side with a sigh. He went down to the mattress with her. He kissed her, tasting her mouth for the first time, finding it as sweet as the rest of her. Her tongue came out to play and for a while, they just lay there, on their sides, kissing and kissing, as if nothing else mattered in the whole damn world, nothing but his mouth and her mouth, the scrape of white teeth, the tangle of tongues.

One night they had together. He wanted to stretch every second just short of the breaking point, enjoy every touch, every sigh, every soft, tempting curve. He wanted to share her breath and the tender, urgent beat of her heart.