Kate Hoffmann - The Mighty Quinns - Dermot-Dex

He leaned back against the post and watched her, his gaze shifting between her face and her hand. Rachel knew he was close, and every now and then, he’d draw in a sharp breath and close his eyes, as if fighting off the first tremors of his orgasm.

He seemed to grow harder with each stroke, and Rachel leaned closer, her breasts brushing against his chest. He groaned and then his breath froze. A heartbeat later, his body jerked and Rachel’s hand grew slick with his orgasm.

He reached down to stop her and she slowed her pace, pressing her lips to his chest. He shuddered when her tongue circled his nipple, his fingers tangling in her hair.

When he was completely spent, she stepped back and looked up at him. If she thought his desire would be sated, she was wrong. His gaze smoldered, searing her with unhidden need. “I guess that wasn’t the way things went in the movies either,” she said.

She reached down and picked up her T-shirt. “I think you might need another shower.”

“Are you going to come with me?”

“We’ll get to that,” Rachel said with a sly smile. “We can’t do everything in one day.”

DERMOT HAD NEVER expected his first full day of work to include a full-scale seduction. But the attraction between him and Rachel was impossible to deny. From the moment he set eyes on her, desire seemed to be at the top of his mind.

Was that so difficult to believe? Every time she looked at him, he was acutely aware that he’d never met a woman quite like her. She was stubborn and determined, yet so vulnerable at the same time.

He’d never met anyone who worked so hard against such high odds. It was clear that the dairy was gradually wearing her down. The work seemed to be endless, without a break. And even the extra rest he’d given her that morning came with emotional consequences.

It was pretty clear that she was torn between family loyalty and whatever dreams she had for her own life. And it was strangely ironic that he was dealing with the same decisions. Dermot wanted to help her, but he was at a loss himself. He just figured that when the time came to make a decision, he’d know exactly what he wanted, no tears, no guilt. Just a simple decision.

He adjusted the extension ladder against the house, then crawled up to the top. Rotted leaves clogged the gutters and he grabbed them by handfuls and let them fall to the ground. After he cleaned the gutters, he had to repair the rail on the front porch, replace a broken pane of glass in an upstairs window and fix the barn door. All before afternoon milking.

“Are you almost done up there?”

He looked down to find Rachel standing at the foot of the ladder. “Almost,” he called.

“Good, because you make me nervous up that high.”

He climbed down and jumped the last three steps, landing beside her. “Do you have another job for me to do?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I’m not done with this job yet.”

“It’s time for lunch,” she said. “I thought we might have a picnic. There’s a place I want to show you. It’s my favorite place on this whole farm.”

“I need to wash my hands and I’ll be ready to go.”

They returned to the kitchen and Rachel grabbed a picnic basket and a blanket. He wiped his clean hands on a towel, then took the basket from her. “Lead on,” he said.

“Thank you for cleaning the gutters,” she said as they walked down the steps. “I tried a couple of times to climb that ladder, but I couldn’t get past the sixth step. You’re very brave.”

“Try hanging from the top of the mast in a bosun’s chair under full sail in a choppy sea,” he said. “This was nothing.”

“I have no idea what you just said,” Rachel replied, laughing.

“Let’s just say, I’m a man of many talents. Milking goats, toting bales, kissing beautiful women in piles of straw.”

She stopped in front of him. “You don’t think this is strange, do you? I just met you yesterday. I don’t really even know you and we’ve been… intimate. And it doesn’t bother me.”

“Sometimes it just happens like that,” he said.

“Fate.”

“Has it ever happened to you? Because it’s never happened to me.”

“No,” Dermot replied. “This would be the first time.”

“It’s like we already knew each other. We didn’t start from the beginning, we started in the middle.”

He bent close and kissed her. “I just know how I feel. And this feels… just right.”

She pushed up on her toes and kissed him back, then frowned. “Did you get breakfast this morning? We didn’t have dinner last night, did we? When did you last eat?”

“I had your burned cherry pie in the middle of the night and I had cereal for breakfast.”

“I’ve been doing a terrible job of feeding you,” Rachel said.

“I’m not starving,” he replied. “In fact, I’m perfectly satisfied at the moment.”

“We really should get to know each other a little better,” she said, walking backward, the blanket swinging from her hand.

Her pale hair was loose and blew in the breeze. Dermot’s breath caught as he watched her. He’d never seen a more beautiful creature. Everything about her was designed just for his eyes. “Then tell me something I don’t know.”

“I played the saxophone in the high school band,” she said. “And I was pretty good. Except I hated marching at the football games.”

Dermot chuckled. “Really? I would have never guessed. Tell me something else.”

“I was the president of my 4-H club. And it wasn’t just all about goats. I won grand prize at the county fair for a quilt I made and for my strawberry preserves.”

Dermot chuckled. She really was a farm girl at heart. After only a day, he’d come to appreciate the simplicity of life at Clover Meadow. There was no racing from place to place, no people to see or phone calls to take. It was a quiet life, though the burden of responsibility was greater. He sold boats for lots of money. She cared for sixty-some living creatures.

“Now you have to tell me something,” Rachel said.

“I’d rather hear more about you.”

“No fair.”

“All right. I broke my arm falling out of a tree when I was thirteen.”

“What were you doing in the tree?”

“My twin brother dared me to climb to the very top. We did a lot of that when we were kids. Dares and double dares and triple dares. I was almost down and then I slipped and fell.”

“You have a twin brother?”

Dermot nodded. “Kieran. We’re almost identical twins. We do look a lot alike, except I’m much more handsome.”

She sighed softly. “I wish I were closer to my siblings. We’ve just never really known each other. I have two nieces who are older than me. And when I was young I had an imaginary friend named Rosalie. We were going to open a bakery together when we grew up.”

Rachel returned to his side, slipping her arm around his as she chatted about her childhood on the farm. Though it sounded idyllic, there was an undercurrent of loneliness in her stories. She never spoke of friends or parties or adventures. Every story was one of solitude.

“You sound like you loved the farm,” he said. “Was it difficult to leave for college?”

Rachel nodded. “I was ready to see a little bit of the world. And going to art school was my dream. I was only an hour away and I came home every other weekend. My parents were older and they needed my help.”

“And then you left after college?”

“I met a boy. His job took him to San Francisco and I had to make a choice. I thought it was right, but then it wasn’t. And then I met another man and we moved to New York and that didn’t work either.” She smiled. “I don’t have a very good history with men.”