Tori Carrington - A Stranger's Touch

The brunette grinned, the blonde grimaced and the other one… Quinn looked to see her pirating a glass of water from a waitress’s tray. With a tad too much enthusiasm, she plopped it down on the table next to his beer.

Interesting…the two women appeared to be trying to hook their friend up with him. Which should have pleased him, if solely because it would make his job that much easier. But somehow the obvious attempt left him feeling a little ill at ease. He squinted and looked at them more closely. What were they up to? The one named Jena gave him a catty smile, Marie immediately avoided his gaze and the blonde…

Jena grasped Dee’s shoulder and firmly pushed her into the empty chair. Dee appeared as mystified by her friends’ behavior as he was. Quinn slowly sat back down in his own chair.

“We’ll be right over there,” Jena said and smiled. “You two have a good time…getting acquainted.”

The blonde made a grab at her friend’s arm, but the brunette seemed to anticipate the move and maneuvered around it. The redhead followed quickly behind her.

Quinn shook his head, then glanced at the woman across from him. “I think we’ve just been hooked up.”

She stared at him as if now remembering he was still there. She nearly knocked the chair over in an attempt to get up. Quinn quickly grasped the back of it. “Whoa, there. I don’t bite.” The soft silk of her blouse was warm to the touch as he steadied her back into the chair. “Although I have been known to nibble a little. Upon a lady’s invitation, that is.”

Her cheeks burned bright, heightening the hazel of her eyes. She looked caught between wanting to bolt…and longing to stay.

Quinn looked at her more closely. Oh, it had been a long time since he’d been with a bad-girl playing good. And this one was definitely a bad-girl. It was evident in the delicious curve of her neck when she turned her head just so. In the enticing jut of her erect nipples against her blouse. In the way her decadent tongue dipped out to touch the corner of her mouth as if eyeing a treat she really wanted but didn’t dare take.

The heat that had accumulated in his groin when she had dropped into his lap ignited into something hotter, and difficult to ignore.

“Oh God,” she murmured, trying to get up again and this time succeeding. “Nothing personal, but…this just isn’t something I should be doing.”

Quinn allowed his gaze to travel over her from forehead to ankle, liking every incredible inch of her but knowing the chances of his getting to sample any of her wares had just dwindled to zero. “Are you sure?” he asked.

She nodded so emphatically she nearly fell back into her chair. “Oh, I’m very sure.” She bit her plump bottom lip, then glanced in the direction her friends had gone. “Absolutely…positively…” Her gaze settled on him. “Um, sure.”

Quinn grasped his beer bottle, trying to cool himself with the condensation running down the green glass. “Well, it was nice meeting you, then.”

She gave him a fleeting smile that made him want to groan, then left him staring after her, even more in need of a woman than he’d been a half hour ago.

“ARE YOU INSANE?” Dulcy repeatedly splashed water over her face and stared in the rest room mirror at Jena, who was skillfully freshening her lipstick. She felt…anxious, shaken, and one-hundred-percent sober.

Jena pursed her lips and tried to hand Dulcy her lipstick. “Actually, I was just asking myself the same question. Of you.”

Dulcy violently yanked paper towels from the holder one after another. “For God’s sake, Jena, you can’t possibly be implying what I think you are.” She realized she’d accumulated a small pile and forced herself to stop, blotting her skin with a handful.

“What? That you spend your last night as a single woman in the arms of a complete stranger?” Her smile was decidedly wicked. “Absolutely.”

The flushing of a toilet sounded, then one of the stall doors opened and Marie’s curly red hair sprung into view. She claimed the sink on the other side of Dulcy. “In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a good idea,” said Marie.

Dulcy slumped against the sink in relief. “Thank you. At least someone sounds reasonably sane.”

Marie smiled at her in the mirror. “But you have to admit, the guy was downright…tempting.”

“Native American.”

Dulcy stared at Jena.

“What? Didn’t he look Native American?”

Marie nodded.

“Not full-blooded, mind you. But he definitely has some of that hot Native American heritage in his background.”

Dulcy really didn’t want to discuss this. She wadded up the towels and rounded Marie to stuff them into the wastebasket.

“That’s exactly what I thought,” Marie said, washing her hands and drying them. “All that wonderful brown skin. Those chiseled features. That…that mouth.”

“He’s not,” Dulcy said, closing her eyes against the seductive image that her friend’s words conjured. “Just because a guy has long dark hair and a great tan doesn’t mean he’s Native American.”

Jena’s gaze homed in on her in the mirror. “So you did notice what a wowie he was.”

Dulcy raised her chin. “I’m engaged, not blind, Jena.”

“Yes, but you’re not married yet.”

She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m even discussing this with you.” She held up her hand. “No, let me rephrase that. I am through discussing this with you. I am not going to do anything with any strange man just because I’m getting married in a week. Get it?”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

Marie smiled and linked her arm with hers, then Jena hesitantly did the same on the other side of her. “Now that that’s out of the way…let’s go have some fun.”

FUN. THREE HOURS LATER Dulcy supposed that someone might have found the molten temptation flowing through her veins fun, but she found it downright alarming. A woman in love with the man she was about to marry wouldn’t salivate over another man, would she? She’d always thought love made one blind to all others, no matter how tantalizing…or how much one had had to drink.

In hindsight, she should have insisted she, Jena and Marie go up to their rooms and settle in with every last item on the room service menu and a pay-per-view movie immediately after the “anonymous male” incident. But she hadn’t. No. Instead, she’d downed more tequila—in moderation—scarfed down more corn chips and a large number of the nachos they’d ordered, and danced until she was sure her feet would fall off.

And during every single move she was heatedly aware of the stranger watching her from across the room. That is, when she didn’t catch her own gaze plastered to him and his strikingly manly physique.

Did he have a Native American background? She admitted that with his dark hair and eyes and skin, all made darker still by the intimate lighting in the club, he very well could have. And the contrast between his provocative dark looks and Brad’s handsomely waspish features couldn’t have been more profound.

Dulcy absently fingered the sexy silk negligée in a box at her elbow, a gift from Marie, and watched a woman approach the man she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from. He’d talked to no fewer than four other women during the course of the night, and danced with two others, but she couldn’t deny her relief when none of them joined him at his table. As if sensing her attention on him, he slid a dark, suggestive glance in her direction, and then led the woman onto the dance floor. She felt as if she were about to swallow her tongue whole when he skimmed his hands down the woman’s back as he pulled her close, even as his gaze was fused with Dulcy’s. Good God…