Kate Hoffmann - The Mighty Quinns - Marcus, Ian & Declan - The Mighty Quinns - Marcus / The Mighty Quinns - Ian / The Mighty Quinns - Declan

“HOW LONG IS IT SUPPOSED to take?”

“I don’t know,” Marcus said. “Read the directions.” He crinkled his nose. “This stuff really stinks. And I don’t like these damn gloves.”

“You can’t use your bare hands,” Eden said. “The dye would burn them.”

Eden sat perched on the toilet in the glass-block bathroom of Marcus’s loft, her body wrapped in a towel, her head covered with hair dye. They’d made an easy escape from the motel last night and were now comfortably settled at his place.

Eden wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it wasn’t this. From the outside, the two-story building looked like a ruin of peeling paint and weathered wood. The clapboard facade overlooked a boatyard cluttered with timber boat cradles and rickety ladders. Wide sliding doors on the first floor opened to a spacious workshop. Half the second floor was a loft apartment with a wall of windows on both sides, overlooking the workshop and the water.

The airy loft had a cozy feel, with timber framing and exposed beams. Marcus had carved the posts with unusual patterns that she recognized as his own art. A galley kitchen lined the wall to the right, and on the left was Marcus’s bedroom with old sails draped down from the beams for privacy. The only walls in the loft were glass block and surrounded the bathroom.

She’d never really thought about Marcus’s life off Victorious. She knew he lived somewhere, but there’d never been much cause to consider where. Now she was forced to acknowledge that there was more to Marcus Quinn than the beautiful body sunning next to her on deck or the soft kisses waking her up from an afternoon nap or the deep blue eyes watching her from across the cockpit. He had a real life, friends and family, a place that he called home.

Eden scanned the directions. “Fifteen minutes,” she said. “How long has it been?”

Marcus held out his arm so she could see his watch. “Ten,” he guessed. “Maybe twelve.”

Eden’s gaze drifted up from the light dusting of hair on his belly to his broad chest. He was barefoot and bare-chested, dressed only in faded jeans that rode low on his hips. She reached out and ran her fingertips over his stomach, and he backed away as if her touch tickled. There were a lot of things she liked about Marcus and his body was near the top of the list.

She’d been with handsome men, but they’d been handsome in a premeditated way. They spent hours on grooming to look perfect—three-hundred-dollar haircuts and weekly manicures, an expensive stylist to choose the perfect clothes. But Marcus was sexy by just being a man. He combed his hair with his hands and wore faded Levi’s because they were comfortable. His smooth skin was tanned from weeks of work in the sun rather than a few days on a Mediterranean beach or a few hours at a tanning salon. There was something to be said for a man who didn’t have to work at looking like a man.

A tiny smiled twitched at the corners of Eden’s mouth as her gaze fixed on the top button of his jeans. She fought the temptation to reach out and unbutton it, to draw the zipper down and expose him to her touch. It wouldn’t take much to make him hard, and after that she could bring him to a climax with her fingers or her lips. Marcus hadn’t ever tried to resist her.

Eden drew a deep breath. Or they could take the last step in their slow journey toward the inevitable. They’d come so close over the past week, but Marcus had always stopped short, as if he were waiting for an invitation to possess her, permission to lose himself in her body.

A tiny thrill raced through her at the thought of opening herself to him, the sensation of feeling him move inside her. She wanted to make love to him, but it also frightened her at the same time. Things were already too perfect with Marcus Quinn.

Searching for a distraction, she reached out and grabbed a bottle of cologne from the back of the toilet, then sniffed at it. “It doesn’t smell like you,” she murmured.

“And what do I smell like?”

Eden shrugged. “Sweat. Sawdust. Seawater. It’s a very intoxicating scent.”

“There are times when I want to smell nice,” Marcus explained. He tossed the plastic bottle from the dye into the wastebasket, then ripped off the gloves.

“When you want to seduce a woman?”

“Maybe,” Marcus admitted. “Don’t you make yourself smell good when you want to be seduced?”

She unscrewed the cap and tipped a bit of the cologne onto her finger, then slowly drew it down along his naked belly, circling his belly button with her fingertip. “Sometimes,” she said, pressing her nose to the spot and inhaling deeply. “How many women have you seduced with this bottle of cologne?”

“I don’t kiss and tell.”

Eden shrugged. “Then show me how you do it. I want to know. Give me all the details.”

Marcus grinned. “You know how I do it, Eden. I’ve spent the last week seducing you.”

“Oh, really? And I thought I was seducing you.”

Marcus chuckled. “Maybe it was a joint effort.”

“But it obviously hasn’t worked,” she said.

“It hasn’t?” Marcus stepped back. “I recall some rather powerful reactions on your part. Were you faking it, Eden?”

She reached out and hooked her finger in the waistband of his jeans, drawing him closer. “I’m just saying that we haven’t done everything possible.” She nuzzled her nose against him, then bit at the fabric of his jeans.

He shook his head slowly. “I could live the rest of my life with you, Eden, and I don’t think we’d ever get to everything possible between a man and a woman.”

“True. We’ve merely scratched the sexual surface, so to speak.” She stood up and nudged Marcus aside, then bent over the sink and began to rinse her hair. “So what are your fantasies? What do you imagine we’ll do next?”

“I was thinking we’d have breakfast,” he said.

Eden stood up, water dripping from her head. Without a thought, she discarded the towel, letting it fall to the floor. Then she reached out and unbuttoned his jeans, slowly drawing the zipper down. “What are you doing?”

“I need your help,” she said. “In the shower. I can’t get this stuff out of my hair.”

Eden turned and stepped inside the shower. She glanced over her shoulder to see him stripping his jeans off, his penis already growing hard. A moment later he joined her, standing behind her as she turned on the water and adjusted the temperature.

Eden moved beneath the water and tipped her head back while Marcus grabbed a bottle of shampoo and squeezed a measure into his hand. Slowly he worked it into her hair, massaging her scalp. Eden closed her eyes and sank back against him, his erection nestling in the small of her back.

She reached around and grabbed his hips, holding him close as she gently rocked against his body. A moment later he turned her around, his arm snaking around her waist as they both stepped beneath the shower. Warm water sluiced between their bodies, making their skin slick and sensitive.

She was here in his shower, a spot so completely familiar to him. They were no longer living a fantasy, existing on a luxurious yacht, far from the real world. This was real, and her need for him so much more intense.

Eden reached between them and slowly began to caress him, his erection hard and smooth against her palm. When she touched him, she felt the current that connected them, a desire so strong that it was like a magnetic force … undeniable … unflinching.

A soft groan rumbled in his throat and Eden looked up at him. Marcus’s eyes were closed, his lower lip caught between his teeth. She pressed her mouth to his chest, kissing and biting until she found his nipple. Every time they were together there was something new to find, some unexplored spot, some surprise sensation. But it wasn’t just physical pleasure that she took from his body.