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

“HEY!”

Eden slowly opened her eyes, then stretched her arms above her head, her cotton T-shirt riding up on her belly. She’d curled up on the berth in the lounge after her swim and had dozed off. The stress of the past week, combined with two days of jet lag and two nights filled with strange fantasies about Marcus Quinn, had exhausted her.

With a soft sigh, she sat up and rubbed her eyes. Marcus stood in the hatchway, his lean body outlined by the sun, his arms braced on either side of him. Her mind returned to their swim, to the delicious moment when he’d pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

Even now, a thrill raced through her body at the thought of his touch and the feel of his lips on her breast, the heat of his desire in her hand. He might pretend to ignore her, but now Eden knew exactly how defenseless he was in this little game she was playing. One kiss, one caress, and he’d tumbled over the edge of reason and into her arms.

“Come up top. I need your help,” he said. A moment later he disappeared, his silhouette replaced by the soft light of the late-afternoon sun.

Marcus Quinn was definitely different from any man she’d ever met. Real, she thought to herself. Solid and self-assured. There was a steadiness in him that she found oddly intriguing. It didn’t come from well-honed charm or extravagant wealth or even an overblown ego. He knew exactly who he was and, by that, had quickly figured out who she was—inside and out.

Though he found her sexually attractive, Eden wasn’t sure that he even liked her. When she wasn’t in the process of trying to seduce him, he barely spoke to her. And though she spent hours watching him, he rarely gave her a second glance. It shouldn’t have mattered to her. But for some reason, she wanted that from him, an admission that it wasn’t just the prospect of sex that attracted them.

She glanced around the cabin for her sunglasses and slipped them on as she walked up the steps to the deck. She’d give anything if Marcus could see past the woman he thought she was—even just for a few hours. To the world, Eden Ross was a party girl, an heiress, a trustfund baby. She’d become fabulously famous for being … famous. She hadn’t discovered or invented or contributed anything worthwhile in her life, yet the entire world seemed to be interested in what she wore and who she dated and where she traveled. It was all so silly and superficial.

And it was entirely her own fault. She’d taken control of her trust fund at age twenty-one and promptly allowed her life to careen out of control. She’d let the press invade her privacy and now she couldn’t get rid of them. Once her latest and most salacious scandal hit the tabloids Stateside, her father would be through with her. He’d threatened to disown her more times than she could count, and this would definitely push him over the edge.

A sick feeling twisted in her stomach, and she wondered if it was regret or the seawater she’d swallowed during her swim. Eden rubbed her stomach and winced as she walked through the cabin to the hatch. She found Marcus on the bow of the boat, bent over his toolbox.

“Give me a hand, will ya?” he said, passing her a tool without looking at her.

She stared down at the broad expanse of his back, bronzed by the sun and shifting with sinewy muscle. Her gaze drifted across his wide shoulders. His long hair, still damp from their swim, brushed his nape. Eden’s fingers tensed and she reached out to toy with a curl that rested against his neck. But when he turned suddenly, she drew back her hand. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she murmured, a hint of defensiveness in her voice. “What do you need me to do?”

Marcus pointed to a line dangling over the rail. “I need you to crawl out onto the bosun’s chair. You’re going to fit that wrench over a bolt and then hold on to it while I loosen a nut on the other side. Whatever you do, don’t drop the wrench in the water.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Eden said. “How hard could it possibly be to hold on to your damn … tool.” She stifled a smile, amused by the flicker of desire she saw in his eyes.

He stood up in front of her, sending her a dismissive glare. Eden’s gaze drifted down, following a line of hair that began just above his belly button and ended somewhere beneath the waistband of his shorts. He’d found a way to deal with his desire, the bulge now gone from the front of his shorts.

Eden had always harbored an intense fascination with the male body. There were so many different types of men, so many facets to male beauty. Long limbs, hard muscle, sharp angles and smooth surfaces. She longed to touch Marcus again, to test his responses and gently stir his passions. Just how good would it be between them? Would he be the best she’d ever had?

All men have their breaking point, Eden mused. What was Marcus’s? Did he prefer to be seduced slowly or was it better to catch him off guard? Just the thought of finding the answers to her questions was exciting.

“Are you just going to stand there?” he asked. “Or are you going to make yourself useful?”

Her gaze met his and grudgingly she did as she was told, swinging her leg over the rail and slipping into the bosun’s chair. “Happy?” she asked.

“Deliriously,” he shot back. He followed her over the rail and shimmied out onto the bowsprit, his legs wrapped around the carved figure of a mermaid that decorated the prow of the boat. “Now reach out and slip the socket wrench over the bolt head. And then hold on to it really tightly and don’t let it move.”

She stared at weathered wood in front of her, gnawing at her lower lip. She really ought to know what he was talking about, but she wasn’t quite sure what a socket wrench did and what a bolt looked like. “So what are we doing here?” she asked, stalling for time.

“I’m removing this old carving so I can either restore it or reproduce it.”

“You must be pretty good if my father hired you to work on his precious boat.”

“I do all right,” he said. His lips curled in a slight smile and Eden took it as a small victory. Strange how something as simple as a compliment could please him. She’d become so intent on seducing him, she’d hadn’t taken any time to get to know who he was and what he liked.

“How long have you been carving wood?”

“Since I was a kid. My da gave me a Swiss Army knife for my seventh birthday and I used to carve little animals. As I got older, the carvings got bigger and more elaborate.”

“You’re an artist, then,” she said.

“Okay, are you ready?”

Eden reached out to brace her hand on the bowsprit, but as she did, she lost her grip on the wrench and it slipped from her fingers, plopped into the water and quickly sank. “Oops.”

“Aw, hell,” he muttered.

Eden wriggled in the boson’s chair. “Don’t worry. I can find it. I’ll just go get a mask and—”

“No, there’s an adjustable crescent wrench in my toolbox. Find it and see if that will work.”

Eden crawled back on board and stared down into the toolbox. Was she supposed to know what a crescent wrench was? Did most women know what a crescent wrench was? She glanced over at Marcus, then back down again at the jumble of tools. For the first time in her life she felt completely useless.

She opened her mouth to question him but then snapped it shut again. All of the fears and frustrations that had been building over the past week suddenly surged up inside her. She swallowed back the tears and pasted a smile on her face.

“I—I don’t … I can’t—”

“It’s the silver thing that looks like a C,” he said impatiently. “It’s got a little screw barrel that makes it smaller and bigger.”