Just as she pulled on her panties, the door was thrust open and Quinlan loomed in the opening, his big body blotting out most of the light from the lobby but allowing the welcome entrance of relatively cooler air. The subtle breeze washed around her body, making her nipples pucker slightly. Or was that an instinctive female reaction to the closeness of her mate? She didn’t want to think of him in such primitive, possessive terms, but her body had different priorities.
He noticed, of course. His gaze became smoky with both desire and possessiveness as he openly admired her breasts. But he didn’t move toward her, holding himself very still as if he sensed her confusion. “Hiding?” he asked mildly.
“Delaying,” she admitted, her tone soft. She didn’t try to shield her body from him; such an action would seem silly, after what they had just done. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen her completely naked before, as if they hadn’t made love before. Moreover, he had decided to remove his pants and stood before her wearing only a pair of short, dark boxers. Barefoot and mostly naked, his dark hair tousled and wet with both sweat and the water he had splashed on his face, he was stripped of most of the trappings of civilization. Despite the heat, a shiver ran up her spine in yet another feminine response to the primitiveness of his masculinity, and she looked away to keep him from seeing it in her face.
He came to her and took up his shirt, holding it for her to slip into; then, when she had done so, he turned her and began buttoning the garment as if she were a child being dressed. “You can’t stay in here,” he said. “Too damn hot.”
“I know. I was coming out.”
He shepherded her toward the door, his hand on her back. She wondered if the action was just his usual take-charge attitude, or if he was acting on some primitive instinct of his own, to keep the female from bolting. Probably a mixture of the two, she thought, and sighed.
He had been busy while she had been in the rest room, and she realized she had delayed in there much longer than she had intended. He had arranged the extra cushions on the floor—in the shape of a double bed, she noticed—and gotten some cool water from the fountain, the cups ready for them to drink. The water was welcome, but if he thought she was going to docilely stretch out on those cushions, he would shortly be disillusioned. She sat down in a chair and reached for a cup, sipping it without enthusiasm at first, then more eagerly as she rediscovered how good plain water was for quenching thirst. It was a delight of childhood that tended to be forgotten in the adult world of coffee, tea and wine spritzers.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
“No.” How could she be hung
ry? Her nerves were so tightly drawn that she didn’t think she would be able to eat until they got out of here.
“Well, I am.” He tore open the wrapping on the big blueberry muffin and began eating. “Tell me about your marriage.”
She stiffened and glared at him. “It wasn’t a good marriage,” she said tightly. “It also isn’t any of your business.”
He glanced pointedly at the floor where they had so recently made love. “That’s debatable. Okay, let’s try it this way. I’ll tell you about my marriage if you’ll tell me about yours. No evasion tactics. I’ll answer any question you ask.”
She stared at him in shock. “Your marriage?”
He shrugged. “Sure. Hell, I’m thirty-seven years old. I haven’t lived my entire life in a vacuum.”
“You have your nerve!” she flared. “You jumped down my throat for not talking about my past marriage when you’ve only now mentioned your own?”
He rubbed the side of his nose and gave her a faintly sheepish look. “That occurred to me,” he admitted.
“Well, let me put another thought in your dim Neanderthal brain! The time for heart-to-heart confidences was over a long time ago. We aren’t involved any longer, so there’s no point in ‘sharing.’”
He took another bite of the muffin. “Don’t kid yourself. What we just did felt pretty damn involved to me.”
“That was just sex,” she said dismissively. “It had been a while, and I needed it.”
“I know exactly how long it had been.” His blue gaze sharpened, and she knew he hadn’t liked her comment. “You haven’t gone out with anyone else since you walked out on me.”
She was enraged all over again. “Have you had me followed?”
He had, but he wasn’t about to tell her that now. Instead he said, “Chickie worries because your social life, in her words, resembles Death Valley—nothing of interest moving around.”
Elizabeth snorted, but she was mollified, because she had heard Chickie make that exact comment on a couple of occasions. Still, she would have to have a word with her about discretion.
“I’ve been busy,” she said, not caring if he believed her or not, though it happened to be the truth. She had deliberately been as busy as she could manage in order to give herself less free time to think about him.
“I know. You’ve found a lot of lilies to gild.”
Her teeth closed with a snap. “That’s so people will have a reason to install your fancy security systems. I gild the lilies, and you protect them.”
“I protect people,” he clarified.
“Uh-huh. That’s why you set up so many security systems for people who live in rough neighborhoods, where their lives are really in danger.”
“I can see we aren’t going to agree on this.”