CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Moira~
“That will be eighty-eight fifty,” she told Ted Fisher.
Ted pulled his wallet out of his back pocket as if it pained him to part with money. Perhaps it did. Ted was short and thin, with a narrow face and a weedy beard. He always looked hungry. He was another of Robin’s starving artists. A glass worker and a minor sorcerer.
He opened his wallet slowly, perhaps in hopes that Moira would waive the cost of his raw glass, perhaps because the worn brown leather needed careful handling if it was not to fall apart. Moira handed him the credit card verifier. Ted took his time inserting his plastic into the slot and keying in his information. Ah, well, there were no other customers this afternoon.
The buzzer at the door sounded. She glanced up as she always did, ever since a family with small children holding ice cream cones had invaded her store. It was far worse than dripping ice cream. Quinn stood there looking as immovable as Mount Rushmore and pretty much as hard and huge. Ted lifted his head and followed her eyes.
“Hey, Quinn,” Fisher said nervously. His calloused fingers twitched. “How’s it going?”
“Pretty good,” Quinn returned. “You get your glory hole working again?”
“Yeah.” Ted had told Moira that his furnace had gone out. A disaster since it would take days to return the crucible to a hot enough temperature to melt glass. “But I had to order more glass since my crucible set hard.” He indicated the fifty-pound sack of glass chips on the counter.
Quinn’s expression did not change, but Ted was suddenly in a hurry. He grabbed his stuff and scuttled out of Fairchild’s Art Supply. Quinn turned the latch on the door, changed Moira’s sign to read CLOSED, and lowered the blind. Well, it was nearly closing time.
“How are you, Moira?” He stalked toward her.
The counter was between them but she still backed away until the rack behind her stopped her retreat. Quinn frowned. He halted with his hands outstretched, looked at them as if they belonged to a stranger, and put them in the pockets of his smock. His shoulders hunched and he scowled.
“I’m fine, Quinn. What do you want?” she asked. She was not in the mood to humor Mr. Crankypants.
“You.”
It was only one word but it made her entire body quiver. Her nipples peaked inside her nice supportive foam cups, her panties dampened, and so did her armpits. He was so bad for her fairy equilibrium.
“I thought you had decided we were all wrong for one another,” she got out through a mouth that was suddenly parched.
He shook his head. He was back to being shaggy. He was wearing that disreputable smock again, but he must have run it through the laundry for it no longer stank. It was still stained. And now it had a variety of holes to go with the stains.
“I didn’t say or think that. I think we’re made for one another. But it has to be your choice.” He took another backward step. Took his hands out of his pockets. “Your free choice.”
“Does it?”
He looked insulted. “Of course. You’re the one who’s going to be transformed.”
“Robin and Sully think you might live longer,” she returned. “That the effects might go both ways.”
His predator’s eyes narrowed. They looked more feral. More gold than green. “Huh. You discussed this with both of them?”
“I did.”
“Oh. Well, what did you decide?”
“What’s the question?”
“Do you want to be a dragoness? Yes? Or no?” His face was a rigid mask. His beard bristled. He looked ferocious. Hungry. Primitive.
Why wasn’t she terrified? “If I’m good enough to screw, I’m good enough to marry, Mr. Drake,” she shot back.
He nodded. His whole body swelled. But he didn’t speak.
“If you want me, you’ll have to marry me,” she warned. That should fix his wagon. Not once had he suggested marriage. Just a summer affair. The jerk.
Quinn strode to the counter, leaned over and plucked her off the floor. He swung her over the counter and into his arms. “Mine,” he growled. “Mine.” And then he was kissing her, and she had no more thoughts.
His mouth covered hers. She braced herself for demanding passion to go with his plundering gesture. But his kiss was gentle, questioning. He didn’t surge into her mouth, he pressed little kisses all around it. She pressed back and tasted his lips with her tongue.
He was carrying her into the back room. Crap. She was so not going to lose her virginity in the dusty stock room.
“Easy,” he crooned. “I don’t want half of Mystic Bay peering at us through the windows. And the other half heading to the Bean with the news.”
“I can walk,” she told him.
“I like carrying you.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah.” He pushed past the swinging doors that blocked customers’ view of the back room.
Quinn set her carefully on her feet, steadying her until she was balanced on her heels.
“I’m not having sex with you in here,” she said. She wished her voice sounded less squeaky.
He smiled down at her. “Not today,” he assured her. “But a man’s got a right to celebrate his engagement.”
“Are we engaged?”
He scowled. “You asked. I accepted. You changed your mind already?”
“Nooo.” Maybe. She had sort of thought that engagements were more romantic than this utilitarian back room with its sacks of clay and shelves of boxes. “You don’t seem very pleased.”
“That’s where you are mistaken, Moira mine. I’m beyond pleased.” He sat down on one of her two mismatched kitchen chairs and swept her onto his lap and his unmistakable erection. He angled her to the side, and then he was kissing her again.
His beard tickled the delicate skin of her face and neck as he nuzzled his way along her lips. He kissed her softly, slowly, seductively. As if they had all day to enjoy each other. She relaxed slightly and explored his lips in return. His hands cradled her. One forefinger made tender circles on her spine. Tingles shot up and down her vertebrae as if she was the battery and he the terminal.
He turned her in his arms and set her legs on either side of his massive thighs. Her skirts frothed upwards and cool air blew against her damp sex. A thumb roved under the lacy edge of her thong and matched the circles Quinn was still drawing on her back. She moaned into his mouth and bore down on his thumb.
Quinn obliged with slightly harder pressure. He delved deeper into her mouth and captured her tongue. He suckled it and let her return the caress. Back and forth they danced until she was soaking wet and her pussy was spasming. He gave a final upward push on her clit and she came with a violence that had her seeing sparks.
He leaned his forehead against hers, as he had done in his kitchen. They were both flushed and damp. “I’m going to come in my pants if we don’t stop,” he groaned.
“And I have a business to run here,” she returned primly. What had gotten into her? Besides his hand in her panties? “I have stuff to do before I can leave.”
“Yeah. I’ll wait for you,” he told her. He put her on the other chair and adjusted his jeans.
“What?” She felt disheveled and sticky. The aftershocks of her orgasm were still rippling through her.
“I’ll take you to dinner when you’re done. Okay?”
“I guess.” Despite the over-the-top climax, she felt flattened. Was this all her big romance amounted to? Maybe she needed to rethink this whole thing?