“You’d earned it after the way I’d annihilated you in Frisbee.” My back was starting to cramp, and I shifted in a fruitless effort to find a more comfortable position.

He continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “You asked me what creatures I would create if I had magical sperm.” Quinn’s eyes lit with the recollection, and his smile was as sudden as it was breathtaking; he squeezed my thigh. “Then you offered yourself as my personal snake-haired Medusa, a magical sperm repository.”

Quinn’s gaze found and refocused on mine through the memory. I ignored the discomfort of my wrists and back in favor of returning his infectious smile. I’d never heard him speak this way before about us. Yes, over the course of our relationship, he’d reminisced about his family, told me funny stories. But never about us.

“I was serious, you know.” I chimed in earnestly, because I had been serious. “I wanted to know. You still haven’t told me.”

Quinn responded with equivalent earnestness. “I didn’t answer because I didn’t know what to say.”

I scrunched my nose, shook my head just barely as my movements were impinged by my position. “That’s when you fell in love with me?”

He nodded, shifted on his feet, and I noted that the hand not on my leg was in his pants pocket. In fact, I realized that it had been in his pants pocket since he’d secured me to the rack.

“But, we’d only known each other, like, three weeks, and we hadn’t even technically been on a date yet.”

“I knew.” His answer was quiet and certain. My heart leapt and, strangely, my eyes stung.

“Was it the Greek mythology reference or the sperm reference?” I pressed even as my attention moved between his hidden hand and his face as it loomed over me.

“It was you, Janie.” His voice was soft, maybe the closest he’d ever come to sweet-talking. “You and your Medusa hair and your honey colored eyes. It was your questions, your intelligence, and your insatiable curiosity. It was your goodness and sweetness, your honesty and trust.”

Peripherally I noted that he’d withdrawn his hand from his pocket and he held something within it, but his words held me mesmerized and—despite my curiosity—I couldn’t look away from his gaze. My back was now seizing, my hands were numb, but I didn’t care. I wanted to remember this moment.

“And, if I’m going to be completely honest…” Quinn gathered a deep breath, lightly caressed my inner thigh, his knuckles brushing against the bare skin above my stockings. “…it was the thought of using you, your body, as my own personal magical sperm repository for the rest of our lives.”

My eyes widened and I choked on air as his face cracked with a slow, sexy grin of epic proportions.

The villain.

“Quinn!” My face flamed and I moved my legs restlessly as much as I was able given my current state. All at once I was beyond ready to be released from my bondage.

“Janie Morris…” His voice was steady, measured—but I wasn’t listening.

“I didn’t say that…I mean….” I tried to move my hands and winced when pain shot down my arm. I was completely ridiculous, and I should have known better than to willingly allow Quinn to tie me to a rack. Even worse, I’d suggested it! Of course he was going to tease me or torture me at the first opportunity.

“…will you make me the happiest man in the world…”

Still struggling, and pointedly ignoring him, I glanced at my wrists as my continued chastisement burst forth. “I did say it, but I said it as a hypothetical. Now please untie me!”

“…and do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

“You are…! I…wait…what?” My indignation morphed into stunned confusion. I glanced at the object in his hand—an open black velvet box with the red ruby ring I’d admired earlier winking back at me—and blackness colored my vision.

“Oh, my God.” My eyes widened on the ring then moved to his face.

I didn’t faint, but I seriously considered faking it.

I didn’t know what to freak out about first, so I ordered the issues in terms of most pressing and/or potentially illegal.

“Quinn, that’s the ring from downstairs!” I hissed in a loud whisper because I was afraid of the answer. “Did you steal that ring?”

CHAPTER 3

His expression morphed from serious to seriously incredulous. “What? No! No, I did not steal this ring!”

My forehead wrinkled and I frowned at him then whispering louder. “Well, what am I supposed to think? One minute I see an antique ring in the Jewel House, and the next minute you’re holding it while I’m tied to a rack.”

“Getting tied to the rack was your idea.”

My eyes flickered to his then back to the box. I wondered if I looked as panicked as I felt. “I know that, but I didn’t think that you’d use the opportunity to try to give me a stolen ring!”

“It’s not stolen! It’s your engagement ring.”

My breath left me with a sudden whoosh.

Engagement ring.

He’d knocked the wind from my lungs.

I wasn’t expecting this. In fact, this may have been the very last thing I’d been expecting—just after Quinn telling me he was a woman and that he had aspirations of reprising Barbra Streisand’s role in Hello Dolly on Broadway.

“Janie.”

I heard my name and refocused my panicked eyes on his.

This was too soon—way too soon. This was a mistake. Even if the ring wasn’t stolen, he was making a mistake and, when he realized the mistake, we would be over. There is only one way to become unengaged just like there is only one way to become unmarried.

“Untie me.”

“Not until you answer my question.”

“Quinn….”

“Janie, I know what you’re going to do as soon as I untie you. You’ll run out of here. I’d planned to get you drunk first so you wouldn’t be mobile, but tied up is better.”

“Why better?”

“Because we can talk about this, sober, and you can’t avoid me by feigning gastrointestinal distress.”

“My hands hurt.”

Concern cast a shadow across his features. His eyes flickered to where my wrists were tied then back to mine. Reluctantly, he offered, “I’ll untie you if you promise to talk this through.” His eyes zeroed in on mine to show me he meant business, and his face was as serious as I’d ever seen it. “You have to promise, no avoiding.”

I nodded, my voice strained as I agreed. “I promise—no avoiding. We’ll talk it through.”

Quinn glared at me for a moment as though assessing my honesty then removed his hand from my thigh. I felt the loss of it like a physical blow and wished I’d been paying more attention to how his hand felt on my body so I’d be able to recall it effortlessly, at will.

He plucked the ring from the velvet then stuffed the box back in his pocket. I had to crane my neck to follow his movements and didn’t miss the fact that he placed the ruby on my left-hand ring finger before he moved to untie me.

It was a very Quinn thing to do. The ring was now in my possession, and as they say—whoever they are; I would have to look that up—possession is nine-tenths of the law.

Releasing the knots took less time than securing them, and I rubbed my wrists when he moved to the ropes at my ankles, my hands coming to life. The hemp left marks, not cutting or real injury. The lines encircled my wrists like a brand. I glanced at my hands and caught a glimpse of the brilliant red gemstone that made my finger feel heavy and foreign. I stared at it and felt a surge of possessiveness.

I wanted it. I wanted that ring. It was the most exquisite piece of jewelry I’d ever seen, including the crown jewels I’d just ogled.

Independent of becoming engaged, the ring was stunning and beautiful and exactly what I would have chosen for myself if the entirety of the world’s designer jewelry were mine to peruse.

And it was mine.

Very clever of him to give me something my heart didn’t know it wanted in exchange for a promise. I would have a hard time taking it off. Then again, very clever was typical Quinn.

When he finished, keeping one hand on me the entire time, he reached for my arm and pulled me upright. Blood rushed from my head and he allowed a few short seconds before tugging me to my feet. Unsurprisingly, my legs were unsteady.

I was still looking at the ring on my finger, my breaths deep and ragged as I struggled with a war of emotions and desires.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

One of his hands was gripping my waist and he slipped the other between mine, his fingers curling around my palm so that he was cradling my left hand.

I pressed my lips together then lifted my eyes to his. His face was carefully blank, but watchful.

I felt so many things, looking at him, standing so close. I felt fearful in a way that I thought I’d left behind.

But, though I was a cornucopia of feelings, I wasn’t able to actually manage a complete thought.

“Quinn….” I swallowed. My chest ached. “I wasn’t expecting…I wasn’t expecting this.”

“I know.”

“We haven’t even talked about it, discussed it as a possibility.”