Sweet Stuff Page 18

  Quinn decided to simply keep his focus on the sound of the water, the feel of the sun soaking through his damp clothes, warming his skin ... and not on his simmering awareness of the woman sitting beside him.

  Right.

  “So,” she said at length, “and you don’t have to answer, but following your hypothetical question ... is that the problem you’re having? You have a murder mystery story for your couple to solve ... but you also want to just spend time telling your couple’s story? No murders. Is that it?”

  He shot her a quick glance, intending to look straight back to the water, but he instantly got caught up in the sincere, direct gaze she’d aimed his way, and he replied without thinking. “I think their love story would be less than it could be if it came before they grew into the characters they are now. It’s not the right time for them to have the love story I know they’d have later. But later ... there are no murders to solve because he can’t deal with any more death. They will have solved all the ones they’re capable of.”

  “I get it now. So it really is either or. They either love each other while fighting crime ... or find each other after they’ve fought all the crime they can handle and fall in love then.” She sighed. “I can see the dilemma. Either way, they are who they are right now. So now is when it has to happen.”

  “Exactly.” He felt as if an enormous pressure had been removed from his psyche. It wasn’t a solution, but it was a huge help to know someone at least understood the dilemma. “Thank you.”

  “Why? I didn’t do anything.”

  “You got it, and that’s more than I’d hoped. I had begun to think I’d gotten so far into the forest I’d totally lost all perspective on the trees.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. You just want to do them justice. And you don’t know which way will do that best.” Riley shifted in the sand and rolled to one hip so she could face him more directly. “I will say this. I really do love your suspense, purely for the complex plots you come up with. I can rarely ever figure out all the twists and turns. But ... and I mean this as a compliment, there are times in every single book that I wish I could spend more time with your characters, away from the crime stuff. Of course, that’s not what the story is about, so there is no time for that. I understand that it wouldn’t make sense ... but I feel a little left out, every time. Not let down, really, because your books are always wildly satisfying, but ... maybe you know what I mean.”

  “To be honest, I always thought the balance was right where I wanted it. I liked contrasting big love against big tragedy, but I was always comfortable with the balance.”

  “So, why are these two different?”

  He lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know. I really don’t. They just are. I see them, I listen to them, and there’s just so much more to tell. I’ve tried to relegate whatever brought them together to something that’s already occurred when we meet them, and I know they’d do a hell of a riveting job as my crime-fighting duo for the murder mystery I want to tell ... but I just—I couldn’t make the balance work for me. I feel like it wasn’t right, or fair to them. I wasn’t giving them all I could allow them to have, when I know they are capable of having so damn much more.”

  “So, doesn’t that answer your question?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If telling their story that way feels like you’re letting them down ... then you probably are.”

  “Okay, but following that ... if their careers are done, over, for whatever reason, and it’s from those ashes that they come together ... if I’m not giving them anything else to do, and there aren’t all those other extra crazy twists and turns ... does it become dull and not so passionate and epic after all? Do I need that contrast of murder and mayhem in order to make their love story compelling? This would be a huge departure for me, so I have no sense of how it would fly. If I’m going to make that huge leap, risk pissing a lot of people off, then I feel like I have to be damn sure I know what I’m doing, that I can pull it off, make it work.”

  “Well, I’m the wrong person to ask, because that story seems just as compelling to me as the thriller. Mayhem that scares the crap out of you doesn’t have to include murder. There are many terrifying things out there. I think falling in love is dangerous territory for two people who are a little flawed, and a whole lot damaged, to find themselves suddenly traversing. Especially just when they thought it was safe. You know? They walk away from the murder and mayhem, the bullets flying, because they can’t risk it anymore ... only to find they haven’t ever risked the thing that puts them in the most personal danger they’ve ever been in. Murder happens to other people, and they pick up the pieces. But what if the pieces might be theirs? And the bullet they end up dodging is coming from a shooter they never saw coming? Because there are no more shooters, right? Except ... uh-oh.”

  She smiled. “We know the shooter is out there, just like in the murder mystery. We—meaning the readers—we see the bullet coming, we see the big looming threat that is going to be them being tempted by each other, them falling in love, but they don’t. They’re going to be completely blindsided by that shooter. I don’t know how much more on the edge of your seat you can get than that. If, at the eleventh hour, they screw it up, and they don’t figure out how to conquer the shooter—who is love—they’re the ones who lose it all. Can’t risk much more than that.”

  “Well,” he said thoughtfully, “when you put it like that.” He grinned, but there was already a swirl of thoughts literally bombarding his brain. He finally—finally—felt that inexplicable knot in his gut, that snap, crack, and sizzle that made his fingers twitch to type, that sent his brain to racing ... that thing that told him he’d found it.

  He’d contrast the cases they’d solved in their respective pasts, the very ones he’d have had them solve if he’d gone the other way, against the danger they now found themselves in when pitted against each other, fighting against an entirely different kind of mayhem, just as Riley said. The mayhem that comes internally when two people are fighting against falling in love. He could even plot it like a murder mystery as they discovered the clues and, ultimately, solved the case. The case being coming to that place where they could commit to loving one another. Maybe they’d crossed paths professionally—no maybe about it, they had—so there would be some joint knowledge of their respective pasts. They applied what they knew, what they had discovered, in completely different ways. They’d struck sparks before, good and bad, but it’s only with all the rest done that the real conflagration would begin.

  “So, do you get what I mean?” She looked at him uncertainly.

  “Not only do I get what you mean,” he said, the excitement juicing him up higher, faster, “I can write what you mean. And, going one better, I can sell what you mean.” He grabbed her face and planted a big noisy kiss on those big, juicy lips, then hooted so loudly he startled Brutus into looking up to see what all the excitement was about. “Oh my God, Riley. You did it. You nailed it.” His hands still framed her face. “Nailed it!”

  He scrambled to his feet, pulling her up along with him, straight into his arms. He spun them around, laughing, sounding like a wildman. The relief was so profound, he hooted and spun her around again. “You saw the trees. You saw the whole damn forest.”

  Her eyes were wide, like huge pools of melted chocolate, as he set her feet down on the sand, but he kept his hands on her arms. “I can’t believe I didn’t get it,” he said, laughing again. “But you have it perfectly and exactly right. It fills the exact same bill, but with entirely different stakes, scarier stakes. Why didn’t I see that? It’s both, and it’s more. So much more. You’re a genius.”

  “Oh, it was nothing,” she said, but she was as breathless as he was, and she looked just as dazzled and excited as he felt.

  She grinned, and her eyes lit with that always present light that seemed to be constantly inside her. Her lips parted on a breathless laugh, drawing his gaze ... and his attention.
/>
  The sizzle in the air changed abruptly from exuberant celebration and relief, to something decidedly more ... elemental.

  His hold on her arms gentled as he realized his excitement had him gripping her rather intently. He rubbed his fingers absently over the place where he’d held most firmly, but his attention was drawn from parted lips to darkening eyes, then back to her mouth again. “I’ve thought a lot about what you would taste like,” he said, giving up entirely on censoring himself. He was giddy for all sorts of reasons, and it was just too damn good. Too damn good. Mayhem, indeed. “And I kissed you so fast, I didn’t even get to savor it.”

  He saw her throat work. “Is there a rule about do-overs I don’t know about?” She tried for casual humor, but the way she was looking at him was anything but casual.

  That was also damn good ... because he’d hate to be the only one feeling this way. “The only rule I have is that I don’t kiss someone who is regularly kissing someone else.” He smiled. “Spontaneous kisses of profound gratitude notwithstanding.”

  “I like that rule.”

  “Good,” he said.

  “Yes, it is,” she agreed. “Very.”

  “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” But that was okay, because he was done worrying about easy. “Down at the docks that day, by your boat, you said you were involved with someone.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Okay, you’re right.” Fair was fair, after all. “I said it. You didn’t correct me.”

  “I ... thought it would be easier that way.”

  “Easier for who?”

  “Me. I didn’t think you would really care one way or the other.”

  That pissed him off a little, because it wasn’t true, and because he was pretty sure it was herself she was judging and finding lacking ... not him. “But you did. Care, I mean.”

  “I like you. And I’m a sucker for caring about people I like. My defenses in that area stink, and, try as I might, there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it.” Riley held Quinn’s gaze for a long time, then said, “Can I ask you something? And I want an honest answer. Be brutal if necessary,” she added, echoing his earlier request.

  Normally he would have grinned, but the stakes felt suddenly high. Really high. And decidedly personal. He frowned. “Okay.”

  “You’ve been struggling to figure out your book. I’m guessing from your profound gratitude it’s been more than frustrating. Maybe even a little frightening. And you’ve come here, to Sugarberry, because you wanted some time to focus on that. And ... well, I’ll be honest, I’ve followed you a little bit in the media, and I know half that stuff is made up, and the other half probably grossly exaggerated, but ...” She trailed off, then said, “I guess I want to know if this interest you say you have in kissing me is based on a sincere interest in getting to know me.”

  She paused, and he realized this was harder for her than she had allowed him to realize. “Or because I’m here, and convenient? Because I’ll be honest,” she added, not letting him reply, “I don’t strike me as the kind of woman you’d normally go for, and that’s fine, no judgment, no harm, no foul. I get the attraction of hassle-free convenience. I’m probably the last person you’d see as a threat to complicate things. It’s just I stink at that kind of thing. I wish I didn’t, because it would most likely be a wonderful way to spend some time. I just ...” She lifted her shoulders, then let them drop, along with her gaze. “It’s not a good fit for me. It’s not what I would want, or choose.”

  He started to say “me, either,” with absolute sincerity, except, the truth was, she’d pretty much described exactly how his relationships had gone. He’d done that very thing in the past, enjoyed that exact kind of easy, breezy, no-demands relationship. Too many of them, in fact. He’d told himself if they were meant to be more, they would be. But how often had he set them up, subconsciously, or chosen women, specifically, knowing the chance of getting tangled up was unlikely to happen? He’d never wanted to hurt anyone, least of all himself.

  He was pretty sure the “me, either” response absolutely applied. It was just ... why would she believe that? Why did he?

  “No, I wouldn’t think you would,” he said, instead.

  She looked up. “But you would,” she said, not quite making it a question. “Choose that.”

  “It has been a choice I’ve made in the past, yes,” he said, giving her—and himself—the brutal honesty she’d asked for.

  She looked disappointed. But not nearly as much as he was in himself. She wasn’t wrong to feel the way she did.

  “But I am also being honest when I tell you that’s not why I said what I did. To toy with you, or play you. I said it because it’s true. You couldn’t be more wrong about your ability to complicate things. You drive me crazy. You’re forever in my thoughts. That wasn’t something I expected, not because it was you, but because that traditionally would not have been me. It just seems to be me ... where you’re concerned. And I honestly don’t know what to do about that.”

  She frowned, then smiled that dry smile, making one dimple wink out ... all but begging him to get the full grin out of her. “So, then, I think I’m flattered. Maybe. I guess.”

  He grinned at her unexpected response. “You should be. Maybe. I guess.”

  They laughed, and the tension eased just a little. It was still there, simmering below the surface. It probably always would be, as long as it wasn’t tended to.

  “Thank you,” he said, at length.

  “For the story idea? No problem. Sounds like you’d already done all the heavy lifting. You just needed someone on the outside looking in to see where to place it all so it looked real pretty”—she grinned—“which, of course, is my specialty.”

  “It certainly is.” He softened when he looked at her, despite the still sizzling sexual tension. “Maybe I should be brainstorming with stylists and stagers instead of other writers and my editors.

  “But that’s not what I was thanking you for. I meant for your frankness and your honesty. It’s not what I want to hear, but it’s what need to hear. I never want to take advantage ... but I might have with you. I don’t seem to have much control over what I’m thinking or what I want, where you’re concerned.”

  She smiled brightly then—too brightly—and let him the rest of the way off the hook. “Well, now neither one of us has to worry about that.” She patted his arm, in a friendly, end-of-conversation way. “It’s good that we talked, and aired it all out.” She started to ease out of his hold, and he was pretty sure if he let her, she’d have taken off back down the beach. Never to be seen again.

  He tightened his hold instinctively, keeping it gentle, but not ready—maybe never ready—to let her go. “So ... that do-over ... it’s off the table, too. I guess.” It was a ridiculous thing to say, he knew that, but it was all he had left.

  She looked at him, and her smile faltered—badly—even if the spark in her eyes did not. “Quinn ...”

  “I know. I just ...” He trailed off. “I know,” he repeated. “We don’t always get what we want.” He held her gaze, hard as it was to see the desire there, and know he couldn’t act on it. “It just ... God, this sounds like a corny line from some fiction novel,” he said with a short laugh, “but it just feels wrong. Walking away.”

  “What does it normally feel like when you walk away?”

  It stung, her presumption that he was always the one to do the walking. It shouldn’t have, because she was right. But it did, because she was right. “That’s just it,” he said, feeling more exposed than he’d ever allowed himself to be before. “It normally doesn’t feel at all.”

  Her expression sobered as she looked as intently at him, into him, as he was looking at and into her. “You ... really mean that.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted. “I wish that wasn’t so hard to believe. I’m not a thoughtless jerk. I don’t set out to hurt people. I’m always honest.”

  “I never thought you were a
jerk, thoughtless or otherwise. You strike me as exactly the kind of man who says those kinds of things all the time, because you don’t want to hurt anyone. I think it’s second nature for you to soften the blow, to say things that make others feel good about themselves, to take the blame all on yourself for things ending when they end.”

  “Maybe.” He never really thought about it that way. “But I didn’t keep you from walking away just now because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” He slid his hands down her arms, and tucked his fingers through hers. “I kept you from walking away because I really don’t want you to go. It’s as simple and as complicated as that. I don’t have anything else to offer. There are no promises I can make, so it’s a purely selfish thing, and I’d like to think I’m not a purely selfish guy. It’s just ... the truth.”

  He broke off, looked down at their joined hands, sighed, then made himself look at her again ... and laid the rest of himself bare. It was the least he could do, the least she deserved. “You make me feel, and think, and want things that aren’t typical for me. I don’t know why, and I don’t have the slightest clue what it would mean, or where it would go. You’re probably right not to take that risk, right to turn around, and walk down the beach, and not look back. All I have is the truth that I don’t want you to, that it’s not what I would choose. For the first time, it will make me feel something, when you leave.”

  She held his gaze steadily, for what felt like an eternity.

  Until, finally, he let go of her hand. “This isn’t fair to you. You’ve told me what you want.”

  “No,” she said, suddenly finding her voice. “I told you what I can handle. Or, more to the point, what I can’t.” She took his hand back in hers. “I never told you what I want.”

  His heart started pounding hard. He’d never reacted like this to anyone, had never felt such a simultaneous wrench of anticipation and abject fear. His characters had ... but not him. He realized he hadn’t come close to doing that feeling justice when he’d described it. He’d sure as hell be able to now. “What”—he had to stop and clear his throat—“what do you want, Riley?”