Accidentally in Love With the Biker (What Happens in Vegas) (11 page)

Chapter Fourteen

The masquerade ball must have been hitting its stride when they left the hotel room. On the elevator down, Kellie was saved from avoiding any more long-distance affair suggestions by the Wicked Witch of the West, Glenda the Good Witch, and a tube of Crest toothpaste.

“Oh, did they find the lion?” Crest asked them from beneath her pleated lampshade hat. She eyed Quinn like she’d like to cage him.

Kellie didn’t blame her. He was really freaking hot in those shiny pants and the vest with no shirt. And carrying that whip just made him appear dangerous. But still… “I’m the lioness.”

“That’s not what I meant,” the toothpaste said, but they were separated when Scarlett O’Hara got on at the next floor, and Kellie didn’t get to find out what lion was missing, or who had lost him.

The giant hoop skirt took up the majority of the floor space, and Kellie was squashed against Quinn in a back corner. Not an unpleasant place to be, actually.

One of his hands pulled her closer, and all of her soft parts molded against his hard ones. One of his parts nudged her in a particularly delightful way. “Hey, is that a whip handle?” she murmured against his chest.

“I’m just glad to see you,” he whispered back, moving the handle just enough to make her jump.

Omigod. She hissed, “Stop it! We’re going to have a wardrobe malfunction if you’re not careful.”

Through the mirror on the wall, Kellie saw Scarlett turn her head and open her eyes wide at them. She just smiled, doing her best Mona Lisa.
Get your own Rhett Butler
.

The handle wiggled again. Kellie locked her knees to keep from turning into a puddle of kitty jelly.

The elevator door pinged open and the crowd spilled out toward the party.

Kellie looked at Quinn for a long moment, thinking about staying on the elevator and heading back up. Without the whip handle.

He waggled his eyebrows.

She was going to miss him so much. She reached out and grabbed the door before it shut on them. The longer they stayed in public, the longer she could put off refusing anything between them after this weekend. Heck, her heart was already broken just thinking about leaving.

“What’s wrong?” He slid his arm around her as they walked toward the ballroom.

“Nothing.”

“Hmph.”

“I guess I’m a little tired.” That was good. Maybe he’d buy that she was exhausted, and she could tell him good-night without actually saying good-bye later. Just…yawn and hand him his clothes to take home.

“We’re just going to have to wake you up,” he told her. “I think this is probably going to do it.”

Holy hot potatoes. The joint was jumping. And slithering. And spinning and shaking and rolling around on the floor. They stood together at the entrance, watching a dance floor filled with every conceivable animal, fictional character, inanimate object, and historical figure imaginable. All dancing.

“Well, come on, lioness. Let’s go shake our moneymakers.”

She held back when he tried to lead her into the room, and considered going back to the room. The ballroom was crowded, and loud, and full of romance readers and writers. For some reason, that banged around in her heart like a hot matzo ball. If she went in there, she’d be attending her last conference event, ever. Which made her inexorably sad. After this, she was returning home to her little bookstore, to live her little life, and to be happy. Happy, right? That would make her happy. Having her bookstore, filling those kids with words and imagination…

“What?” Quinn wore a puzzled smile. “Don’t you want to dance?”

His question was so shocking to her that she popped right out of her self-reflective wallowing. “Wait.
You
want to dance?”

“Don’t
you
?”

“Well…I just…it never occurred to me that your big, burly, motorcycle-riding badness hid the heart of a disco king.”

“I keep that part of me more hidden than the law degree. But hey. I’m wearing gold spandex pants and carrying a whip. What’s the worst thing that can happen? Someone will laugh at me?”

Whomp. Fwap. Splat
. The matzo ball exploded.

“What’s wrong now?”

Well, I just lost my heart to you
. “Nothing, John Travolta. Let’s dance.”

…

Kellie was, possibly, an even worse dancer than he was. Quinn caught her in his arms as she twirled into him in some sort of jitterbug/nae nae combination that nearly decapitated him each time she tried it. But the danger was worthwhile every time she twisted back out and did the rest of her “moves.” Because she bounced and jiggled and had an awesome fucking time.

Once, between songs, he managed to get her to the bar for a couple of Cokes. “You having fun?”

“This is great!” Face shining, she glanced at him and then back at the dancers.

For some reason, he felt like they were back at phase one of Getting to Know You. Awkward and stilted. Fearless lion tamer that he was, Quinn forged ahead. “I was thinking. Maybe when—”

The next song started, and Kellie grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the music booth. “I want to make a request.”

“Okay…”

She grabbed a slip of paper from the “request” basket and wrote “Hank Williams Jr.” on it. She grinned at Quinn and shoved it at the DJ. “You might know your seventies junk, but you need to learn a little about country.”

“What? No.” He grabbed his own slip and wrote “Earth, Wind & Fire.”

Kellie rolled her eyes at him.

The disc jockey held a slip of paper in each hand, staring back and forth at them, and then at Kellie and Quinn.

Finally, he raised a finger in “Aha!” and bent to search his computer for something before nodding at them in satisfaction.

The next song started, and Quinn laughed. He leaned over Kellie and growled in her ear, just to see her shiver. “What do you think of this?”

The first few lines of “Dub That 2Step ” filled the air.

Kellie grinned. “No thinking, just dancing!”

Finally,
finally
, the DJ said, “Everybody grab a partner. It’s time to slow things down a little.” The cheesiest, sappiest ballad from the eighties began to play. Quinn could have kissed the man, except he was too busy pulling Kellie against him.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and swayed, turning slowly with him to the music. He held her, hands on her hips—okay, maybe closer to her butt—and savored the feel of her body. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of the way her lush curves filled his palms. He squeezed a little, just to make sure.

“Hey! We’re in public here,” she protested.

He looked around. No one paid them any attention, but he was all for moving this dance somewhere more private. “You wanna go upstairs?”

She caught her breath, staring up at him, big green eyes unfathomable. One corner of her bottom lip was caught between her teeth, and he leaned down to kiss her there, tugging the lip free with his own teeth.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked.

A million feelings chased across her face, and he was too much of a guy to put a name to any of them. Not that he couldn’t, he was just afraid to.

“I’m actually really tired,” she finally said.

For some reason, he didn’t think “really tired” was a fancy author metaphor for “really anxious to get upstairs and do you until neither of us can walk,” even though she’d just been gyrating like a Beyoncé backup dancer on meth—when she hadn’t been doing the cat in heat routine.

“Okay…”

She stared across the room, where Cinderella chased a miniature sumo wrestler across the floor. “So, yeah. I know your clothes are upstairs, so maybe we should go get them, and…”

Wow. This was it, huh? She was just going to ditch him after the ball? Maybe he wasn’t the lion tamer after all, but the coachman about to turn back into a mouse? He shook his head. Too much romance convention—he was starting to think in literary devices. Best to revert to Biker Quinn. “Fine, babe. Let’s go get my stuff, I’ll get out of your hair.”

After an interminable elevator ride, she silently scanned her key card and opened the door. Her suitcase lay on the floor, half filled with clothes. She kicked it as she led the way inside.

“What was that for?”

“I just…like I said, I’m tired.”

“Really?” Quinn stopped by the door, and she turned to look at him there. He didn’t know exactly what was going on with her, but he didn’t think it was anything good. She was going to tell him good-bye, and he’d walk out of her life forever. And he didn’t want that. So he decided to call her on what he hoped was her bullshit. “I think you’re bummed that you have to leave tomorrow and you’re taking it out on your poor suitcase.”

She didn’t look at him when she said, “Actually, I’m pretty anxious to get back to my life.”

“Really?” He tilted his head, trying to get a bead on her.

“Yeah. This”—she waved around the room, then at him—“this has been amazing, but I know it’s just fantasy. I’m a bookseller in Smyrna Springs, Georgia. I don’t hook up with sexy bikers and have hot sex and—”

“Stop.” Quinn moved, taking Kellie with him, pushing her against the wall, pressing his body into hers. He felt her breasts against him with each breath she took, and he watched her heartbeat flutter in her throat.

She stared up at him, wide-eyed, trusting, lips slightly parted. Waiting.

“This has been the most real thing I’ve felt in a long, long time. Maybe forever. You—you and your crazy romantic world—you make me feel things I never thought I’d feel—and I’m saying shit I never thought I’d say.”

She shook her head. “But it’s not real. I’m leaving tomorrow. You’ll call me a few times, then get busy, meet someone more interesting, and forget about me. This can’t be real.”

“Fuck if it’s not.”

…

Quinn was every ounce the vengeful biker god that she’d met a few days ago. But now she knew him to be so much more. Good sport, supportive friend, hurt child, hard worker, caring lover…

Big, strong, intimidating—and threatening to shred her heart. She didn’t fear his anger—he was hurt because she was trying to reject him and not because she’d turned him down for sex. And that made it that much worse.

She didn’t ha
ve time to catch her breath before Quinn’s mouth covered hers. He nipped at her lips, then pressed his tongue between her teeth where it tangled with her own, slipping through her mouth.

Before she had adjusted to the rhythm of his kiss he moved on and trailed his lips over her cheek to her ear and along her neck, kissing, sucking nibbles down the side of her throat to her shoulder.

He ran his hands along her sides, up to cup her breasts, which swelled to meet him. When he pinched one nipple through her catsuit, she cried out with arousal that was half pleasure and half pain.

His shoulders were hard and tight under her hands as she wrapped one leg around his, trying to press her lower body closer to his, needing to feel him. He was hard against her, his cock straining between the fabric of his pants and her leotard.

He shoved one hand between her back and the wall, reaching behind her, ripping at the nylon between her legs as she fought with his belt buckle, unfastening the leather and metal as fast as her fingers allowed.

She felt a snap and heard a curse. Cool air soothed the hot flesh between her legs before his fingers slid between her legs, forward, slipping into her slick folds. The need to feel him inside her was all-consuming. His shuddering breath told her he felt the same way.

Finally she had him free, was shoving his waistband down, rising on her toes, trying to—

With a quick motion, she was lifted in his big hands, and she wrapped both legs around his waist, arching and moving so that he could enter her.

The first couple of inches slid inside and felt like heaven, like—

“Condom!” He froze—they both froze—midstroke. That is, everything but their complementary parts stopped moving. His penis pulsed, enough that neither one of them dared to twitch.

Until the side of his mouth rose, just a hair.

And she snuffed out a mini laugh.

“Kellie…” he warned, finding a free hand to smack her on the butt.

The sting from the slap, surprisingly, made it all feel even hotter. She’d have to think about that later, when she could actually think. “We’ve got to stop—”

“One, two…”

On three, their bodies parted and her feet hit the ground. She sprinted for the toiletry bag on the desk and leaned over to grab a foil packet from the pouch. Quinn skidded into her backside, stopping short of impaling her.

She looked up into the mirror and saw him staring down at her, a hand on each hip, his cheeks flushed. Without a word she reached back and handed him the condom.

Holding her gaze in the mirror, he tore the package open, and stroked himself before he rolled on protection.

Kellie’s knees weakened at the sight of him touching himself like that. She wanted to turn and take him in her own hands, get him to show her exactly how to do what he liked, but then his hands were back on her, tearing her catsuit even further. With a tilt of hips, he pushed forward, sliding into her from behind, stretching her in a way that sent tingles through her entire body.

“Can you see?” Quinn murmured. “You need to see what I see.” He angled her so that she was holding on to the side of the desk, but still in front of the mirror, staring at the way their bodies moved together. She tried not to think about how she’d never get to see this again, never get to feel this—oh, God,
this
—again.

He began to thrust. Slowly, painstakingly, the ache inside her built. Then he picked up the pace.

“This is us. You and me. This is real, baby. This is me fucking you silly. If I’m making you feel half of what I feel, then it’s real.”

He took one of her hands and moved it under her.

“Touch yourself, make yourself come around me.”

One of his hands rose to caress her breast, alternately caressing and squeezing. Her fingers slid over her clit, finding a rhythm, stroking a tension that built with his thrusts, rising and tightening, and heating her body from scalp to toes.