At Your Most Beautiful by Harper Bliss (best free ereader .TXT) 📗

Quinn’s hand. She pulled her into a short hallway, right into her bedroom. As though Quinn finally had full permission to let it all wash over her, memories from when she’d stood in Maya’s bedroom ten years ago flooded her brain. She couldn’t wait to see what Maya looked like now underneath that suit. She couldn’t wait to see how she would respond to her touch. Quinn had still been so inexperienced back then, although, at the time, she’d been convinced she knew it all.

Maya shrugged out of her jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. She kicked off her shoes and sat at the foot of the bed, as though she needed to take a breather. Maybe she did.

Quinn kneeled next to her. “Are you all right?”

“I want you so badly, I can barely believe it, but that doesn’t mean I’m not ambivalent about it.”

“That’s understandable.” Quinn did understand because, unlike ten years ago, she now wondered if she had to protect her own fragile heart in this situation. Her heart that had just been broken into a thousand pieces. She, too, had to take a moment to question what this was.

Maybe they both wanted to relive the spark they’d shared between them all those years ago, for their own reasons. One thing Quinn knew for sure: that spark was still there and then some. Time and reason had not erased it. She’d known that from the second she’d laid eyes on Maya again. Whether they should act on it was another matter altogether. But they’d made that decision earlier in the bar. The biggest difference with ten years ago was that it could no longer be attributed to a moment of temporary madness, an almost innocent act, even, without consequences. They weren’t the same people they’d been back then. Everything was different now.

“You really are doing your best not to seduce me.” Maya smiled down at her and Quinn melted under her gaze.

Quinn shook her head, pushed herself up, and kissed Maya again. Because when they kissed, all lingering doubts were instantly erased. When they touched, any remaining doubt evaporated, and Quinn knew exactly why she was here. To make love to Maya Mercer.

Chapter 23

Quinn’s half-naked body pressed against Maya’s side. Quinn’s lips were all over her, kissing their way from Maya’s neck to her breasts and then back up again.

“Before things get too heated,” Quinn whispered in her ear.

“Before?” Maya asked, barely still able to catch her breath.

Quinn pushed herself up and looked at her, a wide grin on her lips. She nodded, as if to say that merely taking off a few items of clothing was nothing compared to what was to come. Maya had always remembered how confident Quinn had been that night. A lot of things about her might have changed in ten years, but Quinn still had that same air of bedroom confidence about her.

“Do you have any lube?” Quinn asked, as casually as if asking for a glass of water.

Maya’s cheeks flushed but she guessed it would barely be visible because of the semi-darkness of her bedroom and because her skin had already been worked into a healthy blush. “In the bottom drawer of the nightstand.” Maya might not have a flourishing sex life with other people, but she knew how to take care of herself and lube had become indispensable for that purpose.

“Okay. Good.” Quinn’s eyes sparkled. “Everything’s better with lube.”

Maya chuckled. She was still a little too bashful to openly acquiesce, although she figured she might wholeheartedly agree with Quinn later. “I have a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

Maya had caught a glimpse of them earlier when she’d taken Quinn’s clothes off, but it had only left her wanting more. “Show me all of your tattoos,” Maya whispered. “Before things get too heated.”

“You have my full permission to discover them.” Quinn fell onto her back. Maya pushed herself up so she could explore Quinn’s body.

First, she had to see the tattoo on her lower belly again—the one that had haunted some of her more feverish dreams over the years. She pushed the waistband of Quinn’s panties down a fraction and there it was. Your secret’s safe with me. Maya’s secret had most certainly been safe with Quinn all these years. She ran her finger over it the way she had done ten years ago and, for an instant, it was as if time folded in on itself and she was back in her old bedroom on that hot summer night. She was that woman she’d been back then, stealing a night of passion with the neighbors’ daughter. Back then, she’d never have believed she’d one day see that particular tattoo again, yet here she was, running a finger over it. Quinn’s belly tensed under her touch—a sensation even more divine than seeing the tattoo again.

Next, Maya focused her attention on the side of Quinn’s torso, on the tattoo that said: Life is for living. It was far less cryptic than her other one. Maybe because she had acquired it later in her life, when she was older. Still, Maya was much older than Quinn and she could definitely do with a daily reminder to just live her life. How had Quinn figured this out at such a young age?

Maya wasn’t in the mood to answer philosophical questions like that. What she wanted more than anything was to discover Quinn’s other tattoo. She figured she’d need to shuffle downward a bit. She ran her hand from Quinn’s side to her lower belly again, then along her hip to her inner thigh. Maya had noticed something there earlier when Quinn had taken off her jeans.

Quinn spread her legs and propped herself up on her elbows. She probably wanted to witness Maya’s charting of all her body art.

Maya had to bend over a little to read what the small, curly text said on Quinn’s right inner thigh.

You take me to, Maya made out. Her gaze continued along Quinn’s panties. She