With Every Heartbeat

Hooking her hand around my arm, she tried to pull me off my barstool, but I resisted.

“I don’t think so. I’m not going anywhere else with you, and I refuse to listen to you spew more lies about people.”

“Oh, you’re going, or I’ll tell all the girls you’ve had Ten, too.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “Well, maybe I’ll just do one better to you, Cora. I’ll—gasp—actually tell the truth about you.”

She frowned and shook her head. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll tell your friends how sick you are. You didn’t want them to know about your renal problems, right?” When her eyes widened, I clicked my tongue. “Or maybe I’ll tell one of your doctors just how much you like to drink. That is one of the reasons they reject someone from getting a transplant, isn’t it? Substance abuse?”

When she paled, I knew I’d won the battle. I would never tell on her, of course, but she didn’t know that.

Straightening her back, she lifted her chin regally high. “Well, look who grew a backbone.” Then she turned away as if giving me the cut direct and stormed off.

I stared after her, feeling...I don’t know. Alive. Powerful. I wanted to...I just wanted to see Quinn. Liking my new backbone, as Cora had called it, I pressed my hand to my rapidly thumping heart. She had no idea what kind of man she’d let go when she’d decided to treat him like crap and then spout lies about him. But I knew, and I’d been an idiot for letting him slip through my fingers. If he was really a dull vanilla, then I didn’t want any other flavor.

“Heading out?” Ten asked, taking my untouched drink away without commenting about it.

I smiled at him. “I have someone to see.”

The approving grin that grew across his face only emboldened me more. “Go get him, baby.”

So I did.

When I knocked on Quinn’s door twenty minutes later, I was ready to get my man. He answered, wearing his sleep pants and a rumpled shirt. His hair stood up on one side as if he’d been lying on it. He looked good enough to tackle and devour.

So I did.

“I’m ready for another biology lesson,” I said, grabbing a handful of his shirt. Then I rose onto my toes and kissed him. Hard.

For someone who totally wasn’t expecting it, Quinn reacted almost immediately, only stumbling back half a step before he caught himself and then crushed me against him. His large hands cupped my head. “Zoey,” he gasped before his lips captured mine.

My mouth opened under his, and his tongue was eager to fill it. I climbed his big body, because I needed every part of me rubbing against every part of him. He dropped his grip from my face to catch my butt and hoist me up where I wanted to be the most.

My legs wrapped around his waist. He spun me to pin me against a wall and then he began to grind. Oh God, but feeling his thick, long erection through his pants caused this delicious, throbbing clench of muscles deep in my womb. It reminded me just how much I’d missed feeling him there. I needed him inside me, moving, pumping, thrusting.

“I did a little research after...you know, learning about flower anatomy,” I panted out as he began to kiss his way down my throat.

“What?” He lifted his face, looking too dazed to remember the biology lesson he’d given me the last time we were together.

So aroused that my breaths wouldn’t calm down, I nodded. “Did you know that an imperfect flower is one that has either all female parts or all male parts, but not both?”

He blinked, clearly confused about why I was telling him this. “Yes,” he said. “I knew that.”

Of course he knew that. But that so wasn’t the point.

“So...so if you...” I bit my lip as I shifted my hips so I could ride his erection a little faster. “If you and I, male and female parts, came together, we’d make—”

“A perfect flower,” he whispered, finishing the sentence for me as his eyes lit with realization.

I smiled. “You want to make the most perfect flower ever with me?”

Lust and awe filled his gaze. “Yes.” He cupped my face, stared into my eyes, and then kissed me hard before repeating, “Yes,” even stronger. Then he peeled me off the wall and began to carry me down the hall. “Condoms are in my room.”

I nuzzled my nose up the side of his neck and nipped his earlobe with my teeth before saying, “I’m on the pill. Doctor’s orders.”

“In that case…the kitchen’s closer.” He veered left and then let go of me with one arm so he could shove everything off the top of the table. “I can’t get inside you fast enough.”