Always a Thief - Kay Hooper [62]
“Are you sure, sweetheart?” he demanded hoarsely, drawing away just far enough to make her look at him. His handsome face was taut, his features drawn with a sharpened look of hunger. “I didn't come here prepared for this.”
She understood what he was saying, but since she'd never been able to be practical about him anyway, Morgan didn't see any reason to break with tradition at this late date. “I'm sure. I want you to stay.”
Quinn looked at her for a moment longer, then kissed her again, more deeply still, almost as if that alone were an act of possession. It sent her senses spinning once more, stealing her breath and increasing the feverish heat of her desire until Morgan wasn't thinking about anything except how he made her feel. Then he was shifting his hold on her, lifting her, and she realized he was carrying her as easily as he had before.
Since he'd spent several days there, he was familiar with her apartment and was able to find his way to her bedroom almost blindly. She blinked up at him a bit dazedly when he set her on her feet beside the bed.
He framed her face in his hands and looked down at her with an odd intensity, as if memorizing her features, his own still strained. “That first night in the museum,” he murmured, “when you looked up at me with your cat's eyes, so indignant to find yourself in the company of a thief, I knew this would happen. Even then, I knew.”
She managed a smile. “All I knew was how much you annoyed me. And how empty that room seemed when you left.”
His thumb brushed her bottom lip in a rhythmic little caress. “I didn't go far that night. I watched the police come, and when they brought you back here I followed them.”
“You did?”
“Mmm. And I was at the museum during the day a couple of times after that. So I could see you.”
“Before I knew what you looked like . . . but I had that feeling you were somewhere around.”
“Something else I didn't bargain on. This connection between us.”
“What happened tonight on the fire escape—you didn't hear anything to alert you, did you? You felt it.”
“You were in trouble,” he murmured. “Someone was trying to hurt you. That's what I felt.”
Morgan tried to steady her breathing. “Do you believe in fate, Alex?”
“I do now,” he said, and his mouth was hard on hers, the pent-up need of weeks fire inside him.
Inside her.
She pushed the hem of his sweater up blindly because she had to touch his skin, half opening her eyes when he let go of her long enough to yank the garment off and toss it aside. Her eyes went immediately to his left shoulder, and her fingers gently touched the scar there. He'd been right, she realized; he did heal quickly. It was difficult to believe he'd been shot just a few weeks before.
But the scar was a reminder, a sign of the danger of what he was doing. Were there more scars, other marks of violence and risk on his body? On his soul?
“Morgan?”
She looked up at him, knowing that he felt her instant's hesitation, that he understood the reason behind it. Just the way he would understand if she stopped this here and now.
Her arms slid up around his neck and she pressed her body against his. “What are you waiting for?” she murmured.
“You. I've always been waiting for you.” His arms tightened around her, and when his mouth touched hers again the moment for stopping vanished as though it had never been.
Morgan made a soft, disgruntled sound when he jostled her a bit while he was getting them under the covers, but she didn't open her eyes even when he chuckled. She felt utterly limp and sated, and when he pulled her close to his side again once they were both under the covers, she pillowed her head on his shoulder with a sigh of pure bliss.
“Morgana?”
“Hmm?”
“Am I forgiven?”
She still didn't want to open her eyes, but she was very much awake even though dawn wasn't