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  Quint stayed reflective and lost in thoughts, glad that none of the residents or any business intruded on him. He was surprised when he heard the sound of the school bus pulling to a stop in front of the complex. The laughter and noises of children soon followed.

  It took less than five minutes before the office door opened. Lei was standing there in her white polo shirt and khaki pants, with the gold shoes that Kaitlyn gave her. In her hand was the box from her mother.

  He looked up at her heart-shaped face and his gut literally clenched at the look on her face.

  “She’s not coming, is she?” she asked, stepping farther inside to drop the box on the desk, next to his feet.

  Quint sat up straight and swung his feet down to the floor as he reached across the box and cupped her hand.

  “No, baby, she’s not coming. She’s gonna call you later to explain,” he said gently.

  “’Kay,” Lei said. She tucked her chin to her chest as she fingered the box before picking it up into her hands and turning to leave.

  “Hey,” Quint called out to her. “You okay?”

  “It’s not like she works, or she doesn’t have the money to come or send for me, ’cause she always sending me stuff,” she answered, without turning around, and then walked out of the office.

  Quint picked up his cell phone and tried Vita’s number again. Voice mail. Sometimes he wished she had just disappeared for good and had never contacted Lei because the ups and down of her lies and disappointments might affect their daughter far worse.

  Later that evening Kaitlyn was on the phone listening to her niece, Kadina, tell her about an upcoming fashion show at her school when there was a soft knock at her door. She climbed off the couch and opened the door, not at all surprised to see Lei standing there. But she was surprised at the preteen’s sad expression.

  “What’s wrong?” Kaitlyn asked, stepping back to open the door and reaching for her wrist to pull her inside gently.

  Lei just shrugged her shoulders.

  “Kadina, let me call you back,” she said into the phone.

  “Okay. I have to give the baby a bath, anyway.”

  Beep.

  Kaitlyn crossed her arms over her chest as she walked over to where Lei sat, slumped on her sofa.

  “Ooh. Don’t frown. You’ll have wrinkles before you’re thirty.”

  “I just talked to my mom and she said she wasn’t coming for my birthday again.”

  Kaitlyn’s heart tugged.

  In the days since she moved into the apartment, the little girl came to visit her often, and a few times she alluded to feeling neglected by her mom. Kaitlyn never knew quite what to say then . . . or now.

  “She just messed up my whole birthday.”

  Kaitlyn sat down on the sofa next to her. “Lei, you never let anybody steal your joy,” she said gently. “It’s your birthday. Your day. And you’re becoming an official teenager. Come on . . . that is way too fly to let anybody stop you from enjoying it.”

  Lei looked up and smiled a little. “I’ll like being a teenager,” she said, her eyes brightening.

  Kaitlyn snapped her fingers. “Of course. It separates the little kids from the young adults, and that’s too fabulous for words.”

  Lei sat up a bit straighter.

  “Are you having a party?”

  Lei shook her head. “I told my dad I didn’t want one because I thought I would spend the day with my mom,” she admitted, sounding disappointed again.

  Kaitlyn rose to her feet. “Where’s Quint?” she asked.

  “Probably in his shed,” Lei said.

  “That big building in the back?” Kaitlyn asked, pointing her thumb toward the rear of the apartment.

  Lei nodded. “That’s his carpentry shed. He brought it from his house so he could build things while we’re living here,” she said, picking up the Vogue magazine Kaitlyn had been flipping through earlier during her day of boredom.

  Carpentry shed?

  His house?

  Build things?

  Kaitlyn opened her mouth to ask the many questions running through her mind, but she decided against it. It really wasn’t any of her business.

  “You head home. I have some things I have to take care of,” Kaitlyn told her.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Lei set the magazine back on the sofa.

  “You can have it. I’m all done with it,” Kaitlyn said, already heading for her kitchen.

  “Thanks, Miss Kaitlyn.”

  Moments later the front door closed behind her.

  Kaitlyn left out the back door and paused on the balcony to look down at the metal shed. Indeed, the windows were lit. She had never really paid attention to the shed and just assumed it held tools. All the while it was Quint’s hiding place.

  She jogged down the stairs as the leaves of the trees rustled from a breeze or from the sudden movements of their inhabitants. She paused on the bottom of the steps, oddly remembering being a teenager sneaking with a boyfriend into the woods for a first kiss, and then being scared shitless by the sounds of rustling trees because she thought one of her brothers had caught them.

  Kaitlyn smiled.

  Growing up on Strong Ranch had been fun for a kid. She had been way more fearless and rough like her brothers. Back then, she hadn’t cared about walking barefoot through grass heated by the summer sun, or riding bareback on her horse, or skinny-dipping in a cool pond.

  But those days are over, she thought, trying to remember the last time she rode the horse that she had received for her sixth birthday. It had been years.

  Kaitlyn continued down the stairs and across the paved yard to Quint’s shed. She knocked on the metal door lightly and stepped back in case it swung out.

  And it did.

  Quint looked down at her; his handsome face was filled with surprise.

  Kaitlyn was surprised by her nervousness. There wasn’t much that rattled her. Not much at all. Except this man.

  “I hate to interrupt you,” she said, looking past him briefly into the shed. “Uhm . . . I wanted to talk to you about Lei.”

  For a moment Kaitlyn actually thought he was going to send her on her way.

  “Can we talk in here?” he asked. “Is that okay?”

  Kaitlyn looked past him again. The shed was no more than ten feet by ten feet, and there was a large worktable in the center and several carved wooden frames in another corner. Along the back was an armoire partially covered by a large white drop cloth. Amid these items there wasn’t much space left.

  But she stepped inside and pulled the metal door closed behind her.

  CHAPTER 9

  Quint turned his back to the door as he set his tool on the center of the huge piece of wood before turning back to face her. He was so tall that his head completely blocked the ceiling light and caused the interior to darken. She came up to stand beside him. And in the few seconds after she did, it was hard to deny the intimacy of being side by side with him in a place so small and contained. And warm.

  “You did that?” she asked.

  Quint nodded.

  “I didn’t know you were so clever with your hands,” she said, looking up at him.

  And Quint looked down at her. The light from the ceiling illuminated his eyes. “Oh, you didn’t?” he asked, kind of flirty and cocky.

  Maybe an offhand reference to her reaction to his touch in her kitchen?

  Kaitlyn’s body tingled as they continued to stare at each other.

  “No, I didn’t, Quin-ton,” she said lightly and teasingly, hoping to lighten the mood. She was the first to look away as she lightly traced her finger along the grooves of the wood.

  “My grandfather taught me to work with all types of wood when I first moved to South Carolina from New York,” he said.

  Kaitlyn’s eyes filled with understanding. “Oh, that’s why you’re so rude. It’s an East Coast thing. You’re not a country boy,” she said.

  “And that’s a bad thing?” Quint asked. He smiled and his dimpl
es deepened in his chocolate cheeks.

  Kaitlyn completely lost her breath at the sight of him.

  “I don’t believe in stereotypes,” he said, picking up one of the tools lying on the untouched center of the wood.

  “Funny, you seemed to have attached quite a few to me,” she said.

  Quint glanced briefly at her over his broad shoulder. “I think you’ve attached quite a few to yourself.”

  Kaitlyn held up her hand. “Not another lecture, please,” she said. “I have a father and four older brothers for that.”

  “Oh, so I’m not the only one telling you to grow up—”

  “An-y-way,” Kaitlyn said loudly, cutting him off with a wave of her hand. “I wanted to know if I could organize a pajama party weekend for Lei and a few of her friends.”

  Quint rose to his full height with his slashing eyebrows dipping as he eyed her. “Did she ask you to?”

  Kaitlyn moved to sit on the wooden stool by the door. “Did you make this too?” she asked before sitting on it.

  “Yes,” Quint answered patiently.

  “You’re really good,” she said, lifting the drop cloth to sigh at the sight of the armoire with Lei’s name engraved on the front doors. “Is that for her birthday?”

  When Quint didn’t respond, she looked over at him. He was standing there, staring at her.

  “Kaitlyn, can you focus?” he asked.

  Kaitlyn’s natural instinct was to flash one of her beguiling smiles, which usually got her whatever she wanted from a man. Any man. Except Quinton Wells. So why bother?

  “I’m focused. What’s up?” she asked, sitting up straight on the stool as she crossed her legs.

  His eyes dipped down to take in the move.

  Kaitlyn arched an eyebrow. She knew the leggings she wore put emphasis on the hips and thighs she inherited from her mother. Had Quint noticed? He was rude and judgmental at times, but he was still a man.

  “Did Lei ask for a pajama party?” he asked again.

  Kaitlyn uncrossed and then crossed her other leg, but this time Quint missed the move as he focused his attention on his carving.

  “No, no, she didn’t,” she said, sliding back off the stool as she eased around his body to stand on the other side of the table. “She was looking sad about her mom not coming, and she’s turning thirteen, and I thought maybe something extra girlie and extra fun would be needed to focus on what’s really important . . . her birthday.”

  “She talks to you a lot, huh?” he asked.

  Kaitlyn nodded as she bent slightly to study the intricate details of the carvings. “Girl things. PMS. Boys—”

  “Boys!” Quinton said sharply, his handsome face alarmed.

  “Yes, and clothes. School. You know, things a little girl does not want to tell her daddy.”

  “She’s not old enough for some little boy to be sniffing at her skirts,” he said sternly.

  Kaitlyn twisted her lips. “But she doesn’t wear skirts,” she said.

  “You know what I mean.”

  Kaitlyn rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, Quint. Lei is not interested in the grungy little boys in class. She’s more worried about which one of Mindless Behavior is the cutest each week.”

  “Mindless Behavior?” Quint asked.

  Kaitlyn sighed as she picked up one of the tools. “Four cute little boys who sing in a group.”

  “Oh.” Quint looked up at her and then reached out with his hand. “Careful, that’s really—”

  Kaitlyn cried out as the blade of the tool sliced into the flesh of her index finger when she lightly touched it. She instantly dropped it as her blood began to seep from the cut.

  “Shit,” Quint swore as he stepped over and held her hand. He studied the cut. “I hope you don’t need stitches.”

  The combination of Quint’s nearness and the thought of stitches made Kaitlyn’s knees give out a little bit. She leaned her hip against the table for support as Quint released her long enough to jerk off his long-sleeved tee. He wiped up some of the dripping blood before tearing off a strip of the bottom with his teeth to bandage her finger.

  Kaitlyn barely felt the steady throbbing of her wound as she closed her eyes and dragged her suddenly parched tongue across her lips to keep from the total impact of Quint’s now-bare upper body. The man had the physique of an Olympian.

  His body is bananas.

  “I need to keep a first aid kit back here,” he said.

  Kaitlyn opened her eyes and looked down at his hands applying the pressure before she looked over at his body again.

  “I grew up on a horse ranch. I know better than just picking up tools. I wasn’t thinking. I was distracted.. . .”

  Her words faded off as she looked up and found Quint’s deep-set eyes on her.

  “By what?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “What distracted you?”

  Kaitlyn couldn’t look away from him. “You,” she admitted softly.

  His eyes deepened in intensity.

  “No, I meant—”

  The rest of her words were swallowed into his mouth as Quinton dipped his head to cover her mouth with his. The first feel of it was softness before he wrapped one arm around her waist; then he swiftly lifted her body up to hold against the length of him as he first touched her lips with his tongue.

  A shiver raced across Kaitlyn’s body and she moaned in hunger as she brought up her uninjured hand to press against the back of his bald head.

  “Oh, my God,” she moaned into his open mouth in between a dozen small kisses, which were electric and fevered and urgent.

  Every pulse point on her body ached and throbbed. Her heart pounded. Their chemistry was off the charts, and she honestly wondered if she had ever felt something so intense and so wicked.

  Quinton backed them up until her back was pressed against the chilly metal of the shed’s back wall. Her gasp was a mix of the shock of the cold mingled with the heat they created. She broke their kiss to take in deep breaths as they stared across the short distance at one another.

  She brought her hand up to press against his chest.

  And she loved that he seemed as affected as she was.

  Glazed eyes.

  Pounding heart.

  Arousal. Desire. Want.

  Quint used his strength to lift her body higher against the wall. Her small but plump and pert breasts were now sitting in his face.

  Kaitlyn arched her back and raised her shirt above her head to fling it onto the wood shavings covering the floor.

  “I knew you wore some sexy shit,” he said low in his throat as he took in the black sheer bralet. The lingerie did nothing to hide that her areolas were large and brown, and her nipples were thick and hard as they strained against the material.

  “So you thought about me in some sexy shit?” she asked.

  Quint didn’t answer. Instead, he dipped his head and sucked her nipple hotly through the material.

  “Oh, my God. Yes!” She sighed as she jerked his head back and freed her nipple to completely tear open the front of her bra.

  The move shook him as he looked up at her in surprise. He increased his intensity before rubbing his smooth face against her cleavage. He moaned as he extended his tongue and flickered it against her nipple.

  Kaitlyn’s clit pulsated as heat infused her body.

  Quint turned his head to press his face against her other breast before tracing the outline of her entire areola before circling inside the bumpy brown skin of it, until his tongue dragged against her taut nipple.

  Kaitlyn cried out.

  “I wanna be inside you,” he whispered against her skin as he let her body slide down his.

  She gasped at the feel of her hard nipples against his hard, contoured chest. “Quinton,” she sighed in pleasure as his hands massaged the fullness of her buttocks as he pressed kisses to the side of her face.

  Kaitlyn tilted her head up; and as if synced into her desire, Quint kissed a trail to her throat before
pressing his lips to her racing pulse.

  “Yes,” she whispered with each kiss. Each and every kiss. “Yes . . . yes . . . yes.”

  Quinton gently jerked her leggings down around her hips.

  She felt the cold metal of the wall against the bare flesh of her ass and her eyes opened, jarring her from the sexual daze she was in. Even with her heart pounding, she shook her head and struggled for her composure.

  “I can’t do this. We can’t do this. I’m not sexing some dude in a shed, and we not even dating, going out, chilling. No! No-no-no-no-no. I am not going out like that. No.”

  Quint let his head fall back as he released a frustrated breath through his mouth as he held up his hands and stepped back from her. “Hey. No problem. ‘No’ means no.”

  Kaitlyn jerked her leggings back up and snatched her shirt from the floor. She slid it over her head with wood chips stuck to it and all.

  “Nothing like that. Definitely not nothing like that. I just . . . I got caught up in the moment. I can’t front—you sexy as fuck, but I just never did one-night stands. That’s not me.”

  Quint turned from her, and Kaitlyn knew he was waiting on his erection to die down.

  “I’m not a tease. I just didn’t think,” she said into the silence.

  Quint grabbed his shirt and held it over his crotch before he faced her. “Hey, don’t apologize and explain. It’s cool. Honestly, I’m glad that one of us came to our senses. Even though I know it woulda been hella good, it woulda been a mistake because I’m not looking for a relationship.”

  “Yeah . . . yeah, you right,” she said, covering up her disappointment as she moved past him to the door of the shed. She had to get the hell out of there . . . ASAP! “So . . . uh . . . uhm . . . Lei’s slumber party?”

  Quint wiped his face with his hand. “That’s cool. I understand she rather hang out with her friends than chill with her pops,” he said good-naturedly.

  “Okay.” Kaitlyn turned and opened the door.

  “Kaitlyn.”

  Her heart pounded in her chest as she turned.