Free Hidden Embers by Tessa Adams Page B

really good right about now. Moving toward her, he murmured, “I should probably let you know I’m a pretty good guesser.”
    “Now, see, that’s exactly what I’m counting on.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

    Q uinn took another step toward her and Jasmine retreated—not out of fear, but out of a need to keep the game going a little longer. As he followed her, matching each of her backward steps with a forward one of his own, he arched an eyebrow suggestively. She much preferred the wild glint in his eye to the look of complete and utter devastation that had been there just a few minutes before.
    She wasn’t fool enough to think that she had banished the agony she’d seen in his eyes when she’d woken up—she knew it was still there, lurking, right below the surface. But if she could give him a few minutes reprieve from whatever was hurting him, then she was all for it.
    “Where are you going?” he asked, as he backed her slowly across the room. “There’s no place to run.”
    “Who says I’m running? Maybe I’m just executing a strategic retreat.”
    “I’m not sure if there’s anything strategic about it—seeing as how you’re about to bump into the dresser.”
    He took another step forward, and in those moments he was all predator and she was his prey.
    It was not a relationship she normally espoused, but right then, with Quinn bearing down on her, she couldn’t remember ever feeling more excited.
    As she continued to back up, making him work for it in an effort to keep his mind off his pain, she let her gaze sweep over him, lingering on all the parts of him she’d wanted to touch during their first lovemaking session, but had been denied.
    With his shirt off and the top button of his jeans undone, he was even more gorgeous than he’d been at the bar. His too-long black hair was tousled, while his eyes gleamed electric green in the semi-darkness of the motel room.
    And his chest—his chest was the stuff fantasies were made of. Her fantasies, anyway. It was smooth and broad and extremely well-muscled, and he had a complicated looking black and green tribal tattoo decorating his right pec. As for the six-pack she’d spied through his shirt earlier—it was more like an eight-pack, and it made her mouth water with the need to taste it. The only thing she wanted more was to trace her tongue down the light happy trail starting below his belly button and leading into his jeans.
    Her need to touch him was so real, so powerful, that she shuddered and reached for Quinn before she even knew that she was doing it. Whether it was brought on by the fact that she couldn’t be in the same room with him without wanting him, or whether it was because she needed to comfort him when his pain was so real, she didn’t know. And didn’t care.
    But before her fingers could touch him, before they could skim down that hard, flat stomach, he took advantage of her lapse in attention and pounced on her. His hands went around her waist and then he was lifting her, plopping her down on the same dresser he’d taken her on earlier in the night.
    “You have something against the bed?” she asked with a grin.
    “We’ll get there eventually, but right now I want to see you clearly.” Before she could object, he reached behind her and switched on the lamp embedded in the dresser mirror.
    Light flooded the small area and she knew she was displayed—scars and all—to his very discerning eye.
    She shifted, tried to cover her nude torso with her hands, but he grabbed her wrists. Smacking her hands down on the table, one on either side of her hips, he held her pinned in place as he looked his fill.
    She shuddered beneath his scrutiny, knowing what he was seeing. And while she normally wasn’t self-conscious about her body, for some reason it bothered her that this beautiful man with the perfect body was looking at her odd collection of scars.
    She wanted to be perfect for him, wanted him to remember her for something more than the