Page 16 of Hard Hitter

He stiffened suddenly when she reached for the strap of the sling around his shoulders. She was close to him, maybe unnecessarily close, and she could feel the heat of him again. She slid her fingers underneath the strap and smoothly moved them up his muscular shoulders- okay,thatwas unnecessary. There was a slight hitch in Quinn's breath as she did this, and then she pulled the strap over his head with one hand and steadied his elbow with the other. She pulled the sling off, exposing the heavily bandaged arm, and began a light palpation from the top of his absurdly lean and muscular bicep down to his wrist with gentle squeezes. His muscles wrapped like thick ropes around his arms, and those forearms,holy shit. She was silently praising the baseball gods for creating the sport that sculpted him.

"How does that feel?" Raelyn asked, continuing to test his arm for soreness or tenderness while wondering just how inappropriate it would be to do these palpations with her tongue.Highly inappropriate. Wildly, absurdly…sensually inappropriate.

"Feels good…" Quinn's voice cracked slightly, and he swallowed hard.

Raelyn looked up at him, "I mean is it tender? Sore? I need to know where it's most sensitive before I change the bandage."

Quinn cleared his throat, "Oh, right.” A slight redness blossomed in his cheeks. "Yeah, it's a little sore on the...inside. Just under the elbow joint."

"That's normal," said Raelyn. "Normally I wouldn't unwrap this yet, but I think I'm going to trade the sling in for a splint. It's just better protection and you'll actually be able to move your shoulder. You'll still have to wear it until Monday or Tuesday, but it's sort of a pain in the ass to have to hold your arm across your body for that long."

"Whatever you say, Doc," Quinn said, his voice still low and husky.

Raelyn tried to ignore the tell-tale signs and sounds of arousal in his voice and led him out of her office and into one of the patient rooms where her supplies were stored. She willed herself to avoid looking down at his crotch in case there was a sign of arousal there, too. She was sure she wouldn't be able to contain herself if he'd gotten hard from her simply touching his arm and shoulder. Her body had certainly reacted to the touch, the ache between her thighs now accompanied by moisture.

Reminding herself that she was a professional and he was a model-seducing womanizer, Raelyn managed to put a smaller bandage over the scar on his elbow and get his arm into a hard-cased splint without having an orgasm. Who knew it could be such a sensual task? It probably didn't help that she was sure he kept shifting his lower body to disguise the significant bulge stretching the denim of his jeans. These efforts were futile on his part; some things just don't hide well.

"So, what do you have going on when you get out of work?" Quinn asked as Raelyn walked with him back out to the lobby. "Or are you taking a lunch break? I could pick you up and we could catch up some more."

"Actually, I have a lunch date already," Raelyn replied. It was selfish to put it this way, but she had been observing his reactions when telling him about Emerson and thought she'd seen a bit of that green monster that is envy shadowing his face. The same shadow fell across him againat the mention of a prospective date, so she finished, "with my mom. And Camille."

Quinn's features immediately brightened as he looked up. "Oh, right. How is the queen of the grapes?"

Raelyn smiled at this, "And her apprentice? They're good." A memory bloomed in the forefront of her mind: An aw-struck, eight-year-old Quinn stood in the driveway of Raelyn's family's French Provincial home, wearing ripped mud-covered jeans and a T-shirt that he was quickly outgrowing. "Remember when you came to my house for the first time and were convinced it was a palace?"

He laughed, evidently revisiting the memory, too, "That placeisa palace, Rae. It literally looks like Malfoy Manor."

"That's a bit of an exaggeration," Raelyn chortled.

"I told you I didn't think they let peasants enter the castle so I couldn't possibly go in," Quinn mused.

"You called me Princess Raelyn DeRose of the Vine for a month."

"Until you challenged me to a backyard volleyball game," Quinn nodded. "If you won, I had to stop calling you Princess, and ifIwon, you had to start calling me King Amazeballs."

Raelyn let out a burst of laughter, having forgotten his terms of the deal.

He turned to face her in the middle of the lobby. “I let you win, you know.” He was close to her again, and though the heat was still evident between them, the air was somewhat lighter, and she felt a sudden flare of joy blossom in her chest.

"You did not.” Raelyn playfully pushed his good shoulder, an unwavering look of defiance on her face.

Quinn mock-staggered back. "It's not polite to shove cripples, Rae. And yes, I did. You're a great athlete but," he shrugged and sniffed arrogantly, "I'm better."

Raelyn shook her head, "You may be Mr. Baseball Man-"

"I prefer King Amazeballs, but continue…”

"But I know I won that game. Fair. And. Square," Raelyn finished, poking him in his hard and toned pectorals with the last three words.

Quinn leaned in next to her ear and paused briefly before whispering, "No, you didn't." When Raelyn scoffed derisively he added, "I just wanted to make you happy."

She halted, caught off guard by the sexy but sincere tone of his voice. She looked in his eyes, and this close up she could see how they softened when they looked back at her. There was a tug in her chest, an aching sensation picking at an old wound, threatening to bring so much of their past to the surface. Things she wished she’d said, things she wished she could take back. The raw intensity of how she’d felt after he left all those years ago, like he’d taken the most crucial piece of her with him.God,she had missed him. And…here he was.

A pull like a magnet was attracting her lips to his. Her eyes swept over his mouth that was now so close to hers and she could feel his breath on her skin as she self-consciously licked her bottom lip.

"Good morning!" A bright voice came singing through the door, snapping the sexual tension in half as Raelyn and Quinn each took a step back from each other. Alexis stood just past the doorway, impeccably dressed as always, her sharp green eyes darting back and forth between her boss and the stunningly handsome stranger in front of her. "Oh, I interrupted something intense."

"No, no, he was just leaving," Raelyn said, trying to look as though her heart weren't beating out of her chest, and the ache down below hadn't started to throb.

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