Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay Babette Jongh (best romance ebooks .txt) 📖

“Oh…” She spoke to something inside herself that she’d never met but knew intimately all the same. “Yes.” She spoke to the sky, to the stars, to the coming together of a million separate elements she couldn’t even imagine. “Yes, please.”

“God, yes,” she heard Quinn moan as he buried his face in her neck and slammed his body into hers again and again and again.

Then neither of them could talk as their minds emptied and their bodies moved together in a mindless, wordless communion that knew more than what either of them wanted, or even what they needed. It knew…everything.

* * *

“Burgers and fries for dinner,” Abby decided after studying the contents of the fridge and glancing at the clock. “That’s all we have.” Because they had spent the day making love, then napping, then making love again instead of going to the store. “It’s also all I have time to cook, because Sean will be here any minute.” His visit was only for the evening, but for Quinn’s sake, Abby wanted to make it special.

“Stop worrying.” Quinn kissed the back of her neck and pulled her away from the refrigerator, closing the door. “Whatever you have the time and inclination to cook will be perfect. Or I can take y’all out after Sean and I feed the animals.”

He held Abby against him, his front to her back, and pushed his hips into her backside, as if they hadn’t already made love until she was sore. “You have no idea how low the bar is when it comes to Sean’s expectations about food. Leftover pizza, flat cola, and a handful of stuck-together gummy bears for dessert would thrill him.”

“Don’t talk ugly about your ex,” she chided, pulling away on the pretext of reaching for a big bowl on the cupboard’s top shelf. Her ex-boyfriend, Blair, had vilified his ex-wife constantly for abandoning him and their daughter. Abby had bought into his story, only to realize later that he’d been feeding her a plate of bullshit piled as high as he could manage. He’d probably said the same thing about her, when he’d so ruthlessly cut her out of Emily’s life. The only difference between Abby and Blair’s wife was that he hadn’t had to drag Abby through court and accuse her of being an unfit mother, because he’d held all the power in their relationship. “You wouldn’t say that in front of Sean, so please don’t say it in front of me.”

“I’m sorry.” Quinn took down the bowl she was reaching for and set it on the counter. “You’re absolutely right. Melissa is no Martha Stewart, but she is a good mother. She deserves my respect for that, and she’s got it.”

“I know.” Abby set an onion and a green bell pepper on the chopping block. “I appreciated the way you took up for her when Sean was here before. It means a lot to me to know that you’re raising your son to have respect for his mother. Aunt Reva always said that a boy who is raised to respect his mother will respect his wife when he’s an adult.”

Abby had once seen her ex spew ugly expletives at his mother, and she’d thought then, I hope he never treats me that way. Then she’d learned—too late—that Reva was absolutely correct when she said that a man who will disrespect his mother will disrespect any woman in his life. She had tried to influence Blair in a positive way, tried to help him become a better man, especially when it came to treating his daughter with the love and respect any child deserves. But he had invited her to “keep her big butt out of his relationship with his daughter.” Though Blair had used Emily to lure Abby deeper into his life, he never missed an opportunity to point out that the child she took such joy in mothering wasn’t her child.

With a huff of annoyance at the rabbit hole her thinking had gone down, Abby attacked the bell pepper with a sharp paring knife. As she cored the pepper and sliced away the ribs, she reminded herself that her spectacularly poor judgment in choosing Blair was no reflection on Quinn, who was honest and decent and kind.

Quinn started chopping the onion. “How fine do you want it?”

Helping with the cooking without being asked? Her kind of man. “As fine as you can get it. I’m gonna mix the onion and some minced garlic”—she plopped an entire head of garlic on the block—“with the ground beef and some spices before making the patties.”

Quinn broke apart the head of garlic and had just started smashing each of the cloves with the flat edge of the knife when his phone buzzed. “Guess that means Sean’s here. Can you grab it?” He turned his back to her. “Back pocket.”

She dug into his back pocket and took out his phone, which was still buzzing. She hit Answer and held the phone to his ear. “Yeah, hey. Come on over to—” He paused. “Yeah? Okay, sure. We’ll come out.” He moved to the sink and rinsed his hands. Abby ended the call and handed over the phone; he dried his hands and took it. “Sean’s about halfway down the driveway, but there’s a big shaggy dog standing there who won’t let him come any farther.”

“Wolf!” Abby felt a bloom of excitement at the thought of maybe getting Wolf to come to her this time. She turned the scooter and hurried after Quinn. “Hang on. Wait for me. Don’t scare him.”

Quinn waited for Abby to catch up, but impatience oozed from every pore and surrounded him like a cloud. “It’s not the dog being scared that I’m worried about.” He grabbed the scooter’s handlebars in one hand and wrapped the other around Abby’s waist, hustling her over the flagstones. He set her and the scooter down on the gravel drive.

Sean stood halfway down