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Raelyn whipped around to find Quinn standing directly behind her, their bodies so close they were almost touching.

She could feel the heat radiating off him, and the look he gave her sent a pleasant ache down between her legs.

He was staring down at her, eyes bearing into hers.

She'd forgotten how tall he was. She was tall compared to a lot of women, nearly 5’8”, and he still had at least seven or eight inches on her. His Adam's apple bobbed with a swallow.

Is he nervous?

He licked his lips and she realized she was staring at them, wondering how they'd feel on her own lips, her neck, that new ache between her legs.

She blinked and looked up at his eyes, wondering if that golden gaze could see inside her mind.

Her face went hot with a blush at the mere thought and she quickly turned back around and made her way to her office, Quinn following closely behind after dropping the stack of magazines on the front desk.

Part of her wished that he'd give her a little space to cool off, while the traitorous, sexually starved part hoped he might just push her up against the office door as soon as it shut and take her right there.

This sexual frustration was killing her, and his presence was decidedly not helping.

It was no secret he photographed well, but in person he was much more intense and his raw, sexual magnetism was palpable.

Or maybe it was just that she hadn't shared her bed with a man in over a year.

Once Raelyn set her bag down, she leaned back against her desk and focused her attention on Quinn's arm in the sling. "UCL sprain, huh?"

"So you do read those magazines.” Quinn's cocky smile flashed across his face and Raelyn had to actively stifle her own smile in response.

"I read Sports Illustrated because I'm a doctor of sports medicine and I enjoy sports," she said, the smile threatening to cross her lips. She was determined not to give him the satisfaction of knowing she was thoroughly enjoying his flirtatious behavior.

Quinn nodded. "Right, a doctor…" He looked around, his gaze falling on her framed degrees on the wall behind her desk. "So, you were engaged to a lawyer?"

Raelyn's gaze jumped away from his sling and up to his face, "Who told you that?" But before he could respond, she gave a knowing nod, "Ah, Chris...right. "

"How long were you two together?" Quinn wasn't meeting her gaze as he asked the question, and for the first time she felt his overly-confident demeanor falter.

"Oh, just a few years." Raelyn waved her hand dismissively. “The engagement didn't even last three months though."

"What happened?"

Raelyn wasn't in the habit of airing her dirty laundry.

Traverse City had a network of well-connected housewives who loved any piece of juicy information that had ever caused anyone emotional pain or embarrassment.

Her mother and sister were well-established members of this network.

But this was Quinn, her once-best friend who had opened up to her about all his biggest secrets and sources of trauma when he'd had no one else.

What had happened to her paled in comparison to all of his demons.

"Well, about two weeks after the engagement I thought I saw him kissing another woman outside a bar. Amira and I were having a girl's night, he was out with the guys and we ended up at the same bar. I don't know, he explained it away like it was some misunderstanding. Like I didn’t see what I thought I saw or something like that.” Raelyn chewed her lip nervously and looked down, still embarrassed that she’d been so gullible.

"Looking back I don't know how I was dumb enough to accept it.

I guess I just really wanted to believe he was a good one.

He was my first long term relationship.. .I don't know, it's stupid, I guess."

"It's not," said Quinn. "And you're not dumb. You're far from it. At least you were willing to trust him and take a chance, right?"

"A lot of good that did," Raelyn let out a hollow laugh. "About four weeks after that, I went to surprise him at his office. He'd been working late a lot, and I thought it would be fun to show up in a long coat with nothing but sexy lingerie underneath...but I guess someone else beat me to it."

Quinn winced. "The chick from the bar?”

"No, this was a different one, actually. So...isn't that cool?" Raelyn looked down at her feet again. "It was humiliating. And I'd worn like five-inch stilettos, so I almost rolled my ankle on the way out. "

"The guy's an idiot," Quinn said, and it was a statement of fact. "Any man who has you and thinks for a second he can do better is just fucking stupid...he never deserved you."

Raelyn looked into Quinn's eyes, searching, and after a few beats she gave a nod and a small smile.

"Thanks." She felt the need to lighten the mood so she mused, "I'd ask about your lovers, but I have a patient in," she looked at her FitBit, "three hours.

I don't think we'd even make a dent in your little black book. "

Quinn dragged out a big "Ha!" then shrugged. "What can I say? I don't want to give anyone the impression I'm capable of a functional relationship when I have absolutely nothing to model it after."

"Aw, you poor, broken little soul," Raelyn gave an exaggerated pout, pushing herself away from her desk and approaching Quinn to take a look at his arm.

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, that was 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 again at 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 place is a 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 if I won, 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.

"Please, I could cut the sexual tension with a knife," said Alexis, walking past them to her desk, waving a hand in the air as if warding off evil spirits. "I feel a little dirty just walking through here."

Raelyn and Quinn both looked down awkwardly, and then around the room.

Anywhere but at each other as if catching each other's eyes would reignite the spark between them.

Quinn finally looked back at her with an almost shy grin.

"Well, I'll be at Trojan Horse this evening if you want to join.

" He put his hand on her shoulder and let it brush down the length of her arm. "Thanks again, Doc.”

Raelyn watched him walk out to the parking lot and get into a shiny charcoal colored Bronco and let out a breath that she hadn't realized she'd been holding in.

Alexis stepped up next to her and looked out the window, then back up at her boss with a sly grin.

"I'll give you a few minutes if you need to take some alone time . "

Trying to laugh, Raelyn let out a groan and turned around to walk back into her office. Yes, she definitely needed those vibrating panties.