Crazy For You by Jennifer Crusie

her mouth in time to hear her say, “I want to be new, different, exciting. I want to be Zoe.”
    “You can skip that part if you want,” he said.
    “I think maybe Katie was a sign. You know, like my destiny telling me to get a life.” Quinn smiled at him and said, “You can’t ignore your destiny,” and he lost his place in the conversation again. Everything about Quinn was warm, he’d always known that, but for twenty years he’d been telling himself it was a puppy kind of warmth, cute and safe. But there was her mouth now, lush and smiling—
    “Nick?” Quinn leaned forward a little and her hair spilled on the couch back. “Are you okay?”
    Her voice came from far away. He only had to lift one finger to touch her hair. Just one finger. It was so easy, and the strands slid like silk, the way he’d thought they would, cool and slippery, and his breath snagged in his throat.
    Her eyes widened, and he was caught, both of them caught, staring into each other’s eyes for long seconds, too long, way too long, hours too long, frozen in each other’s gaze, and the longer he looked the more he saw Quinn, her eyes huge and startled, Quinn, her soft lips parted, Quinn, hotter than he could have imagined, Quinn. He began to lean forward, sucked into her warmth, a little dizzy because he wanted her mouth so much. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, too, close and possible, too possible, don’t go there, but he leaned anyway to take all of her heat, and then a car door slammed outside and Katie barked, and Nick jerked back.
    “Oh, hell.” He stood up, pulling away from her so that she fell forward a little, and Katie went under an end table in terror.
    You have lost your fucking mind, he told himself. “Okay,” he said to her briskly, betrayed only by how husky his voice came out. “Nothing happened. This is not you. You don’t do this. I’m sorry. It’s the couch. I have to go.”
    Quinn took a deep breath, and he tried not to watch her sweater rise and fall. Manicure scissors, he told himself. Sister-in-law. Best friend. Bill’s girl.
    None of it was helpful.
    “Maybe it is me,” Quinn said faintly. “Maybe I do this. I’ve changed some today.” She swallowed and the movement of her throat made him nuts again.
    “No, you haven’t,” Nick said. “I’m going now.” He backed around the couch just as Quinn’s mother came in the back door and screamed.

    FOUR
     
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    It took a couple of minutes to sort things out, especially since Nick’s guilt made him babble. “Nothing happened,” he said, while Quinn straightened and said, “Mama, it’s okay, it’s just us.”
    “Us?” her mother said and Nick said, “No, there is no us, it’s just Quinn. And me. Not together.”
    Then Quinn’s father came in from the garage, and said, “What the hell?” and Nick thought, Good question.
    “What are you doing here?” Meggy McKenzie looked at them and then at her garbage bag-strewn kitchen, the overhead light making her short curly auburn hair an improbably red-gold halo around her pretty, perplexed face. “What is this stuff? Why aren’t the lights on?”
    “Hello, Nick,” her husband said, squinting into the dark living room, his voice a little slow with suspicion. Joe was a big guy, a little balding, a little paunch, but mostly solid blue-collar electrician bulk, all of it radiating disapproval of Nick.
    Nick could relate. He wasn’t any too pleased with himself at the moment. “Hey, Joe. Well, I got to go. Have a good night. Quinn will explain.” He detoured around Meggy and was out the back door before she could ask him anything else, like What were you doing on my couch with my daughter? The second daughter of hers he’d been on that couch with. Don’t even think about that.
    Once he was in the truck, he realized he’d left his jacket behind, but he didn’t care. The cold could get his head back for him, or at least some of the blood it needed to