Crazy For You Read Online Free PDF

Whenever he saw mothers in stores yelling at their kids, he’d think of Quinn’s round, serene, Madonna-like face and know she’d never do that to his kids. And she’d always be there for him, too, warm and understanding. She was everything he needed, the solid, sure center of his life.
    So when Quinn came in the apartment door at six-fifteen with the dog smirking at him from her arms, he kept his voice calm, his tone warning her that this was not negotiable as he said, “Quinn, the dog goes to Edie.”
    Quinn’s chin came up, and her jaw clenched, and suddenly her face didn’t look as round as it usually did. Her hair slid back, and two bright spots stood out on her cheekbones. She looked awful, and the dog looked worse, feral, as if it had bitten and infected her.
    “No,” she said.

    “Hey,” Darla said to Max as she came into the grimy, cluttered station office that was decorated in what Quinn called Early Clipboard. “Whose Toyota is that out there?”
    “Barbara Niedemeyer’s,” Max said without lifting his head from the bill he was making out. “And we are not adopting another dog, so just forget about it.”
    Darla grinned at the back of his head and thought how sexy the curve of his neck was, rounding down into the back of his T-shirt. Max had put on a little weight in the seventeen years since they’d graduated, and his dark hair was a little thinner, but she could still see the best-looking boy in the senior class who’d invited her to be the first girl he took to the drive-in in the car he’d finally gotten running. They’d seen The Empire Strikes Back, or most of it. Looking at him now, she wanted to jump him all over again. Not bad for seventeen years, after all.
    She peered out into the service bay. “Where’s Nick?”
    “Upstairs.” Max pushed his chair back. “I mean it, no dog.”
    Darla sat on the edge of the desk and nudged his thigh with hers. “Not even if I asked real nice?”
    “Not even then,” Max said, but he’d caught the undertone in her voice; she could tell by the way his eyes crinkled. “You could try to persuade me, though.”
    Darla slid until her legs were on the outside of Max’s and leaned over to put her hands on the arms of his desk chair. “Well, I want this dog pretty bad. What exactly would I have to do?”
    “Come home and give me a back rub,” Max said. “And a few other things. You’re still not getting that dog, though. I got to be fair here.”
    He tried to look stern, and Darla laughed, leaning closer. “Forget about home,” she whispered. “It’s full of kids. You and me, right here, honey.” He started to frown and she kissed him, and Max kissed her back, their good, solid, damn-I’m-glad-you’re-here kiss, but tonight her blood rose faster because they weren’t at home, they were in the office, windows all around, lights on, acting like dumb kids all over again. Sex with Max was never bad, but it wasn’t always pulse-pounding, and lately it hadn’t even been often.
    Now her pulse was pounding.
    “Wait a minute,” Max said, coming up for air, and she slid down into his lap as best she could with the chair arms in her way, straddling his thighs but not tight against him the way she wanted to be.
    “Come here,” she said, and he said, “Jesus, the whole world can see us.”
    “So they’ll learn something,” Darla said, but Max was standing up, sliding tight against her for a lovely second before the straightening of his body nudged her back onto the desk.
    “Let’s go home,” he said. “The kids’ll be in bed by eleven. Then it’s you and me, girl.”
    Darla felt the heat die out of her. “That’s five hours.”
    Max grinned. “We can make it. Come on. Let’s get out of here before somebody sees us necking.”
    “Yeah, that would be bad,” Darla said flatly and followed him out the door. The white Toyota gleamed at her in the garage lights. “Whose car did you say this is?”
    “Barbara Niedemeyer,” Max