Playing Dirty (Stargazer #2)(15)
Author: Jennifer Echols

But for now . . . Now that she’d lain asleep with Quentin, she was afraid she’d fallen even further for him. She’d lived with Harold for so many lonely nights. Even their most romantic evenings together had ended with them parting ways perfunctorily and leaving the middle of the bed empty. Harold claimed Sarah had the metabolism of a racehorse and made him hot—in a bad way—if he held her while they slept. A man had never held her in the dark, embracing her like he treasured her, sliding his fingers closer to her sex as the night grew older.

The placement of Quentin’s hand gave her an idea for how to shock him into telling her the truth in the morning. But here in the dark, disoriented without her phone and lost in time, she might as well enjoy it. She slid her own hand on top of her fly until it covered his hand beneath the material.

Her blood heated as his fingers curled against her.

She wondered if she could stir the passion in him that he’d felt for her at first. Carefully she pressed her ass against his groin—and then tried not to gasp as he nuzzled her neck in his sleep and dragged a rough kiss along her jaw.

He grew still again, holding her more tightly than before. She didn’t dare make another move lest she get more of what she wanted than she was bargaining for. She simply enjoyed the sensation of being caught in his heat, because she would never get so lucky again.

“Q! Where’s breakfast?”

This time, Sarah knew she was awake. The sound booth was brightly lit. She recognized the acoustic tile on the walls. She’d grown familiar with the feel of Quentin’s hand in her intimate area.

And, looking up toward the voice that had woken her—looking way, way up—she saw a very irate Erin standing over them, fists on her hips, her eyes on Quentin’s wrist disappearing into Sarah’s pants.

An emotion passed across Erin’s pretty face. Sarah knew fear when she saw it.

And then Erin was padding across the sound booth in her bare feet. A music stand scraped across the floor. Erin dragged it into the doorway to prop the door open. She jogged up the stairs, calling, “They’re both down here. I told you.”

Sarah was surprised that even with all the noise and the lights flicked on overhead, Quentin hadn’t moved. His fingertips burned her mound, setting her body on fire. She felt guilty that she was enjoying his touch so much—especially after seeing Erin’s horrified look. Erin did not want to lose Quentin. Not for good.

But Sarah’s guilt quickly turned into defiance. Erin had chosen Owen over Quentin, at least for the time being. Sarah was almost divorced. She and Quentin were both single, practically speaking, and they could sleep together if they wanted, even if it was only on the sound booth floor.

She sat up carefully so his hand stayed in place but she could look over at him.

He breathed evenly through his nose, one muscled arm flung above his head. He looked boylike, innocent. And there wasn’t a tattoo on him. If he were who he seemed, there would have been barbed wire around his biceps.

She reached down and moved her fingers gently across his hot skin, tucking a stray curl behind his ear and feeling a flash of protectiveness for him. She hoped she could help him with his drug problem. Although the thought wrenched her aching heart, she sincerely hoped she could help him get back together with Erin. His repeated breakups with Erin over the past few months must have torn him up inside and fed his desire to escape into drugs—which, ironically, might have led Erin to choose Owen instead. Sarah stroked Quentin’s handsome face, his features at peace for a few moments more, as she plotted exactly what she would say to him.

He woke. His stubble scraped her palm, and his lashes fluttered open against her fingers. He gazed at her sleepily, smiling a slow, beautiful smile.

All at once he pulled his hand out of her pants and gaped up at her in shock. “I’m in big trouble,” he muttered.

“I hope not,” Sarah said. “We didn’t use a condom.”

He stared at her, uncomprehending. “That’s crazy,” he mumbled. “I always . . . ” He closed one eye, squinting at her. Then switched eyes, with no better luck. Then pressed his fingertips to his brow. Finally he said, “Hold that thought,” and rolled to his feet. He held out one hand to her and pulled her up from the floor.

He let her go to navigate her own way across the tiny room packed with equipment, and up the stairs. Someone had brought in her leather bag from outside and hung it on the back of a barstool in the kitchen. She snagged it as they passed, despite the fact that Erin and Owen glared at them from a few stools down.

“What were you thinking, Q?” Owen demanded. “What if you’d needed your inhaler while you were stuck down there with no way out?”

Halfway through the den that adjoined the kitchen, Quentin turned to shout at Owen in outrage, “What if you hadn’t broken my door?” He held out one arm to Sarah, almost protectively, and waited for her to pass him. “Here,” he said quietly behind her.

Obediently she turned and mounted another staircase to a hallway and kept walking past bedrooms and bathrooms.

“This is me,” he said, stopping in a bedroom doorway behind her. “Just let me take my contacts out and we’ll talk.”

She pointed to a bathroom across the hall. “I’ll slip in here for a second and meet you there.”

He gave her the smallest nod. A troubled look crossed his face, as if he were angry with himself for not extending her that courtesy first. But now her imagination was running wild. Of all the unexpected things she thought he was and wasn’t, it was too outlandish to think he was a gentleman.

She ducked into the bathroom and checked her phone. Wendy was worried about her. Sarah texted back, “I’m okay. More soon,” then brushed her teeth and removed her makeup—the bare minimum of maintenance, because she was afraid of what Quentin might be snorting while she left him alone.

In his bedroom, she locked the door behind her, kicked off her sexy shoes, and settled in the middle of his luxuriously soft bed. Morning sunlight bathed her, and happy birds sang in the crepe myrtle outside the window. Over their chirps, from down a short corridor to the master bath, she could hear pills rattle in a bottle. Water ran. She heard no prolonged sniffs.

And then Quentin caught her off guard. He walked into the room with his shorts off, wearing only boxers printed with dog bones, plus wire-framed glasses that made him look studious. Ha. And strangely vulnerable, despite his muscular body.

He sat beside her on the bed and pulled her into his lap, with her legs straddling his waist. She was very aware that only his boxers and her pants and a wisp of panties separated her center from his naked groin. She tamped down her mixture of excitement and alarm. It made sense for him to touch her this way if he believed they’d had sex last night—which was exactly what she wanted.