Playing Dirty (Stargazer #2)(71)
Author: Jennifer Echols

As he picked through the potatoes, he reflected on how Sarah had looked when she was with Wendy. Open, unguarded, happy, with no trace of the poker face. He wanted to make her look like that with him. He’d already seen her like that a few times.

He moved into the spice aisle and thought about that beautiful, laughing look she had. The first time he’d seen it, he remembered foggily, was when he’d drunkenly kissed her against the refrigerator in his kitchen. He’d seen it again when he sang to her in the sound booth.

And she’d looked like that pretty much the whole day on her birthday. Not when she’d slapped him, but after that. And again the next morning, when he made her come in the shower. That’s what he wanted to see again, the way she looked at him when he made her come—

A bell rang as a customer pushed open the door of the market. Quentin realized with a start that he was having a professional-wrestling-style staredown with a jar of garam masala.

No. All thirty-six condoms were in case of an apocalypse, he vowed as he walked down the street with the groceries. He was not going to break Rule Three.

Her apartment building was within long walking distance of the hospital where the foundation was based. As Quentin unlocked the street door with the key she’d given him, he looked around and pictured what it would be like if he quit the Cheatin’ Hearts and went to work full-time for the foundation, even applied to medical school again, and moved in here with her.

That was his long walk, and this was his street. This was his classy lobby with enormous plants. This was his mirrored elevator, an interesting place to seduce her on their way back from a symphony concert some night.

This was a dangerous game he was playing, and he knew he was getting carried away, but he couldn’t help himself. This was his hallway. This was his door, with his key in the lock. This was his apartment—

Sarah leaned with her elbows on the kitchen bar and her chin in her hands, perfect ass thrust out casually, examining a sheaf of papers. Across from her stood what could only be her jackass ex-husband.

When Sarah heard Quentin come in, she straightened and beamed at him, but then her face fell.

Quentin dropped both sacks of groceries on the wood floor. “Get out,” he told the jackass.

“Quentin,” Sarah said, recovering a nervous smile, “this is my ex-husband, Harold—”

“I know who he is.”

“And we just need to work out some—”

“No,” Quentin said. “Get out.”

“Quentin—”

“I said no,” Quentin shouted. “Would you like him to go out the door or the window?”

Quentin had never seen Sarah point both toes in and fidget, pressing the side of her high-heeled shoe down to the floor and back up. She looked small and vulnerable without her poker face. And this hurt more, because seeing her unguarded was a big part of what he wanted.

“Just a second,” she murmured to the jackass. She clopped across the wood floor and touched Quentin’s elbow. “Can I talk with you privately for—”

“No, you can’t talk to me privately for a second and make it okay,” Quentin said. “It’s not okay. He has to go.” Quentin was about to add, I can’t believe you’d give this guy the time of day after he sent you flowers and divorce papers on your birthday, but that was just an excuse. It went way beyond that.

Sarah raised one eyebrow at Quentin. She whispered, “If you’re doing this to make him jealous, that’s nice, but you can stop now. I really need to talk to him about some retirement funds.” She watched Quentin carefully, and her eyebrow went back down. “You’re not bluffing.” She turned to the jackass and said, “You’d better go.”

The jackass took his papers, crossed the room, and paused at the door. Quentin was waiting for the jackass to touch Sarah, to lay one careless finger on her. But the jackass knew better. Avoiding Quentin’s eyes, he said to Sarah, “I’ll call you.”

“No you won’t,” said Quentin.

Sarah told the jackass, “Just call my lawyer, okay?”

She closed the door behind him and turned to Quentin, laughing. “Were you bluffing? Because that was really great.” Her smile faded when Quentin didn’t smile.

“I don’t want him back here,” Quentin said. “Do you understand me?”

She said, “Not really.”

He snatched the box of condoms out of the grocery sack and tossed Sarah over his shoulder.

14

Sarah had been a fool to tell Quentin she didn’t like to be picked up and carried around. Because she did. She felt her ni**les hardening, straining against her bra, as she watched the hardwood floors pass under her, through the living room, down the hall, into the bedroom. He threw her roughly onto the bed and pulled off her sandal.

Only, he wasn’t full of fun as he’d been the other times he’d carried her. “Quentin,” she said, but he was gone, just a body sliding his hands over her body. He wasn’t looking at her face. Her other sandal was off. He tugged her shirt over her head, then pulled off his shirt with one motion of his thick muscled arm.

“Quentin, what’s the hurry?” She tried to keep her voice even. “Let me catch up with you.”

His black-green eyes finally flicked up to meet her eyes. Holding her gaze, he said in a voice so low that she could hardly hear him, “I can’t pretend this is casual anymore.” He brushed a strand of pink hair out of her eyes. His hand was shaking.

He kissed her, a deep, dark kiss that possessed her. Her body rushed to meet him.

He continued to kiss her as his hands moved over her. He pulled at her bra, her pants, her panties. He pressed two big, callused fingers inside her.

“Quentin,” she cried out.

His shorts were down, the condom was on, he was inside her. Then deeper inside her, then deeper inside than she was prepared for. She gasped as he slid as deep as possible and stopped, like a dead bolt sliding home in a lock.

Her sweat cooled on her skin. Shivering, she slicked her hands down the sweat on his back. She whispered, “Your eyes turn dark when you’re angry.”

He moved a little inside her, making her jump.

She began to be afraid. “Smile,” she said.

“Can’t.”

“Have you gone over to the Dark Side?”

“Maybe.”

Sarah thought she knew what was going on. He wasn’t jealous about Harold. He felt guilty again for cheating, so to speak, on Erin. “Well, you done done it now,” she said, imitating the hick line from “Come to Find Out.” Anything to bring back his laugh. “You might as well enjoy it.”