Read Online Playing Dirty by Jennifer Echols - Free Book Online Page B

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 pantsand 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