In a T-shirt and sweatpants, hair mussed but the ubiquitous glasses on, Martin strode past her and knocked quietly on the bathroom door. “Q,” he said. The door opened, Martin slipped in, and the door locked behind him.
Sarah stood in the dark with her arms folded across her br**sts, staring at the locked door. She didn’t want to put her ear to the door, but she didn’t want to be left out, either. It hurt so much to be snubbed. She didn’t belong to Quentin, and he didn’t belong to her, but she cared about him. She deserved to know what was going on.
There was more coughing and more of the terrible sound, and Martin speaking low. Then the door opened, spilling light into the hallway and making her blink. Martin put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed briefly. “He’s okay, kid,” he told her. “Go back to bed.” He padded across the carpet and closed the bedroom door softly behind him.
The bathroom light clicked off and Quentin met her in the dark. “I’m okay,” he choked in a strange, gravelly voice. He pushed her in front of him to the bed and drew her under the covers beside him. “You sleep in the nude,” he said, claiming the shirt she wore and throwing it across the room.
“You’re supposed to, too,” she protested, feeling a T-shirt and boxers on him.
“I may have to get up again”—he stopped, pounded his chest, and cleared his throat several times—“and cough up my other lung.”
Her eyes hadn’t readjusted to the dark. She couldn’t see his face. She reached out to put her hand on his chest, over his heart. “Is this the asthma?”
“This is the asthma.” He cleared his throat again. “Sexy, isn’t it?”
Maybe he was still thinking this way, that their relationship was all sex appeal and business, but Sarah had moved way beyond this. She didn’t want to care so much about him. But there it was. She rubbed his chest soothingly. “Don’t lock the door on me.”
“I have to.”
“Why?”
“Don’t get too close to me,” he said. “The record company sent you.”
“If I were your girlfriend, you’d let me in.”
“You’re not my girlfriend,” he said, and coughed. Then his body convulsed in a coughing fit.
She pressed her body to his quaking chest and curved her arms around him. His coughing subsided.
He said roughly, “I wish you were.”
She scratched his scalp with her fingernails and stroked the waves of his hair, tugging her fingers through the tight curls at his nape. He settled his head against her chest and let her hold him. Soon he was asleep.
She lay awake for hours, listening to his healthy, even breathing. Finally she fell back asleep. But immediately, it seemed, she awoke again in the room bright with morning light, and listened to Quentin’s shower.
When the hissing water shut off, she stumbled out of bed to wash the lake out of her hair. They passed each other in the hallway to the bathroom, her naked but for the necklace, him naked and beautiful, with wet curls. As his arm brushed against her arm, he said, “Gulp.”
She stepped into the hot shower and slowly came back to life. This meant that her brain began functioning again, but also that her ni**les hardened and her sex ached for the naked man she’d just passed, and passed up.
She slicked the shampoo out of her hair and opened her eyes. His dark, blurred form leaned against the wall outside the shower, arms crossed, watching her. He couldn’t have seen much because the shower door was translucent glass, but her body thrilled that he was watching her at all. She stepped close to the glass and slowly passed her br**sts near it, where they’d be clear through the mottling, as if she were innocently rinsing under the shower stream. Seeing him shift positions uncomfortably, she suppressed a laugh. And rolled the door open. “You had your turn,” she said.
He wore cargo shorts and the green camo T-shirt. His eyes were still on her br**sts. With effort he lifted his green eyes to her face. “I had my turn in the shower. I didn’t have my turn at you.” He stepped forward to take her mouth with his.
She drew him into the shower stream, then reached out to roll the door closed behind him. His T-shirt darkened and stuck to his solid chest.
He pushed her out of the hot stream and against the cold marble wall. His soft lips massaged hers, then traveled to her ear, making her shiver. His hand slicked down her torso, traveled around to her front, and cupped her mound. “If you were my girlfriend,” he said in her ear, raising more goose bumps, “I’d put my mouth right here.” He worked his thumb on her clit to emphasize his point.
“I’m not your girlfriend,” she said weakly.
“You look like my girlfriend. Let’s see if you taste like my girlfriend.”
He went down on his knees and still had to bend a little to get under her. Spreading her thighs with his warm hands, he began to tease her with his tongue, and then to suck her. And then she wasn’t sure what he was doing, because she’d never experienced anything like it. She felt herself open.
He stopped. “Sarah,” he said gently.
“More!”
“Breathe,” he ordered her.
She took in a ragged gasp, but it was hard to worry about pesky things like breathing when her center radiated heat. He must have sensed that she was too dizzy to stand, because he held her with both strong arms and laid her on the marble floor of the shower. Sliding his forearm underneath her bu**ocks so he had her just where he wanted her, he gave her the most intimate kiss.
The feeling was incredible. It was so good that she could hardly stand it. But she could and did stand it, because when she tried to shift away from his hungry mouth, he held her more firmly. She had no choice.
Then came a moment when she was hyperaware of everything touching her: hot water splashing over her br**sts, cold marble under her back, warm arm under her ass, Quentin’s hot tongue. She knew she was about to come. She put her hands in his hair. That wasn’t enough. She wanted to give back what he gave. But when she reached toward his shorts, he took both her wrists in one hand in that familiar, delicious grip.
There was no release but her screams. She bucked under him. Still he held her. He pressed his mouth to her until she stopped.
Moving to the inside of her thigh, he kissed her even then, as if he regretted it was over. She took a shuddering breath of wet air.
A pounding sounded out in the bedroom, on the bedroom door. Erin’s voice called, “Q, where’s breakfast?”