“Since I got here.”
Rachel sighed. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”
“He needs to go to rehab, plain and simple.”
“But Quentin says, and I know it’s true, that Erin and Owen will kick him out of the band if they find out. Then he’ll think he has nothing to live for. That’s what will happen if we do an intervention. Quentin says we just have to wait for Martin to make the call. Then we can invent an excuse for Erin and Owen and get him the help he needs in secret. But what if Martin never makes that call, or makes it too late?”
Sarah rubbed her hand soothingly across Rachel’s back. “Don’t give up on Martin yet. I think you should hang tight, wait and see, because the band can’t go on like this much longer. Something’s going to give. Can’t you feel it?” She glanced at Rachel’s placid face hiding such sadness. “No, you can’t feel anything but Martin.” She glanced at Quentin’s bare butt. “And they all look relaxed enough. But trust me. I can feel it. Something’s about to happen.”
The photographers finished with Quentin and switched their attention to Erin, who stood on the wall and let a large fan blow her skirt up like Marilyn Monroe for the back cover of the album. Quentin shuffled over to Sarah. He was still bare from the waist down but for the deck shoes. Rachel wisely went to sit in the BMW. The show was over.
Sarah would have to leave soon, too, and she couldn’t stand the thought of spending hours and hours more fantasizing about Quentin without some promise of fruition. She said, “About this morning.”
He said quickly, “Please don’t give me a hard-on while I’m naked in public.”
“Put. Your. Clothes. On.”
He slid the Kiss me boxers from the tailgate and pulled them on. Over at the wall, the other Cheatin’ Hearts applauded. “Put it on, Q!” they called.
Sarah asked, “Did your sisters give you those boxers?”
“How’d you know?” He pulled on his shorts.
Sarah eyed the Will cook for sex T-shirt. “Where’d you get that shirt?”
“Erin, I think. Women give me weird clothes.”
“Because you wear them,” Sarah laughed. “They think it’s funny that you actually wear them.”
“Where else am I supposed to get my clothes?”
“From the store?”
“I don’t shop,” he said simply. “Now. About this morning.” He stepped closer to her and held both her hands in his. “I want to try it again and see if I can do better this time. But we’re recording until late tonight.”
“I’m staying late at the office, too.”
“Then let’s make a date for tomorrow morning.”
“It’s time to switch,” she said. “Let me see if I can do a better job than you.”
He stared at her, but not with the raw want she expected. There was desire, but also mature concern, as if she’d just propositioned her high school track coach.
“This gives you pause,” she said.
He shook his head. “I can’t let you do that. I promised you from the start that we wouldn’t have sex. If you make me come, I may have to break my promise. I’ll make you come again. Let me tell you what I’m going to do.”
He leaned down and whispered the dirtiest thing she’d ever heard in her life, then continued to detail where he would put his tongue. She watched Erin and the others sitting on the wall, talking together, oblivious, while Quentin turned her ni**les hard and sparked a pulse between her legs just by whispering in her ear.
She said, “We’ll see.”
She came in so late from the office that he was already in bed. Disrobing, she slid into the luxurious sheets beside him. She curled up against him, her br**sts to his back, her mound to his bu**ocks, and her arm around his warm chest.
And couldn’t sleep. He was comatose and he still made her want him just by existing, naked. Her center burned so brightly that when she finally drifted off and awoke seemingly moments later in the empty bed in the sunlit room, she was sore. She wondered if he’d touched her in the night.
While she listened to his shower hiss, she brushed her hair, then pulled on a pair of see-through white lace panties and Quentin’s long-sleeved white shirt from the closet. She still wore the emerald necklace.
The shower shut off. She balled up the sheets in both fists in anticipation. Then, remembering Erin’s interruption the morning before, she dashed across the room and locked the bedroom door. She skidded back onto the bed just as he came out of the bathroom.
Wearing a towel around his waist.
Before she could inquire about this newfound and, in her opinion, extremely unfortunate modesty, he stopped by the dresser and told her, “No. I knew you’d do this. I already said no to this. I’ll make you again.”
“It’s Quentin two, Sarah zero,” she complained.
“Or the other way around.”
“Either way, I want to even the score.” She went to him and led him by the hand to the bed, settling him beside her against the headboard. “If you were my boyfriend, you’d want this.”
He laughed. “If you were like most of the girlfriends I’ve had, I’d be begging you to, and you’d say no.”
“I’m not your girlfriend.”
“I wish you were.” He touched his callused thumb softly to her lips. He tucked her hair behind one ear, then behind the other, in the sweetest gesture, as if he really cared about her.
She grabbed his hand and wailed, “I can’t believe I’m sitting half-naked on this bed, trying to convince a man to let me give him a hand job!”
He opened the shirt she wore and peered inside at her breast as if examining an engine before purchasing a truck. He closed the shirt again. “Me, neither. But I’ve told you. Do that to me, and I’m not going to be able to stop myself. And we decided that’s not a good idea. Because of Erin.”
His mention of Erin should have stopped Sarah cold. He was reminding her that though Sarah might be a fun plaything to toy with for a while, it was Erin he loved. But Sarah had crossed over to a place where she wanted to be Quentin’s plaything. She couldn’t imagine getting through the rest of this day without taking action. What drove her was mostly lust, but part revenge for Quentin seeing her vulnerable in the shower the morning before, and that night in the chair. And part selfless joy at giving pleasure to her handsome friend.