“Umm…” I blow out a breath, my cheeks puffing out when I spot her perched atop the pool table, long legs dangling over the edge, silver whistle pinched between red-painted lips, enough layers of clothing on her body to rival Joey in that episode of Friends when he wears all of Chandler’s clothes. “You do realize it was almost ninety today, right, Red?”
The whistle falls from her mouth, and that grin makes its appearance. A bolt of anticipation shoots down my spine and settles below my belt.
Quinn crosses one—Are those Grant’s snap-away warm-ups?—pant-covered leg over the other, folds her arms over the top, rests one elbow on her knee, and props her chin on her fist, shooting me a wink.
“Guess it’s a good thing we have central air, hmm?”
Oh, that hum is just as much trouble as that grin.
She’s definitely up to something, and I am here for it because I dig her crazy.
“Why do I always feel like I need to gird my loins with you?” I ask, closing the distance between us.
“Oh, I have plans”—she purrs the word—“for your loins, Christopher.” She uncrosses her legs and wraps them around my waist when I reach her, said loins going instantly hard.
Quinn Thompson, as a love coach, is an experience in and of itself.
Quinn Thompson as both the love coach and the recipient of the results of all of said coaching? Well…let’s just say things have gotten a whole lot more hands on, if you catch my drift.
It’s become natural for me to greet Quinn with a kiss, and I place a quick one on her upturned lips as a hello.
Of course, I’m not naive enough to believe this happy bubble we have going on will last once we start telling people we’re…dating? But I’m perfectly content living in Delusionville for as long as I can.
Truthfully…I think I might have been more nervous to ask Quinn if we could keep what’s been happening between us a secret—at least until we figure it out—than I was to tell her I’m still a card-carrying member of the v-train. I’m still a bit stunned by how well she took both those things.
Keeping Quinn and me well…between Quinn and me has been…an exercise in creative deflections—more so on her end than mine.
Shockingly, it hasn’t been our way-too-damn-many-of-them roommates butting into our business. Of course, that could be because they’re still mostly doing their own things and aren’t here. But…I suspect it has more to do with the UofJ411 targeting us.
Now…Tessa Taylor? That’s a horse of a different color. The romance novels she devours—even more so now that it’s summer vacation—have made her more than mildly obsessed with what Quinn has told me she refers to as our forced proximity golden opportunity.
While I could do without all her prying, I can admit I’ve been more than happy reaping the benefits—yes, those kinds of benefits—of all her brainstorming to “help” Quinn get me to “notice” her.
“Dare I ask what plans you could have that have you wearing half your closet?” I tug on the strings of the zippered hoodie she has on.
Quinn stretches her arms overhead, her back arching in that lithe way that keeps me transfixed any time she does yoga at home. It’s a crying shame she has so many damn layers on because I know exactly what that position does for her cleavage, cleavage I’m now more than allowed to ogle. Hell, it’s practically encouraged.
She loops her arms around my neck, pulling me in and pressing a kiss of her own to my mouth. “You and I are about to have a do-over.” She presses her palms to my chest, pushing me away and hopping down from the table.
“A do-over?” I ask as she rounds the table, arm extended behind her, fire-engine nails trailing along the felt. My gut clenches, feeling that touch as if it were dragging down my abdominals like she’s been prone to do.
“Yup.” She gives me her back as she studies the rack of pool cues hanging on the wall. She glances over her shoulder, her long red hair falling like a curtain, shielding part of her face from view, but there’s no missing the naughty promise twinkling in the single eye maintaining contact with mine as she wraps her fingers around one of the cues.
“Hmm,” she hums, rolling it along her fingers. “Not as thick as the things I’m used to handling.”
My mind flashes to last night, my dick perking up, remembering how it felt the moment she boldly took it in her hand.
“How is giving a hand job to a pool cue a do-over of last night?”
“It’s not.” Her eyebrow waggle confirms her mind went to the same place mine did. “That deserves a repeat performance, not a do-over.”
Her total confidence in everything she does makes it easy for me to forget about my lack of experience with members of the opposite sex and live in the moment with her.
Quinn stands the cue on the ground, leaning against it. “No, Superman, we are taking a mulligan on the night we played pool last week.”
I move so I’m standing across from her with only the pool table between us. “Still haven’t gotten over losing to me, Red?” I ask, curling my hands over the side rail and leaning in with my taunt.
“Keep talking shit like that, and you’ll be waking up with a stuffed E.T. in your bed instead of me.” Her gaze flits toward my bedroom.
I run my tongue across my teeth to keep my reaction to the threat from showing as a shudder racks my body. After finding one of those Funko Pop! dolls hidden with my Beats headphones, I don’t doubt she has a whole arsenal of E.T.s to torture me with.
“I only lost—”
The arch of one of her dark brows is my only clue to how close her fiery side is to the surface. It probably shouldn’t make my dick hard, but it does.
“—because you, you silly man, were too blind to all my attempts at getting you to properly teach me how to shoot.”
“I wasn’t blind to them, Red.” I just had a hard time believing they were anything more than her typical flirting. I wanted nothing more than to show her in that proper way she’s implying, but the lines had already blurred between us by then. It felt too risky to act so couple-ly.
“Yet you did nothing about them.”
My skin starts to feel too tight, and I grip the back of my neck. “Can you imagine how fast pictures like that would have hit the UofJ411?”
The posts of us at Jonah’s pop into my brain, and in those, we were only standing together. Ones of me standing behind her, showing her how to shoot? Yeah, those definitely would have hit the Gram.
Understanding fills Quinn’s dark eyes. I hate how she can be so empathetic to my request to keep us a secret when it’s born from insecurities and an attempt to put off our inevitable end for as long as possible.
“I don’t know how Kay and Mase deal with that bullshit all the time.” Quinn sighs and comes around to my side of the table. “Whoever runs that account really needs to find a hobby.”
“Agreed.” I loop my arms around her middle, letting my hands rest on the top curve of her ass—or at least where I think the curve of her ass would begin. It’s hard to tell with all the layers of clothing.
My thoughts turn to my friends. Kay and Mason may be an almost daily post on the school’s gossip account, but my concerns about being featured are a bit different from theirs. My problem isn’t so much being the story as it is for Kay, but more about the attention cutting into the already borrowed time I feel I have with Quinn. I don’t know how many posts it will take for her to realize what I already know—she’s too good for me.