Playing Dirty (Stargazer 2)

I lost my shirt.

You ain’t lost nothing.

I lost my shoes.

You ain’t lost a thing.

He glanced at her. She watched him with serious eyes. Serious called for replacing the major ones in the middle with minor sixes, so sad.

I want to go

Up into my bedroom.

You had to choose.

We ain’t had a fling.

Now a money note in the melody, up to the higher G.

I want to know

Why I can’t get lucky.

Need the queen of hearts

Always draw a king.

Now the end. The first line repeated the melody he’d established, but the other three lines took a detour into quiet darkness, stopping on a question mark of a major four that made audiences uncomfortable and won Grammys.

I lost my heart

To a lady from the city.

I asked you to dance.

You asked me to sing.

The vibration of the piano strings lifted, leaving him and Sarah alone together.

“I love the way it ends, down low,” she said softly, sexily, nearly a whisper. “I didn’t expect it to go there.”

“Yeah. You try not to get too repetitive. Go in the opposite direction from what your instincts tell you, to shake it up. Martin taught me that.” Martin had taught him a lot in the twelve years they’d been friends. And now that Martin really needed him, Quentin hadn’t been able to do shit.

“Is it on the new album?” Sarah asked.

“This song? I doubt I’ll remember it in the morning.” That said, Quentin started through the chord progression again. If he could commit it to his sloshed memory, maybe Martin could do something with it.

“You mean you made that up while we’ve been sitting here?”

“Sure, can’t you tell?” he asked over the chords.

“In retrospect, yes. As I was hearing it, I was just thinking it was very appropriate to the situation.”

“Very appropriate, and it sounds super drunk. ‘Strip Poker Blues’ ought to be a jaunty two-step. This is a melancholy ballad.” He looked over at her. Her brown eyes were huge, and her hair in every color fell soft around her heart-shaped face. “Because you turned me down.”

She smiled kindly. “We can’t hook up, Quentin. I get the distinct impression that would drive the band apart. I’m here to keep you together.”

“We’re not breaking up,” he said to his hands spread across a four-octave B-minor chord. He wished this were true.

“You know what?” she asked. “Let’s call it a night. You seem really tired.”

He laughed. “I seem really drunk. I’m so sorry. I’m a terrible drinker. They made me get drunk because it was my turn.”

She was standing beside him then, with one small hand on his shoulder. “I’ll help you to your room.”

He grinned up at her.

“And that’s all,” she said sternly. “Promise me, Quentin. I’ve had a client before who wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“Is that where you got that scar?” he asked.

Her big eyes, so soft before, were two cold points boring into him now.

“Sarah,” he said gently. “Nobody in this band will hurt you. There are a lot of things wrong with us, but that isn’t one of them. You’re safe here.”

“I feel safe here,” she said.

“Good.”

After a pause, he felt her tugging on his upper arm. “Well, I said I’d help you,” she murmured, “and I will, like I would help a sumo wrestler.”

“Sorry. I’ll help you help me.” He stood, braced himself against the piano with a smashing of the lowest octave, and held out his hand for the door to the control room. He reached the handle and pulled. The door didn’t budge.

“Fuck,” he exclaimed. “I love Owen. I love him like a brother. I do not want to murder him.”

“Problem?” Sarah asked.

“It’s a mantra I repeat to myself in the hope it will come true someday,” he said. “Owen broke my door. We’re locked in.”

“Oh.” Sarah stepped forward and pulled the handle herself. He didn’t blame her for not believing him, after he’d tried to seduce her repeatedly. “Isn’t there an intercom to the control room?” she asked.

“Yes.” He hit the button. “MAAAAAAARTIIIIIIIN,” he hollered, but he knew it was futile. “The speaker’s turned off out there, though. And Martin’s gone to bed”—or was shooting up—“in a guest room on the ground floor on the other side of the house, so I doubt he’d hear us even if the speaker was on.” Quentin turned to her with an apologetic grimace. “What a shitty welcome to Birmingham.”

“Oh, hush, it’s fine,” she said with such grace that he almost believed her. He wondered again whether she was Southern, and tried in vain to remember what had given him this impression in the first place. She was moving around the room, gathering the pads that draped over the stands and drum set and piano while the band was away on tour. She made a pallet in the corner and held out both hands to him. “Here.”

He stumbled immediately, but Sarah had him, and somehow maneuvered him until he was lying in softness and squeezing his eyes shut against the bright light overhead. He heard her whisper, “Hold on.” He felt rather than saw the lights go out. A cymbal crashed as she tripped in the darkness. Then she was stretching out beside him. He inhaled the sweet smell of her hair and spread his hands across her skin.

3

Sarah started awake.

At least, she thought she did. Her eyes felt wide open, but the room was black. Her nightmares hadn’t been dreams after all. Nine Lives had locked her up where she’d never be found—

And then she remembered where she was as Quentin sighed behind her. His hand, which had settled inside the waistband of her pants and electrified her as she dozed off, now moved lower. His fingertips stopped at the edge of her mound.

She took a deep breath through her nose, careful not to move enough to wake him, and exhaled, relaxing into his arms. The heat from his bare chest burned her skin where her shirt parted in the back. She’d told him a few hours ago that she felt safe with him, and she did. He’d assured her he wouldn’t hurt her, and she believed him.

But that didn’t mean her heart was safe. His song for her—a song rendered sad not by their missed hookup, but his depression about Erin, she was sure—was regardless the sweetest thing a man had ever said to her. Which didn’t say much for her seven years of marriage to Harold, she realized. The tingling in her lips from his expert kisses earlier in the night hadn’t faded, either. As she listened to his deep, even breathing behind her, she half wished, perhaps three-fourths wished, that everything were different, and that they had made love.

He was good-looking. He was funny. He was vibrant, emanating a life force that had penetrated her and made her feel more alive, too, as she sat next to him getting drunk. Or maybe that was the alcohol. No, she’d never felt the life force while drinking vodka with Nine Lives.

She would have enjoyed hanging out with a good-looking, funny, vibrant man in any case. But it was Quentin’s gentle control that reached inside her and pushed her buttons. He’d tried to hide it from her, but she’d understood the group dynamic by the end of the night. Owen, Erin, and Martin looked to Quentin before making a move. He didn’t return their looks, but everything pointed to him as the group’s leader.

Which must have made the betrayal hurt that much more when Erin cheated on him with Owen.

He was accustomed to controlling them. And he controlled himself. Sarah thought back to the near fight, when he turned over the table. He’d clearly gotten drunker than he was used to—he’d told her later it was “his turn.” He’d been in a rage, understandably jealous as Erin and Owen flaunted their new love in front of him. And he still had the wherewithal and the courtesy to say to her, “Move, please,” before he threw the table into the pool.

Move, please. Maybe he was worried about more than her physical safety. Maybe he could tell how far gone she already was. In his direction.

Or toward the Alabama coastal town where she’d grown up. He reminded her of the high school boys who wore cheap cologne and long bangs and ironed jeans with their shirts tucked in when they dressed up special for dates. Not that Quentin had long bangs. His haircut was such an unstudied mess of brown waves that it couldn’t technically be considered a haircut.

It was more the Southern drawl that was familiar, and the insolence with which he eyed her. She’d seen that look many times, but it had never been directed at her, and she’d wanted it. She’d wanted one of those cheap cologne dates and had never had one. She’d smelled the boys when they played basketball with her, smelled their hot sweat. Then, on Saturday night, she would go to the movies with her friends. The boys would be there with their dates, wearing their cologne, eyeing those other, luckier girls lustfully. The scent would stab through her.

No, she told herself. Sex with Quentin would be a disaster. She was trying to stabilize him, not wreck the band. The Erin situation was precarious. And Sarah was beginning to believe the band’s problems ran even deeper than she’d been told. The only reason she could think of that Martin would hold on to a long-sleeved shirt from hot night to strip poker to pool was that he needed to hide his track marks. Tomorrow morning she would have a talk with Quentin about Martin’s drug use. And Erin. And every lie he’d told her.

But for now . . . Now that she’d lain asleep with Quentin, she was afraid she’d fallen even further for him. She’d lived with Harold for so many lonely nights. Even their most romantic evenings together had ended with them parting ways perfunctorily and leaving the middle of the bed empty. Harold claimed Sarah had the metabolism of a racehorse and made him hot—in a bad way—if he held her while they slept. A man had never held her in the dark, embracing her like he treasured her, sliding his fingers closer to her sex as the night grew older.

The placement of Quentin’s hand gave her an idea for how to shock him into telling her the truth in the morning. But here in the dark, disoriented without her phone and lost in time, she might as well enjoy it. She slid her own hand on top of her fly until it covered his hand beneath the material.

Her blood heated as his fingers curled against her.

She wondered if she could stir the passion in him that he’d felt for her at first. Carefully she pressed her ass against his groin—and then tried not to gasp as he nuzzled her neck in his sleep and dragged a rough kiss along her jaw.

He grew still again, holding her more tightly than before. She didn’t dare make another move lest she get more of what she wanted than she was bargaining for. She simply enjoyed the sensation of being caught in his heat, because she would never get so lucky again.

“Q! Where’s breakfast?”

This time, Sarah knew she was awake. The sound booth was brightly lit. She recognized the acoustic tile on the walls. She’d grown familiar with the feel of Quentin’s hand in her intimate area.

And, looking up toward the voice that had woken her—looking way, way up—she saw a very irate Erin standing over them, fists on her hips, her eyes on Quentin’s wrist disappearing into Sarah’s pants.

An emotion passed across Erin’s pretty face. Sarah knew fear when she saw it.

And then Erin was padding 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 pants and 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.