Free Playing Dirty by Jennifer Echols

minimum of maintenance, because she was afraid of what Quentin might be snorting while she left him alone.
    In his bedroom, she locked the door behind her, kicked off her sexy shoes, and settled in the middle of his luxuriously soft bed. Morning sunlight bathed her, and happy birds sang in the crepe myrtle outside the window. Over their chirps, from down a short corridor to the master bath, she could hear pills rattle in a bottle. Water ran. She heard no prolonged sniffs.
    And then Quentin caught her off guard. He walked into the room with his shorts off, wearing only boxers printed with dog bones, plus wire-framed glasses that made him look studious. Ha. And strangely vulnerable, despite his muscular body.
    He sat beside her on the bed and pulled her into his lap, with her legs straddling his waist. She was very aware that only his boxers and her pants and a wisp ofpanties separated her center from his naked groin. She tamped down her mixture of excitement and alarm. It made sense for him to touch her this way if he believed they’d had sex last night—which was exactly what she wanted.
    He kissed the top of her hair and said soothingly, “I’m sorry. I have a headache. Let’s start over. Tell me how you feel about the morning-after pill. I can call my car service for us, and we can go to the pharmacy right now. Actually, no, the paparazzi will follow us. We’ll figure it out, though. You tell me what you want to do.” He hugged her hard. “I’m so sorry. I’m a really bad drunk.”
    She felt horribly guilty for lying to him. It was the only way she knew to shove him off balance. And she needed him off balance for the talk they were about to have. But oh , it was even worse to deceive a playboy who turned out to be a decent guy, or at least talked the talk. She didn’t like this side of Natsuko.
    She looked him in the eye. “Quentin.”
    He gazed back at her, green eyes sorrowful now through his glasses.
    She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
    “I know this is an important moment and all,” he whispered finally, “but if we’re just going to stare at each other, do you mind if I lie down?” He flopped back onto the bed and pressed the palm of his hand to his temple.
    “Quentin,” she started again.
    “Ma’am.”
    “We didn’t do it. You were asleep in five seconds.”
    After a few moments of silence, he said calmly, “That’s a cold game of gotcha you’ve got going.” He sat up and said, “Excuse me while I go scrape my heart off the bathroom floor!” His hand was still pressed to his temple, shielding one eye. His other green eye pierced her.
    Then he started to laugh, because he felt relieved, or because he could laugh at just about anything, it seemed. “What is the matter with you?” he asked.
    “I was just trying to wake you up—”
    “It worked!”
    “—and give you back some of what you’ve been dishing out. You served me a big margarita glass full of bullshit last night.” She tried not to cringe at her own metaphor. Her mother would be horrified at the imagery.
    Now he put down his hand and watched her with both green eyes wary. “What do you mean?”
    “I mean, if you’re a regular heavy drinker, I’m a horse’s ass. And I’m not a horse’s ass.”
    “So you drank me under the table,” he said defensively. “But like you said, you’ve been drinking with Nine Lives, who eats brimstone for lunch and brushes his teeth with Drano.”
    She raised one eyebrow at him. “I’m going to give you thirty seconds to come clean with me. And then I’m going to call Manhattan Music and tell them there’s no way you can have this album completedby July first. I’m going to tell them that they should look around for a more dependable country act that can deliver as per contract.”
    “Okay,” he said quickly. He grabbed her hand and stroked his thumb across her palm as he spoke. This was strange. Usually when she had the inevitable adversarial conversation with a rogue