by Liz Lincoln
She stepped backward to let him into the apartment. “And the way to this girl’s heart is through her taco stomach?”
He grinned as he handed her the bag. “Something like that.”
He shut the door behind himself and followed her to the kitchen. Neither spoke as she served up the food and they took their plates to the dining room table. The silence continued as they dug into their food.
Only after Natalie had finished half a ground beef taco did she finally pause to ask, “So go ahead. Talk.”
Quinn set down his taco and fidgeted with the edge of his napkin. “So last night, what were your thoughts?”
She gave him a confused look. “What, you want, like, a performance review? I’m pretty sure my reactions speak for themselves. It was really fucking good.”
He choked on the sip of water he’d been taking, then started coughing. When he finally was able to speak again, he sputtered, “That wasn’t quite what I was going for, but good to know.”
Natalie’s face heated. Of course that wasn’t what he was asking. Duh. Though the question remained, what was he asking?
“So what do you want to know?” She took another bite of her taco as she waited for him to answer.
“I guess…” He cleared his throat. “Well, I’m wondering if you’re regretting it?”
Exactly the opposite. The only thing she regretted was that they hadn’t agreed to a longer-term arrangement. There was always room in a girl’s life for really awesome sex. “Based on the aforementioned performance review, it’s probably safe to say I don’t have regrets.”
It was hard to be certain because of his beard, but she thought maybe he was blushing a little.
A mortifying thought occurred to her. “Why? Do you regret it?” He couldn’t be. If he had, he wouldn’t be sitting at her table right now eating dinner with her. He wouldn’t have remembered her offhanded mention of her favorite Mexican place, gone out of his way to go there, and brought her dinner. Right?
“No!” he said quickly and forcefully. “Definitely not.”
Thank God. Nodding, Natalie scooped up a mouthful of the rice he’d also brought. Silence fell over them again as they continued eating. Quinn continued to scratch the back of his neck and shift in his seat. And his restlessness made her restless.
After finishing another taco, she tossed down her fork and said, “Oh my god, would you just tell me what it is you want to say? Because you’re driving me absolutely nuts.”
“What do you mean?” Except he couldn’t meet her eyes.
Another sign he wasn’t being completely honest with her.
Natalie cast him a flat stare. “Please, Quinn. You’re radiating unease. You’re practically sending out a satellite signal. Which, with you, means you have something you want to say.”
“Sometimes it’s really annoying how well you know me. I like to think I’ve changed over the years, but then I talk to you and realize maybe I haven’t so much.”
“I know exactly what you mean. But don’t think you’re changing the subject.” She waved a scolding finger at him. “Either talk or get out of my house. And leave the tacos you didn’t finish.”
He laughed at that. “Damn. OK.” He took a deep breath. “I thought maybe, since last night was so good for both of us”—go me! He just admitted last night was good for him too—“maybe it doesn’t have to be just a one-night thing. As long as neither of us is seeing anyone else, maybe we could do this again from time to time.”
Holy shit. Was he really saying what she thought he was? “You want me to be your booty call?” She had zero problem with that. In fact, it was precisely what she’d been wishing for. She just needed to make sure they were on the same page.
“No. Well, uh, I wouldn’t use that term, exactly. I just thought—”
Fun though it was to watch him flounder, she cut him off. “I didn’t say there’s anything wrong with that. Just want to make sure I’m understanding correctly.”
His shoulders relaxed a fraction. He shrugged. “I guess that’s mostly what I’m saying.” He picked up his third taco and took a huge bite. Meat and cheese and tomato and bits of shell fell onto his plate.
It was the kind of sight that would only be endearing if you had strong feelings for the other person. Which should have been a warning right there that she absolutely should not agree to this arrangement. Being attracted to him again was bad enough. Falling for him was downright emotional negligence. Yet when she opened her mouth to tell him she just didn’t think it was a good idea, the word “yes” popped out of her mouth instead.
What the hell?
Quinn looked at her with an expression that seemed to say he wanted to be excited, but he was trying to remain cautious; the corners of his lips twitched. “Yeah?”
“I mean, just from time to time.” Even against her better judgment, she couldn’t dredge up even a smidgen of regret that her subconscious had overridden her.
“Right. It wouldn’t be all the time or anything.”
“Just occasionally, when one of us is super stressed out and needs a good fuck.” Memories from the previous night flashed through her mind, of Quinn’s auburn head between her legs. She ducked her face to take a bite of food so he didn’t notice her blushing.
He set his fork on his plate and sat back in the chair. “Probably not usually sleepovers. It would make Matt suspicious.”
“And I don’t think either of us can handle a lot of marathon sessions like we had last night,” Natalie agreed. This was possibly the most awkward conversation she’d ever had in her life. Yet her blood buzzed through her veins, excited. Invigorated.
Quinn chuckled, the same awkwardness she felt evident in his laugh. “Yeah, if I’d had practice today, I’d have been in serious trouble.”
She nodded but couldn’t think of anything to say in response so she shoved her last bite of taco into her mouth.
Their silence this time was even more awkward than before. Done chewing, she stood and took their plates to the kitchen, just to escape the strange dynamic that had developed in her dining room.
Quinn followed her and started putting away the condiments they’d gotten out, as she rinsed the dishes and put them in her dishwasher. It felt annoyingly normal and domestic, like they were a real couple having dinner together. Not like they were exes with a complicated past who had just agreed to become fuck buddies.
Holy shit, they just agreed to become fuck buddies.
She slammed the dishwasher shut and spun so she could lean back against the counter. “So.” She hazarded a glance over at him. He leaned against her refrigerator, strong arms folded over his broad chest. His gray thermal shirt pulled tight, showing off his many many muscles. Hiding a stomach she now had reason to know was every bit as lickable as she’d suspected.
Oh hell. She wanted him again already. Tonight. Now.
“I should…” He gestured vaguely in the direction of her front door.
“No, of course.” She indicated that he should precede her out of the kitchen. Mostly so she could get a look at his ass. Since she apparently wouldn’t be digging her nails into it tonight.
She bit back a whimper.
“I have stuff to do tonight anyway,” she said as she followed him.
“Matt’s over at his girls’ so I need to get home to walk Booker.”
“Sure. So I guess I’ll just…”
“See you tomorrow.”
Tomorrow? Did they have plans tomorrow? “What’s tomorrow?”
He gave her a look like she’d sprouted a third eyeball. “Well, I have practice. You won’t be there?”
She was officially lust drunk. That was the only explanation for forgetting her own job. “No, yeah, I thought you meant after work or something.” Pitiful excuse. “Guess all that cumin really went to my head.” Who the hell was
she, making these ridiculous jokes?
Still, he was giving her at least a quarter of a smile. Probably just humoring her and in his head questioning what the hell he’d gotten himself into.
He put his hand on the doorknob but didn’t appear in any hurry to turn it. She dared to sneak a glance at him and was stunned to find him watching her with heat in his eyes.
Well then.
“So I guess we’ll just be in touch when one of us…” He made yet another vague hand gesture. He was big on those tonight.
“Needs a booty call?” she supplied.
“Yes. Right. One of those.”
They stood there for another long moment, sneaking glances at each other but not meeting each other’s gaze.
What the hell had she gotten herself into?
Chapter 18
Oh, to hell with it. She didn’t have any pride left when it came to Quinn anyway.
She took a step forward.
He straightened and dropped his hand from the doorknob. His gaze locked on to hers.
She took another step forward, and he countered.
They were close enough now, she could feel the heat radiating off him. He’d always run hot. Everything about him was hot.
She managed to pull her gaze away from his and dropped it to his chest. So, so lickable. Her mouth watered.
He cupped the back of her head, his fingers sliding into her hair. It felt so good, she nearly lost her balance and collapsed against him. “Natalie,” he exhaled.
Without thinking, she yanked his shirt from his jeans, leaned forward, bending her knees, and placed her tongue just above his navel. She drew a long, slow line up the center of his body until his shirt was in his armpits and she could press a kiss to the hollow at the base of his throat.
“Shit,” he moaned. “That feels so good.” His fingers tightened in her hair, tugging slightly to tilt her head back.
That was all the warning she got before his mouth claimed hers. Hot and needy, they tangled their arms around each other as they kissed. A wild, hungry kiss that went on and on.
He scooped her into his arms, never breaking the kiss, and started walking back into her house. She clung to him as he moved toward her bedroom.
Yes, she needed this. Last night had not been enough, and maybe they’d said infrequent hookups. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t start with one tonight. It was like the signature on their verbal agreement.
Quinn lay her on the bed and hovered over her, kneeling on all fours, as his fingers worked the buttons of her oversized, ratty cardigan. “I really can’t stay over this time,” he said into their kiss.
Natalie tilted her head to the side as he dragged his lips down her neck. “I really do have work to do.”
“I have to walk the dog.” He pushed her shirt open and pressed a kiss to the top of her breast, his tongue sliding beneath the edge of her bra. “But what’s another fifteen…”
She wriggled around, unhooking her bra and pulling her arms from her sleeves and straps. He watched her with scorching eyes, her skin tingling everywhere he looked.
“Okay, another forty-five minutes? Booker can hold it.”
* * *
—
“Someday when I have a shit ton of money, I’m hiring you as my chef.” Natalie rinsed her plate in Matt and Quinn’s sink, and handed it to Matt to put in the dishwasher. He’d just made the three of them an amazing early-Thanksgiving dinner, with a broccoli and orzo stuffing that Natalie had to get the recipe for. The man had serious culinary talent.
“Sorry, I’m kinda busy with this career I have. Perhaps you’ve heard of me? One of the top quarterbacks in the league?” His brown eyes twinkled as he teased her.
Natalie shrugged. “No, can’t say I have. I don’t really follow football.”
Quinn snorted from the other side of the room. “Yeah, right. The day we met, you schooled my ass with football statistic knowledge. You’ve always known more about football than me.”
“It was one of the only ways I could actually relate to my dad.” Natalie turned off the sink and dried her hands on the towel next to her. “By the time I stopped wanting to connect with him, I was a diehard.”
Because the NFL didn’t get holidays off, the three of them had decided to have a small Thanksgiving together two days early, on the Dragons’ usual day off of Tuesday. To his credit, Coach Crosby was ending Thursday’s practice earlier than usual, but Matt would be with his daughters then, plus he had family coming into town, so he wanted to do his friends’ Thanksgiving early. Since most of the other players had family either visiting or in town, it had just been the three of them.
Natalie had asked Quinn if his parents were coming, but he just shrugged it off and said no. As for her own family, Natalie had little interest in spending time with them. Thanksgiving was just another excuse for her dad and stepmom to drink too much and get mean. She wasn’t close with her sister and two brothers, or her two stepbrothers, so making small talk with them when she should be working held no appeal. Maybe later in the day, she would take a break and go to Annie’s parents’ house.
But she’d enjoyed her small Thanksgiving with her two friends. Well, one friend and one…whatever Quinn was. “Ex who still held a grudge but was highly attracted to her so they had lots of sex” didn’t fit neatly into a preestablished category.
But holy shit, the sex. They were going at each other like sex-starved maniacs. In the three weeks since they’d started their arrangement, they’d been together almost daily. Matt spent one night a week at his old house so he could see his girls, and Natalie had spent all those nights sleeping over at Quinn’s. The other nights, he often showed up with takeout or groceries for them to cook, and once they were done eating they stripped down and headed to her bedroom.
The only time they really weren’t able to have sex was when he was in a hotel the night before a game. So Saturdays were their break. Though that hadn’t stopped them from making out in a stairwell the previous Saturday. The man made millions of dollars with his hands, and Natalie was in a unique position to know that those hands were excessively talented in other ways too.
Just remembering how he fingered her into a sharp, intense orgasm in that stairwell had her cheeks heating.
Matt gave her an odd look. “You okay?”
Sure, just thinking about fucking your roommate. What would he do if she actually said that out loud? Matt wasn’t a dumb man, but did he pay enough attention to his housemate’s comings and goings that he was developing suspicions?
Quinn closed the distance between himself and the other two. He stood a little closer to Natalie than was socially acceptable for friends. He was in her space, a familiarity born of being lovers.
Natalie cut a sideways glance at Matt. Did he notice? Did she care? There was no particular reason she and Quinn were keeping their arrangement secret, other than it was nobody’s business. She’d been tempted to tell Annie, who had a little more breathing room now that her reelection campaign was over and she’d kept her seat on their suburb’s Common Council. But she was stressed and overworked about something at her school, so the two women had barely seen each other in the past few weeks.
“I was going to go work on the new engine for that 1972 Chevelle I got. You interested in coming with me?”
Excitement shivered up Natalie’s spine. She didn’t get much chance to work on cars other than her own, since she shared a garage with Annie and they each used one space. And with winter approaching, she wasn’t about to leave a vintage vehicle outside, exposed to the elements.
She knew she was pretty much beaming at Quinn as she said, “That would be awesome.”
“I’ll leave you two nerds to your toys,” Matt said. “Some of us have a playbook to study, and video to watch.”
“Some of us already spent hours going over the new
plays and video clips, while other people were making turkey.” Quinn grinned, too wide and toothy to be genuine.
“Gee, thanks, Matt, for making me Thanksgiving dinner,” Matt said in a terrible imitation of Quinn’s voice.
“Fuck off, Matt. I already said thank you a few dozen times.”
Natalie rolled her eyes. “As stunning as this display of testosterone is, I want to play with an engine. Come on, Quinn, show me what’s under your hood.” She winked at him as she headed for the garage door. She felt uncharacteristically flirtatious for some reason, and she liked the feeling so she was going with it.
“That’s what she said,” Matt called after her.
Little did he know, she absolutely intended the double entendre, because after she explored what was under the car’s hood, she had every intention of exploring what was under Quinn’s hood.
Quinn followed her into the garage and to the far end where he had his little workshop set up. The vehicle he had bought needed a lot of work, but that was the point. He’d bought a new engine for it, probably needed to replace the brakes, and it definitely needed a new transmission. He wanted her to help him with all of those parts, since bodywork was more his strength.
She smiled to herself at the mental double entendre she made. She was in the zone tonight. The man was a master at working her body. She knew there had to be some reason why having almost-daily sex with her ex, and someone she had to work with, was a bad idea. But damned if she could think of why.
The hood of the Chevy was already open, so she ducked her head under and started poking around, trying to assess what needed to be done next. A moment later, Quinn’s warm, hard body pressed against her from behind. He gathered her hair in one hand and wrapped it around his fist, drawing it to the side so he could kiss the side of her neck. She shivered. She loved when he did that to her.
“It’s hard to sit there when Matt’s around and not just grab you anytime I want,” Quinn murmured into her ear.
“Why do you think I prefer hanging out at my place,” she said. She reached back and slid her hand into Quinn’s back jeans pocket, then squeezed his tight ass. Not that he was a tight ass, he just had amazing muscle tone.
