“Is that what you think I am?”
He bent down and closed his lips on hers, dragging her mouth open and flicking his tongue ring across the roof of her mouth. When he pulled away, she shivered.
“Isn’t that what you are?” Quinn asked.
“No.”
“Liar.”
“I’m a self-improvement mission, not a self-destruction mission.”
“And you’re self-improving by making out with me on a hotel room floor?”
Her blush deepened. “Everything’s a learning experience.”
“Spoken like a true good-girl,” Quinn joked.
“I’m not that good,” she insisted.
“Is that right? Tell me then…What would you be doing right now if you were at home?”
“Drinking coffee and watching pornography.”
Quinn burst out laughing, then rolled off Ginnie and pushed himself to his feet.
“Well. I can help you with the first thing right now. But the second thing may have to be worked into the fully customized, Huntingdon-Vegas experience I’ve created for you. Maybe between the poker and the strippers.”
He picked up her coffee, waited for her to seat herself on a chair, then handed it over. She took a sip, and Quinn wondered abruptly if she would notice that it was made exactly the way she liked it. Another Jason-fact. Ginnie pretended to drink it black, but secretly added a package of raw sugar. Quinn had made it that way automatically, not thinking anything of it until right this second.
If she does notice, will she be suspicious?
Quinn watched her savor the mouthful of coffee.
It was another opportunity to tell her the truth. His tongue flicked to his lip ring nervously as he waited for her to say something about it.
Either she kills you now, or Jase kills you later, he reasoned.
But she just took another sip and shot him a thoughtful look. “You know what? We can easily fit in the pornography if we make a tiny adjustment.”
“What’s that?”
“Turn the poker and the strippers into one activity instead of two.” Ginnie shot him a sweet smile that was perfectly – sexily – at odds with her suggestion. “So. Let’s see this list of pseudo-Vegas activities.”
Nineteen
Ginnie squirmed a little as Quinn reached into his pocket and withdrew a crumpled piece of paper scrawled with messy handwriting. She should’ve been disappointed that she was going to miss Vegas. She should’ve been gritting her teeth at the fact that she wasn’t going to get to stick it to Lawrence by using the non-refundable ticket that he had paid for. Maybe she should’ve been wondering if she was being punished for making the decision to go, for deciding that hell yes, she was going to spend Lawrence’s money – the little bit she’d managed to secure before he cleaned out their joint accounts – while she was there.
Instead, a little bubble of elation was growing inside her.
She was excited. Thrilled that rather than spending her Saturday surrounded by ka-chinging slot machines and girls in glitter and drunk newlyweds, she was going to spend it surrounded by Quinn.
Or he’s going to be surrounded by you.
Her body tingled at the deliciously naughty thought.
They were going to share this hotel room again. A bed. And this time it was deliberate.
It was crazy. Far crazier than Vegas alone.
And last night had been…Was there a word for the way he’d made her body hum? For the way he’d swept away lucid thought? For the way he’d made her feel sexy and raw and powerful and wanted?
God, how she wanted it again. Wanted more.
So does he.
That little thought made her squirm almost as much as the jumble of excitement percolating just under her skin.
She made him…Hard.
She did. Genevieve Louise Silver.
This sex-in-a-tattooed-package man definitely wanted her. She’d felt it – literally – this morning when they’d been tangled in the sheets.
So why doesn’t he just take you? she wondered, a tiny bit of insecurity slipping back in.
An answer was fast on the question’s heels. And there was nothing shy about it.
Who cares about why? Just seduce him. Make it impossible for him not to follow through. Make him take those big, messy-looking but oh so adept hands of his and put them all over you. And maybe his mouth, too. Or maybe his –
“Ginnie?”
She flushed, and her head snapped up. “Yes?”
“Coffee’s that good, huh?”
She realized a little belatedly that her breathing had sped up and that she was holding the paper cup in a death grip.
“It’s perfect,” she agreed quickly.
Which was true, anyway. Just the way she liked it. Black with a hint of sweetness. What were the odds?
Quinn is outside the odds, she reminded herself and forced her mind back to what he was saying.
“Tell me what you’d planned for Vegas. Besides copious amounts of pornography, I mean,” he teased.
“I don’t know,” Ginnie said honestly.
“Okay. What’s the first thing you think of when you think Vegas?”
“Slots.”
Quinn tapped his paper. “Done. There’s a miniature casino at the airport. What next?”
“A show?”
“Also done. This hotel has a resident entertainer on Saturday nights.”
“Entertainer?” Ginnie repeated. “The vagueness of that makes me nervous.”
He grinned. “This is Quinn-Vegas, baby. Ready to surprise and delight.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You didn’t even ask what kind of entertainer it was, did you?”
“Nope.”
“It could be a ninety-year old Elvis Impersonator.”
Quinn’s eyes lit up. “I hope so.”
“It could be a male stripper,” Ginnie said. “With a bad case of plumber’s crack.”
“Doubtful.” Quinn tapped the paper again. “A stripper here would create too much competition for the adult establishment just down the road.”
“Huntingdon has a strip bar?”
“Huntingdon has a strip bar that we’re going to,” Quinn corrected.
Ginnie’s pulse skittered, and she forced a laugh. “You’re taking me to see strippers?”
“Yep. I took care of that particular Vegas stereotype, too. Unless you don’t want to go.”
Ginnie licked her lips nervously. She somehow doubted that Quinn was talking about a male revue show. Which meant pasties and G-strings. Bumping and grinding. T and A.
Would it get him all riled up? Was he the kind of man who liked that stuff?
Is there a man who doesn’t?
“Ginnie? If you don’t want to go, just tell me.”
“No,” she said. “I do want to.”
And saying it somehow made it true. Really true. She wanted to sit beside him and watch him watch them. Her heart actually raced at the thought. It beat so loud in her chest that she could barely hear Quinn’s voice, and she had to make herself pay attention.
“First things first,” he told her as he pried the fully crushed coffee cup from her hand. “You think you can find something in that pile of not-yours underwear that’ll work?”
“Work for what?”
Quinn shrugged. “To wear until we find you something else.”
The all-over her body rush of blood stopped abruptly. “You want me to wear Lawrence’s girlfriend’s underwear?”
His hand slid across the table to squeeze hers. “I just meant some clothes to borrow. Unless you think you can pull off wearing my pajamas to the strip club?”
“Actually, when you put it like that, I think the other girl’s underwear would probably help me fit in better.”
He shot her a very serious, utterly scorching look. “Ginnie…I don’t want you wear any underwear. Let alone someone else’s.”
Her heart started thumping at double time again. “Do I need to remind
you that I’m not wearing any?”
“Trust me,” Quinn said. “I am very aware of what you don’t have – and what you do have – under those pajamas. And unless you have the world’s biggest box of condoms hidden somewhere that I don’t know about, you might want me to keep my mind elsewhere.” He paused and bit his lip ring so hard that Ginnie thought it might break, then asked, “Do you have it hidden somewhere, Ginnie?”
She shook her head. Because if she answered him out loud, she was going to say the first thing that popped into her head. And she thought maybe fuck the condoms would have consequences she might regret later.
Quinn shrugged at her silent response.
“So,” he said. “In t-minus ten minutes, we go onto Vegas time. Which means no time. No watches, no clocks, no – ”
“Shit!” Ginnie interrupted as thoughts of timing invaded her oversexed mine.
“What?”
“My brother.”
“Your brother?”
“I don’t have a watch. I usually check my phone, and thinking about that reminded me that I should’ve called him. But I left the stupid thing at the airport as an act of rebellion.”
“An act of rebellion?”
“I just – Never mind. My point is that now I can’t call him now, which mean he’ll freak out. When he freaks out he does dumb stuff,” she explained.
“So…Shit.” Quinn tapped his lip ring.
“Exactly.”
“You don’t think he’d freak out a little more when you tell him you’re sleeping with me?”
Ginnie knew he’d dropped the double entendre deliberately, but she blushed anyway. “I wasn’t planning on telling him about you.”
“What were you going to tell him?”
She frowned, wondering why he sounded a little tense, then dismissed her worry. He’s just worried about keeping his own ass safe. Especially since you made it clear how protective Jase can be.
“Just that I’m not dead,” she said.
Quinn’s face relaxed. “All right. T-minus twenty minutes then. Use the hotel phone to call your big, bad brother. And don’t tell him about the big bad wolf in your room. Then we go onto Vegas-time. Champagne breakfast to start the day off with a buzz. Strippers at eleven. Tattoos at noon.”
“Tattoos?” Ginnie repeated faintly.
Quinn ignored her. “A maybe-illegal poker game at two, followed by an all-you-can-eat buffet. Early bird special is at four-thirty. The ninety-year old Elvis stripper with the plumber-butt issue comes on at seven. Then some dancing. And after that, if we don’t get arrested…” He gave her a lascivious onceover, leaned in, and whispered, “That pornography I promised.”
Ginnie barely heard him. And she hardly noticed as he placed an order for room service. Even when he winked at her and told the person on the other line, “She said yes,” in that smirk-y, self-satisfied way of his.
She knew she ought to move. Maybe pick her jaw up off her chest. Straighten her hair. Blink. Argue. Point out that she hadn’t said yes. She hadn’t said anything.
But she was too busy being one-part stunned, one-part overwhelmed, and one-part dizzy with anticipation.
Quinn had clearly spent the better part of his morning planning their weekend together. And there were so many things that went along with those last three words.
Ginnie couldn’t help but break it down.
Their.
Weekend.
Together.
She didn’t want to read more into that than she should. But how could she not?
Almost forty-eight more sinful hours with Quinn Mcdavid. Blissful, mind-boggling, nerve-wracking.
And oh. He wanted to get tattoos. Or in his case, more tattoos.
Ginnie’s own skin was currently as bare as the day she was born. She didn’t even have her ears pierced. Yet.
You are not getting a tattoo. Or making porn, she told herself firmly.
But the other stuff…
She watched Quinn as he moved around the room to the bed. He reached out and grabbed the sheets from the floor.
He’s making the bed, she realized.
And Ginnie was pretty damned sure she’d never seen anything so sexy as the thickly muscled, ink-covered man performing the simple domestic task. Who knew something so basic could be so freaking hot?
Yes, of the emotions fighting for supremacy, it was definitely anticipation that was gaining momentum.
“Hey, baby?” Quinn said as he tucked in a final, near-perfect hospital corner.
“Mmph?”
Ginnie hoped it sounded more like an answer than like a bad attempt to cover the spike in her temperature. From his damned bed making.
“My stuff’s in the bathroom, so I’m gonna get changed in there. If you want some privacy…” He gestured around the room at the still strewn-about clothes.
“Okay.”
Quinn turned away, stripping off his T-shirt as he moved toward the bathroom, and Ginnie couldn’t bury a sharp inhale as she caught sight of his back. A wide, star-shaped scar stood out starkly. The skin there was whiter and thicker than the rest of the surrounding area, and as he tossed his shirt to the bed, it rippled. Something about it drew Ginnie in. Cemented her attraction to him.
A perfect imperfection.
“Quinn?” she called, right before he closed the door.
“Yeah?”
“Can you add one more thing to the to-do list for the day?”
“Sure. What did you have in mind?”
Ginnie took a breath. “We really need to buy the world’s biggest box of condoms.”
Twenty
Quinn shut the door silently, and for a long second after it closed, his fingers stayed on the handle. Like they had a mind of their own.
He shot them an angry look.
Quit fucking lingering, he commanded.
It was hard to make them obey. Especially when he felt like he could suddenly relate so well to a word like linger.
“Christ,” he muttered as he finally managed to pry his hand away. “Next thing you’ll be doing is swooning.”
He spun to the sink, turned on the cold tap as high as it would go, then ducked his head under the punishing stream of icy water. He refused to come up for air. He’d stay there until the cold became a burn and actual tears threatened to squeeze from his eyes.
Even crying was better than the weak-kneed feeling that had swept through him when Ginnie had added her little request to the end of his fake-Vegas list.
What the hell was it about that bold comment that made him want to drop and worship at her feet, anyway? The fact that she was owning her desire? The fact that saying condom made her blush?
As his head started to ache with cold, Quinn shut the water off, but continued to grip the edge of the faux marble sink, watching the water drip from his hair to the drain. It spiraled down, taking his mood with it.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked himself out loud.
Quinn steeled himself to face his reflection in the mirror, half-expecting to see some simpering Bronte sister looking back at him instead of his usual grim exterior.
He took a breath, and when he looked up, he was almost disappointed to find his plain old self. His face was rough with a day of stubble, and his reflection glared back at him in the usual way.
He grabbed a towel from the rack, ran it over his hair in a half-assed drying effort, then draped it over his shoulders and pulled his shaving kit from his bag. He went through the motions, slashing at his own skin, still unable to figure out why he was angry. Why he was mad because he got his way.
You are not going to have sex with Genevieve Silver.
The answering thought came out of nowhere, and Quinn didn’t know if it was a resolution, or simply a realization.
Whatever it is, it’s ridiculous, he said to himself.
It was his goal, for God’s sake. To make her see how sexy she could be. How sexy she already was. Which, judging from her request for condoms, he’d done
.
If anything, his quick success should be making him gloat, not goddamned…linger. Not decide not to follow through.
God knew, he wanted her. Enough to be pissed off at himself for even thinking about not doing it. But somewhere not far below the surface…he was relieved, too. Not having sex with her absolved him of guilt.
Guilt? Or responsibility?
Quinn squeezed the sink harder.
Both.
He didn’t want to take advantage of her, and he didn’t want to become something she wished she hadn’t done, either. The thought of doing that – of becoming his one and only friend’s one and only sister’s one and only regret – cut into him like a knife. A dull, rusty, tetanus-encrusted knife. That looked suspiciously like the one on his arm.
Ridiculous, he thought again, and finally released the sink so he could grab a pair of reasonably unwrinkled pants and a long-sleeved dress shirt from his suitcase.
But sliding into the clothes didn’t give him the usual satisfaction of projecting the Yeah, I should be dressed up, but this is as far as I’m willing to go attitude. Instead, he kinda wished he’d packed a suit. Or that he even owned a suit.
Oh, good, he thought sarcastically as he rolled his sleeves up to his elbows and snapped a silver-studded belt into place. Now I’m an insecure, lingering asshole.
Enough.
No sex? Fine.
Moping? Hell, no.
He flicked his hair out of his eyes and shot himself a final, disgusted look.
Then he flung open the door and caught sight of Ginnie.
She was sitting on the bed, her back propped up by a pillow, the phone from the side table pressed to her ear.
She looked…different.
And delicious as hell.
Her eyes were closed, giving Quinn a good long minute to drink her in, head to toe.
She’d left her hair loose, and full, and it framed her face perfectly. She’d obviously dug out some makeup from somewhere, and she’d rimmed her eyes in a bruised shade of purple. Her lips, which were moving in hushed conversation, were silver with gloss.
If someone had asked Quinn ten minutes ago if he’d like to see Ginnie made up like that, he would’ve replied with a vehement no. He would’ve said it would wreck the clean beauty of her face. Now…Shit. She was a whole different kind of stunning. A whole different kind of entrancing.
Mile High Weekend (Opposites Attract Book 1) Page 14
