by Max Monroe
“Is everything okay?” our instructor asked and rubbed a hand across her already paint-covered smock. With her brush still in hand, Stella paused to glance back at the only two people in her studio. Her hair, shades of fire red with wild ringlets, shone beneath the studio lights as her gaze moved back and forth between Quinn and me.
Not only had he planned a date at a painting studio, he’d also rented out the entire place for our session, giving us complete privacy. With the number of Mavericks fans who resided inside the city limits, I had a feeling it was more out of necessity than anything else.
“Yep,” he blurted out quickly. “We’re all good back here.”
I fought the urge to burst into laughter when I glanced at his canvas again.
So bare.
“Okay,” Stella responded. “Just let me know if you need me to slow down.”
Slow down? Quinn probably needed her to start over.
“What made you choose Paint ’N’ Sip for our date?” I asked on a whisper after taking a quick sip of my wine. Hints of chocolate and cinnamon pressed against my taste buds, and I swallowed.
“I got the idea from your Instagram.”
“Seriously?” I questioned, surprised by his thoughtfulness.
Apparently, Mr. Quarterback had not only been paying attention to my flight schedule but my social media too. Most of the things I shared on my Instagram revolved around my own personal sketches, paintings, and pictures of the greeting card line my father and I sold through Etsy. Selfies and personal photographs were pretty rare.
“Yeah,” he answered honestly. “Which, by the way, what is the whole ‘Caterpillar & Co’ thing I keep seeing pictures of on your profile?”
“It’s a greeting card line,” I said with a shrug. “Just kind of a fun, hobby thing my father and I do together.”
“How long have you been doing that?”
“For a really long time, actually. I was twelve when we started it,” I explained and dragged my brush across the canvas in the small, quick strokes Stella had instructed us to do from the front of the studio. “It didn’t start out as a greeting card line, though. It just sort of evolved into it.”
“Consider me intrigued. How did Caterpillar & Co start?”
“Well…my father runs the post office where I grew up, and I used to help with all of the Dear Santa letters that came through. When I was twelve, I’d pretty much made it my mission to answer every Dear Santa letter the post office received. I don’t know, I guess a year or two after that, once I’d started taking art classes at the community center up the street from the house, it had all just kind of turned into greeting cards. And the rest is history.”
“And Caterpillar? Is that a nickname?”
I nodded. “My dad called me that a lot when I was a kid. Hell, he still calls me that now, and I’m twenty-four.”
“I guess there’s just something about you,” he said with an indulgent smile, and his eyes brightened with warmth. “You’re just so damn cute and adorable. It’s impossible to not want to give you a nickname.”
“Yeah…Kitty Cat…kitten… Surely, there won’t be any more, right?” I teased.
His smile grew wider. “Only time will tell, I guess.”
“I should come up with a nickname for you.”
“Do your worst,” he said through a chuckle, and his eyes locked with mine. “I’ll eat anything you dish out with a spoon and a smile.”
I had no response to that, only a soft laugh and a shake of my head.
“Okay…” Stella’s voice grabbed my attention, and I looked toward the front. “Before we move on to the skyscrapers, make sure you refill your blues and reds if you’re running low.”
Several minutes of focus passed, and I’d lost myself in the strokes of my brush as I added softened hues of red to create a dramatic shadow.
Once I’d managed to lay the foundation for my skyscrapers lining the street, I paused my painting and just watched Quinn for a few moments. He was still crazy behind but appeared unfazed by that fact.
So, while he painted, I watched, taking in the focus etched on his face. Lips firm in determination, he furrowed his brow, and a slight wrinkle formed above his nose.
Even superfocused, he was handsome.
Not to mention, he’d taken off his long-sleeved collared shirt and was now just painting in a white, cotton T-shirt that revealed enough of his biceps for me to be reminded that his body was ah-fucking-mazing.
All those hours on the field and in the gym had obviously paid off.
The muscles of his arm rippled and flexed as he moved his brush across the canvas. I licked my lips and silently wished I could take a taste. Hell, if we weren’t in the middle of a Paint ’N’ Sip, I might’ve actually attempted it.
“Stop watching me,” he whispered mid-stroke, and I just grinned—half dazed and drunk off of my prolonged ogle time.
“I can’t help myself. You’re so…” Hot…sexy…lick-able… “Focused.”
Yeah. Focused. That’s exactly what you were just musing about…
“Because I’m painting a masterpiece here, Kitty Cat,” he said, and his brow furrowed deeper.
I wondered if his sports fans were familiar with that determined face.
“Is this what your ‘O game face’ looks like?”
Instantly, he stopped painting and turned to face me. “My what face?”
“You know, your O game face,” I repeated. “The face that your sports fans probably know all too well.”
“I’d be surprised if my fans know what my O face looks like, but my game face? Yeah, they probably know that one.”
“That’s what I said.”
“No,” he said through a chuckle. “You said O game face.”
I snorted in shock. “No, I didn’t.”
Holy hell, I’d just said O game face? Was that some kind of Freudian slip?
It’s probably because all of the sex and licking thoughts you’ve been having since this date started…
Quinn gazed at me with a smirk kissing his lips.
“Shut up,” I muttered, but he only smiled wider. “Oh my God. Stop smiling at me like that.”
“Is everything okay?” Stella questioned. “Are you guys good to move on to the next step?”
“Yep,” Quinn answered for both of us, even though I hadn’t even added my taxi cabs yet, and he was still stuck on the pedestrians.
While Stella started instructing us on how to properly paint the evening lavender sky, my painting partner just kept smiling at me, his eyes glimmering like diamonds beneath the studio lights.
“What?” I asked once I started to feel awkward underneath his intense gaze. For lack of anything better to do, I lifted my wineglass from the table and distracted myself with a sip of wine.
He brushed his finger down my cheek. “Thanks for coming on this date with me, Kitty Cat.”
My heart pitter-pattered inside of my chest.
“Thank you for inviting me on this date.”
“Can I ask you something?”
I set my brush down on my easel. “Of course.”
“Tonight, after I’ve finished this masterpiece that you can hang on your mantel…and I’m walking you to your door…” He paused, and I waited with bated breath for him to finish.
“Yeah…?”
“Can I kiss you, Kitty Cat?” he asked on a whisper, and a sharp gasp escaped my lungs. He leaned forward, and with his gaze holding mine, he quietly added, “I need to feel how soft those perfect lips of yours are. They’ve been driving me crazy all night.”
My skin flushed from the heat permeating his words. I blinked, but it wasn’t a quick blink, it was a long, slow, trying to digest his words kind of blink.
Holy hell. And yes, please.
“Okay.”
One corner of his mouth reached up toward his cheeks. “Okay?”
“Yes.” Apparently, one-word answers were all my brain could handle in that moment.
“You’ll
save a kiss for me, then?”
“Uh-huh.”
He just smiled in response and ran one lone finger slowly up the skin of my bare thigh. In rapt attention, I watched its ascent up-up-up my thigh, until it reached the hem of my dress. But instead of going farther, he pulled it away, picked up his paintbrush and resumed his painting.
Holy water in a petri dish. I fought the urge to moan out loud.
Thank God Stella was only one more step away from finishing up Times Square.
Just as Quinn pulled in front of my building, the clock on the dashboard clicked over, the neon green numbers glowing midnight. I’d been focused on the fucking time ever since he’d brought up the whole kissing thing.
And believe me, it’d felt like a snail, inching by at a sluggish pace.
It’d taken Stella a whole thirty minutes to finish up the final step for our Times Square painting, and then another thirty minutes for Quinn to catch up on all the steps he’d missed.
Although, I had to give it to him, his final product was pretty fucking adorable.
The people in his painting were us. And the billboards were all variations of Cat, Kitty Cat, and actual pictures of cats and kittens.
He’d joked about me hanging it up on my mantel, but I so totally was. The fact that it was the first thing I grabbed for when he put the car in park was proof of that.
With his hand on the small of my back, Quinn gently helped me out of his truck and up to my front porch. He nodded toward the painting—his painting—that I carefully set down by my door.
“Are you really keeping that?”
“Of course I am,” I answered instantly, nearly offended that he even had to ask that, and he grinned.
I probably should have said something witty and cute and adorable in that moment, but my mind was far too busy going through my mental “Are you ready to have sex with Quinn?” checklist.
Sexy underwear? Check.
Legs shaved? Check.
Horny? Triple-Triple-Check.
Surely, the odds were really, really fucking likely that tonight, we’d end up inside my house, on top of my bed, and completely naked.
Normally, I would be a little hesitant over that fact, moving so quickly on the first date, but when it came to Quinn, I was ready to throw caution to the wind. And most importantly, I was ready to experience that kiss he’d asked me for.
“I had an amazing night with you, Kitty Cat.” He reached out and slid his fingers into my hair, tucking a few loose locks behind my ear.
“I did too.”
We should totally kiss over how amazing it was…
“No regrets?” he asked with a smirk, and I shook my head.
“No regrets.”
“You should always live your life to avoid regrets, Kitty Cat,” he mused. “You know, when I was twelve, my dad gave me the best advice I’ve ever been given. And it’s prevented me from a lot of regrets.”
“And what advice was that?”
“It only takes one minute of bravery. One minute of insane, embarrassingly crazy courage to change your life. Sometimes, it only takes that one minute for something great to happen.”
I scrunched my nose in confusion at his sudden, serious change of pace, but he continued on.
“I’ve used that advice three times in my life. The first time, when I was in high school, and it was that advice that helped me play the game of my life in front of a college scout for the University of Alabama. The second time, I was in college, and it ended in a National Championship,” he stated and then paused.
Wait…that’s only two…
“And the third?”
“I was on a midnight train to Birmingham, and I ended up serenading the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
He stole breath from my lungs, and I had to avert my eyes from his intense gaze for a brief moment because those words made me feel too vulnerable.
But carefully, tenderly, he slipped his index finger under my chin and lifted my eyes to his. Hesitantly, I looked up at him from underneath my lashes and the swirls of emotion I saw there urged a soft gasp from my lips.
Lust, desire, need. No doubt they mirrored mine.
“And do you know what right now is?” he asked, his voice quiet but his words vibrating with intensity.
“What?”
“The fourth time.”
He didn’t give me time to ponder it further. Between one breath and the next, Quinn wrapped his arms around my body and pulled me toward him.
Warm, oh so soft lips pressed against mine.
I was completely unprepared. You would’ve thought that after spending an entire evening with Quinn—watching him talk and laugh and smile—that I would’ve known all there was to know about his lips. But I hadn’t imagined how perfect they would feel pressed up against my own.
My eyes widened, and it only took me about one second to fully realize that Quinn was kissing me, and another 0.8 of a second to understand that I was most definitely kissing him back.
Fluttering my eyes shut, I savored the feel of him. His mouth was so warm and the caress of his lips softer than I could have imagined. I opened my mouth with a low moan, and instantly, our kiss turned hungry.
Liquid warmth spread through my body as his fingers moved into my hair, gently holding me closer to him while his mouth danced with mine.
I slid my hands up his stomach, his chest, until my fingertips caressed the smooth ripples of muscle covering his shoulders.
The kiss was long and his mouth was hot and my heart was pounding. It obliterated every thought. For the first time in forever, my mind was locked into the present. The usual worries of the day evaporated like a summer shower on a hot car.
I had no other wish but for the kiss to never end.
A kiss like this should never have an ending, only a beginning, and a promise of much more to come.
I was drunk on endorphins, my only desire to touch him, to move his hands under my dress and feel him touch me. I moaned when his hands moved down my shoulders, my back, until they caressed the curves of my ass.
Instantly, my breath quickened, and my thighs grew damp with arousal.
Yes. Please. Touch me.
I wanted his fingers under my dress, beneath my panties, inside of me. I was ready to drag him inside my house, give him the official—and naked—tour of my bedroom, and spend hours upon hours worshiping his insanely muscular and fit body.
But he surprised me, knocking my equilibrium straight out of whack.
Instead of urging us further, Quinn softly ended the kiss. He pulled away, resting his forehead against mine. Our breaths mingled and danced as we both fought to slow our heartbeats and erratic pants.
“That was…perfect,” he whispered.
Yes! Let’s keep doing that…
“It was.”
“Tonight was perfect.”
“It was.”
It really was. But God, I didn’t want it to be over yet. I wanted more.
He pressed his lips to mine again, but before I could start getting excited over the prospect of more, he pulled away.
What is happening?
“Sweet dreams, kitten,” he said, and before I could process the fact that we weren’t going inside, Quinn pressed a soft kiss to my forehead and added, “I’ll call you tomorrow after practice, okay?”
“Okay,” I muttered and had the insane urge to shout, “Wait! Come back and have sex with me!” from my front porch. But I reeled in the crazy—and the horny—long enough to force myself back inside the house once I saw he’d made it safely to his truck.
That kiss. What in the fuck was that? And more than that, how in the hell had Quinn Bailey gone home after a kiss like that?
With my back resting against the door, I stared into the empty, dimly lit hallway of my apartment, confused, and if I was being honest with myself, really fucking disappointed.
I had been all kinds of ready to do a whole lot more than just kissing with Quinn Bailey.
&nbs
p; “Okay,” I murmured to myself, my voice ringing out in the silent cab of my truck like a gunshot. “Okay,” I said again, trying to slow my breathing and sort out the absolute cluster in my head.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I shouted suddenly, my voice box taken over by my dick. He was hard and hurting and a whole lot angry that I’d ended the night where I had. And when he had this much control of my blood, I had a really hard time forming thoughts to explain the situation to him.
I punched my steering wheel, a loud thud echoing throughout the empty space, and immediately regretted it, shaking my hand to ease the sting.
“Relax,” I coached myself as I drove, trying really hard to focus on the road in addition to my one-man show. “You did the right thing. Fast fucking is short term. Groundwork is long term.”
I shook my head in the dim glow of the streetlights and laughed maniacally. “I’m talking to myself out loud. I’m going crazy. It’s official, I’ve fucking lost it.”
Two hands gripped the wheel and tightened, making the leather wrap creak under the stress as I tried to sort myself out, and I looked over my shoulder to double-check the lane I was moving into.
“No, no, it’s okay. You’re not crazy, you’re just crazy about someone. This is normal. Right?”
I laughed to myself.
“Well, I don’t know, Quinn,” I carried on, turning my rants into an actual conversation. “Seeing as we’ve never been in a serious relationship before, I don’t really have a lot of experience with the feeling.”
Good God. How far away do I live again?
I had the sense I wouldn’t be able to stop the madness until I got home and could talk down my cock in another, more physical way.
“Just drive,” I told myself. “Just focus on the road and the assholes on it and the radio—”
I slammed a hand against the console. “Yes, the radio! I just need music to drown out all the thoughts!”
I reached forward immediately and pushed the volume nob to turn it on. AC/DC filled the air, and some of the tightness in my chest released.
“Thunder!” I yelled, singing—more like shouting—along to the song and bopping my head so hard I almost got dizzy. “Thunder!”