by Tara Sivec
“Have you been doing dirty things with my calendar photo?” I tease, trying to lighten the situation and cool off my heated skin, waiting for him to come back with a sarcastic reply.
It takes a few torturous seconds for his eyes to make their way back up to mine. He holds my stare quietly for a few minutes, making my heart pound even harder than it already was and the teasing smile slip from my face.
“Are you asking if I looked at that sexy as fuck picture of you, with beads of water dripping off all that smooth, creamy skin, biting that full bottom lip I already know tastes like heaven, while I gripped my cock in my fist and jerked off so hard I almost passed out when I came?” Quinn asks casually with a raise of one eyebrow, each word that effortlessly comes out of his mouth instantly forming visuals in my head, making me pulse with need and the flimsy black G-string I’m wearing soak with wetness. “Would that be considered a dirty thing?”
Well shit. This just got a little too real.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, wondering how I even manage to get the words out of me I’m breathing so hard.
“Not being a proper gentleman, that’s for goddamn sure” is what I think Quinn mutters under his breath, but I honestly can’t be sure, since he changes subjects so quickly it makes my head spin. “Wow, that orchestra is really all over the map with their song choices tonight.”
There’s an amused smile on his face as he looks at me while I stand here panting, like he wasn’t just talking about cock, and gripping, and coming, filling my head with so many dirty images of him I might pass out.
Both of us stay quiet for a few minutes, listening to the faint sounds of “Celebrity Skin” by Hole, hoping he can’t hear the thundering of my heart as well. Even with being a little ways down the tunnel, we can still hear the muffled sounds of the orchestra’s music making its way to us, and it’s actually kind of nice and doesn’t make this room seem so church-like.
Another plus, what with all the cock, gripping, and coming. Definitely not appropriate for Jesus.
“This is the song I auditioned to my third year with the Vipers.” I giggle nervously, trying to think about anything but Quinn’s head thrown back in ecstasy while his hand shuttles up and down his hard length, all because of a picture of me.
Still remembering every single move to this audition dance, I automatically uncross my arms and do a few subdued arm-movements. Just like accepting dares, it is physically impossible for me not to do the moves for a dance I know that goes with whatever song is playing. It’s as natural to me as breathing, and most of the time, I don’t even realize I’m doing it until someone points it out.
“Of course you danced to this song, my little rebel.” Quinn chuckles, my stomach dropping right into my toes when he calls me his. “I’m not even going to bother denying that I’ve stalked every single video of you I could find. Please tell me you can still do that thing where you lean to the side and pull your leg straight back over your head like you don’t have any bones, or that twisty thing where you kick one leg out and spin, and kick, and spin,” Quinn begs.
His eyes are big and hopeful like a kid on Christmas morning, and I swear my cheeks are going to fall off if he keeps making me smile any more tonight. Humor is definitely a turn-on for me. If this man turns me on any more, my body is going to self-destruct.
“I can’t do any of those things without stretching properly, or with this dress on,” I remind him, gesturing down the front of my body with my hands.
Quinn’s eyes take their fill of me once again, making me really glad I decided to wear the dress he mentioned he liked, and also wondering if the power of his heated stare alone would be able to rip this dress right off my body.
“I recall someone telling me not that long ago that I needed to show Shepherd what I wanted, because I was a sexy piece of ass who deserved a good dicking. Get yourself some good dicking out of this arrangement already, Emily!”
My best friend’s words pop into my head again. I do my best to ignore them once more, but Quinn doesn’t make it easy.
“Have I mentioned how much that dress has been torturing me all night?” he asks softly, hands still in his pockets, back still casually leaning against the wall.
Something about the tenseness in Quinn’s shoulders, the way his shiny black dress shoe on one foot is rapidly tapping against the carpet, along with the bulge he definitely isn’t faking that I can’t seem to keep my eyes off of that has definitely grown in size the more Quinn stares at me, tells me he really isn’t feeling very casual when he looks at me, and I like it. I like it a little too much. I like it enough to have maybe found where I’ve been hiding my balls.
Wren is right. I deserve a good dicking out of this arrangement. I want him. He seems to want me too. Guys do it all the time. They fuck anything that moves and then never give it a second thought.
Yeah, but you’re already giving him about a million thoughts an hour. Adding sex into the mix, on top of this whole fake dating thing, is not going to be good for you.
Shut up and eat shit! I deserve this!
Remembering I am a strong, confident woman who has never shied away from taking what I want before, I return his heated gaze with one of my own, taking my time to look him over from his head to his feet.
“I could say the same thing about you. You wear that suit well, QB.”
The corner of Quinn’s mouth tips up when I use his initials, something I’ve found absolutely adorable about him ever since I learned it back in college, when he gave his first interview. Obviously, QB is what everyone calls a quarterback for short. But when it came time to name his son, Mr. Bagley, who had a very promising football career until he blew out his knee in college, had high hopes for his baby boy and refused to give him a middle name. Therefore, his initials are legally QB. He was literally born to be a quarterback.
“You need to stop looking at me like that,” Quinn mutters, my eyes flickering up from the bulge in his fitted suit pants, where they got a little stuck for a few seconds in my slow perusal of him.
“Looking at you like what?” I question innocently, cocking my head to the side, which earns me a dimpled smirk from him.
“Truth or dare?” he suddenly asks me.
God, I want this to be real. I want this to be real so badly I can’t think straight, and that scares the hell out of me. So I keep making excuses, and I’m still riding the “pretend” train, because if it’s pretend, it won’t matter if it all goes away. It won’t hurt as much if it all ends, because it wasn’t real anyway.
“Truth.”
Just like in my parents’ driveway, Quinn’s head jerks back a little at my response, making me laugh.
“Like I’m really going to make it easy on you.” I smile at him, uncrossing my arms and bringing them down to my sides to slide my hands behind me, between my lower back and the wall.
The move pushes my boobs up even more with the corset-style top of this dress, and heat spreads through my body when Quinn’s eyes narrow on my cleavage before they move up to my face, a knowing look in his eyes that tells me he just might be on to me.
“Worst date you’ve ever been on.”
“Does this one get added to my long list of choices?” I inquire with a serious look on my face.
“Cute. You know this is the best date you’ve ever been on,” he says with a cocky grin.
And I don’t even argue, because he’s right. Fake date and sexual frustration aside, this is the best night I’ve ever had in my life, and it’s not even over yet.
“Easy. The panty sniffer from two years ago,” I quickly reply.
“This doesn’t sound like it’s going to end well….” He trails off, making me laugh.
“He was a cousin of one of the Vipers cheerleaders. We went on a few dates; they were pretty nice, so I invited him back to my apartment for dinner and a movie,” I explain, Quinn’s eyes staring at my mouth the entire time I talk, making my breath come out a little faster. “He excused himself during
the movie to go to the bathroom. When he didn’t come back after twenty minutes, I found him in my bedroom, sniffing all of my underwear.”
“Oh God,” Quinn mutters with a grimace.
“That wasn’t even the worst part.” I laugh at his horrified expression. “When I told him to get the hell out, he asked if he could take a few pairs with him.”
“On behalf of the un-creepy men out there, I’d like to take a moment to apologize to all women everywhere.”
“What about you?” I nod to him. “Worst date you’ve ever been on.”
“Uh, all of them.” Quinn shrugs, making my heart clench a little. “I don’t really have normal dates in my line of work. A lot of nut jobs seem to find me. And a lot of women who just want something from me or want to use me to get something else. Until you came along and made me chase you.”
Now my heart full-on tries to beat its way out of my chest, but I do my best to ignore it.
“Too bad we’re not really dating,” I remind him.
The casualness in Quinn is gone in a split second. His eyes are no longer sparkling with humor as he yanks his hands out of his pockets when he pushes away from the wall, taking a step toward me and holding one of his hands out to me.
“Dance with me.”
“What?” I laugh, looking around the empty locker room like I’m suddenly expecting it to be filled with people we need to pretend for.
“Come on, dance with me,” he urges, as the muffled sounds of the orchestra can be heard through the walls when they start playing “Wicked Game” by Chris Isaak. A little bit of the sparkle comes back into his eyes, and an easy smile takes over his face, while my throat gets tight with emotion, wondering if he has any earthly idea how fitting this song is right now. “My dad always asked my mom to dance whenever they were fighting, because he said it’s hard to be mad at someone when you’re holding them close.”
“I didn’t realize we were fighting.” I reply with a grin, removing my hands from behind my back and sliding one of them into his.
“I always feel like you’re one second away from punching me in the dick, so I figured I’d just be safe.”
Our soft laughter mingles in the quiet room with the muted strains of the violins, cellos, and bass, as he wraps his hand around mine, tugging me away from the wall with a little jerk, and right up against him. My free hand flies up to his shoulder, and I forget how to breathe when I can feel every hard inch of him pressing into me.
Every. Hard. Inch.
Including the ones currently poking me, definitely confirming the want is there on both sides.
Bringing our joined hands up to rest over his heart, Quinn slides his other hand over my hip and around my waist, making my breath hitch when he tugs me tighter against him, his arm remaining securely around me to keep me pressed snuggly into him. Neither one of us moves or acknowledges the elephant in the room. Or should I say, the giant elephant trunk in the room that Quinn is packing between his legs, making my brain fizzle out and a quiet hum fill my ears, drowning out any rational thought I have left.
“T-Truth or dare?” I stutter when Quinn tightens his hold on me and starts gently swaying us to the muffled music.
“Truth,” he whispers, dipping his head and pressing his lips to my cheek like he did a handful of times tonight for the cameras.
He holds them there just long enough for the warmth of his lips to drive me insane before slowly pulling back just far enough to look at me, our noses a few inches apart. I feel him everywhere from my breasts pressed against his chest down to our thighs. Every hard inch of him is smashed up against my soft parts, rubbing together while he slowly rocks us to the music and stares into my eyes. The rapid beating of his heart perfectly matches my own; I can feel it pounding inside his chest with how closely he’s holding me to him, not letting even a whisper of air between us.
“Best date you’ve ever been on,” I finally say stupidly, unable to form any kind of coherent thought in my head or come up with any other question for him to answer for his truth response.
All of a sudden, Quinn swoops his head down again, this time pressing his lips against mine. It’s only for a few seconds, just like I did to him after our lunch with Jeanie, but having his mouth on any part of me again sets me on fire and makes me want more. He pulls his mouth away too quickly, his eyes back on mine when he speaks.
“This one.”
“Be serious,” I scoff, even though I’m having trouble breathing again. “They couldn’t have all been bad.”
A muscle tics in his jaw as he looks at me, our bodies no longer swaying to the music, just standing still, plastered up against each another under the archway. He moves his hand off the top of mine that’s pressed against his chest, bringing it to rest against the side of my neck, his thumb tracing back and forth over my jaw.
“Truth or dare?”
Quinn’s voice is low, but he practically growls the words at me, making my entire body shiver in his arms and the pulsing ache in my core grow to an uncomfortable level. I want to be bold, do something daring, be the risktaker I’ve been all my life. I know he wants me. I know this dating shit is just pretend, but the attraction isn’t. Wren is right. I deserve this.
“Dare,” I whisper back to Quinn, my eyes focused on his lips, while his thumb brushes back and forth over my jaw, and I wait for him to dare me to kiss him.
“Stop pretending.”
My eyes fly up to his when he says these words to find him staring at me like he’s trying to look into my soul. I have to swallow thickly and will the butterflies flapping around in my stomach to calm the hell down. With his thumb continuing to brush maddeningly close to my lips, his eyes never leave mine as he keeps talking, making my scalp tingle, my heart pound, and the need inside me fly off the charts.
“If none of this were… pretend… what would you do, Emily?” Quinn asks, the sound of my name in his deep, hoarse voice making my body instantly react and subtly grind against him. A guttural groan comes out of him as he drops his forehead to mine. “For five minutes, just stop fucking pretending with me and be real. I dare you.”
His final words are a whispered plea to me, but I hear them like he shouted them at the top of his lungs into this quiet room. He’s seriously daring me to be real right now? This is what I’ve been trying to avoid—doesn’t he get it? It’s easier to pretend. It’s safer.
For fuck’s sake, be bold! Be daring, and take what you want. Stop pretending with him just for a little bit and just imagine this is all real, and perfect, and you’re really with your smoking-hot boyfriend at a charity event, sneaking away for some alone time, like a real couple would. You can think about how much it’s going to suck when it ends later.
With all the strength I have, I pull my head back from his, pushing my palms against his chest to move away from him. Like the gentleman Quinn is, he immediately drops his arm from its tight hold around me and his hand from my face. A worried look comes over his own face as I take a few steps back from him and farther into the locker room, probably wondering if I’m going to kick him in the balls or storm out of here.
There’s a reason I was the captain of every squad I’ve ever cheered for. Because I take charge, I get the job done, and I’m confident in my abilities. He wants real, and this is as real as it gets.
I’m confident in my abilities to win this goddamn dare, because I deserve it.
“Is there a possibility of anyone joining us in here?” I ask Quinn casually, gathering all of my hair together and pulling it over one shoulder.
“Uhhh, no…” He trails off, still looking at me nervously, like I might bolt. “There are two security guards at the mouth of the tunnel. No one’s getting in until I let them know we’re done with the tour.”
“Excellent.” I nod, reaching up under my arm next to my boob and quickly unzipping my dress down to my hip. “Shit… what about security cameras? Didn’t really think of that.”
“Don’t know, don’t care. I’ll find them a
nd burn them all to the ground—Holy fucking shit.”
Quinn’s mouth starts to slowly drop open when I push both straps of my dress down my arms, peel the corset over my boobs, shimmying and pushing the tight material down over my hips and thighs, until it falls off at my knees to a puddle at my feet, where I kick it off to the side with the toe of my stiletto.
“Whaaat the… fuck?” Quinn says in a near-panicked, guttural voice that almost makes me giggle, his eyes flying up and down my body, having no idea where to look first, now that I’m standing in front of him in nothing but my heels, a black G-string, and a black satin push-up bra that is defying the laws of gravity. “I thought you were just going to be real and maybe show me a secret tattoo or an old scar or something. Oh, sweet Christ… I was not prepared—”
“Oh, sorry.” I shrug breezily, crossing one of my ankles over the other and folding my hands together down in front of me. “You said the dress was torturing you, so I took care of that problem.”
“Good God, woman,” Quinn pants, messing up his neatly styled hair when he runs one of his hands through it. “I was trying to be a gentleman. You’re killing me here.”
“Be real—isn’t that what you said?” I ask softly, pushing down the panic that I’m opening myself up to him completely right now and letting him know that I really want him.
Quinn just nods.
“Then that’s what the fuck,” I tell him, my voice a little bolder. “Also, I know you said five minutes, but I really hope this is going to take more than that, or this was a complete waste of a new bra-and-panty set.”
“Oh, so you planned this, did you?” My favorite smirk is back on Quinn’s face, but his voice is raspy, and it sounds like he’s having a really hard time speaking or keeping his eyes off all the exposed skin I’ve got on display for him right now. The tent in his pants, and how he clenches and unclenches his hands down at his sides, tells me he’s having a really hard time not launching himself at me, and it makes me even brasher.
“Not really planned, per se. More like hoped. I mean, a woman can only take so much before she—”