Fool Me Once

by Katee Robert

  Twenty minutes? Was he insane? She wasn’t sure she could last another twenty seconds.

  He wasn’t done. “Maybe I should leave the door unlocked.”

  “What?”

  He moved, lifting her and turning her around, impaling her on his cock before she had fully processed his words. He looped her legs on the outside of his, spreading her wide. One hand bracketed her throat, not holding her tightly enough to cut off her breathing but keeping her back pressed to his chest. She blinked, her desire slowing down her brain enough that it took a full three seconds before she realized they were now facing the door. “What?”

  “Just think, peaches. That door is unlocked.” His free hand cupped one breast and then the other, playing with her nipples. “You can hear the squeaky wheel from the room service cart. It’s getting closer, and you know it’s coming here.” His words almost had her convinced she could hear exactly that. Even though she knew for a fact the hotel door was locked… What if it wasn’t?

  “I’m not going to stop fucking you, though.” His hand dipped between her spread thighs, fingers sliding through her wetness where they were joined up to her clit, his touch too light to get her off. “I can’t get enough of you. It makes me crazed. All I can think of is sinking deep inside you over and over again until we both come…and then starting all over again. You think a knock on the door is going to be enough to make me give that up? Not fucking likely.”

  His lips brushed her neck, trailing up to her ear and he kept up those light touches, his cock still filling her completely. “He’s almost here. Can you hear his footsteps?”

  “Quinn—”

  “Shh. He’s going to hear you. And he’s going to know exactly what I’m doing to you.” His chuckle made her bite back a moan. “Then again, he’s going to open that door and he’s going to see for himself in a few seconds. Can you imagine the look on his face when he sees you? There will be shock, but then he’s going to get as hard as I am right now. No man alive can see you like this and not want you.”

  She could see exactly what he was describing, and the image only got her hotter. Aubry never would have pegged herself as an exhibitionist, but with Quinn’s hands on her and his words in her ear, she wanted it to be real. Her breath sobbed out and she tried to move on his cock. His grip changed, his hand moving up to pin her hips down. “Ah, ah. We’re not done yet. I’ll tell him to close the door behind him and take a seat there.” He used his grip to turn her head to the chair right next to the door. “He can’t touch, but he can watch. Do you want him to watch?”

  More than anything in the world.

  Her skin was too tight, her breathing coming in gasps, her core so hot it was a wonder it didn’t scald Quinn. She wanted, holy fuck, she wanted. “Yes.”

  “You’re about to come just thinking about it.”

  “Yes.”

  His hand coasted back over to stroke her clit. Once, twice. “You want to know a secret.”

  “Yes!” She strained to make him touch her more firmly. So close. So freaking close.

  He sucked on her earlobe and released it. “You never hung up the phone.”

  Meaning, the room service chick heard everything.

  He pressed against her clit and surged up at the same time, and that was all it took. Aubry shrieked as she came, sobbing out Quinn’s name over and over again as he fucked her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Quinn had never been so conflicted in his damn life. Yesterday had been good—better than good. It had been fucking perfect. It was more than the sex, too. Seeing Aubry so geeked out in her element and then falling asleep with her in his arms…

  He didn’t want it to stop.

  Next to him on the bench seat, Aubry stretched. “I have to say, I’m enjoying the hell out of this road trip.”

  He was, too. Everything about Aubry and this situation only pulled him in deeper, the differences he’d been so sure were insurmountable when they first met were actually strengths he relished. He liked their bantering. He liked her. “Going better than you expected?”

  “Considering I thought I’d have to take your abnormally large body out into the desert and bury it…” She grinned. “Not even close.”

  Quinn barked out a laugh. “And here I was thinking I’m growing on you.”

  “Like a fungus. Or mold. Really, really sexy mold.”

  He must have lost it because that was the cutest damn thing he’d ever heard. He draped an arm around her shoulders. “I’m surprised you don’t have some darling little tidbit about how deadly mold is stashed away in that brain of yours.”

  “Do you know how many people black mold kills a year? And that’s not even getting into the different varieties that can do everything from making you hallucinate to go completely bonkers.”

  “I knew you had it in you.”

  Aubry rested her head on his shoulder. “Now drive, trusty steed. I’m exhausted and it’s your fault.”

  He laughed again and pulled onto the highway. The companionable silence stretched as he drove north out of the city, heading for Napa. It didn’t take long for his mind to turn to the next part of their trip. Jenny’s wedding. He’d done his damnedest not to think about it, to focus on getting them both through the convention first. But now DeathCon was behind them, and there was nothing standing between him and the realization that his original plan of taking Aubry to the wedding was pure shit.

  He’d agreed to this when he was operating under the impression that she was a fire-breathing dragon with impenetrable armor. And she was, in a way. He just hadn’t realized that her sharp tongue and nasty disposition covered up a bundle of worries and nerves and more than slightly irrational phobias. Beneath all that armor was a vulnerable woman who went out of her way not to put herself out there in the world for fear it would smash her hopes and dreams to pieces.

  Aw, fuck, they’re going to eat her alive.

  He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “We should talk.”

  “Talk about what?” She straightened, half turning to face him. “I know you’re worried about this wedding, but believe me, I got it.”

  He clenched the steering wheel, fighting the impulse to turn the damn truck around and head back to Texas, disappointing his sister and ruining her wedding. He could deal with their disappointment—he’d been dealing with it his entire life. “Maybe this was a mistake.”

  “What?” She frowned. “No way. You helped me out with the demo. I know I’m not exactly kissing your ass in gratitude—”

  “Peaches, I’m more interested in your kissing other parts of me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I gathered. What I’m trying to say is that you helped—a lot. And I appreciate that help, so I’m going to stick with our deal. We’ve faced down my demons. There’s no reason we can’t face down yours, too.”

  We.

  When’s the last time he was part of a we? Never in a relationship—Quinn didn’t make a habit of letting women close enough to gain that distinction. He liked them. They liked him. It was more than enough to spend a few hours losing themselves in each other.

  He’d never found those arrangements lacking before now. But after the last few days, it was hard not to compare the two. He’d started out this trip barely being able to stand Aubry, but the longer they spent together, the more things he found about her that he admired. Yeah, her quirks were kind of strange, but they were endearing. And, best of all, he never quite knew what she was going to say next.

  And the sex… The sex was out of this world.

  He sighed, trying to find the right way to phrase this. “My family is complicated.”

  “Every family is complicated.”

  Wasn’t that the damn truth? Unfortunately, his family was more than the garden variety complicated. “I didn’t know you that well when we agreed to this.”

  “Correction—you didn’t like me that well.” She leaned closer, frowning up at him. “You’re trying to give me an out and that’s really
cute, but I promise I can handle this. They can’t say anything worse to me than other people already have, and they’re barely strangers. It’s fine.”

  She didn’t comment on the fact that he’d basically just admitted to his being into her, and he didn’t know if it was because she hadn’t noticed or if she didn’t want to deal with it any more than he did.

  “They’re awful people.”

  She snorted. “Look, I pretty much go into every situation figuring that people are awful and/or actively planning my murder and/or there’s a good chance they’ll turn into zombies and I’ll get to shoot them in the face.”

  “Have to shoot them in the face.”

  “No, I was right the first time.” She waved that way. “The point is, your family might be wicked rich and all that, but they aren’t going to be any worse than I am prepared for, because I am prepared for the absolute worst. So if you don’t mind me being bitchy—which is why you recruited me for this in the first place, I’ll remind you—then there’s nothing to worry about.”

  Nothing except these people were experts at the well-aimed barb that managed to soar right past the best defenses and strike deep. He’d been on the receiving end of them too many times to discount, and he went into these encounters knowing exactly what his family and their peers were capable of. He didn’t like to think of them making Aubry feel…less. She wasn’t. She was better than the lot of them combined.

  That was an uncomfortable thought.

  “All the same—”

  “Quinn, stop.” She was still looking at him as if she’d never seen him before. “Would it make you feel better if I promise to let you know the second I need to get out of there, and then we can flee into the night, howling our victory?”

  He blinked and then refocused on the road. “If we’re fleeing, we probably shouldn’t be doing anything in victory.”

  “Oh, pish. I’m pretty sure I could do some damage on the way out.” Her smile was downright evil.

  Considering she was probably talking about property damage at the bare minimum, he shouldn’t find her so damn cute. He found himself smiling in return. “If anyone can afford it, it’ll be the wedding guests.”

  “Exactly.”

  He draped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against his side, and tried not to think too hard about how good it felt to have her there. Like she fit. What the hell did it say about him that he found a woman willing to commit some light felonies for him hotter than fuck?

  She was silent for all of ten seconds. “I don’t suppose this trip is going to be as eventful as the one into San Diego?”

  He barked out a laugh. “You’re out of control.”

  “And you’re the pot calling the kettle black.” She shrugged, her smile wavering. “What can I say? I only have a few more days of this, and I want to enjoy it as fully as possible. So sue me.”

  “Only a few days left.”

  He didn’t phrase it as a question, but she took it as such. “Well, yeah. I mean, obviously my putting limitations on this was a mistake. We’re like fire and gasoline, and it’s stupid to try to stop before we burn ourselves out.” Her voice dropped to just above a whisper. “But, seriously, if Jules knew what we were doing, she’d start getting stars in her eyes and meddling and planning our wedding and our kids’ weddings, and it’s just exhausting to think about.”

  His stomach tied itself in knots, but he couldn’t say for sure if it was because she was putting a limitation on them or because she’d just mentioned a wedding and kids in the next breath. He tried to sound amused, but he knew for a fact he didn’t pull it off. “She gets excited.”

  “Yeah, she does. Which is exactly why we can’t keep this up. I mean, I’m not going to lie and say sneaking around hadn’t occurred to me, but that’s a whole lot of effort, and Jules has a nose like a bloodhound when she thinks I’m keeping something from her. And she always knows when I’m keeping something from her.”

  He wasn’t all that into the thought of sneaking around, either. Quinn wasn’t sneaky. He wasn’t underhanded. Fuck, he was about as subtle as a two-by-four to the side of the head—and so was Aubry. What she was saying made sense, but damn. He’d had every intention of exhausting his attraction to her and then going their separate ways once that happened. What was the other option? Dating? He almost laughed at the thought. They matched up in bed and that was it.

  What would it even look like if they tried dating? Yeah, they’d managed to hold down a conversation or two since they started this trip, but that didn’t mean a damn thing in the grand scheme. They were like two actors that fell for each other because of forced proximity and an affinity for orgasms. The fledgling attraction he felt for her wasn’t likely to last them settling back into their normal lives. He had the ranch and his friends and, sure, their group of friends overlapped a bit now, but she would go back to being closeted up in her apartment or Jules’s shop. The thought of spending all his free time in front of a screen was almost enough to make him break out in hives. It wasn’t his thing. And it was her thing.

  They were too different, even with the handful of things they shared in common. It worked right now, in these exact circumstances, but it wouldn’t keep working indefinitely. He’d be smart to just enjoy the time they had and let it go when they hit the Devil’s Falls town limits.

  Quinn took a deep breath. “Okay, yeah, you’re right.”

  “Yep. Totally right. So right, it’s actually painful.” She sounded like she was reading from a script.

  He tapped her on the top of her head. “And you say I have a big head.”

  “You do.” Her palm settled over his cock and his body instantly responded, his dick hardening and his hands itching to pull her into his lap. Aubry stroked him. “A big, big head. Massive. Just plain giant.”

  Despite everything, he laughed. “Now you’re just teasing me.”

  “Only mostly.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek and ducked under his arm, reclaiming her seat on the other side of the cab.

  Quinn took his eyes off the road long enough to look at her. “What the hell?”

  “Remember that torturous drive where you withheld orgasms and then made me come over and over again until I could barely walk? You should since it happened like two days ago.”

  “I remember,” he gritted out.

  She laughed. “Payback’s a bitch.”

  …

  Aubry tried not to focus on everything circling around her head. Like how Quinn admitted to liking her but then agreed they would never work in the real world, or that he’d tried to give her an out for the wedding. She tried really freaking hard. So hard that she spent the next several hours brooding on the most immediate issue—the wedding. It was clear the very idea of her attending now made him uncomfortable and there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it.

  He said it was because his family is complicated.

  Sure, that sounded great—on the surface. Like maybe he wanted to protect her, which meant maybe he had feelings. But that logic only lasted on a surface level. The more she thought about it, the more she was sure he was having regrets about agreeing to this whole thing in the first place.

  And why wouldn’t he?

  As she’d pointed out time and time again, she wasn’t nice. She wasn’t poised or put together. Honestly, she was a bundle of nerves and issues wrapped up in a gamer girl package. Not the kind of girl a guy wanted to bring home to his fancypants family who probably had gold plated utensils and thousand-thread-count sheets and whatever stupid crap rich people spent money on.

  She knew, rationally, they came from different worlds. She was at peace with that. Mostly. It hadn’t mattered when she could barely stand him, and it shouldn’t matter now because they weren’t ever going to really date. She didn’t even really want a boyfriend or gentleman friend or any other term that encompassed a significant other, let alone one who probably stood to inherit a fortune. She’d learned the hard way that love could turn ugly if given the oppor
tunity, and she wasn’t interested in a repeat. Sure, most of her experience was with family and not relationships, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t the truth.

  “You’re thinking awfully hard over there.”

  She jumped and then mentally cursed herself for jumping. “Goes with the territory. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Humor me.” He’d said it like he really wanted to know, like he wasn’t just being polite. But then, when had Quinn ever bothered to put a polite mask on his interactions with her? They’d been vicious and snarky and hotter than hell, but never polite.

  She started to demur but then reconsidered. They’d already agreed this wasn’t going beyond the end of the trip. What would it hurt to try her hand at actually being honest and expressing her needs? It would be good practice for the “someday,” when she theoretically found someone that she wanted to settle down with. She ignored the pang the thought brought on and focused on the now. “I was just deciding how I feel about you wanting to hide your family from me. Or me from your family. I’m not really sure which way that’s going.”

  Quinn narrowed his eyes as he pulled off the interstate. “What part of ‘I don’t want you to have to deal with them’ did you not understand?”

  “It’s okay. I get it. I’m used to being that person who doesn’t play well with others.” It had just never bothered her until now. Her own mother had more or less disowned her when she got too big for her britches and moved away to go to college, but as much as it still hurt on days when she was feeling particularly low, most of the time she chalked that one up in the win column.

  The only other family she had interaction with on a regular basis was Jules’s. Those people were all so damn nice she was pretty sure half the strays in town had been brought into the fold at one point or another, and she was no different. They weren’t fazed when she was having A Day and snapped at everyone who came within range, and someone was already there with a smile and some off-the-cuff joke to bring her back from the edge. And they weren’t fancy rich folk who worried too much about which fork to use and if she could trace her bloodline back to some ancestor who participated in the genocide of the Native Americans.