Playing Dirty by Jennifer Echols Page B

he said softly, stepping closer and slipping his hand under her shirt. “We’ll do a better job this time.”
    Her whole body tingled at his touch. She pulled off his glasses just before their lips met.
    At first, she let him kiss her. Then she broke the kiss. When he stopped in surprise, she licked his lips with the tip of her tongue and simultaneously rubbed her thigh across his groin.
    He had exactly the reaction she’d been counting on strategically, and aching for physically, all through breakfast. He took in a gasp, let out a small groan, and kissed her hard, with drive.
    That’s when she put her hand on his chest and pushed him away. “Better.” She settled his glasses back across his nose.
    He opened the door to the garage for her. She was such a masterful femme fatale that she managed to hold his hungry gaze without tripping in her heels while she descended the two steps. “I want my album,” she said.
    “I’m going to give it to you,” he said darkly.
    Maneuvering between the pickup trucks in the garage, headed for her BMW out on the driveway, she heard the door to the kitchen close behind her. Then a soft thud. Then a faint curse. She smiled to herself and kept on walking.

    Quentin collapsed with his back against the door. And banged his head in frustration. And cussed.
    “ Did you break Rule Three? ” his bandmates hollered from the kitchen bar. Even Martin had finally dragged himself up from the guest room/opium den to confront Quentin about Sarah.
    “You think I’d be beating my head against the door if I’d broken Rule Three?” Quentin exclaimed. With effort, he pushed away from the door and returned to the kitchen under their accusing glares. He started an omelet for Martin like everything was normal, even though he knew Martin wouldn’t eat it.
    When he looked up from the pan, they still stared grimly at him over the bar. They didn’t believe him. Nobody believed him today.
    “I swear to God I didn’t,” he said.
    Their looks didn’t change. They were going to kick him out of the band.
    “I swear on the statue of Vishnu in my daddy’s front yard,” he said desperately. “Erin, you believed me earlier!”
    “That was before she came downstairs,” Erin told him. “There was definitely a vibe between you two.”
    “Well, I was going to,” he confessed. “I had full intention of breaking Rule Three.” He laughed nervously. “And then I passed out.”
    Owen exploded in laughter, and Erin clapped.
    Martin said quietly, “If you’d broken Rule Three, being drunk wouldn’t have been an excuse. A rule is a rule.”
    Quentin said, “Yeah, but—”
    “There’s no ‘but’ if you break a rule.”
    Martin was really beginning to piss off Quentin with his hypocrisy. Martin was high , for Pete’s sake, his pupils pinpoints behind his glasses.
    “Y’all made me get drunk!” Quentin protested.
    “It was your turn,” Owen said.
    “Yeah, but we could have skipped me and moved to Erin if we’d known Chewbacca was a hot chick.” He reached across the bar to poke Martin’s chest with the eggy spatula. “Why didn’t you stop me?”
    “Because you acted like you were going to hit me,” Martin reasoned.
    “I’ve hit you before and you survived.”
    “And anyway,” Martin said, “the three of us agreed you were going to pass out before you could make a move on her.”
    “Then what the hell’s the problem?” Quentin smacked the omelet onto a plate and shoved it across the bar at Martin.
    “The problem is that there was a vibe between you and Sarah,” Erin repeated. “You know I know you, Q. You know I know the vibe.”
    Quentin glanced at Owen, expecting to see him jealous. But Owen didn’t emote much, and his face was the usual blank. Quentin could have sworn he’d sensed something real between Erin and Owen last night. But he’d been drunk. Or he was just no good at detecting the vibe .
    He confessed, “Sarah wants to fake a thing with me until the concert, to