Drive Me Crazy

CHAPTER Fourteen


Her underwear was missing. It was a strange problem to have, Elise admitted, and one she’d originally put down to the fact that she still felt a little groggy from the pill Quinn had made her take. But she’d spent the last fifteen minutes searching every drawer in her room—and her suitcase, just in case she’d left them in there—and hadn’t found one bra or one pair of panties. Even the ones she’d worn the day before were missing. The rest of the clothes she’d picked up from the music room were draped neatly across the chair near the window. But her bra was gone and so were her panties.


That, more than anything else, convinced her that she wasn’t to blame. That this wasn’t a simple matter of her being too drugged to remember what she’d done with them. No, if every single one of her undergarments was missing, it could only be because Quinn had stolen them.

The jerk.

The scum-sucking bastard.

The no-good, lying thief.

He’d f*cked her brains out last night, made love to her over and over again like she was the most precious thing in the world, and all the time he’d been plotting this.

This meant war.

Pulling on the nearest article of clothing she could find—which just happened to be Quinn’s T-shirt—she marched out into the hall and down the stairs. She wasn’t even at the bottom when she heard the sound of the piano drifting up from the music room. Good. He’d be a captive audience when she found him.

Being subtle and just exacting her revenge over his pranks was one thing. But this wasn’t a few obscene pictures on her cast. This was every piece of underwear she owned and she was not the type to go anywhere without a bra.

She hit the music room at nearly a run, found Quinn sitting at the piano exactly as she expected to. “You just can’t go around stealing people’s underwear,” she snarled at him. “I want my panties and I want them now.”

Before he could say anything, a warm chuckle came from behind her and she turned to see Jared and Ryder walking into the room, cups of coffee in their hands.

“You heard the girl,” Ryder said. “You should probably take her panties off and give them back to her.”

Quinn casually flipped him off before turning back to her. “Why would I have your panties?” he asked, and he looked so bewildered that she might actually have bought the confusion if she didn’t know him as well as she did. But she did know him and there was no way she was falling for his act.

“Because you are an evil, evil man and I swear, I will bring you down if you do not give my underwear back to me right now.”

He spread his arms wide, palms up. “Do I look like I have your underwear? Where would I even be hiding them?”

He made a good point, considering his jeans had enough rips in them that she could practically see everything there was to see. But she wasn’t about to concede now, not when she was standing in front of him and his friends wearing nothing but an oversized T-shirt. “Yes. That’s exactly what you look like. Now give them to me.” The last sentence came out as little more than a whine and it infuriated her so much that she clamped her mouth shut, gritted her teeth.

“Don’t worry, darlin’,” Ryder said as he sauntered into the room. “I’m sure we can drive you to Barton Springs to pick up more.”

“That’s not the point!” she yelped. “He took everything. Every last bra, every last pair of panties. I don’t even have anything to wear to go shopping in.”

“Every pair, huh?” Jared asked, suddenly a lot more interested in the hem of the shirt she was wearing. “That’s a real shame. Why don’t you come sit by me and tell me all about it?”

“Are you f*cking with me right now?” she demanded. “Are you seriously f*cking with me?” She glared at him in annoyance, even as she tugged at the hem of the shirt she was wearing, trying to get it to cover another inch or two of bare skin. Stupid, oversexed rock stars.

“Jared, stop looking at my girlfriend like that,” Quinn told him, reaching for the throw he kept on the back of the couch and tossing it to her. “Or I’m going to knock your teeth down your throat.”

“You’re the one who stole her underwear, man. I was just enjoying the view.”

“Yeah, well, don’t.”

“You are all ridiculous,” Elise told them as she wrapped the blanket around her and marched for the door, but not before she heard Ryder say, “Hey, what did I do?”

She was too annoyed to answer? but still, she couldn’t help being a little bit happy about how natural Quinn had sounded when he’d called her his girlfriend.

Which was ridiculous, of course. This wasn’t high school where she needed the guy she was with to brand her. And it wasn’t like she was angling for a permanent relationship or anything. She knew this thing with Quinn was temporary, knew that the only reason he’d let himself be with her last night was because she was leaving in a few days. But while her brain was very good at reminding her of that fact, her heart was just as good at ignoring it. She’d pay the price later, but she wasn’t going to be concerned with later. Not right now, when she was still buzzing over what it felt like to have Quinn inside of her. Or she would be, if she wasn’t concerned about going commando for the next five days.

Just the thought made her crazy.

Since Ryder and Jared were there the whole day, she spent the whole time in a pair of yoga pants and a baggy T-shirt—a very baggy T-shirt. Definitely no need to have a repeat of the music room that morning.

But in the end it wasn’t even necessary—she barely saw them. They spent the whole day holed up in the music room, only coming out for lunch and snacks. Which was fine with her, since it gave her more than enough time to plot her revenge…and enact it. Admittedly, it was no stolen underwear prank, but considering what she’d had to work with, she thought it was pretty good. Especially when Quinn got a phone call from one of the assistants at their PR firm around six o’clock.

He and the guys were in the family room, relaxing for a few minutes while they waited for Jamison—and dinner—to arrive. Elise was curled up on the couch, warm and drowsy from the pain pill Quinn had practically force-fed her at lunch. Yet another thing she needed to get revenge for, she thought a little resentfully. She knew he was just trying to take care of her, but she was getting sick of him deciding when she needed to take a Vicodin—especially since that seemed to be pretty much about every six hours or so. Which meant she’d spent a lot of the day in this state of blurry lassitude. Not exactly conducive to trying to figure out her life and the completely unplanned future that suddenly stretched in front of her.

“No, I’m not babysitting anyone,” Quinn said into the phone, sounding completely confused. “I mean, except Jared and Ryder.”

Jared flipped him off lazily, while Ryder—who looked like he knew something was up—just raised an inquiring eyebrow.

“No, there are no kids around at all. Why would you even ask me that?”

Elise forced herself not to move, not to give anything away, but the drowsiness faded some as the conversation continued. Nothing like the sweet sound of victory to make everything a little clearer and brighter.

“What are you talking about?” Quinn finally asked, exasperated. “I’m not even listening to music, let alone the theme song from Barney.”

Before he could say anything else, Ryder whipped out his phone. She didn’t know what he was checking, but whatever it was had him cracking up and handing the phone over to Jared, who started laughing hysterically too.

“It’s all over Twitter, man,” Ryder said when he could stop laughing long enough to get a word out. “People are wondering if the website’s been hacked. Or if you’ve been hacked. Or if you’ve had a baby and just haven’t told anyone. Aww, look, they’re calling you Daddy Q.”

“What the bloody hell is going on?” Quinn roared and he sounded so frustrated it was all Elise could do not to cackle.

She was a genius, pure and simple. An evil genius, maybe, but a genius nonetheless. Maybe she should apply for the job of a cartoon villain now that being a pianist was off the table.

The fact that it was taking Quinn so long to catch on only made the victory sweeter. It was his own fault, after all. He’d started this whole thing when he kidnapped her. She was only finishing it.

Pretending to be asleep, Elise rolled over on the couch and watched with slitted eyes as Quinn pulled open his laptop. For long seconds, he didn’t say anything, and then suddenly he yelped like a scalded cat, his eyes darting up to meet hers.

Of course, she slammed her lids shut and used every ounce of willpower she had to keep her features relaxed, but it was too late. She knew it, even before she heard him put the laptop down. Even before she heard the soft rustle of him crossing the room. Even before she opened her eyes and found herself staring into Quinn’s slightly horrified, totally amused ones.

“Really? Justin Bieber? I think I would have preferred you sticking with Barney.”

Exactly why she’d done it.

Over Quinn’s shoulder, she could see Ryder and Jared scrolling through the playlist she’d downloaded to Quinn’s iPod and then set on a continuous loop, one that updated to Shaken Dirty’s website thanks to a “what’s playing on the iPod” program he’d already had in place. Any fans that had stopped by to check out the website today—and there must have been a lot, judging by the twitter interactions she’d observed through the day, had been treated to the knowledge that bad-ass Quinn listened to Barney, Little Mix, and copious, copious amounts of Justin Bieber.

“Aww, come on, I think you’d make a great Belieber.”

“You know you could have just killed me while I slept, right? It would have been less painful.”


“Yes, but you haven’t slept since you stole my underwear. So.”

“So.” He reached out, ran a soft hand down her cheek before curling his fingers in her hair.

She wasn’t sure how she’d expected him to react to this latest prank. With anger, maybe. With annoyance, certainly. But however she’d imagined it, nothing could have prepared her for the bemused tenderness of his touch, the sweet amusement of his look.

“Dude!” Jared cackled from his spot on the couch. “This playlist is sick. You got owned, man. Totally owned.”

For long seconds, Quinn didn’t say anything. Just continued to stroke her hair. And then, just when she thought he wasn’t going to answer, he whispered softly, “I know I did.”

And that’s when it happened. When, despite her very best efforts, she slid headlong into love with Quinn f*cking Bradford all over again.