Gray Quinn's Baby(23)

'Please do,' Quinn invited dryly.

'It's a paper dress,' she explained, running her hands down the  offending garment. 'So you can't expect it to be cut in a sharp design.  It's meant to represent practicality.'

'Well, I doubt it will ever take off in a big way, other than into a  niche market. Something as ugly as that doesn't deserve to last in the  realms of fashion.'

'Thanks for the vote of confidence. It's one of the products your team was keen to promote, by the way.'

'I hadn't forgotten.'

Quinn's eyes had lit-was that humour?

'Personally, I agree with you. I don't think paper fashion will fly for  long, however fiercely we promote it.' But, eerily, Quinn was correct;  disposable paper-garments would have a niche market in clinics, beauty  salons and other places where a single wear was all that was required.  Of course, she had the benefit of knowing this for sure while he could  only be using his intuition. She dismissed the shiver down her spine.  Quinn couldn't be aware of the future. 'At least I'm there with the  theme,' she said, eager to distract herself from questions with no  answers as she looked him up and down.

'As am I,' Quinn said, standing up. 'I'm guessing this is exactly what  I'd be wearing if we were living in the twenty-first century.'

Magenta paled. The shiver was back again. Why had he chosen the twenty-first century in particular?                       
       
           



       

'You've done well,' he observed, lifting the slats of the blind covering  his window. 'Everyone appears to be enjoying themselves.'

'I'm glad you're pleased.'

Quinn's appreciative glance sent heat dancing through her.

'You look hot, Magenta.'

'Do I?' Magenta's hand flew to her brow. 'Perhaps a glass of water … '

'Or a jug full?'

She shrieked with shock as Quinn slowly poured the jug of water on his desk slowly down the front of her dress.

'I can't believe you did that!' she exclaimed. 'You've-'

'Ruined your dress?' Quinn hummed. 'You know, I think you're right; this  will never catch on.' Taking hold of the front of it, he peeled it off  her.

She was shivering with a combination of shock, anger and arousal as  Quinn continued his unrelenting survey. 'Stop that,' she said. 'You  can't just-'

'Trial a product?' he suggested.

'I am not a product.'

'If you were, I'd buy you.'

'Like you'd get the chance,' she huffed, but fighting off images of  Quinn in his role of sexual master of the universe with a shopping list  in hand wasn't quite so easy. 'And what am I supposed to do now?'  Crossing her hands and arms over her sodden paper-bra and pants, she  glowered at him. 'Should I staple a few sheets of A4 together and go as a  galleon?'

'Lucky for you, I bought a dress.'

'You bought a dress?' she queried. 'Good for you. I'm sure you'll look very nice in it.'

'For you, idiot.'

And now she was shocked. 'What type of dress?' she demanded suspiciously. 'I'd better warn you now, I don't do caftans.'

'Or micro-minis, apparently.' Quinn stared at her legs, where to  Magenta's horror she realised her hold-up stockings were slowly slipping  down and wrinkling unattractively around her ankles.

'Shame about the underwear,' he murmured, drawing Magenta's attention back to his sexy mouth. 'I guess that's gone south too.'

She tipped her chin in the air and refused to look at him. Quinn had  probably bought her a prim little school-ma'am dress, complete with a  coy little Peter Pan collar, long sleeves, full skirt, and a nipped-in  waist-and she'd hate it. Or not.

She stared in surprise as Quinn produced the dress.

Now she was thrown into total confusion, because this was a dress that  perfectly complemented Quinn's twenty-first-century clothes. It was a  figure-flattering navy-blue column of silk cut just above the knee-but  the finishing touch really floored her. 'Where on earth did you get  these?' she gasped as Quinn handed her a pair of sexy black suede shoes  with tell-tale red soles.

'Not only am I well prepared,' he said dryly, 'I am also way ahead of my time.'

A feeling of light-headedness passed over her. She could hear the music  playing outside Quinn's office. A selection of Beatles hits was just  coming to an end, and the following track was some raunchy Rolling  Stones.

'You seem bewildered, Magenta,' Quinn murmured as he ran the palm of one  warm hand very lightly down her naked arm. 'Why is that?'

Because she wanted Quinn, with his dangerous smile and sexy eyes, in  spite of the fact that he had treated her no better than a novelty  product to be tested, trialled and put aside when he grew tired of it.  And because there was no longer any place for reasoned thinking.

He lifted his hand away, breaking the spell. 'I'll turn my back while you get changed, shall I?'

'Yes, you do that,' she told him.

Magenta was willing to bet she had never thrown clothes on so quickly in  her life. 'It sounds noisy out there,' she said as she made the final  adjustment to the tights Quinn had also thoughtfully provided, along  with some underwear that proved that he had both good taste and the  ability to judge her size down to the nearest millimetre. 'I think I  should go and check.' She didn't wait for Quinn to answer; she knew how  fast he moved.

When she returned to the main office, she saw the party had really  livened up. All the desks had been pushed to one side to create a dance  floor, and if dirty dancing hadn't been invented yet there were  certainly some hot contenders for stealing the crown. The boys and girls  in the office were definitely getting to know each other a whole lot  better … .

'You look like you're missing out, Magenta.'

She tensed as Quinn's shadow fell over her. 'If I were looking for a partner, you might be right.'                       
       
           



       

'I am right,' he said.

Did the music have to change that very moment from heated to cool? And  did Quinn have to pull her into his arms? 'Did I say I wanted to dance?'

'You didn't say no.'

The psychedelic classic A Whiter Shade of Pale was hardly conducive to tension, but she held herself aloof.

'Oh good-you've relaxed,' Quinn murmured against her hair.

She knew he was teasing her; she could hear the smile in his voice. 'Do  you seriously expect me to relax after everything that's happened?'

'I know a way.'

They both knew a way, but whether she was ready to play with fire again was another matter.

'Do you want to go home with me? Or would you rather live dangerously in my office?'

Quinn always got right to the point. She should say no; she should do a  lot of things. But the heat rising inside her was making sensible  decisions impossible. And what did she have to lose? This was a dream,  wasn't it? Any self-respect she might lose in the short term would be  restored the moment she shook herself awake.

She wanted more than this …

But sometimes in dreams, as in life, you had to settle for what you had,  Magenta concluded as Quinn led her by the hand through the press of  people. The promise implicit in his grip had quickly reduced her to  liquid fire, and she could only be relieved that no one turned to look  at them, though the party had reached that stage where they could have  walked through it naked and no one would have noticed.

'It's a huge success,' Quinn observed, shutting his office door and leaning back against it. 'And that's all down to you.'

'Hardly.'

'What have I told you about underplaying your skills, Magenta? If you  don't believe in yourself, why should I? Stop with all this negative and  give me something positive.'

'Will this do?' Going for broke, she wound her arms around Quinn's neck.

'It's a start.'

She heard the door lock.

Quinn's hands quickly ignited an inferno. The memory of pleasure mixed  with the anticipation of more was an explosive recipe. It made her  reckless, made her want to hurry things along.

'Hey,' Quinn murmured, taking hold of her hands when she tugged at his belt. 'Not so fast-haven't I taught you anything?'

Who was backing who towards the desk?

'Same underwear as the dress?' Quinn demanded, thrusting one hard thigh between her legs.

'If you mean that paper stuff that disintegrates at a touch, then yes.'

'Excellent. Let me know if this is going too fast for you.'

'I will.'

'You're on the pill?'

'Of course I am.' She blushed. Strange to think she'd been so intimate  with Quinn and yet could feel so awkward and exposed when he asked her a  perfectly reasonable, if unexpected, question.

'I only ask because I heard some clinics in this country will only prescribe the pill to married women.'

'But that's ridiculous.' And quite possibly true. This was the sixties,  after all. And, though almost a week had passed in dream time, she was  methodical about taking her pill each morning in the real world-even  though there wasn't the slightest chance she would ever put it to the  test.

Needless to say, she hadn't brought her pill with her on this crazy  time-slip adventure, but that hardly mattered when she had probably only  been asleep a couple of hours.