Author's Note: Number 42 of the Don't Blink series set before Diamonds Along the Way. Posted in two parts.

Unbetaed so all mistakes are my own.

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or the characters. I just like to play with them…strictly non-profit.


A Little Bit Scandalous


Got everyone watching us
So baby, let's keep it secret
A little bit scandalous
But baby, don't let them see it.
~Into You, Ariana Grande


Part I: A Little Less Conversation


"She's taking you where?!"

The shrill (but still perfectly pitched) note in Rachel's voice is undeniable despite her best efforts to keep it muted, and it's obvious that Quinn can clearly hear it by the slightly squinted eyes and the firmly stated, "Don't freak out, Rachel," that follows.

"I'm not freaking out. This is not freaking out," Rachel denies hotly, cutting an agitated hand through the air between them while Quinn remains frustratingly calm in her mundane task of chopping up carrots for the vegetarian stir fry that she's making for dinner. "Why would I freak out over Santana Lopez dragging my fiancée to a strip club two days before our wedding?"

It's marginally possible that she might, in fact, be freaking out.

"It's really more of a burlesque cabaret."

Rachel's eyes narrow, and she points a cautionary finger at a still frustratingly calm Quinn. "Fancy words do not cover up the very naked women who will be gyrating on your lap with their breasts in your face."

Quinn finally pauses in her task, appearing to consider this for a moment. "I think they mostly stay up on the stage." Her head tilts thoughtfully. "Unless you pay for a private dance."

Rachel huffs out an irate breath at the very thought of Quinn in some private room with a woman who is not Rachel in her lap. "That's it. I'm calling Santana," she vows, instantly spinning on her heel with every intention of finding her phone and giving Santana Lopez a piece of her mind. How dare she impose her highly suspect entertainment preferences on a happily engaged woman? Especially one who is happily engaged to Rachel!

She's so intent on her mission that she almost misses Quinn's amused snicker, until—

"Be my guest. I told her I'd rather do one of those bridal party tours at the Met anyway."

That gives pause to Rachel's irritated march from the kitchen and has her turning back around with decidedly less haste, finally taking note of that particular smirk on Quinn's face; the one that typically appears whenever she's been purposely riling up Rachel for her own amusement. "You suggested that to Santana?" she questions dubiously.

"It wasn't well received," Quinn admits with obvious amusement, carefully placing her chopping knife down on the counter.

A tiny smile tugs at the corner of Rachel's lips at the thought of Santana being sullenly dragged around a museum by Quinn in lieu of an actual party. "I can imagine."

"You know I don't care about strippers, Rach," Quinn promises as she moves forward, reaching out to slide her fingers down Rachel's arm until she catches her hand and promptly uses it to tug her closer with very little resistance. "Well, unless you're the one doing the stripping," she husks, letting her eyes roam over Rachel in obvious appreciation. The heat in her gaze and the sultry undertones in her voice help Quinn plant a very enticing image in Rachel's mind with exactly no intention of acting on it, as evidenced by her letting go of Rachel's hand with a resigned sigh. "But Santana wants to throw me an authentic bachelorette party, whatever the hell that means," she mutters with a roll of her eyes, "and you know what she's like when she sets her mind on something."

Rachel frowns, knowing exactly what Santana is like—and that Quinn has obviously made up her mind to go along with whatever Santana is planning. "She only wants to get her own jollies by ogling naked ladies."

"Pretty much," Quinn laughingly agrees.

"And you'll be right there next to her," Rachel notes sullenly.

"There will be no jollies had by me, sweetie," Quinn vows seriously, lifting a hand to cross her heart before another playful grin curves her lips. "You know I'm abstaining until our wedding night."

It's Rachel's turn to sigh in resignation. "Yes. I am intimately aware of that sad fact."

Quinn had made the suggestion exactly eight days ago—right after a giving Rachel a rather fantastic orgasm that she now strongly suspects was meant to make her fuzzy-minded and, therefore, even more pliant to her fiancée's questionable whims—and Rachel had stupidly agreed, meaning that exactly seven days have now passed in which Rachel has been deprived of any type of physical intimacy with Quinn beyond innocent hugs and chaste kisses.

"Soon," Quinn promises with a knowing smile, giving Rachel's shoulder a reassuring rub. It's nowhere near the location that Rachel would prefer Quinn to be rubbing.

"Not soon enough," she grumbles petulantly.

Quinn's smile turns more than a little wicked. "Oh, but I promise I'll make it so very worth the wait." She dips her head down to brush the softest, briefest kiss across Rachel's lips before leaning back with a sexy smirk. "I may even strip for you."

Rachel nearly groans in frustration. "That statement should in no way be qualified with the word may, Quinn," she chastises with narrowed eyes. "You will be stripping for me, one way or another."

At this point, Rachel is not above ripping Quinn's clothes off her body with her own two hands if it comes to that—with Quinn's consent of course. (There had better be consent!)

Quinn hums thoughtfully. "So I should probably go to the club with Santana and take some notes on proper technique. You know, so I can get it just right for you." And she has the audacity to punctuate that assessment with a sexy little shimmy in which she traces her hands along the very curves that Rachel is currently forbidden to explore in any (naked) detail.

Huffing audibly, Rachel crosses her arms—as much to keep from touching Quinn as to show her annoyance. "Your unsubtle attempt to gain my approval isn't nearly as cute as you think it is."

It kind of is—everything about Quinn is beyond cute—but Rachel refuses to give Quinn the satisfaction of admitting that in this particular instance.

Chuckling, Quinn moves her arms from her own body to Rachel's hips in a loose (and frustratingly chaste) embrace. "Would it be cuter if I promise to take pictures of Mercedes's reaction to the strippers?"

"No, it would not." Nothing would make— "Wait," Rachel mutters with a frown. "Mercedes is supposed to be coming to my bridal shower. Kurt said he had the guest list finalized." He hasn't revealed any other details about what he has planned, but Rachel is certain that he'd mentioned both Mercedes and Tina sending their virtual RSVPs.

Quinn doesn't look overly concerned by this potential snafu. In fact, she merely shrugs it off. "Huh. Santana said she'd be coming with us."

"Well, that's not fair! Why do you get both Mercedes and the strippers?"

Hazel eyes narrow suspiciously. "You say that like you actually want to see strippers."

"Of course I don't," Rachel hastily denies. After all, she's been to her fair share of strip clubs. Okay, her fair share was exactly one, and she'd been barely seventeen at the time and engaged to Finn Hudson, and they'd been there to rescue Sam Evans from his life of sexual objectivity, not to engage in voyeuristic pleasures. Also, the only bare breasts in sight had been of the masculine variety, and Rachel has since discovered that she's more inclined to appreciate the aesthetics of those other, much curvier varieties—not that she wants to appreciate any variety that doesn't belong to Quinn! "But I don't want your party to be cooler than mine either."

"Well," Quinn drawls, not even making an attempt to hide her amused smirk.

"Don't even say it, Quinn Fabray," Rachel warns, giving her shoulders a weak shove. It's barely enough to dislodge the loose hold that Quinn has on her hips for a second or two, but it makes Rachel feel better. "I'm much cooler than I used to be."

Laughing happily, Quinn firmly reels her back in. "Of course you are, sweetheart."

"You're placating me," Rachel accuses with a pout.

"Maybe a little," Quinn concedes, her smirk taking on a very familiar quality and her voice dipping into the lower register that never fails to make Rachel shiver. "But I can assure that you are most definitely much hotter now than you used to be."

Quinn's body is so very close, and Rachel's is so very warm, and it's so very easy for her to loop her arms around Quinn's neck and bury the fingers of her left hand into the silky blonde hair at her nape. "Hot enough to warrant an exception to your abstinence policy?" she poses hopefully.

"Mmm…tempting," Quinn purrs, just barely brushing her lips over Rachel's before quickly pulling back with a wicked grin, "but you'll have to wait."

"I don't like waiting," Rachel grumbles, sagging dramatically in Quinn's arms.

Quinn has the nerve to chuckle. "Really? I'd never noticed that about you."

Rachel lets her hands fall to Quinn's biceps, leaning away to stare at her with mild accusation. "You're enjoying this far too much."

Her lips curl tellingly. "It's all about the teasing." Quinn moves her hands from Rachel's hips to her backside in a way that is not at all chaste (except that it also very definitely is not leading to anything but frustration for Rachel) until Rachel reluctantly catches those hands and removes them from her body lest she be left even more wound up than she is already.

"Sometimes I think you suggested this moratorium on sex just to have a reason to revisit that old motto of yours."

"You love that motto," Quinn challenges with an unrepentant grin.

"When the pleasing part is imminent, yes," Rachel admits, crossing her arms. She has, in fact, enjoyed her fiancée's unparalleled skills in that regard on numerous past occasions, "but our wedding is still an entire week away."

Quinn rolls her eyes. "I think you'll survive."

"Questionable." Rachel is not in the mood to concede this particular point. Anything could happen in the eight days that remain until their wedding. Eight days ago she'd still been having sex with Quinn and now she is very much not!

Quinn's amusement is clear even without her snigger. "This from the woman who once planned to wait until she was twenty-five to even have sex."

Rachel feels her face heat at the reminder of her youthful boastings. "I obviously didn't know what I was missing." She lets her arms fall out of their sulking position, unable to resist the urge to touch Quinn when she's standing so very close. "In fact," she drawls, ghosting her fingers along the length of Quinn's bare forearms in an attempt to do a little teasing of her own, "I didn't know until you enlightened me with your sensual perfection. You've spoiled me now. There's no going back."

A familiar expression appears on Quinn's face then; one that Rachel has seen countless times by now. It's not the sultry smirk and near predatory glint in her eyes that follows only mere seconds later, but a transient flash of immense satisfaction that comes and goes so quickly in these moments that it had taken Rachel well over a year to even notice its presence, let alone recognize its meaning. It's the glimmer of emotion that had eventually displaced Quinn's disbelief that she was hearing Rachel say the things that she had only dared to dream about for so many years. The one that had come after Quinn had let herself believe. The one purely rooted in Quinn's gleeful pride that it's her who has claimed Rachel's heart and body so completely and lifted her to heights (both emotionally and physically) that no one else has or could ever hope to match.

Rachel is intimately acquainted with the rush that comes from a stroked ego, so she can't fault Quinn for enjoying it as well. The look never stays on her lovely features for very long anyway, always so quickly replaced by genuine joy or lust or, in this case, that damnable sexy grin that promises so very much but (currently) delivers so very little.

"I'll happily spoil you even more," Quinn vows in a husky timbre, leaning tantalizingly close to Rachel's upturned face, "after we're married."

The promise is punctuated not with the kiss that Rachel is expecting but with a teasing smile and the unacceptable loss of Rachel's preferred proximity to Quinn's tempting lips.

She frowns up at her far-too-amused fiancée. "I will be holding you to that promise."

Quinn hums agreeably and pulls Rachel's arms around her waist. "Holding me sounds nice." Her own hands slip around to settle (very) low on Rachel's back.

Rachel really has no choice but to lean into the enticing warmth of Quinn's body. "You're teasing again."

The answering chuckle reverberates through both of their chests, pressed together as they are. "Very probably," Quinn unabashedly confirms.

Rachel sighs in defeated acceptance. "You're very lucky that I love you."

"I know," Quinn responds without a trace of the teasing she'd just been reveling in, punctuating her sudden seriousness with a very welcome kiss that Rachel can and does appreciate purely as the expression of love and devotion that it is.

It does not, of course, lead to any broken vows of abstinence.

It does, however, slightly delay their dinner, which makes Rachel marginally late for her evening show.

In retrospect, Rachel probably should have arranged for more time off from her performance schedule to accommodate the wedding and various other pre-wedding events. Really, they probably should have waited to get married until after her run on Funny Girl comes to it's inevitable end, but Rachel is hoping to be able to extend her contract since the buzz around the revival and her performance, in particular, hasn't really faded since the show had opened. She's nominated for a very well-deserved Tony after all! It's hard to know for certain when she'll be entirely free of her commitment, and Quinn has this thing about being a June bride, and neither one of them wants to wait another year (or two) to finally be able to call each other wife. So they'd planned their wedding for mid-June all the way back in October, on a Wednesday, because that's the day that Funny Girl is dark, and it wouldn't be right to get married without Rachel's costars present—the ones she actually likes anyway.

(The mid-week wedding is not entirely desirable for their out-of-town guests but it is much better for their wedding budget.)

She and Quinn have mostly been able to utilize the mornings and early afternoons to meet with their wedding planner, Candace, in order to get all of the details of their big day squared away, but Rachel really hadn't been considering bachelorette parties and bridal showers into the equation when she'd haggled with her producers over the number of shows she'll need to miss. As it stands, she's convinced them to give her off the week of the wedding, which includes the weekend after. An odd scheduling snafu this year means that the Tony Awards are falling on the Sunday after the wedding instead of two Sundays before, which means that Rachel is technically missing less shows than she would have otherwise since all of Broadway goes dark for the award ceremony, but her producers don't really appreciate those technicalities. They only care that she doesn't miss a single show in the run up to the ones that they have reluctantly agreed to allow her to miss, so that means that she will be staying fairly busy in the days prior to her bridal shower and Quinn's bachelorette party, which are both happening on the Monday evening before their wedding.

So Rachel has six days to stew over the fact that—

"Santana is taking Quinn to see strippers for her bachelorette party! Can you believe that?" she demands of Kurt not even a minute after she slides into the seat across from him at his favorite diner on 9th Avenue. They're meeting for lunch, exactly one week before the wedding, to discuss the details of Rachel's bridal shower while Quinn does the same with Santana at some horrible, meat-loving Mexican place near the hospital.

As it happens, Rachel hadn't needed to stew over the strippers for six days. She'd boiled over in less than one.

"Is that even a real question?" Kurt wonders aloud, glancing up from his menu. "This is Santana Lopez we're talking about. I wouldn't believe it if you'd told me she was planning anything else."

"How do we stop them?"

Kurt's eyebrows inch up. "We?"

Rachel chooses to ignore the unspoken censure that she can hear buried in his tone. "Yes, Kurt. We." She leans forward, bracing her forearms on the table in front of her and doggedly holding his already judgy gaze. "You are my best friend and my best man and thereby obligated to help me stop my fiancée from getting a lap dance from some bare breasted floozy in transparent thongs and a feather boa two days before our wedding!"

A contemplative expression appears on his face. "What material would one even use to create transparent thongs?" And it seems to Rachel that he might be a little too invested in whatever answer he might conjure up and not nearly invested enough in the dire situation at hand.

Rachel snaps her fingers twice in front of his face in order to gain back his full attention, unamused by his lack of urgency in the matter. "Focus, Kurt."

Sighing, Kurt sets his menu aside. "Rachel, sweetie, you need to calm down and let whatever crazy scheme is brewing in that primadonna brain of yours evaporate into the ether." He flutters his fingers in the air for effect before reaching over to give the back of Rachel's hand a comforting pat. "It's just a bachelorette party."

"With strippers," Rachel reiterates, not entirely comprehending how Kurt is failing to grasp the importance of that one, very significant detail.

Kurt's eyes narrow in suspicion, and he leans back against the booth, crossing his arms. His judgy expression gets dialed all the way up to ten. "What exactly is going on here, Rachel? Do you not trust your fiancée?"

The mere suggestion that she doesn't trust Quinn after four years together is simply absurd. Her mouth opens immediately to deny it. "I..."

Strange.

Her mouth, usually so cooperative with her every mental command, simply falls silent as it attempts to form what most certainly would have been the word 'do' and absolutely not the word 'don't.'

"Rachel Berry!" Kurt reprimands sharply. He does it so well that she almost feels like one of her dads is scolding her.

She huffs loudly and slumps down in her seat, feeling the tips of her ears catch fire. "I trust her to...you know," she waves her hands around in a vague gesture, "not touch anything." She knows that Quinn would never cheat on her, and especially not with some random woman in a strip club. "But I'm not convinced there won't be looking, and," she hesitates, voice wavering under old insecurities, "liking."

Kurt's eyebrows quirk up again. "Because you would?" he asks knowingly.

"I most certainly would not," Rachel denies hotly, jerking upright in her chair. Kurt's expression doesn't change, and Rachel begins to fidget under his intense stare. "Much," she mutters, because it would be nearly impossible for one to be surrounded by half-naked women and not look at anything. "Mostly." Kurt is still giving her that look; the one that says he knows her far too well after all these years. "Okay, fine," she practically shouts, throwing up her hands in defeat. "I would look too."

She and Quinn have (mostly) gotten past the insecurities from those early days of their relationship when simply appreciating another woman's aesthetics would (and did) send each other into a jealous spiral of self-doubt and hurt feelings. They've even appreciated some of those aesthetics together in perfectly acceptable (non strip club) ways that she will not be revealing to Kurt. "But it's a moot point because my bridal shower will not involve strippers."

"You almost sound disappointed by that," Kurt muses, his smug smile firmly in place.

"I do not! I am not," she vows with near confidence. "I'm certain that I'll love whatever completely respectable and non-objectifying activity you have planned." While Quinn engages in objectifying activities without her.

"Well, there might be some objectifying," Kurt admits with a pleasant smile, uncrossing his arms as he leans forward in preparation to reveal his big plans. "I'm preparing an in-depth, ten-year fashion retrospective of all the prominent Fabray-Berry styles that have graced your wardrobes on the epic journey from frenemies to lovers."

"Berry-Fabray," Rachel absently corrects. "And...a fashion retrospective?"

"Mmhmm," Kurt hums with a nod, picking up his menu once again. "There will be lingerie included of course. I'm not into that kind of thing, but you and Quinn obviously are if your closets have anything to say about it."

Rachel's brows furrow at that last part. "Have you been snooping through our closets again?"

Kurt doesn't even bat an eyelash. "It's what I do, Rachel. Santana has her vices and I have mine," he reminds her, unashamed.

Their friends really do have no boundaries. If it isn't Kurt snooping through their clothes then it's Santana snooping through literally everything else—also mooching their food; and taking Quinn to see strippers!

"So...a fashion party," Rachel repeats, injecting as much interest as she can muster along with her biggest show smile.

Kurt regards her with a tilt of his head. "Don't sound so enthused."

"No, I am," she insists. (She's not.) "It sounds...lovely." But really, couldn't he have come up with something a little more exciting to celebrate her impending marriage? Quinn is getting strippers, for crying out loud!

With a sigh, he places his menu back on the table once again. "And yet twelve years of friendship tell me that you're silently plotting a way to convince me to chuck all of my intricate plans in order to raid Quinn's bachelorette party with you instead."

Rachel brightens. "Could we?" she asks eagerly. She only feels a little bit guilty about derailing his plans. Really, how intricate can they be? He hasn't even mentioned a PowerPoint.

Kurt rolls his eyes, smiling indulgently. "Because I know you so very well, Rachel Barbara Berry, I knew that we would be having exactly this conversation the moment you found out what Santana was planning for Quinn. And yes," he adds hastily when he sees her open her mouth to question him further, "I already knew what Santana was planning because she also knows you well enough to have predicted this very outcome as well. So we," he gestures back and forth between them, "and all of our honored guests are going to Club Elysium, which features both female and male exotic dancers to cater to all of our combined bachelorette party needs."

Rachel stares at him in shock for a full fifteen seconds. "Wait. You're having my bridal shower at a strip club?"

Kurt's proud grin morphs into a frown. "Why do you now sound affronted by the very idea when you literally just asked me if we could crash Quinn's party at the same club?"

"Because crashing it would give me the moral high ground," she answers without pause. There's no way that she's admitting that she might possibly want to watch strippers with Quinn. Really though, they're engaged. The only time that watching strippers is an acceptable activity for a person who is engaged is when it's done as a couple's activity with one's betrothed. Everyone knows this.

"I don't really think it works that way."

She ignores his naysaying. "Does Quinn know about this?" Because if she does, it makes her attempt to rile up Rachel over her bachelorette party even more wicked.

"Not yet," Kurt reveals, shaking his head. "Santana decided to hedge her bets just in case you surprised us with a rare burst of maturity and decided to let Quinn have her last hurrah without kicking up a fuss."

She ignores the dig and jabs a finger in his direction. "There will be no hurrahing on my watch."

"You do realize that means you can't have your own last hurrah either," Kurt points out haughtily.

"I don't want one, Kurt. I only want Quinn." It's been Rachel's truth for longer than she's even been aware of it. "She's enough for me for always."

Kurt's expression goes soft, and he presses a hand over his heart. "Aw, that's so romantic."

Rachel sighs dreamily, taking a moment to bask in the knowledge that she'll become Quinn's wife in just one week—when the only stripping that will concern either one of them will be stripping one another out of their clothes on their wedding night. (It's quite possible that Quinn's insistence on abstinence could be exacerbating Rachel's current obsession with the stripping thing.) She shakes herself out of her reverie because there are still pressing matters to discuss. "So you and Santana have been planning a joint party from the beginning?"

Amusement creeps back onto Kurt's face. "We have. You and Quinn can look at but not touch the strippers together."

Rachel nods, pleased by this. Looking but not touching and certainly not liking anything that they see more than they like seeing each other. That's very important.

And really, separate parties would be highly inefficient when they share so many of the same friends.

Realization washes over Rachel, and she points an accusatory finger at Kurt. "That's why Mercedes is on both of our guest lists."

Kurt's smile disappears in the blink of an eye. "That bitch," he grumbles, crossing his arms again. "Santana said she'd let us have Mercedes until everything was finalized."

"She was on loan!" Rachel shrieks, affronted on Mercedes's behalf as well as her own. She and Kurt obviously should have full custody of Mercedes. They have years of shared high school gleekdom under their belts, during which Santana and Quinn were still being generally bitchy to all of them.

"It hardly matters now," Kurt appeases, though he still looks a bit miffed that Santana hadn't abided by their agreement.

"What if I hadn't thrown a fit about the strippers?" Rachel wonders. It's possible that she wouldn't have—or, well, that she would have but still would have let Quinn have her party unimpeded.

"A wine party at my studio complete with the aforementioned fashion retrospective, an array of questionable bedroom accoutrements gifted to you," he shudders at the very mention, "and karaoke and gossip well into the predawn hours."

"That could have been fun," Rachel concedes, thinking it sounds better than the glorified fashion show that she'd initially envisioned; like a big sleepover with booze and sex toys—or, rather, props—that Quinn would make a fuss about using but ultimately agree to try at least once. She hopes the bedroom accoutrements are still gifted to them (her) despite the change of setting.

"It still could be," Kurt offers hopefully. "Just say the word and we can leave Elysium to Santana."

"No. We're going to the club," Rachel is quick to affirm. She reaches over to pat Kurt's hand. "But I still appreciate your vision."

There's another resigned sigh from her best friend. "I knew you'd say that."

And he very likely did, because apparently Rachel is just that predictable in this particular way. If Kurt and Santana both expected her to crash Quinn's stripper-laden bachelorette party with such confidence, then it seems implausible that Quinn won't also be expecting it as well.

She hates being predictable.

But she's so not letting Quinn go to that strip club without her.

"Kurt," she gasps, lurching for his hand again. "I just had the most brilliant idea."

His eyes widen in panic, and he quickly pulls his hand away. "Oh, no. I don't like that glint in your eyes."

Her giddiness is irrepressible. "Don't worry. It's nothing illegal," she promises, smiling widely. "We just need to convince Santana to agree to one teeny, tiny request."

"So, suicidal then," Kurt deduces flatly, decidedly unimpressed by Rachel's excitement.

"It will be fine," she assures him, waving a dismissive hand. Really, he should have a little more faith in her after all this time. Her ideas are stellar. She's marrying Quinn Fabray, after all.

"Famous last words," he mutters, not looking at all convinced.

Rachel ignores his grumbling, happy to have the strip club matter settled in her mind. She leans back in her seat and finally picks up her own menu to peruse the lunch options. She's suddenly famished, and she and Kurt will need plenty of sustenance while they hammer out the details of her utterly inspired bachelorette party plan.

Quinn will never see it coming.