He lay back, arms folded behind his head; the length of him stretched out on top of the strewn-aside covers like a banquet labeled all you can eat.
“Can’t decide if it’s a make me a snack look or a can you do that thing you do with your fingers and make me come look.”
“Can’t it be both?”
She should’ve been ready for him to pounce. He was known for his explosive energy on stage and that’s how the bed g
ot wrecked. He didn’t just move, he dived and rolled and bucked and bounced and pushed and dragged and loved her so well her body hummed with the pleasure of it.
Still, she was under him before she had a chance to choose snack as a first preference. They’d not eaten dinner and she’s heard his stomach growl.
He did the thing where he hooked his fingers inside her and sucked on her swollen clit till she came again, almost sobbing from the joy of it. And then she dragged him downstairs and made ham and cheese toasted sandwiches, avoiding looking at the clock, or thinking about anything but this bubble of sex and forever they’d created.
Because forever with Grip wasn’t a bankable commodity.
She took time to use the downstairs bathroom to check on her makeup while the grill did its job. God and all the groupies in the world, thank Vera for her gift of tattoo-covering stage makeup. Vera’s timing was exquisite. She’d likely meant it as a joke, encouragement to get a life, but there it was on the doorstep, right when Mena had needed it most. Right when she’d said to hell with the consequences and forgotten the one stamped on her hip.
It was only when she glanced in the bag she’d remembered. She’d been so hooked on the inevitability of being with Grip again, every hesitancy had vanished.
They were there now, those consequences, ethereal, draped around the back of her brain where she’d shoved them like clothing pushed to the back of the wardrobe because it was too good to throw out but no longer fit.
The tattoo camo, with a protective spray shield to stop it rubbing off, did its job admirably, covering over her past. It was a shade just slightly too dark for her skin tone, but it covered a darker secret and guaranteed her identity stayed hidden.
Especially since he did remember.
Not necessarily the moment he drew on her hip, but the woman she once was. If he found out now, well past the moment she should have come clean, he’d make a worse liar of her. He’d be hurt and betrayed.
She couldn’t think about that now when he waited for her all sex tousled and barely decent and likely up for another round if she was lucky.
They ate toasties, facing off across her new kitchen island bench and Mena stopped worrying about tomorrow and let herself be still in this time with him, knowing it would need to be the memory that sustained her for the rest of her life.
“Would you like another?” she asked, standing as Grip, wearing only his boxer briefs came around the bench with his plate in hand. It was a crime he ever wore anything else.
“You offering me more?” He put the plate in the sink and trailed a hand down her back and up under her satin robe to squeeze her butt cheek.
Wanton that she was, she arched her back. “I’ve got mango chutney.”
“Unless I can eat it off you, fuck the chutney,” he said, putting his lips to her neck.
How was it possible that her body was responding to him again? “Really, you don’t like chutney.”
“I like you more. I like you a whole fucking lot.”
She leaned back into him, head turned to look in his eyes. “What should we do about that?”
“I was thinking we go back to bed.”
“And?” He could do anything he wanted to her.
“And you have to work in about five hours and if I try hard, I can keep my hands off you long enough to let you sleep.”
Oh. That was thoughtful and painful at the same time. Five hours until the real-world crash landed on them. Tempting to play hooky, what would one day going missing from work matter?
“I have a band meeting tomorrow, but I can snooze through that. You have to go make people money and no one should screw with that.”
Except here he was respecting her work ethic. She turned in his arms and looped her hands over his shoulders. It seemed like a long time and a lot had happened since they’d stood like this in the linen press.
“You, Mark Grippen, are a big softie under that rock star persona.”