One Wicked Lick from the Drummer (The One 3)

“In case you had any doubts, I’m fucking glad you are.”

She kissed him. A dreamy, sweetly rich treat that wasn’t about being sorry she was here. He’d have drifted in that tenderness for a long time, but she broke away.

“I can’t sleep with you and be your advisor.”

He smoothed his hand over her hip. “Yeah, I figured that.” He couldn’t stop touching her. She didn’t show any signs of being annoyed by his big paws.

“I’ve let you down.”

“Not from where I’m at,” he ran a hand up her back to her neck and spanned it.

“That’s because you like sex and you almost put us both into a coma. You might feel different when your hormones have stopped partying.”

He rubbed his thumb along the column of her neck. “Hush your pretty mouth, honey. We party hard, my hormones and I, and we don’t stop till we drop.” Good thing she didn’t see him last night. He’d dropped in front of the TV with the controller still in his hand like some underaged alcohol-intolerant punk.

“I’m serious, Grip.”

“Me too. It’s not a problem. You’ll put someone else on the case and it’ll be fine.”

“But you’re virtually starting again and that’s not everything.” She pulled out of his hold, sat up, her back to him, her hands to her face. “This is complicated.”

He gave her a minute, kept his hands to himself, and when she didn’t go on, he sat too, drawing her into the vee of his legs, her back to his chest, and wrapping his arms around her.

“There are these pieces I play on the piano when I get in a mood.” He could feel the tension in her body, rigid muscles wrecking her glow state, but not resistant to his touch. “Frustrated or impatient, angry or excited. They’re complicated. To play them I need to let go of everything else and live in the music. If I think about my hands or anything else for a second, I mess up. Complicated isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s the thing keeping us upright. The way our bodies work, the way the earth spins, the sun makes things grow, how pizza tastes awesome. That’s all complicated shit. People are complicated.

“Not me, so much. I’m like sheet music, it’s all there, you just have to know how to read it. You’re complicated. You’re this incredible professional woman whose built a good life for herself, and you’re also this passionate, insatiable fucking babe,” he buried his face in her neck as she relaxed into him.

“You’re the natural north pole to my sexual south. We click together physically. I don’t know if we’re enough not to pull apart when we’re not naked, but I know right fucking now that I want to stick some more and find out. And against all that, against the odds of finding someone I want to be with in a way that makes me edgy as fuck and happy like I could glow too, starting again with a spreadsheet and a bloody questionnaire is nothing worse than a cracke

d cymbal head. It’s not a big deal. You swap it out and move on. What I’m saying is, I’m here for complicated. I’m here for unpicking the patterns and learning the rhythms and trying not to screw up with you, so if it’s not about being my advisor anymore, tell me what you’re worried about and let’s see if we can fuck some sense into it.”

FIFTEEN

She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t a crier. It simply wasn’t the first thing Mena thought about doing when she was sad or angry, hurt or overwhelmed. She was more likely to throw something or buy new lingerie she didn’t need, but her throat was tight, and her eyes were wet, and there was an uneasy swirling in her chest that felt a lot like she was about to break the pattern of her adult lifetime and sob.

Grip was mayhem for her heart.

He couldn’t simply say things like that and expect her to deal.

She’d gone home from breakfast with Vera and gotten herself ready for a dirty weekend, excitement buzzing in her body, and then on the drive over, talked herself into ending things between them before it got any more compromising. She’d rehearsed the words. It was the smart, rational thing to do. He’d understand. He wasn’t a spoilt child. He must’ve already been thinking they were done. The knots inside her stomach had untied.

And then he opened the door to his stunning home on a cliff by the sea with absolutely no clue what seeing him shirtless did to her.

It took her good intentions and bear-hugged them out, and her shaky resolve and demolished it.

And it wasn’t entirely about the shirtlessness, or the way he bounced on bare feet at the sight of her, although that was the icing on a very desirable confection. It was what being in the same room with Grip made her feel.

Young, alive.

Whole in a way she hadn’t recognized she needed.

And now he’d opened every door and window in her house of deception and was waiting for her to walk on through with a smile on her duplicitous face.

Why did he have to care so hard so quickly, because they were never going to work out. Heels and sneakers. Hitting things and studying them.

He was a showman, performing for a crowd, and she was an analyst who worked quietly alone. He’d owned a monster truck and she leased a BMW. How could they possibly fit together with their clothes on?

He was a fantasy, the very best kind, revisited at a time when she’d needed a pick-me-up. If they spent too long together, she’d bore him, he’d irritate her, they had nothing at all in common. It was enough he was prepared to accept her resigning his account for some spurious reason. It was too much he drummed his fingers on her heart.