One Wicked Lick from the Drummer (The One Book 3) Read online

  One Wicked Lick

  from the Drummer

  The One

  Ainslie Paton

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events that happen are the product of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations or people, living or dead is purely co-incidental and beyond the intent of the author and publisher. Copyright © 2019.

  One Wicked Lick from the Drummer

  Ainslie Paton

  As the wildly exciting drummer in an up-and-coming band, Grip was at the top of Mena’s list of hot drummers to hook up with.

  She’d promised herself that after she nailed him, she’d quit her groupie life, finish her finance degree and become her own rock star.

  Fifteen years later, she’s right on track, a polished professional investment advisor, her goth look and the name she used back then a distant memory.

  Except the new client in the boardroom is her old obsession, sexier and more famous than ever, and her promotion to partner depends on making him happy.

  With her clothes on.

  He’ll never guess who she was, so her secret is safe, until her obsession comes roaring back.

  And Grip remembers the one girl he could never forget.

  Do you know why they call a drummer's seat a throne? Because drummers are kings and queens.

  -Ed Thigpen

  A drummer is usually like the backbone.

  -Brody Dalle

  The drummer's always going to be there. They're the floor of the whole deal and everyone can stand up on you.

  -Ringo Star

  But primarily, the drummer's supposed to sit back there and swing the band.

  -Buddy Rich

  CHAPTERS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  EPILOGUE

  ONE NIGHT WITH THE SEXIEST MAN ALIVE

  OFFENSIVE BEHAVIOR

  About the Author

  ONE

  Shock made Mena lose her breath, take a step back and collide with the heavy wooden door as it closed. It boosted her forward, forcing her to take an awkward little jump. She wobbled as her stiletto-clad ankle rolled and everything she’d been balancing on the flat of her laptop went flying: phone, notepad, pen, business-card holder.

  Thank Joseph Pilates she didn’t land on her arse, legs over her head, date-ready Agent Provocateur underwear on show.

  But it was a close thing.

  Ow, her ankle hurt. Wow, this could not be happening. She wasn’t supposed to walk into a new client briefing in the boardroom and meet her number one score.

  She especially wasn’t supposed to find that the past fifteen years had been enormously kind to him, and he was sexier than ever. Still had a smile that could power a concert venue and make her insides turn to goo. And it was total bullshit that seeing him again had made her knees go weak, her mouth fall open and her body flash hot.

  He could still rock her, and he hadn’t done anything but glance up and smile as she’d staggered in.

  “Mena, oh no. Are you okay?” Caroline wrenched her eight months and nine days pregnant self out of her chair to help Mena and the two of them bumped, grabbing onto each other to steady themselves.

  “I’m fine. Goodness.” Hell. No, she was not fine. She was regretting every good decision she’d made since leaving his bed all those years ago. “Please sit down, Caroline.” If he recognized her, everything she’d worked for after her retirement as a good-time girl, the partnership offer she expected to receive, the security she’d earned, the amazing life she’d built herself could come to a crashing halt.

  Swire & Yallop did not promote former groupies who’d slept their way around every concert venue in Australia to seriously fabulous, life-changing salaries.

  “Mark Grippen, this is Mena Grady,” Caroline said with a smile towards their guest as she eased into her seat. “She’ll be taking over my clients while I’m on maternity leave.”

  Caroline had said they were meeting a new client, MG Holdings, and the last thing Mena thought MG would stand for was Mark Grippen, the drummer from Lost Property.

  Grip had been at the top of her list of drummers—always and only drummers—to sleep with when she’d been young and reckless and lost.

  He was talented, athletic, and magnetic on stage, and so aspirational that she’d promised to quit the groupie lifestyle and make something of herself if she could bag him.

  And bag him she did. One glorious night that morphed unexpectedly into seven days of tour bus riding, backstage privileges, incendiary, soul-scoring sex in cheap hotels and falling inconveniently in love.

  A good groupie never overstayed her welcome and never expected more than her lust object offered. Grip had a plane to catch and another stage to conquer and Mena had a finance degree to finish and a shot at becoming her own rock star.

  More than a decade later, she was one successfully managed maternity leave support stint away from achieving her goal and she wasn’t about to jeopardize that because of the inconvenient reflex action of regret and damp underwear.

  She put her laptop on the boardroom table and scooped to collect her notepad and cardholder, her pen wasn’t in sight and her phone was, heck, where was it—uh, under the table.

  “Excuse me,” she said to the room at large, not yet prepared to look at Grip. She went to her knees, only to find herself crawling toward him as he was on his, reaching for her phone from his side of the table.

  “I’ve got you,” he said, laughing sea-green eyes meeting hers, cheekbones showing off, big hand grasping her phone and disappearing it in his enormous palm.

  Oh, he so did have her.

  He’d had her in that week all the ways it was possible to have a person you’d plucked from a lineup of random hopefuls, and it had been glorious. There was a good reason Grip had been her Mount Everest. That light-a-fire smile. Those massive hands, the deep chest and muscled arms, the ripped abs and thick quads. The way he played those wicked licks, effortlessly, as if he lived in the beat and it returned the favor by gracing him with the superpower of extreme musical talent, explosive energy and raw sexual attraction.

  She could not get her tongue to work. He could probably see right down her top to the lace of her bra from this position.

  “It’s all good,” he said, looking directly at her face, making everything below the waistband of her pencil skirt pull tight.

  She got the words lucky and carpet out of her mouth, but he’d already moved and all she could see of him was his shins in denim and his no doubt wildly expensive collector’s edition trainers.

  Lucky carpet. Dear heaven. Her brain was on stall. She had to give this man solid investment advice and she couldn’t manage her legs and forgot what words were when she looked at him.

  Pull it together, Philomena Elizabeth Grady. It was one week, a million years ago, and you were a different person with a different name. He’s probably slept with a hundred million women. He is not going to remember you. Plus you have a date tonight with a very eligible lawyer.

  She got to her feet and smiled at Caroline. She could rescue this with a witty quip and scream into her pillow about cosmic injustice later. S
he’d focus on the business at hand and once they got into the facts and figures it would all be suitable for work and she could sit back and enjoy the not so suitable for work secrets she had exclusive knowledge to.

  The fact that she knew where Mr. MG Holdings liked to be touched, what he sounded like when he came, how he liked to fuck long and hard, what his tattoos meant and exactly how much fun you could have with his cock piercing.

  She cleared the lust fog from her throat. “Despite that memorable entrance, clumsy is not the brand of my investment advice. I promise I’ll only ever offer you elegant solutions. Shall we get down to it?”

  He flashed that gotta-love-me smile and a brow jumped on the words get down to it.

  She winced and tried to hide it pulling out a chair, sitting, rolling it toward the table and opening her laptop, because getting down to it did sound like an invitation to something not appropriate for a boardroom.

  Performance appraisal D-minus. At least her heart had stopped trying to make a hussy out of her by beating hard enough to open the buttons of her silk shirt, and her mouth appeared to be in rough working order.

  She risked looking at her new client and her brain superimposed an image of Grip shirtless, drenched in sweat, arms flying over his rims, on top of the one of him leaning back in his chair, one sleeve-tattooed arm lying on the table, wearing a plain dark blue T-shirt that made his eyes pop and a bemused expression that made her suck in a deep breath before he slid her phone across the table to her.

  As she reached for it, their hands grazed and she felt color flood her face. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Goddamn, he shouldn’t be allowed to say that word.

  She focused on her laptop keyboard and pulled on her professional reserves to say, “Why don’t you tell us what your priorities are, er, Mark?” only just catching herself from calling him Grip like his fans did.

  She was no longer a fan in any real sense. She didn’t go to gigs, didn’t read everything ever written about him and his band, didn’t follow him on social media or burn brain cells plotting how she might meet him, sleep with him, end up friends with him. They’d parted like adults who’d known their good thing was also a temporary thing so continuing to track him would’ve been stalkerish. Would’ve taken up time she didn’t have for frivolous activities. She’d put all that aside along with dying her hair black, flashing her boobs, drinking till she didn’t care what anyone thought of her and wearing the most revealing borrowed clothing she could get away with and still have all her vital parts covered, most of the time.

  That’s not to say she hadn’t been aware of his rise to stardom from the drummer in a scrappy but promising pub band to global success. She’d have had to be dead not to have known Lost Property had hit the big time.

  She’d always known he was the bomb. The best of the best and that’s why he’d been at the top of her drummers-to-fuck list and why she’d retired after their time together. It wasn’t ever going to get any better than bedding Mark Grippen.

  Although managing his investment portfolio was a nice upgrade, given the circumstances.

  As he tapped his tablet and pulled up scribbled notes, she could see he was focused on the matter at hand and she was in absolutely no danger of being discovered, until he looked up, quirked his head to the side, studied her across the table, and said, “Mena, I have the strangest feeling we’ve met before.”

  TWO

  Mena Grady blushed and that made Grip smile. She’d been pale and shaky after tripping and dropping her stuff when she arrived in the room, as if she was the one expecting contractions instead of her boss. Now she looked like her blood was pumping again.

  Her arrival sure broke the ice. Just what he needed, a crack in the perfect glass and steel corporate facade of Swire and Yallop. He was fucking nervous. A fish out of water in this formal setting, underdressed; his lucky jeans and the only shirt he owned without artwork splashed over it, and already embarrassed about his lack of financial nous. And that was before these two brainy women knew about all the ludicrous things he’d done with his newfound wealth.

  That blush did pretty things to Mena’s face. She was one of those ice-cool blondes with a prim hairstyle and the tastefully bland tailoring. Not so tasteful that he hadn’t gotten an eye-load of cleavage and lace when they were both under the table.

  He shouldn’t have looked down her shirt. He’d wanted this meeting. Had required an introduction to get it. He needed S&Y’s expertise and he couldn’t fuck it up by eye-groping his account manager under a table on day one.

  There was something weirdly familiar about her. Fuck knows why he thought that. She was way out of his league, educated, classy, knew how to use money wisely. There is no way they’d ever moved in the same circles. This woman was a top-shelf tipple, a copy of The Economist that she read for funsies, an early night followed by a ketonic breakfast and the 6 a.m. yoga class. He was a what you see is what you get, basic-burger-and-fries kind of guy.

  She’d subscribe to the theater and go to the opera and drive something understated and European. The truck he’d driven today was so ridiculously big, it didn’t fit in the building’s car park and had likely already been towed from the loading zone he’d left it in, and tomorrow he was playing paintball with the guys.

  Mena would never have to worry about industrial deafness or arthritis in her hands wrecking her life. She probably didn’t tear an ACL from jumping around on stage, and he hoped she’d had no reason to attract dipstick, fair-weather friend rip-off artists.

  Maybe they could bond over potential carpal tunnel syndrome. Nah, she’d have an assistant to wrangle her keyboard. They had nothing in common and he felt bad for embarrassing her.

  Still, for kicks he’d like to see if that pink gin blush advancing across her cheeks, and down her neck, met the edge of the lace of her shelf bra. And the feeling of having met her before persisted.

  “So we haven’t met before?” he said.

  Mena shook her head, not a hair moved. “No.” She gave a tiny laugh that might be what, relief, yeah, that she’d never had to tangle with an unwashed muso before. “I know, of course, who you are.” Her perfect arched brows went up. “I was a bit of a fan in my young and silly days.”

  “Silly?” She might be a little flustered, my fault, but this woman, despite the near pratfall, wasn’t the silly type. Hell, wait till she learned about the nonexistent tea-tree plantation he’d invested in, that’d show her silly.

  “I don’t mean you were, you know.” That dismissive laugh again. “I mean, I was young and silly.”

  Decent attempt at a save but better to focus on the other thing she said and build up to the silly stuff. “You were a fan?” And pigs manned space missions. That had to be for the suck-up. No way had this woman ever been to a Lost Property gig or spent a dollar on a download.

  “Oh, I’m a fan right now,” said Caroline, laughing, her belly bumping on the table as she leant forward enthusiastically.

  Now that was a sound Grip could recognize. Caroline Swire was excited. “I didn’t want to sound unprofessional off the bat, but if I don’t get your autograph for my stepson,” she winked, “I am dead to him.” She stroked a hand over her bump. “You don’t have any need to worry about S&Y keeping your business confidential. Our clients are famous in all kinds of areas, sport, art, business and entertainment. Our specialization is managing bespoke investment decisions and blah blah, blah . . .”

  He tuned out on Caroline because yeah, yeah, he got it. Jay Endicott’s mum had set him up with these guys and Janina was the best manager in the business and Jay was going to win another Grammy this year, so if Janina said S&Y would straighten Grip’s life out, then he trusted the two women in front of him would get it done regardless of how they felt about him personally. Quit looking down shirts and making people blush, you dickhead. And he was paying them a hefty fee to ensure that.

  Didn’t mean he was looking forward to confessing he had no idea h
ow to be wealthy and not be a jackass with the never-ending stream of money he was making from performing, touring, recording, and royalties, even from his own line of drum-kit accessories and sneakers.

  Probably a good thing there were two of them. By the time Caroline was ready to come back to work, Mena would be over and done with him. He had a way of wearing people down. It was part of his charm in most circumstances, except the circumstances where he was way out of his depth, and right now, watching Mena avoid making eye contact, he was already drowning, and he hadn’t flashed a spreadsheet at them yet.

  He blew out a breath. Here we go. Time to start being fiscally responsible before it was too late. You never knew when your luck was going to run out in this game. He could bottom out tomorrow.

  “You need to know the only notes I’m good with are musical ones. I’m doing a really shit job of having money. Being suddenly rich is a total mindfuck.” He clamped his jaw shut. Bet that was the first time that four-letter word had been said in this room. Wonder the windows didn’t rattle. Well shit, he might be embarrassed about his money management but not about who he was and since neither of them flinched, he guessed he was paying them the right kind of fee to mask their feelings.

  “The amount of money I’m making now is a whole other world of responsibility and I can’t catch its rhythm. I’ve made some bad decisions, taken some idiot advice, been too good a friend, been ripped off. I’m basically fucking it up and I figure there has to be a better way, because one,” he tapped the tabletop, “I don’t want to screw up so badly I’ve got nothing to show for this wild ride when it ends, and, two,” another tap, “there is something obscene about the money I’m making, and frankly, trying not to be a fuckwit with it is keeping me up at night.”

  He paused, took in the expressions on their faces. Caroline’s was warm, accepting. Mena’s said, I’ve been trained to smile through adversity, I am dying inside, and you will never know how close to being a corpse I am.