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

  If his instinct proved right, they were going to make a good team.

  She did something with her hair to secure it more firmly. He tried not to watch because it wasn’t a performance, just a woman fixing her hair after it had been squashed by a helmet. He watched anyway. Mena Grady was A-grade watchable content.

  Which he had to get over.

  Any time now, dickhead.

  “What was it about me that made you think we’d met before?” she asked.

  Good question. He looked at the world through the filter of its beats. Every place had its own signature sound, but so did every person. It wasn’t always up front like the crash of the sea or the low-grade rumble of traffic. You had to listen carefully to a person, to what they said and didn’t say, to what they did, to pick up their beat. And sometimes a person’s sound changed and that told you things about them too.

  Evie before she reunited with Jay had sounded angry and frantic and sometimes brittle, even when she was joking around. Now that she was secure in their love, she sounded verdant, creative. Her beat was the same but the sound it sent out was different, richer.

  If he tried to explain that to Mena, she’d assume he had a screw loose.

  Especially if he said he’d recognized her beat, a complex composition of melodies alternating between shy and daring, because that didn’t make any sense to him either.

  “I was just checking that we hadn’t shared a nod before.”

  Behind those shades she probably rolled her eyes.

  “You’re laughing at me.” He wagged a finger at her.

  “Only on the inside.”

  “That’s where it counts most.”

  “Do you feel like we’re bonding now?”

  “If I say yes, you’re going to get with the riot act, aren’t you? I haven’t shown you what makes me happy yet.”

  “Just remember, I’m not judging and I’m on your side.”

  He groaned. “Here we go.”

  “You like the beach,” she said, “You have a coastal property, it’s a good fit and a good investment. Rarely lose with property in Sydney. You should keep it.”

  That sounded a lot like praise. “You’re fattening me up before the kill.”

  She looked at him over the top of his mirrored shades. “These are only my preliminary thoughts. The horse has to go. You could sue over the tea-tree plantation. It was a scam, but it will tie you up with legal fees without certainty, so cutting your losses is a decent outcome.”

  Yeah, he’d guessed that. “Now what.”

  “I’d like to see more property in your portfolio, and I’ll suggest an adjustment to your share investment plan. I want you to stop giving great swabs of your money away to charity and individuals.”

  Oh fuck no. “That’s not going to fly.” Why had he thought a change of scene was going to make this easier? That a bike ride to the beach had helped them bond.

  She started talking facts and figures. He only half listened, turning his head to look out at the line of surfers waiting for a set to roll in. He paid attention again when she touched his thigh.

  “Grip, I’m not saying you can’t have a giving program, but it needs to be better organized and there are tax advantages you’re not . . .” and that was all he heard because her featherlight touch felt like a hot spark that burned through denim and singed his skin.

  She cut herself off, taking her fingers back and clasping her own knee. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  He spoke over her. “It’s fine. I’m not radioactive and you were holding me on the bike.”

  “I wasn’t holding you.”

  She had more of his jacket than she’d had of his body. “Then you should’ve been.” What was it about her that made him feel a kick at the idea she might enjoy touching him? You need to get laid, dude, it’s been too long. You need to get laid by a woman who is not your money witch.

  She sighed. “I find you very distracting.”

  “In a good way?” In the rockpool he could see the group assembling. This is what he’d brought her here to see.

  She made a mock sobbing sound. “I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. You are not like any of my other clients.”

  “Is that going to cause you a problem?” Better put that on the plate with the fish and chips because when he added the cocktail sauce with what he was about to show her, it was going to blow her taste buds.

  “Not at all. We’ve bonded now for better or worse.”

  A marriage made in his fiscal failures and her numerical talents. “Have you ever heard of water music?”

  She pulled a face. “Is it some kind of sex thing?”

  His barked laugh caused people to look their way. What would make her ask that? “It’s a music thing, Mena.”

  She definitely blushed. He pointed to the group of women assembling in the calm of the pool. “They’re a touring music group from Vanuatu. They’re water drummers, only their drum kit is still water and their stick and pedals are splashes and slaps and drips. They’re giving a free performance.”

  He inclined his head towards the growing audience, and Mena moved with him onto the sand and closer to the rockpool.

  “Water music makes you happy?” she asked when they were on the shore, their pants rolled up their shins so they could stand in the shallows.

  He dumped their helmets, jackets, her shoes and his boots on the dry sand and waved an acknowledgement to the group leader. “Water music gives me ideas.”

  He hoped it might inspire Mena too and he consciously didn’t think about it inspiring her to a sex thing—after a good five minutes of imagining exactly that.

  SEVEN

  Mena had never seen or heard anything like water music. She stood at the edge of the pool in her beach-unfriendly work suit with a small crowd in their wet swimwear and watched as the women sang in their own language and made the salt water into their instrument.

  The sight and sound was almost enough to help her get over her “sex thing” gaffe. It was hard to imagine what Grip thought of that. She felt her face heat thinking about it. She knew exactly where that had come from and it was no place good for business. Her hand still tingled from touching his thigh. He made her brain splinter and her thoughts head to the bedroom even when that destination wasn’t on the map.

  The vibration of the bike between her legs and the nearness of him, his muscled body right up against hers, his outer thighs against her inner ones, had been a peculiar type of torture. She’d wanted to wrap her arms around him and hang on tight and pretend she never had to let go. Instead she touched him only enough not to fall off like an amateur and become roadkill.

  She hadn’t been on a bike for years and his was a glorious throbbing chrome monster. She hadn’t been to the beach in years. She was on edge around him, oddly nervous, prone to blurt out inappropriate things. She hadn’t ever been with another man who excited her like Grip did. That seemed like a terrible oversight. Vera would shout I told you so. Mena suddenly saw what Vera meant about becoming conservative. It was a grown-up word for boring.

  But being boring had its merits. It had allowed her the space to build her career. And she genuinely loved her work. It engaged her mind and fed her ego. Plus there were considerable perks: financial security, her soon-to-be lovely terrace, her nice car, her annual trips to Europe.

  It’d had been a long time since she’d missed her wild days, where excitement was getting useful information out of the guys manning the merch tent without having to put out, and security was enough money to hail a ride home.

  Watching Grip’s reaction to the water drummers was making her reflect on the parts of Philly she’d left behind to become Mena. There was a lot of Philly that was her essential self: confidence, an aptitude for hard work, focus, an exceptionally good memory, and the ability to process information efficiently.

  There were definitely parts of Philly she missed. Philly had never been boring. Philly didn’t observe life, she’d thrown herself in the deep end o
f it, and she’d had an amazing sex life.

  Feet buried in the wet sand beside her, Grip could barely stand still, excitement sending a current through his body. His eyes were alight, his hands moving with the beat against his thighs. What was water music to him? It wasn’t clear to her how this wasn’t simply entertainment, not something he could invest in.

  She had to puzzle what he wanted out quickly because the more time she spent with him, especially outside the polite constraints of the office, the more at risk she was of doing something worse than a grossly misplaced comment about his love life or sex acts. After all, she turned the staid old office into the backdrop for raunchy escapades with Grip. Watching him showing unbridled delight in the salty air as the sky turned pink was exactly the wrong stimulus for a professional relationship to develop under.

  Not that there was anything she could do about it right now. There was another stop on this joyride. Grip wanted to show her one more thing that made him happy, another piece she needed to complete his puzzle.

  There was enthusiastic cheering, whistles and quite a bit of splashing as applause when the water drummers finished. Mena resigned herself to the fact her suit would need a good dry cleaning and would probably never be quite the same. When the women invited children from the audience for a lesson, she was surprised at how chaotic water-play soon became real music as the kids drummed the water and their wet limbs alongside the women to the delight of their parents and everyone still watching and filming.

  “Look at that,” Grip said. “It’s an unbelievably accessible form of teaching kids rhythm and percussion.”

  She’d have replied with a question but as the kids exited the water, streaming past them, one of the performers signaled to Grip.

  In the next second, he’d hauled his T-shirt off and Mena’s mouth went dry. Holy starlight, he was ripped. She was staring at him so shouldn’t have been surprised when he dropped his jeans.

  He grinned at her. “I’m up.”

  She almost lost her footing, trying to take a step back from him but forgetting she was ankle deep in wet sand. He shot his hand out and she grabbed hold to steady herself.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  The man was almost naked. Wearing a small, tight pair of black athletic briefs, which left almost nothing to her imagination and her imagination had been to a lot of X-rated places regarding Grip. There was nowhere appropriate to look, but with the mirrored shades on she looked everywhere. Pecs, abs, Adonis line, the soft fuzz of hair that led to the cock she knew was way more than adequate and pierced, thick quads, the surgery scar over his knee, and all the way back up again, highlight by highlight on the path to being completely light-headed.

  No, she was not anything like okay. Okay was an odd shaped planet with a wobbly orbit in a distant galaxy where there was no air to breathe. He planned to get wet. Wet! She let go of his forearm as if it was molten lava. “You might’ve warned me.” He should come with a hazard grading.

  “They’ve honored me. I’m going to play now,” he said, eyes already on the musicians in the water.

  He left her, dry-mouthed, pulse ragged, heart utterly unmoored.

  And furious with herself.

  She’d known going informal was a bad idea. She’d gotten on the back of a black chrome Triumph with a gold-record drummer in the middle of a work day. Nothing good ever came from that kind of behavior. She’d known from the moment she staggered into the boardroom and saw Grip, felt him in that part of herself long denied, that she needed to back away.

  The moment he returned, she’d tell Mark there was a Swire and Yallop associate more suited to his needs. She’d tell Mr. Grippen she didn’t feel best placed to help him and she was sorry she’d wasted his time and she’d deal with Caroline’s disapproval.

  And then she’d tell Grip she was inappropriately attracted to him and that it wouldn’t be inappropriate if she was no longer working for him and if he was so inclined and attracted to her, she’d like to spend the night with him.

  One more night.

  To sweeten the deal, she’d tell him she’d been fantasizing about him since their first meeting and what she’d like to do to him and more importantly, have him do to her.

  She pulled her feet from the sucking wet sand and they promptly sank again.

  No, she would not tell him any of that.

  She had his tattoo on her hip. It was stupidly overcomplicated.

  Wait, maybe she could work around that. Vera was in her head. Stay in the dark, and use the sheet strategically, keep him in front of you, wear his T-shirt, don’t stick around in the morning light, theatrical makeup, and if all that went to shit, lie. Assuming he was even curious about it and look, worst case, if he asked, it was just a common word, a wild coincidence. She could even bluff it out by saying she really had been a fan, young and silly enough to get a Property of Paradise album-like image tattooed on the back of her hip.

  Except he’s already called you extraordinary.

  And he had her career in his hands.

  And he’d already bought up too much real estate in her head. He had no idea how much power he had to mess up her life.

  The sun was almost gone, a golden glow as dusk rose. She pushed his glasses to the top of her head. Grip was in the lineup of women, the only male, waist deep in the water. At some point while she’d been blindly fuming, he’d dunked himself under and his hair was smoothed back against his skull, showing off his cheekbones and that wide laughing grin he wore on stage when he was free inside the music.

  He was inside it now, abs tensed, biceps and triceps bunching, arms moving, hands slapping, curving, scooping, stroking. There were a dozen or more types of splashing motions and the song being playing was fast, something like a storm coming.

  It built, high and low pressure, fermenting in Mena.

  She felt every slide of Grip’s hand over the surface of the water as if it was on her skin, a satin ripple down her spine, a lift and squeeze of her breast, a pinch of her nipple, a lingering kiss on her throat. Every scooping motion he made was a caress, and every slap was a welcome sting and another notch in the belt of her tightening desire.

  She could not hate him more when he turned his head as the song ended to see if she was watching and he knew she could not look away.

  She could not look away when he hugged his fellow musicians. His posture showing deference. She could not look away when he walked out of the rockpool, his body emerging slowly from the blue green; waist, pelvis, thighs, water rivulets scoping his muscle structure, sluicing over bumps and ridges as he strode towards her.

  She could not back away when he shook himself like a dog, spraying water all over her. The joy in his face was the fatal agent of infection that hooked her deep and stuck her to the spot.

  “Ah, Mena, that was fucking fantastic. Can you see it? Can you see why that makes me happy?”

  All she could see was the jewel colors of his tattoo, paradise in bright greens, and vivid reds, royal and sky blue, magenta, orange and sunny yellow. Tropical flowers, colorful parrots, lush trees. He’d had part of that tattoo, a few vivid flowers and the birds linked by vines when they’d met and he’d told her what his vision for it had been. He’d seen the vision through. It was a major artwork now, the ink glossy in the growing twilight.

  Under the slick of moisture and the green feather detail of a parrot’s wing, his skin was warm. She traced the color up his forearm, until it became midnight blue and then the red, pink of a flower petal on his bicep, the yellow of its stamen. His breath caught, and he grabbed her hand when she traced a water droplet across his pec.

  “Mena.”

  “This is a lot now.”

  “Now?”

  “I remember it. It wasn’t so detailed.”

  “You had to have been quite a fan to have seen this.”

  “You had imagery of your band’s name tattooed on your skin. You had an artistic vision for it. I read about it somewhere.”

  He still had her
hand. “You read about it?”

  “You’re my client, it was part of my desk research.”

  He let her hand go. “Ah-ha, and what was touching me like that part of?”

  Like he’d thrown her in the ocean, she came up from the trance she’d been in as if she’d been frightened of drowning and grasped a lifeline. She’d overstepped. He didn’t feel the same. She’d offended him.

  “I’m sorry. This whole afternoon has been unexpected.”

  “I guess that’s my fault. I’ll make it quick now. Give me a few minutes to shower the salt off and we’ll get going. Bill me for your dry cleaning.”

  He left her on the sand, feeling gritty and sticky from salt spray, rubbed raw from thwarted desire and full of fury at her own duplicity.

  Wanker. She’d restructure his portfolio, write him a new investment strategy and pay for her own dry cleaning.

  EIGHT

  Grip opened his laptop and his email and then made coffee while it loaded. Most of it would be junk. Some of it would be fan stuff the publicist who worked for Evie’s company wanted him to see. Anything urgent and she’d ping him because she knew he never looked at email. The one message he was searching for was about a new range of merch he had to approve.

  Mega-mug of black coffee in hand he settled on the deck of his Clovelly home, facing the sea, and got his delete finger ready.

  The merch email was on top and then junk, junk, junk and then Mena, Mena, Mena.

  So that’s where she was hiding out.

  After what went down at the rockpool, Grip had taken Mena to the percussion class he taught as part of an after-school program for disadvantaged kids. They had real instruments, not water, to play with and some of those kids had real problems. The hour he spent with them when he was available didn’t go anywhere near addressing their mental, physical and emotional issues, but it made them laugh and it gave them an outlet for their frustration and a safe place to experiment.