One Wicked Lick from the Drummer (The One Book 3) Page 9

  Teardrop-shaped breasts with both nipples pierced.

  There was no way to be disappointed about that. It was almost a religious moment. Soaring symphonies hit a crescendo in his head. Mena filled his sense with wonder, made his hands warm, ready to play.

  “You know how to make an entrance.”

  She tossed him a box of condoms. “You know how to make yourself at home.”

  “Tell me how I make you come?” Her eyes were on his happily upright dick and his Prince Albert piercing. “Does it put you off? It’ll feel like an ultra-ribbed tip.” Or so he’d been told.

  She stalked across to him, sat across his knees and speared a hand through his hair. “Nothing about you puts me off. I don’t think you’re going to have any trouble making me come.”

  He could smell her arousal. He put his hands to her back, tried to look at all of her, kept getting hung up on details, the tiny ridges in her skin where her corset had rested, the smattering of freckles across her collarbone, the fold of her belly button and a neat landing strip of pubic hair.

  Her nipples were the kind that always stood proud, and she wore circles of tiny blue gems around them. He used a thumb to rub across one in a circular motion and she arched to give him better access.

  “I want to gorge myself on you, Mena. You are sexy as fuck.”

  She pulled his head back and kissed him, her mouth hot, her thighs and knees tightening against his thighs and hips, her breasts pressed to him. “You can bank on making me come if you help me keep my pelvis tilted and you know how to use that piercing.”

  He’d use it to make her shake and moan. He made a song list in his head for her. Staged a whole concert. He’d use a pillow, he’d use his hands, and his mouth and his whole heart to make her cry out, to make her a devoted fan who fell asleep sated beside him.

  That was it for discussion. On with the show. He put his lips to work tasting her, his hands to work stroking her, shaping her limbs and molding her breasts and her arse, sifting her hair through his fingertips, exploring to find all the touches she liked in all the places that turned her on.

  When she wrapped her hand around his cock and flicked the dumbbell, he lowered his head to watch. She didn’t need his help to know what he liked, had him trembling, gritting his teeth with her firm hold, the slide and twist action of her wrist. She made a move to slip to her knees and he stopped her. Much as the idea of being in her mouth made his head spin, he was too far gone not to lose it and the only place he wanted to lose it was inside her vagina.

  Then she said please, looking up at him from her knees, flushed and wild-haired and pink-lipped and he knew himself to be the richest man in the fucking world.

  And she was a goddess with a wicked lick and a devastating mouth and a hunger that made him tremble as she owned him, cock, balls, mind, soul.

  He was gone, gone, rolling back onto the bed, back arched, eyes slammed shut as his orgasm rocketed through him. She drank every drop, and when he was wrung dry, she licked her lips like he’d offered her a gourmet favorite.

  This woman was a heart attack before he was old enough. A blood clot that could stop him dead. She was hot enough to burn him alive.

  That lick lip, the voracious look on her face, acted like a stimulant, washed him through with a bust of energy. He reached for her, urged her off her knees to lay over him, where he took her mouth intent on understanding the surprise of her.

  He’d had it all wrong from the beginning. There was nothing cold about her, nothing too controlled. That sedate clothing and competent manner were her camouflage, the rubber suit she wore to hide the real Mena from the world, and just as well because the real Mena was fucking dangerous.

  That lesson was written in the taste of her mouth, in the weight of her breast and the curve of her hip. She taught him everything he needed to know to please her with her scent and her sighs with the undulation of her back and the tension in her thighs. He made a thorough study of her skin and the lush shape of her, hollows and swells and secret sensitive places that made her groan and writhe. Places inside her that demanded his tongue, the curling of his fingers, the nudging of a knuckle.

  And he used that knowledge to make her spine bow and her neck arch and her toes curl, to make her shake and scratch and bite his shoulder. To make her want more, to make him eager to please in a way that made his blood sing.

  Mena was deft with the condom. She was outrageously sexy lowering herself onto him, and she short-circuited his brain riding him, palms braced on his chest, boobs bouncing, pelvis rolling and bucking, meeting his thrusts with a rhythm that made him feel a violent need to come and take her with him and then do it again and again till they both had nothing left to give.

  In between sets, he wanted to hold her tenderly, kiss her gently and find out about all the things that make her feel good, all the things she worried about, got excited about, hoped for.

  As far as song lists go, it was the best one he’d come up with in forever.

  ELEVEN

  Sex with Grip wasn’t like Mena remembered it, despite that familiar fun piercing.

  It was a revelation.

  Everything he was; confident, energetic, giving, easy, fun, made Mena more able to be her whole self, as if they were tuned into each other’s rhythm and melody.

  With Grip she wasn’t too greedy or too demanding. She wasn’t too eager or too inventive. Things other partners had alluded to on their way out the door. With Grip, she could ask for what she wanted and know he’d go there with her. She could test his capacity for generosity and never reach its limits.

  It was as if they vibrated on the same frequency, hellbent on chasing sensation and wringing the pleasure out till it twisted into a sweet agony of release.

  She’d never known anything like it with anyone else and never appreciated what she’d walked away from until now.

  And she’d never thought a man discarding a condom could be so sexy.

  She sat in the wrecked bed with the sheet tangled around her crossed legs and watched him walk into her en suite bathroom for the second time. He was all bounce-a-quarter-off-it muscle, his body so solid, finding he still had sensitive spots, along his ribs, his neck, the crest of his hip bones was a delight.

  He’d been muscle fifteen years ago too, but much leaner. He wore a man’s body now in the same way she wore a woman’s, no longer the skinny stick with boobs she’d been. He did seem very into the fact she wasn’t all elbows and knees and ribs that were visible now.

  He was ticklish too. That she’d remembered correctly, taking care to moderate her touch so he felt it as her need to get closer to him and not an irritant. It wasn’t difficult. She did need to be close to him. As if her bones called to his, her blood was bonded with his.

  Starlight, she was being fanciful. It’s what great sex after a long drought could do.

  What great sex with a man you once idolized and who does a very credible performance of idolizing you could do.

  He stood in the doorway of the bathroom grinning at her. “What?”

  “Nothing.” So many thoughts crowding her head. None fit to share. A considerable number of them dedicated to praising Prince Albert and the man who wielded him like a divine scepter of sexual pleasure.

  Two strides he was back on the bed with a leap to his knees. “That was not a nothing look.”

  She should be exhausted. It was late, and they’d worked each other over with a kind of intensity that was leveling, but she felt alive in a way that was foreign and intoxicating. “What kind of a look was it?”

  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.”

  That had been her assessment of him fifteen years ago but like their bodies had changed, she’s assumed his nature had. Success, adulation on a grand scale, money, those were forces that not only enabled change, they inspired it.

  She wasn’t the carefree hedonist, game for anything anymore. She was more like her cautious, hardworking mother than she’d ever thought possible when she was dressing in fake leather and lace, so why would he still be the outwardly cocky, considerate sweetheart he’d once been.

  “Who told you that? Officially the press pack refers to me as a larrikin for Australian audiences and a maverick for the rest of the world. If it gets around that I’m a hefting great big marshmallow, it’ll be bad for my image and imagine how many crap investments I’ll make then.”

  “I’ll save you from crap investments.”

  One minute she was standing pressed against him, ready for a kiss, the next he’d turned the grill off, rinsed off their plates, loaded the dishwasher and picked her up. “My hero,” he said.

  “You’re not going to carry me up the stairs, are you?”

  “That is where the bed is.” He winced. “Bad idea?”

  “Narrow staircase. Needs replacing.”

  “Honey, I haven’t met a tight spot I couldn’t worm my way out of yet.” If he tripped it was going to hurt, if he dropped her, she could break a limb. “Do you trust me?”

  Tonight, she trusted him. On the stairs, in her bed, in her arms. Tomorrow was another story.

  He took the creaky stairs at a steady pace, keeping her tucked tight against him, watching that he didn’t catch her feet on the banister. Halfway up on the little landing she relaxed, lowering her head to his shoulder and he squeezed her tighter. “You didn’t trust me.”

  Her answer was cut off by her shriek as he took the next set of stairs at a gallop, bursting into the bedroom and tossing her on the bed. He came down after her, holding himself above her in a press-up, pelvis and stomach grazing hers, nose to nose.

  He said, “I wouldn’t trust me either,” before he kissed her, dropped to her side and rolled them into a spoon, his knees behind hers, his big hand cupping her hip, thumb almost against her tattoo.

  “Goodnight, Mena.”

  “You’ll stay?” She didn’t want to wake and find him gone. She wasn’t ready to lose him now she’d found him again.

  He nuzzled the back of her neck. “I got you.”

  He had her, conflicted heart and liar’s soul.

  She didn’t close her eyes until his steady breathing, the heaviness of his arm, told her he was asleep. She should be too, but on the other side of unconsciousness was everything she’d parked for passion. They’d have to talk. She’d have to make it clear this was a one-off thing. Something that shouldn’t have happened, no matter how good they’d made each other feel. Something that had to remain unspoken.

  In another week or two his strategy would be written. Its execution was in the hands of other experts. She wouldn’t need to see him again, could monitor the strategy and communicate online and then Caroline would come back to work and take over.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. It was that she didn’t truly know him. She knew his bank balance and his address. She knew he liked to bang things. Drums, water, women. He was talented at all that. Yes, he was cocky and yes, he was kind, and he was the singularly best sexual experience of her life—again, but none of those things made a whole person and she wasn’t naive enough to think she had a clear head about him.

  Snuggled next to him, breaking every professional boundary, she obviously didn’t. And when she woke, the heart-shaped rose-colored glasses of a groupie who was desperately trying to recapture her youth had to come off, just like the makeup on her hip.

  In the daylight, they had to deal with the consequences of countless orgasms and sleeping in each other’s arms.

  And the fact that she’d grown out of rock stars.

  In the daylight, she was a coward.

  She left him sleeping. She left a note on how he should lock up
and where to leave the spare key next to the coffee plunger he only had to add hot water to.

  As if hot water was all it was going to take to wash this sin away.

  TWELVE

  “Grip, did you hear anything I said?”

  Grip looked across at Abel. This meeting had been going on and on and he was hungry and tempted to simply repeat what Abel had just asked like he was twelve because he had no idea what was going on. He also badly wanted to look at his phone, because that note from Mena about locking up was cold, man.

  And he’d been sure they had screeched past icy tundra on the way to volcanic.

  He thought he had the basics of Mena figured out. She had a professional self that was business first, efficient and focused and not up to his nonsense, and she had a not suitable for work self that was ready to cut out and have a good time. The serious and the sunshiny beats. She didn’t let that fun side have enough rope but he seemed to have found the end of it and given it a good tug and she’d tumbled into his arms.

  And now he was the one staggering because maybe he’d gotten all that wrong. He hadn’t expected to wake alone in a stranger’s house.

  It was like one of those times you did a massive billion-piece jigsaw only to find there was a piece missing and the whole thing was wrecked by it.

  He hadn’t bothered to make coffee, just borrowed her shower, bath gel, a towel, some toothpaste on his finger and got out of there. She’d probably been in a rush, sleep deprived, didn’t have time for anything but the facts. And he was a surefire distraction. She’d message. They’d talk. Get it together. But phones were outlawed in band meetings because Oscar would play on his the whole time and since Grip didn’t have a private number for Mena, he couldn’t take the initiative without calling her office anyway. Which he’d do, if he thought he could keep the smug satisfaction out of his voice and not give the game away.

  Mena had rocked his world and he rocked hers right back.

  Isaac leaned into his field of vision. “Dude, you party last night? Where was the invite?”