“You already know which room it’s going to be, don’t you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t. They move things around.”
Mena stomped a stiletto-clad foot. “I can’t believe I agreed to this.” She strode along the corridor a few paces and he followed. The door she opened revealed a library. Tattered books on floor-to-ceiling shelves and two big padded armchairs that had the stuffing hanging out of them. She flounced inside and threw herself into one of the chairs. Grip braced. That’s not something he’d done, he had no idea what might happen. He’d not entered this room before, simply closed the door on it and tried another.
Nothing happened. Mena crossed a leg and bounced it. “We need a strategy?”
“The only strategy we have is to keep exploring and watch for clues. We’ll know we’ve found our room when we find your bag and coat.”
“There must be a loophole.”
“If there is, I haven’t found it.”
He saw it before Mena did, a shadow that filled the room, starting from the corner, and growing rapidly. He looked up to find the source and that’s when the bats hanging from the ceiling became visible. “Mena.”
She shrieked and jumped into his arms as the first mechanical bat swooped them. Not close enough to touch but close enough to make you think it might.
He went for the door and backed into the corridor, pulling her with him. Through the open doorway they could see the ceiling was swarming with bats and other crawly things. It was so realistic, Mena was shaking.
“I won’t let them get you.” He held her loosely with one arm at her back.
She thumped her forehead into his chest, her breath coming fast, half a laugh, half a sob. “Have I told you I hate you?”
It didn’t feel like hate to have her this close. “You might’ve mentioned it.”
“Do not leave me for anything.”
One day a woman might say that to him and mean it for real. “I won’t.” One day he might find a woman he’d want to say that to.
He knew now what kind of woman that needed to be. Someone smart and determined like Mena, someone fun who understood him, made him feel known, invincible like Philly had long ago.
He’d happily deal with all the spiders and creepy things for them and call it a future.
NINE
Grip’s body heat was comforting in this place of things that made your skin crawl. The escape experience was so incredibly well done, Mena totally bought in on it. Despite being edgy, okay, scared, she wanted to find out what came next, and with Grip alongside her, she didn’t feel like it was going to beat her.
He was a steady presence. He didn’t do anything to hype her fear, nor did he laugh unkindly at her when she twitched and jumped. Yes, they were touching, and it had given her a moment’s pause, but there really wasn’t anything sexual about it. Holding hands in the dark was practical and bumping against each other was almost guaranteed.
He’d just saved her from being swooped by mechanical bats that felt incredibly real. She looked up at him. “I’m ready.”
If there were clues, she was yet to find one, but she wasn’t done trying. She broke away and opened the door closest. It was storage. Full of suitcases. Most of which originated in the days before wheels. And cobwebs. Shudder. She closed the door but Grip stepped past her opened it again and retrieved a torch. “You never know.”
He had fake cobweb in his hair, she twitched to brush it off, just as well fake cobweb was spider adjacent, so no, just no.
There were two doors left at this end of this corridor. “I guess we have to go through one of these.” The one in front of her had the words Linen Press written on a sign that was badly attached and swung off one nail. She opened the other door just as Grip said, “Wait.”
The rotten egg gas smell that assaulted her was enough to make her gag. Slamming the door closed, she coughed and then choked out, “Linen Press it is.”
Grip stayed her hand before she opened the door. “I know what happens in this room.”
“Are there spiders?”
“No spiders.”
Sheet storage sounded benign. Not that anything was what it seemed here.
“The door locks and the room gets smaller.”
“How small?”
“Until we have to stand close.”
Oh, linen press. “For how long?”
“It’s quick. A hatch opens up and we have to crawl out of there. If you’re in any way claustrophobic, let’s go back the other way and pick another door.” He flashed the torchlight against a wall plaque that said the same thing in warning.
“I’m game.”
“I like that about you, Ms. Grady.”
She’d like him not to say things like that in a voice that made her want his hands all over her body when she was about to have to stand close to him with no escape.
When he opened the door, fool that she was, Mena followed him inside. The room was square and lined with shelves stacked with sheets and towels. Everything was grey as if it’d had the life washed out of it, but this room smelled pleasantly of lemon-scented washing powder. Grip stayed by the door, which made a mechanical sound as it locked them in. She walked to the opposite end and faced him. The lighting dimmed and a red button, labeled let me out glowed.
They grinned at each other. Apart from the niggling spider worry, this was the most fun she’d had in a long time. She wasn’t going to think about the fact it was borderline inappropriate.
“Do you still think this is a bad investment?” Grip asked.
“I’m warming up to it. I’d want to see some more numbers in the business plan.”
“Warming, huh.”
She shook her head. “Don’t start.”
His shoulders came up, his brow in a knowing move. “What did I say?”
“You do this thing where you pick on a word I use and go all in on the innuendo.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“Don’t play dumb. You know what you’re doing. Drummers are never dumb.”
He grinned and the walls to either side of them moved, narrowing the room.
“For some reason I enjoy teasing you. I know I shouldn’t,” he said.
“For some reason,” oh that reason. “I’ve been a little formal with you.”
He coughed, all exaggeration. “Except on the beach.”
She sighed. “You hit me with all your naked beauty, and I’m just a girl who works too hard and hasn’t had any fun in a while.”
“Is that so?” he said, chin lowered, smile about to go supernova. The room narrowed again. The whole world was getting smaller. “Seems like bad economics to me.”
“How so?”
“I’d say it’s a tragedy if your needs and wants aren’t being met.”
The wall behind Mena shifted, forcing her to shuffle toward Grip who looked as if he was up for satisfying every need and want she’d ever imagined.
“You like to live dangerously, don’t you?” If her pulse rate was any judge, it was the man at the other end of this shrinking room who was dangerous.
“I like to live truthfully.”
Mena’s breath snagged. Oh fuck. He had to say that. They were forced to take another step closer to each other.
“Are you having fun now?” Grip asked.
She was skittish and terrified and turned on. “I am.”
“Good start.” He tipped his head to the side, considering. “What’s that saying? Start the way you mean to go on. What did you use to do for fun?” All the walls shifted, the shelves sliding together, the linen starting to bunch up.
“You know, the usual.” Strategize about sleeping with every good drummer in the world, culminating with you.
“Nope. Tell me how you used to satisfy needs and wants.”
They took another step towards each other. There was nowhere else to look but at him, nowhere else she wanted to look. “I’d dress up, drink too much and party with my friends.” If she
was being honest, she’d say I had a lot of casual sex and I loved it, but that was veering way too far out into truth-space.
“Sounds reasonable.”
Her next step was more of a shuffle. Mena could no longer open her arms out to the sides without touching shelving as the room closed in around them. It should feel oppressive; it felt impossibly intimate and senselessly safe.
“To be truthful, I was a bit wild and irresponsible. I don’t want to go back to those days, but I do need to loosen up a little.”
“Tells me you don’t have anyone special in your life.”
“Reaching.” She made a mocking sound. “It does not. And I have plenty of special people in my life.”
He smiled, that blaze-across-the-sky smile, and then he hit her with, “Are you seeing anyone?”
Oh, dammit, he went for it. They shuffled towards each other. “I should never have asked you that question. It’s unnecessarily invasive.”
“Did feel like you were—” his glance started at her feet and traveled slowly up her body. She stopped breathing. Their eyes caught and he said, “What was the word you used, yeah, reaching.” They shifted closer. “I’m not seeing anyone, Mena. Haven’t had anyone special in my life long-term.”
Grip wasn’t joking around with that. She could tell by his expression. It ramped her yearning to a perilously high level. She took a step forward and so did he. “I’m sure you will one day.”
“Haven’t had anyone special in my life for a long time either.” He broke eye contact. “There was someone way back that I should’ve hung on to. But I didn’t know then what I know now. “
Sensible, professional, practical Mena should take the opportunity to change the topic. To pull a ripcord and float to safety. The weather, the state of the nation, anything but Grip’s love life, her own needs and wants. She’d left sensible, practical Mena in reception with her coat, laptop and handbag. “Which is?”
They took another shuffle toward each other, sheets and towels padding out the shelves as they got pushed together. She shouldn’t have asked. It was too personal. She made a study of her shoes.
“That some people have the ability to hear the real you through all the noise. They’re worth everything,” he said.
Ah. She had to look up and see his face because that was insightful and beautiful.
The let me out button glowed in her peripheral vision, like the alternative life she might’ve had if she’d gone after a relationship as hard as she’d gone after her career. “Could you find that person again?” She didn’t like to think of him as being alone and lonely.
“It was years ago. The Property of Paradise days. Jay was still with us. We had no idea what we were doing half the time. I couldn’t decide if it was worth the fighting and the constant fear of failing. We had some hits. We had a following. Small but dedicated and that made a huge difference, but I was working two jobs and not making rent some months and still having to go to my parents for a feed.” He shook his head as if he was back there and didn’t like it. She was back there with him and she should hit the panic button now, right now, because this was insanely too close to a time they’d shared.
“You don’t want to hear about this, do you?” he said, as they took another step closer.
Heaven help her, heart in her throat, she nodded. “If you want to tell me.”
“I was ready to give up, and this chick. This woman,” he corrected. “She was goth and smart and funny and had this wicked memory. We spent the time together and we didn’t truly know each other at all but she saw me through the noise.”
Mena’s body chilled. “Goth?” Her voice came out strangely. Grip interpreted that as uncertain and explained.
“Long blue-black hair, pale skin and dark makeup. She wore torn fishnets and vinyl.” He grinned, “Not much of either,” touched his throat. “Studded choker. Skinny. Fire as fuck.”
He could’ve slept with a dozen skinny goth girls. It’s not like Mena had been the only one on the scene, but he’d mentioned memory. She had to take another step towards him. He couldn’t know. He couldn’t possibly know. She’d left no clues to her former life, but she had to be giving them off now. He was going to think she was panicking.
Grip tucked a wayward towel back into the narrowing shelving, his big hand easily creating space for it. She remembered those big hands on her body, the span of them, the weight, the sanctuary of his hold, exciting her, giving her pleasure. She folded her arms to contain the feeling in her body, to put a barrier between the reminiscence and the reality. He could not possibly be talking about Philly.
“She taught me the eighty-twenty rule. She’s the reason I didn’t quit on the band. She’s the reason I’m rich enough to be standing in a squeeze box with my investment advisor.”
Mena locked her arms down on her ribs, her breath shuddering. There was no doubt now. He remembered Philly; if not by name, by the strength of their encounter.
“I’ve slept with a lot of women. But this one. We clicked. Dumbest thing I ever did was pretending it was nothing, walking away and not getting her number.” He dropped his chin as if embarrassed by his revelation. “You probably think I’ve got rose-colored glasses on?”
She shook her head, not trusting her voice and incapable of a response that wasn’t the truth. She’d have given him her number in a flick of his drumstick. Could they have made a life together? Would she have kept the promises she’d made to herself?
“Maybe I do,” he said. “I just know that when I find a woman who can see me through the noise, I am sticking to her like shit on a shoe. You can put that in my financial plan.”
They were standing close enough to touch now. Close enough for Grip to see what he’d said affected her. She unfolded her arms, dropped them to her sides so her forearms didn’t end up pressed to his chest. “I don’t have anyone special in my life.” She had to clear her throat past the tension. “The crushes of my youth were more satisfying than the real thing.” It was the best she could give him for his heartfelt confession.
He gave her a lopsided smile. It was directly connected to her unbalanced libido. “Had crushes, huh?” When the walls shifted, he took a bigger step forward.
He was in her space now. He was all her needs and wants. “Stop doing that.”
Soon they’d be forced to actively avoid touching. The next time he laughed, she’d breathe his humor in. She glued her eyes to Grip’s trainers to avoid looking at him, to avoid falling into the thrill of his closeness, bound up in the swirl of memories and the satisfaction of knowing her goth-self had an impact on him.
Fire as fuck. He thought that of me, fifteen years ago. He remembers Philly.
It was as startling as it was gratifying.
“You’d be too proper to have had crushes on band members,” he said, voice turned so soft she jerked her head up to see his face. Nothing soft in his features, but the angles and planes of his cheekbones and jaw demanded touch.
“You’ll never know.” Though he could probably tell her bra size by the way he was looking at her. Didn’t help that she was seriously short of breath from this mechanical ride, a physical mind trip.
“Ah huh.”
That superior smirk required a rebuttal. “I did think Jay Endicott was amazing.”
He looked at the ceiling, which thankfully had stayed high above their heads. His posture had a kind of abandonment about it. As if he might throw his head back in the throes of ecstasy for her once again. Curse her conflicted heart, she wanted to make him do that from her knees with his hand in her hair.
“Jay Endicott has bad breath and dandruff.”
She laughed. “He does not.” She had no idea if he did, but it was a devious deflection.
Grip refocused on her. “He has a very territorial girlfriend.”
Mena was the one with the rose-colored glasses, romanticizing a past that needed to stay hidden and a life that would never have worked out. Grip was a free spirit, living a large life and Mena had onl
y been borrowing that essence for a teenage rebellion. She was a rock world tourist with a temporary visa, and he was a fully-fledged, tax-paying resident. He was utterly unfiltered, and she was every available disguise.
And if she wanted to protect the life she’d built, which had a lot more structure to it, a lot more constraints and rules, she needed to concentrate on doing that.
“The entertainment industry is fickle. Musicians are notorious players. Their relationships are transient, so I hear.”
“Not Jay and Evie.” Grip drew a heart in the limited space between them with the index fingers of both hands.
He might have been drawing on her soul, sketching the risk of him into her skin. They both took another small step forward. Mena’s breathing hitched. One more step and they’d be pressed against each other. “This is, um.” It was too much and hopelessly magical. “You have stuff in your hair.” She reached up and pulled the strands of fake spider web from his hair, feeling it feather through her fingers.
“Thanks,” his breath ghosted across her cheek and his hands went to her waist, making her flinch. “Is this okay?”
It wasn’t okay, and it wasn’t enough. Lemon scent and lust in the air. Her pulse thudding in her ears. “We don’t have much choice.” They did, there was just enough space not to be body to body, but neither of them wanted to be in it. She put her hands to his shoulders, fixed on his green eyes as her anchor.
“There’s a panic button. Should we panic?” he said.
Racing heartbeat, a tremor in her legs, wings beating in her chest. All the signs of panic, but his words were like a caress. “This is fine.”
He edged a little closer, far closer than they needed to be, his hands sliding around her back, hers sliding around his neck, bringing their bodies completely flush together. “It’s only for a few moments.” His cheek brushed her temple. “They’ll open the escape hatch.”
They breathed each other in. It was the kind of breathing that had nothing to do with life support and everything to do with desire. It tasted sweet and heavy in her mouth. She felt for notes of regret and knew their absence was betrayal. The trapdoor would open, and they’d separate, and this would be one brief stolen moment of inappropriate attraction they’d both knowingly submitted to and would never discuss.
One Wicked Lick from the Drummer (The One Book 3) Page 7
