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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.
