He hated her.
He still wanted her.
“Come here.” He shifted back on the throne, made room for her to sit on the saddle peak between his knees. When she leaned in to kiss him, he turned his face, making her blink in confusion and put her glasses on.
“Have you ever hit a drum?”
She shook her head, stepped around his knee and eased to sit, soft and warm against his sweaty hardness, trusting and misleading. Fuck, she must have been laughing at him since the beginning. It explained her stumbling into the S&Y boardroom, it was uncharacteristic clumsiness. She hadn’t known it would be him. But she remembered, and she’d decided while he was flirting with her under the table that she’d string him along, make a fool of him.
“Put your hands on mine. Don’t let go.”
r /> Wasn’t that what he wanted a woman to say to him, hold me and don’t let go. Built a fantasy in his head it could be this woman who said those words.
Her weight settling against him and she slid her hands over his. He struck the ride cymbal and she started with a shocked exclamation.
“Put your feet on mine.”
“I’m going to feel you play.”
Bare feet on top of his, she was going to feel it all. The shock, the sadness, the humiliation, the rage, the cold, cold air that filled his lungs and formed icicles to stab at the taut drumskin of his heart.
He started slow, a tentative introduction to the bass, the snare and the high hat. Her hands and feet stayed put over his. He brought in the crash cymbal and the floor tom and she had to work a little harder not to lose her hold on him, she had to balance when she didn’t know what move he was going to make next. Justice. He’d been off-balance since he’d met her.
He should’ve been wearing ear plugs. He should’ve given her a set. He was about to get loud. He was about to make her work to keep up. It wasn’t easy to reach the middle and high tom around her body, his arms squeezing against her ribs. He played faster, the intro drum solo to “Extraordinary.” The title track of the album. She should know it. She’d seen it live a dozen times before she’d caught his eye, her goth glamour, her edgy little body, nothing like the lushness she had now. But underneath the changes to her body, she was still the girl with the flashing intelligence, the incredible memory, all those liner notes she’d memorized and could perform on command.
Fifteen years ago, she’d used those weapons to make him believe in himself, to win a permanent corner of his soul. Now she’d used them to make him doubt everything.
Her feet slipped from his. “I can’t keep up.”
In her voice an edge of anxiety. He felt no shame about putting it there. “You know this. I know you do.”
She took her hands away. He’d hit the second drum solo part of the song and he didn’t relent. He gave it everything he had left, stopping only when Mena slid to the floor between his knees.
She looked up at him, eyes wide. “Grip, what’s happening?”
“Why, Mena?” Maybe there was a reason she hadn’t told him. Fucking better be good.
He dropped the sticks and reached for the hem of his shirt, dragging it up over her hip. The mark was gone. The drum throne clattered on the floor as he stood and kicked it away, hands to his head to contain his temper. “You used makeup to cover it.”
He heard guilt in her gasp. “I should have told you.”
She’d told him all about herself, neglected to tell him the one thing that mattered most.
He didn’t give her a chance to gaslight him again. The spa, the rubbing down, the sex that followed, revealed her true self. “Extraordinary.” Her research wasn’t desk, it was primary, up close and fucking personal. “I drew that on your hip, Philly.”
Philly, Mena, whoever she was, scrambled to her feet. She didn’t deny it. She didn’t explain it.
The shock of her deception was a line of nerve pain that ran from the top of his head to his balls and back again, slamming into his stomach and making his head buzz.
“You don’t get a cent of my money.”
“I don’t. It’s not like that. I wanted to tell you. I should’ve tried . . .”
Nerves of Antarctic tundra, he waited for her to say something, anything to help him make sense of this. He got nothing.
This was a test all right and he’d passed it.
“It would’ve hurt less if you’d kicked me in the nuts.” He couldn’t look at her. “You should go.”