“I told Jimmi we’ll see her later.” Grip walks toward me in the alleyway. “Let’s get you home.”
My anger has died off, and so has his, apparently. His voice is gentle, his eyes compassionate. He sees too clearly, too much. He detects all the hurt festering under my clingy bandage dress. I hate that he’s so sweet and still a player. I won’t forget about the bees. And the honey. And the chocolate.
“God, just leave me alone.” Pressing into the brick wall at my back, I hold my head in my hands. “I’ve already told you I’m horny, and you just keep . . .”
I growl and fist my hair and my frustration in my fingers.
“You’re right.” I stand straight. “Let’s just go.”
I push off the wall at my back only to collide with a wall of muscles and heat at my front. Neither of us makes a move to put any distance between us. My breath stutters over my lips as I fight the magnetic pull of him. We stand there in the alley, trapped in a sensual stasis, unmoving except for our chests heaving against each other’s with each labored breath. His hands find the curve of my waist, the dip of my back. He doesn’t press me to him, but his touch scorches through the thin material of my dress. He drops his head, pressing his temple to mine, and draws in a breath behind my ear.
“Did you just . . .” I search for the right word, “whiff me?”
His husky laugh leaves warm breath at my neck, skittering a shiver down my spine.
“It’s better than the alternative,” he says.
“Which is what?” I pull back to peer up at his face.
“Kissing you.” His eyes boil from caramel to hot chocolate. Sweet, hot, steamy need spikes in the look he pours over me.
“I’m not doing this with you, Grip.” I close my eyes, my hands covering his on my hips. I mean to push them away, but my fingers won’t move. They trap his touch against me.
“We just met yesterday,” I remind him and myself.
“I know.” He shakes his head. “You’re my best friend’s sister.”
“I live in New York.”
“I’m here in LA.”
“I don’t even know you.” I laugh a little. “And what I do know is not good. You’re a player.”
“Who told you that?” Irritation crinkles his expression.
“Um, you basically did.” I roll my eyes. “And Jimmi. And Rhyson.”
“They shouldn’t . . .” He sighs, releasing his frustration into the stale alley air. “I understand why they would say that, but this isn’t . . . you’re not . . .”
He bites his bottom lip, a gesture that seems so uncertain when he’s been anything but.
“Don’t be upset with them for telling me the obvious,” I say. “I saw all those girls tonight for myself. I know what it’s like for musicians.”
“I don’t even know those girls.”
“You barely know me, either.”
He doesn’t reply, but the way he looks at me—the pull between us—defies my statement. We know each other. Not in terms of hours or days, but something deeper. Something more elemental. I can’t deny it, but I have no idea what to do with it.
“Look, I can admit I’m attracted to you.” Grip surveys my body one more time before clenching his eyes closed and giving his head a quick shake. “Damn, that dress, Bristol. All fucking night.”
An involuntary smile tugs at my lips, but I pinch it into a tiny quirk of the lips instead of the wide, satisfied thing sprawling inside me.
“Not all night.” I firm my lips. “You had quite the fan base. Women lined up after your performance.”
“Thirsty chicks.” Grip grimaces. “Banking on the off chance that one day I’ll be something they can eat off of. Maybe get themselves a baby daddy. Get some bills paid every month.”
“It isn’t an off chance,” I say softly. “It’s a certainty.”
“What’s a certainty?” A frown conveys his confusion.
“That you’ll be something one day.” I point toward the door leading back into the club. “When you grabbed that mic, when you took that stage, it was obvious you’re as talented as Rhyson. It looks and sounds different, but you both have that special quality that makes people watch and listen. You can’t teach that or train it. You either have it or you don’t.”
I offer a smile.
“And you have it.”
Surprise and then something else, maybe self-consciousness, cross his face. For one so bold and sure, it’s funny to see.
“Yeah, well, thanks.” He shrugs and goes on. “Anyway, I know the deal. My mama schooled me on girls like that.”
“Your mother sounds very wise.”
“Very. She made sure I knew their game.”
He waves a hand between our chests.
“This, what we’re feeling,” he says, his eyes going sober. “It isn’t a game.”
I hold my breath, waiting for him to tell me we should jump off this cliff. That as crazy as it seems, we’ll hold on tight and break each other’s fall.
“It’s complicated.” He lowers his eyes before lifting them to meet mine. “It’s just an attraction, and we should probably resist it. I mean, you’re only here a few days. If things didn’t work out for us, it could make shit awkward with Rhyson, and I know you want to repair things with him. There’s a million reasons we shouldn’t act on this attraction. Right?”
“Right.” I offer a decisive nod. “A million reasons.”
As we ride back to Grady’s bungalow in our first strained silence since we met at the airport, I realize he was wise to stop whatever could have happened in the alley. It would probably have been a half drunken regret. There are a million reasons we should stop. But right now, I can only think of the one reason not to stop.
Because I don’t want to.
Bristol
THE RIDE HOME from Brew is mostly silent. Yet, it’s a silence filled with all the reasons Grip and I shouldn’t indulge the attraction plaguing us. Grip’s scent alone—more than clean, less than cologne, and somehow uniquely his—makes me close my eyes and take it in with sneaky sniffs. I wonder if he’s taking me in, too. I still tingle from that alleyway alchemy, the chemistry that snapped and sizzled between us behind the club. It’s all I can think of.
“We’re here.” His voice is deep and low in the confines of the car.
I glance at Grady’s house, which is dark except for the porch light, and wonder if Rhyson is home, awake, interested in finishing the argument we started earlier. Because who doesn’t want to scratch and claw with their sister at two o’clock in the morning?
“Thanks.” I turn a grateful smile on him, not meeting his eyes. I fumble with the handle until the door opens, the cool air raising goose bumps on my arms. Or maybe that’s his touch, the gentle hand at my elbow. I look back to him, waiting for whatever he has to say.
“Bristol, I . . .” He bunches his brow and gives a quick shake of his head before turning to face forward. Both hands on the wheel of the ancient Jeep. “Never mind.”
“Um, okay.” I get out, ready to slam the door when his words stop me again.
“I had fun tonight.” He leans across the middle console so I can see his face a little. His interior light doesn’t work, so he’s still basically in the dark. The shadows smudge the striking details of his face, but I feel the intensity of his eyes.
“You had fun wrangling a half drunk girl off the dance floor and arguing in a dirty alleyway?” I ask sarcastically. “Yeah, right.”
I hear the little huff of a laugh from the driver’s seat.
“I had fun hanging with you,” he responds softly, the smile tinting his voice.
I let his words settle over me for a moment before I pat the roof of the car twice and step back.
“Me, too,” I finally answer. “Have a good night and thanks for everything.”
Manners.
As Grip pulls away from the curb, I can’t help but wonder why I’m being painfully polite when what I’m starting to feel for him is anything but well mannered.