I have no idea where he’s going with this, but I can’t pretend I’m not curious. I just stare at him, knowing he doesn’t need my permission to go on.
“Everyone was playing cards, and then I left the room and was gone for a long time.” He presses his forearm to the door behind me and over my head until our bodies are practically flush. “Remember?”
“You said my chili sent you to the bathroom,” I say breathlessly.
I'm not a great cook and was surprised the chili turned out halfway decent. Grip was the only one who complained.
“I’m sorry about that.” He grins at me, his eyes lighting with temporary mischief. “I lied. Your chili was pretty good. It really was. No, I wasn’t in the bathroom. I went to your bedroom. Ya know. To explore.”
“My bedroom?” I can’t believe him. “How dare you?”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures. I have no problem playing dirty. I welcome it actually. But I stumbled upon something in the drawer by your bed that was very telling.”
There’s two drawers in my bedside table. One holds journals and a few items that would tell him too much about my feelings. That drawer remains locked, so he wouldn’t have seen what was inside. But the other drawer . . .
“I’ve never seen so many vibrators in one place.” Grip’s grin is half teasing, half cruel. “Residential, of course. You’ve got your own black market sex store in there.”
My face heats, and I cannot even form words. Embarrassment chokes me.
“I figure anyone with that many vibrators can’t be coming on the regular. With a guy, I mean,” he clarifies unnecessarily.
“Stop it.” I fire the words at him, so angry, so humiliated I want to slap him.
“It’s okay.” With gentle fingers he brushes the heavy hair back from my forehead. “I think I understand the problem. It isn’t you. It’s them.”
I push away from the wall, only to be blocked and gently but firmly pressed back against the door.
“Guys, we can be so clumsy.” He shakes his head and sighs. “You know? Quick. Selfish.”
He trails fingers down my arm to link our fingers.
“See, I bet they start here,” he whispers, slipping his hand between us until his fingers lightly drift across the space just below my belly where my thighs juncture. My panties soak with the promise of his fingers. My breath catches at the brief contact where I crave him most.
“When they should start . . .” His hand glides up and over my belly and between my breasts. Over the curve of my shoulder and neck until he reaches his destination. He finally taps my temple three times. “Here. They should start here and work their way down because your mind is your most erogenous zone, Bris. I look forward to making you come with my words alone.”
I fumble with the knob behind my back until the door swings open. I take several steps into the apartment. I can think more clearly now that I’m away from that tower of muscle, bone, and heat standing pressed against me. The strong girl who has resisted him all these years is regaining her composure.
“Whatever you think you know about me,” I yell, not bothering to turn around. “About my sex life, about anything—you have no idea.”
I stride over to the couch and retrieve my bag, determined to get out of here with the hard shell still around my soft places. When I’m at the front door, I glance back, surprised to see Grip still in the stairwell where I left him, the door standing wide open. Our eyes clash one last time, and there’s a coalition of sadness and frustration and want in his gaze. I can’t afford to look too long, so I make a dash for the door, hoping against hope that he won’t come after me.
I’m nearly at my car by the time I realize I’m perversely saddened he didn’t follow.
Grip
I PROBABLY SHOULDN’T have kissed her.
Second thought, hell with that.
I’d do it again if given the opportunity. That’s just it. There hasn’t been an opportunity, no opening for years. And then all of a sudden last night, a crack. Something inside of Bristol opened just a fraction, but it was enough for me to explore and exploit. I would have explored and exploited all night if she had let me, but that space sealed shut almost immediately. Something shut her down. I don’t know what holds Bristol back from making us . . . an us. It has to be more than what happened with Tessa.
I saw that crack in the wall she’s used to keep me out. Maybe my Shawshank plan is working. Rhyson, Bristol’s brother and my best friend, would appreciate that, movie geek that he is. In Shawshank Redemption, Andy hangs a poster on the wall in his prison cell. At night for years, he secretly chips at that wall until one day, he’s made a hole big enough to crawl through and escape. That’s me. Chipping away at that wall for years, and last night may have been a breakthrough.
Or not.
Because as Bristol walks down the hall of the Prodigy offices, headed straight for me, there’s barely a flicker of recognition in her eyes, much less desire. She nods to me before carefully brushing past to enter the conference room for our meeting.
There’s already a few people here, including Bristol’s assistant Sarah. They chat as Bristol sets her iPad and phone on the table, her movements easy and graceful. She wears her hair in one of those complicated braid things it looks like you need a degree to do, the dark and coppery length tamed to rest on one shoulder. She’s paired dark skinny jeans with her trademark stilettos and a slouchy shirt hangs off one shoulder.
The seat beside her is occupied, so I take the one across from her. She glances up, catching my eyes on her. The tiny frown pulling between her brows is the only indication she gives that she even knows I’m here.
“Let the party begin,” Rhyson says from the door, wearing one of the ear-to-ear grins he seems to have all the time since he got married. The fact that Kai is also pregnant . . . well, let’s just say it must hurt to smile that hard.
“You think you could tone down that smile, Rhys?” Max, Prodigy’s head marketing guy and cynic-in-chief, asks. “It’s too early for such joy.”
Rhyson takes the seat at the head of the table, but his smile doesn’t budge. Max just came through a nasty divorce, so he and Rhys are in very different places. So are we, for that matter. I won’t lie. Seeing Rhyson settle down with someone who loves him the way Kai does and seeing them preparing for their first kid, it makes me wonder how close I am to any of that. I’m knocking on thirty years old. I’m in no hurry, though. My album drops in three weeks, and all my hard work is about to pay off. Is already paying off. Still, I’d like someone to share it with. Not just some groupie. A friend, a lover, a partner.
Bristol’s head is lowered over an open folder. As hard as she works, as single-minded as she is about her job, you’d never guess family is everything to her. I’ve never met anyone who works harder than Bristol. She’s ambitious, yes, but people don’t realize what fuels it. She works hard for the people she cares about. I’m not even sure that Rhyson’s career would have exploded the way it did without Bristol. She was the one who pushed him to get back to making his own music. When she and Rhyson were barely on speaking terms, she chose her degree based on his future and relocated from New York with no guarantees. She’s sacrificed a lot over the last year building this record label not just for success, but out of love for her brother.
I always refused when she asked to manage me, too, because I didn’t want to be just a job to her. I gave in a few months ago, hoping that working together so closely would force her to acknowledge the attraction, the connection between us. But she has somehow managed to keep me out, even as she propelled my career forward. I had success before she came onboard, but I know the unprecedented doors opening for me now are doors Bristol banged on and kicked in.
“Before we get started,” Rhyson says, his grin now aimed at me and growing. “Marlon, dude, what the hell happened to your hair? Kitchen fire?”
He and my mom. The only ones who still call me Marlon.
“Jokes.” I nod, suppressing my grin. We pretty much bust each other’s balls every chance we get, a fifteen-year habit. “Nah. Just wanted something different.”