Especially since he did remember.
Not necessarily the moment he drew on her hip, but the woman she once was. If he found out now, well past the moment she should have come clean, he’d make a worse liar of her. He’d be hurt and betrayed.
She couldn’t think about that now when he waited for her all sex tousled and barely decent and likely up for another round if she was lucky.
They ate toasties, facing off across her new kitchen island bench and Mena stopped worrying about tomorrow and let herself be still in this time with him, knowing it would need to be the memory that sustained her for the rest of her life.
“Would you like another?” she asked, standing as Grip, wearing only his boxer briefs came around the bench with his plate in hand. It was a crime he ever wore anything else.
“You offering me more?” He put the plate in the sink and trailed a hand down her back and up under her satin robe to squeeze her butt cheek.
Wanton that she was, she arched her back. “I’ve got mango chutney.”
“Unless I can eat it off you, fuck the chutney,” he said, putting his lips to her neck.
How was it possible that her body was responding to him again? “Really, you don’t like chutney.”
“I like you more. I like you a whole fucking lot.”
She leaned back into him, head turned to look in his eyes. “What should we do about that?”
“I was thinking we go back to bed.”
“And?” He could do anything he wanted to her.
“And you have to work in about five hours and if I try hard, I can keep my hands off you long enough to let you sleep.”
Oh. That was thoughtful and painful at the same time. Five hours until the real-world crash landed on them. Tempting to play hooky, what would one day going missing from work matter?
“I have a band meeting tomorrow, but I can snooze through that. You have to go make people money and no one should screw with that.”
Except here he was respecting her work ethic. She turned in his arms and looped her hands over his shoulders. It seemed like a long time and a lot had happened since they’d stood like this in the linen press.
“You, Mark Grippen, are a big softie under that rock star persona.”
That had been her assessment of him fifteen years ago but like their bodies had changed, she’s assumed his nature had. Success, adulation on a grand scale, money, those were forces that not only enabled change, they inspired it.
She wasn’t the carefree hedonist, game for anything anymore. She was more like her cautious, hardworking mother than she’d ever thought possible when she was dressing in fake leather and lace, so why would he still be the outwardly cocky, considerate sweetheart he’d once been.
“Who told you that? Officially the press pack refers to me as a larrikin for Australian audiences and a maverick for the rest of the world. If it gets around that I’m a hefting great big marshmallow, it’ll be bad for my image and imagine how many crap investments I’ll make then.”
“I’ll save you from crap investments.”
One minute she was standing pressed against him, ready for a kiss, the next he’d turned the grill off, rinsed off their plates, loaded the dishwasher and picked her up. “My hero,” he said.
“You’re not going to carry me up the stairs, are you?”
“That is where the bed is.” He winced. “Bad idea?”
“Narrow staircase. Needs replacing.”
“Honey, I haven’t met a tight spot I couldn’t worm my way out of yet.” If he tripped it was going to hurt, if he dropped her, she could break a limb. “Do you trust me?”
Tonight, she trusted him. On the stairs, in her bed, in her arms. Tomorrow was another story.
He took the creaky stairs at a steady pace, keeping her tucked tight against him, watching that he didn’t catch her feet on the banister. Halfway up on the little landing she relaxed, lowering her head to his shoulder and he squeezed her tighter. “You didn’t trust me.”
Her answer was cut off by her shriek as he took the next set of stairs at a gallop, bursting into the bedroom and tossing her on the bed. He came down after her, holding himself above her in a press-up, pelvis and stomach grazing hers, nose to nose.
He said, “I wouldn’t trust me either,” before he kissed her, dropped to her side and rolled them into a spoon, his knees behind hers, his big hand cupping her hip, thumb almost against her tattoo.
“Goodnight, Mena.”
“You’ll stay?” She didn’t want to wake and find him gone. She wasn’t ready to lose him now she’d found him again.
He nuzzled the back of her neck. “I got you.”
He had her, conflicted heart and liar’s soul.
She didn’t close her eyes until his steady breathing, the heaviness of his arm, told her he was asleep. She should be too, but on the other side of unconsciousness was everything she’d parked for passion. They’d have to talk. She’d have to make it clear this was a one-off thing. Something that shouldn’t have happened, no matter how good they’d made each other feel. Something that had to remain unspoken.
In another week or two his strategy would be written. Its execution was in the hands of other experts. She wouldn’t need to see him again, could monitor the strategy and communicate online and then Caroline would come back to work and take over.
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. It was that she didn’t truly
