She whacked his arm. Mosquito to a brown bear. “Yes, later. Not right now, you freaking great hulk.”
He laughed. He was a demon and she was in terrible danger of falling in love with his brand of fun, if she’d ever truly fallen out of it.
He delivered what he’d promised and made her insides hum and spark and her brain free-write a future where they could keep doing this, worshipping each other’s bodies, where neither of them would feel constrained and she never needed to hurt him with the truth.
When she could open her eyes again, feel the weight of the day again, he was resting up on one elbow watching her, on hand splayed on her hip.
“Am I glowing?”
“I was scared of the dark when I was a little tyke and I had this nightlight shaped like a rabbit.” He booped her nose. “You’re glowing like that.”
“I very much regret suggesting you were poetic. I also can’t imagine you being scared of the dark.”
“I was in pre-school, Mena,” he said with gravity. “I was scared of the lawn mower, monsters in the wardrobe, and spaghetti too.”
“Spaghetti?”
“I didn’t say it made sense.” He bounded upright. “Are you hungry?”
“Are you going to demonstrate your fearlessness by cooking spaghetti?”
She didn’t get a snappy comeback. She got the slow drag of his index finger over her nose and lips and chin, along her neck and down her chest, between her breasts to her belly where he flattened his hand. Both of them got lost in that caress, in the deliberateness of it.
“I can’t stop touching you,” he said.
“Is it because I look like a rabbit?”
“It’s because you’re luminous.”
Her heart rabbit-kicked in her chest. If only he knew she was the monster in the wardrobe.
SIXTEEN
They’d fucked through the afternoon and into early evening and Grip was starving. He took a shower and left Mena to do the same and went downstairs to raid the fridge. Got as far as staring into it, not seeing anything because his head was so full of the woman in his bed with swollen lips and tangled hair that all he could see was what it might be like to have her there always.
Had to be the hunger talking.
He told Alexa to fire up his lazy afternoon playlist, nothing of his own, nothing he was tempted to drum along with, made a Greek salad and grilled chicken tenders and pieces of salmon. He hoped she liked either, both. Mena could be vegetarian for all he knew. Shit. He added slices of eggplant, tomato and haloumi cheese to the grill.
It was all very well to know what Mena’s breathing sounded like when she was close to coming but if he wanted to keep her, he had to know how to feed her, care for her in all the other ways that counted.
“Not that you’re getting ahead of yourself much, dimwit.”
He was hopelessly out of tempo with Mena, and it should’ve scared him witless. He stopped, tongs in hand, to check in with that thought and nope, there was none of that itch that hit him when he was in something he wanted out of. Awesome.
He was ready to serve their meal when Mena appeared in her underwear. His chin must’ve been close to dragging on the ground because she laughed.
“I don’t know what happened to my dress, or my other undies.” She approached the kitchen counter. “You cooked for us.”
“You eat animals?”
“I’m a horrible person, I do.”
“Since you have fresh undies, I’m keeping that other pair.”
“Keeping them?”
“In case something bad should happen to them.”
She shook her head with a grin, but she didn’t protest. “I’ll go get your dress.”
“Or you could give me your T-shirt.”
What new Insta aesthetic was this? He looked down. He’d grabbed the tee on top of the clean pile. It was vintage AC/DC. Gray, red lettering, faded and soft from long years of washing.
“You just want to see me shirtless again.” He’d lost a lot of great shirts this way. Women thought they looked cute in oversized men’s tees for some reason that’d always mystified him. Women looked good in clothes that fit or nothing at all.
“I vote for naked, but since you’re cooking you can keep the jeans.”
He came around the counter and yanked his shirt over his head and handed it to Mena. She put it on. It hung off her shoulders; the sleeves falling to her elbows, flowed over her body, the hem hitting her mid-thigh. The scales fell from his eyes. She looked incredible. He curled and uncurled his hands. She looked like she was his.
“Grip?”
“Yeah.”
“Is everything okay?”
“It will be.” Spreading his legs to reduce the height difference between them, he reached for her, hoisted her in close and kissed her toothpaste-fresh mouth, one hand to the back of her head, one to her delectable arse. “I like you in my clothes.”
“Not as much as you like me undressed.”
“Not true. I like you in your fancy underwear.” She bit his bottom lip. “Okay, I like you naked a whole lot. But we’re going to work on that.”
“Didn’t we just do that? I’ve got the orgasms to prove it.”
“I mean we’re going to work on the not being naked bit.” He had a brainwave. Twenty questions with a twist. “It’ll be like a game.”
She had her hands around his neck, looking at him with an expression that he’d call game for anything. She had so many layers he wanted to climb inside each of them and wrap them around himself like blankets.
When she’d klutzed it into the boardroom at S&Y, she’d been nervous and annoyed with herself for
