She said, “Grip, I—” but he talked over her, “Mena, what I said before—” he stopped when her knee brushed his. It was just a smooth knee touching a hairy one underwater, but it made him lose the rest of the sentence. “What were you going to say?”
“I, ah. What happened to Big Dave?” she asked. “I love knowing you had an imaginary friend. When did you stop believing in him?”
“About the same time I stopped being afraid of killer pasta.”
“And when was that?”
He lowered his head, pretend embarrassment. “Pass.”
Mena laughed and shifted to lean into him, thigh to thigh, hip to hip, her shoulder resting on his bicep. “How old were you when you had your first kiss?”
“Twenty.” The age he was when the memory of kisses that hooked deep with Philly lingered.
She tried to elbow him, a dull thud on his ribs. “No, really.”
“First kiss. Eighteen. Last year of high school. Old by your standard.”
“Who was she?”
“Natalie Nguyen. Smartest girl in the year. Violinist. It was a dare.”
“Yours?”
Did Mena sound snippy? “Nat’s. She was uber ballsy.” Would she make another move to touch him?
“Did you have sex?”
Mena was still. Only the spa bubbles stirred. “That was a dare too, but it worked out just fine. We both knew enough not to get hurt and Nat had done research, so we had a very fun summer together.”
“Your first girlfriend taught you how to have sex.”
He’d not thought about it like that. The summer after exams finished had been one long lesson about what made sex good and how it could go bad.
“Yeah. She did much better than Big Dave would’ve.”
“Thank you, Natalie Nguyen. You’re a goddess.” Mena rested her head against his shoulder. Nat was lead violinist in an orchestra in Europe. A genuine goddess through and through. “If you weren’t a musician, what would you be?”
He had to think about it. Took the opportunity to put his arm around Mena, press them closer together. “I’ve done a lot of other things. Builder’s laborer, brickie, shelf stacker at a supermarket, storeman in a warehouse. There were a lot of times I thought I’d have to do something else full-time. I’ve been so fucking lucky that I always had music.”
Mena turned her face into his shoulder and kissed him. “Ever been crazy about anyone?” She put her finger against his lips. “I know this one already.” He kissed that finger and she pulled it away with a nose wrinkling smile. “That long ago goth girl.”
And the woman who was with him now. He had to tell her he’d been out of line. That if this was something more than a hot infatuation, it needed time to take shape.
“What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?” she asked.
“Ah, what I said in the music room, it was—”
“I’m falling in love with you too.”
He gawped at her. That. What? She didn’t. No. Way too soon. He snapped his jaw closed. “It’s the endorphins. We’re high. You could be over me by morning.”
“I could be.” Her out breath was an audible swoosh. She shifted to sit across his thighs, making a wave slosh over the side. “If you snore in bed tonight, I’ll be over you before we get to sunrise.”
“That’s more like it.” Take it easy, slugger. Slow it down. “I might snore up a symphony. Pleased to know you have a contingency plan.”
She laughed. That was the right response. This was funny. The two of them, saying stupid things they didn’t mean because the sex was fantastic and the mood was right. “You just said that falling for me thing so I wouldn’t feel like a lovesick tragic, right?”
She pushed her fingers through his hair. “Do you feel like a lovesick tragic?”
He snorted. “No.” Yes. This conversation was making him more anxious than the actual love declaration, which was so natural he hadn’t considered it awkward until Mena had gotten tense and frosty. You couldn’t fall in love with someone so quickly with nothing but sweat and semen to stick you together.
Could you?
Nah. That was lust. And there was no lack of that between them. Except that’s how it was for Evie and Jay. Stuck on each other from the moment they met and wild with it. Absolute knuckleheads not to respect it, wasted years being apart. And Teela and Haydn. One dirty weekend was all it took for them to know they’d found a mate for life, and they’d had mad realistic barriers to making it together.
Lightning striking twice.
Three times a charm?
Not bloody likely. “This thing with us.” He brought her hand to his chest, held it over his heart, unsure how to go on.
“Let’s not name it.”
“Yeah, fair call.” Made life easier. Made him feel twitchy, so what was that about? What if Mena was the one for him and he didn’t pay enough attention, let her slip away before he knew what kind of music they could make together. He’d done that once before. Swore he’d never do it again, but he’d never been tested since.
Motherfuck.
This was a test.
And he needed to ace it. Meanwhile, he needed to square something with her. “What I said before about giving up the piano. That’s only half of it.”
The water was level with her nipples, her breasts so buoyant he almost forgot what he intended to say next. “The real reason I gave up playing is that I kept freezing on stage.”
She put her hand to his face and he leaned a little into it. He never talked about this. He’d let it beat him and there was a
