Rhythm by Marie Lipscomb

Chapter Nine

Finn

Relief washes over him as she finally accepts the cash, and tucks it safely in her backpack. Although it pains him a little, to see the money go. He had been saving to soundproof his practice room, but his neighbors are just going to have to put up with him a while longer. He’s not about to let the masterpiece out of his sight.

“I’ll donate it as soon as I get back,” she tells him.

He just about dies when she bends down to set her bag on the floor. Though he quickly tears his eyes away from the sight of her round ass thrust up toward him, his cock still twitches. He imagines dropping to his knees behind her and burying his face in her pussy.

Turning back to the painting, he tries to distract himself with the riot of color before him. “I can’t wait to show this to the rest of the band. They’ll be so jealous.”

As she heads over to the kitchen to clean her brushes, she flashes him a smile which nearly sends his blood boiling. “Well if they want portraits too, send them my way. I take commissions.”

“Alright, but you can’t make theirs as cool as mine. Deal?”

“I can’t take all the credit. You’re an excellent model.”

Part of him thinks she might be interested in him, but a voice in the back of his mind tells him he’s delusional. They barely know anything about each other beyond first names.

She cocks her eyebrow as she heads back to the couch. “Vixen’s Wail, right?”

Hearing his band’s name on her lips again takes him a moment to process. “Yeah… how do you know?”

“A friend of mine looked you up.”

That’s a good sign… maybe. It has to be, right? If she’s been talking about him to her friend, it means she’s been thinking about him. He’s worth digging up information on. Then again, it’s entirely possible and extremely understandable that she’s been bad-mouthing him.

She sits on the sofa, picking blue paint from beneath her nails.

“So,” he hovers between the easel and the sofa, afraid to sit beside her. He has no qualms about his body, and has never been shy, but in her presence he’s all too aware of his bare skin. “What else did your spy network uncover?”

Her eyes dart to him as her lips quirk. “That you’re the drummer in a symphonic metal band.”

“Damn… my secret’s out.”

“And that’s about it. She’s honestly not a very good spy.”

“Considering she only had my first name to go off, that’s pretty impressive. And it’s still more than I know about you.”

She reclines, resting her arms on the back of the sofa, her shirt stretching tight over her chest. Perhaps, she sees him as completely non-threatening, and she’s simply comfortable around him like his bandmates are. If that’s the case, then it’s cool. He’s more than happy to be her friend if it’s all she wants. He’d never do anything to betray her trust.

But maybe… just maybe… she’s actually trying to get a rise out of him, in the most literal sense.

“Well,” she says, fixing him in place with her stare. “What would you like to know?”

Beth

She can’t tell if it’s working. It’s been so long since seduction was anything other than having some random guy grind against her ass in the bar. She can’t even tell if this is seduction. Finn is completely unreadable, standing before her pretty much naked but for the towel, but entirely too cool about it. He doesn’t answer her question, and perhaps he doesn’t really care to know much about her.

She breathes a gentle huff of laughter and smiles at him. “Why don’t you sit?”

He does, leaving one of the sofa’s cushions between them. Despite the distance, he’s certainly not shy about his near nudity. He drapes the arm closest to her across the back of the sofa, while he fidgets with a red guitar pick in his other hand. His thighs are parted, and straining against the confines of the towel. He has big thighs, she can tell, and she can’t help but wonder if they’re as hairy as the rest of him.

Heat pools at the bottom of her stomach as she imagines raking her nails along those thighs… kneeling between them…

“Every question I can think of sounds really weird.” He laughs a bit. “Like I’m fishing for personal information.”

“Alright, well since we’re apparently now on vacation together, let’s make it a game. I’ll tell you two truths and a lie. You have to guess which is the lie.”

He turns to her, and his face brightens. “Sure.”

After a moment’s hesitation she begins their game. “I’m… an artist by night, but by day I work in a call center. I recently turned thirty but I don’t really remember a whole lot of my party. And…” She sinks her teeth into her lower lip. She’ll keep it safe for now. Right now, she wants to get to know him better. “When I was a kid, I had a dog. A poodle named Noodle.”

He laughs. “Okay. I desperately want the Noodle one to be true, and I can believe the call center one because you have a nice voice.”

Her heart skips a little at the compliment. “I do?”

He nods. “I’m going to say the middle one is the lie.”

“Really… do you think I’m older or younger than thirty?”

His face flushes a shade darker. “This is harassment, I refuse to answer.”

A bark of laughter escapes her, and she rocks forward, placing her hand on his forearm. A jolt spreads through her body at the touch. He’s so sturdy and warm. His arms are thick and muscular—presumably from drumming—and like his torso, dusted with fine, dark hair. The realization she wants nothing more than to have those arms wrapped around her, swiftly becomes a craving.

“You’re wrong, I’m afraid.” She chuckles. “But you’ll be pleased to know that Noodle Von Doodle was very real.”

He whispers, “Yes,” beneath his breath and curls his fingers into a celebratory fist. “So where do you work during the day?”

“A bar,” she smiles. “The Mayfly.”

“Oh hey, I think I know that place!” He grins. “Just in town, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So, you’re pretty local?”

“Yeah pretty much, just down the mountain.”

“Cool.”

She must be absolutely scarlet by now. Her face prickles from the heat, from the need to climb on top of him, lose herself in all his strength and softness. “Your turn.”

He sits back, and thinks for a moment. “Alright. So… I’m twenty-nine. I can play any instrument really well, but I love drums because I like being loud.” He jabs at his knees with the guitar pick as he thinks. “And my grandma owns this cabin.”

She stares blankly. He has her stumped. “Okay… I need to sound this one out. The instrument one is obviously true, because the evidence is right here.”

He nods as a wry smile spreads across his face.

Beth side-eyes him but continues undaunted. “I spoke to the owner of the cabin when I got here. I can’t decide what I imagine your grandma sounds like.”

His chest shakes as he chuckles silently. “Logical. I like your approach.”

“I’m going to go with the twenty-nine one being false, because it’ll make me feel better about myself if you’re actually older than me.”

“Ahh,” he grits his teeth. “I’m sorry. The instrument one was a lie.”

“This game is bullshit,” she pouts, throwing her head back as she opens her arms in surrender. When he stops laughing, she sits back up. “So, this is your grandma’s cabin then?”

“Yep.”

“That’s awesome. So, you can come up here whenever you want?”

“Pretty much, as long as it isn’t already booked. I still pay though. I don’t want her to lose out on money just because her grandson wants to hit things for a couple of weeks.”

A wide smile tugs at her lips. “That’s adorable.”

He shrugs. “Could you leave her a nice review, if it’s not too much trouble? Someone gave her a three-star review last year because the foliage wasn’t golden enough and she’s still upset about it.”

“I will,” she promises. That bastard. She’s falling so fast she’s about to reach terminal velocity.

“Thanks. She’ll appreciate it. And as for instruments, I’m good on guitar and keyboard, excellent on drums,” he smirks. “But the orchestral elements, the cello, violins and stuff… Mia writes those. She’s our vocalist.”

“And she’s the one you dated?” The words leave her mouth before she can stop them.

The moments stretch on for eternity as he turns to face her, one eyebrow arched. “So your spy did find out more than just the name of the band.”

“I’m sorry. I… like, it’s really none of my business. It seemed rude to bring it up before.”

“It’s fine,” he shrugs. “We did date for a little while years ago, but it felt kind of weird. Like we were just better as friends. It’s all cool. We still collaborate on the song writing and obviously work together, but it’s purely platonic. We’re nowhere near famous but we have a fanbase, and a few of them are reluctant to let that ship sail, despite the fact she’s now happily married.” The air between them grows heavy as he draws a breath. “But I’m completely single. Have been for a while.”

The pulse in Beth’s neck is leaping and her throat is tight and dry. “Same,” she all but whispers, and her eyes, her treacherous eyes, trail down to his mouth.

She moistens her own lips with the tip of her tongue and clears her throat. “Do you want to play again?”

Finn

“Yeah.” His heart is hammering against his ribs, and he grips the pick in his fist so she doesn’t see his hands tremble. The way she looks at him makes him feel like he’s burning up. “Your turn.”

She pulls in a deep breath and turns her whole body to face him, drawing her knees up on the couch. The air is practically pulsing between them.

“Okay,” she breathes. Her throat twitches as she swallows. “My favorite animals are penguins. I can ride a unicycle…” Another stilted breath. “And I really want to kiss you.”

The world cartwheels around them. Everything else is out of focus.

There is only her.

Her eyes are wide as though she doesn’t quite believe what she said. It’s ludicrous, but he desperately wants her too. It was only that morning they were intent on antagonizing each other, but now… now he wants to hold her. Butterflies—no, pterodactyls—do barrel rolls in his stomach.

Please, please, don’t say anything to blow this. Be cool, for once. Just kiss her.

“I…”

Don’t. Man, please don’t blow it.

“I kind of want them all to be true.”

She laughs a little and glances sideways toward the black windows. “I’m sorry to disappoint. I can’t ride a unicycle.”

“Big tick for penguins though.”

Just shut up!

She chuckles and looks back at him. “Yeah.”

He’s burning up as she inches closer, the scent of her hair flooding his senses. Her lips are so close. He could reach out, pull her to him, pin her against him and kiss her until they’re both lightheaded, but he’s frozen.

The room plunges into darkness

For a moment, he’s pretty sure he blacks out.

The absolute silence is shattered by a forceful gust of her breath. “Are you serious?”

A blue glow shines beside him; her phone. The power must have gone out.

“Oh… shit.” He laughs, relieved he isn’t unconscious on the sofa. “Some timing.”

The couch shifts as she stands, and the brilliant aura of her phone fades further away from him. Cupboards and drawers grind open and thud closed as she rummages through their contents. He follows her, shuffling blindly through the pitch-black living room, caught between the excitement of knowing she feels the same as he does, and the worry of what the storm will bring next.

It’ll probably take the rest of his vacation to clean everything up and repair any damage the water has caused. Hopefully his grandma won’t even have to know anything was wrong.

At last comes the repeated click of a lighter, and the warm glow of candlelight.

“Nothing like a little apocalypse to set the mood,” she says as she lights the next candle. She gives him a slight smile as the room fills with flickering amber light. Her hands are shaking.

Taking one of the candles, he heads to the front door and opens it, peering through the darkness. He heads downstairs to check on the state of the bottom half of the cabin, shielding the candle from the biting wind. The water seems to be subsiding a little, and the rain isn’t coming down so hard. “I think we’ll be okay,” he calls as he climbs back up the stairs. “It actually seems to be easing off a little—” His lungs empty.

She’s on the couch again, a cluster of candles sitting in the center of the coffee table, her eyes dark, and fixed on him. And though he convinces himself it’s a trick of the light, a mirage caused by his wildest hopes and rushing adrenaline, no matter how many times he blinks, the picture doesn’t change. She slowly, deliberately, unbuttons her shirt, and peels it back to reveal her black, silky bra. Her body is curvy, and soft, and he desperately wants to touch her.

She shrugs a shoulder and laughs a little. “I was beginning to feel overdressed.”

He can’t speak. The sight of her, soft and sumptuous and wanting him, renders him silent. Him. Finn likes to make noise. He has to be heard. But right now, standing before her, he may as well be a statue.

Doubt flashes across her face as she stands. “Have I totally misread this situation?”

“No.” His hoarse voice is detached from his brain. He clears his throat and tries again. “God, no.”

“Good.” She smiles.

He takes a step toward her. His pulse drowns out everything. She raises her face to look at him and for a moment she looks victorious.

A shiver travels through his body as she reaches up and combs back his hair.