Page 56

For the first time, he opens his eyes and she doesn’t disappear.

For the first time, she isn’t a dream.

I can’t remember the last time I woke up in someone else’s bed.

Likely because I’ve never woken up in someone else’s bed. Not anyone who wasn’t related to me, anyway.

It’s not my style. I’m a creature of comfort, of familiarity, and strange men—any man—mussing my sheets is neither of those things. Nor is waking up somewhere I don’t remember falling asleep.

Although, on this unique occasion, I don’t feel all that disconcerted.

For all of a few seconds, that is.

The moment the sleepy fog clears from my mind, a flare of panic overwhelms it.

Slowly sitting up, I mouth a silent curse. I swipe at my eyes, blinking a few times to confirm that I am, in fact, staring at Finn.

In his room.

In his bed.

And as stealthily as I’m capable of, channelling all of those sneaky teenage years, I slip out of it.

The very second my bare feet hit the floor, Finn groans.

I freeze. Squinting at the half-naked man sprawled on his back, I will his eyes to remain closed.

As he lazily stretches one arm towards me, I hold my breath.

When his fingers glide across warm, empty sheets, he frowns.

And when he cracks open an eye to find me kneeling on the edge of his bed, he murmurs, “You’re here. ”

My heart plummets.

He doesn’t remember. Obviously, he doesn’t remember. He was fucking plastered.

Mortification painting me with a red-hot stain, I scramble to stand only for a firm grip to lock around my thigh and hold me in place.

With his free hand, Finn pushes himself upright. “I didn’t think you’d stay.”

I stare at his hand, at the thumb stroking a cluster of freckles revealed by the ridden-up bridesmaids dress I’m still fucking wearing. “You asked me to.”

“That easy, huh?”

Lifting my gaze, I struggle to swallow. Fuck me, it’s too early for this, for that tone.

And fuck him too because he’s too hungover to look that good.

Nothing but a pair of tight boxers and a tangled sheet covering him.

Sun streaming in through the uncurtained window and bathing dark skin in golden light. That lazy, sated expression.

Sex.

Morning sex.

That’s where my mind goes, it imagines lazy, slow morning sex that I’ve never had, but I suddenly yearn to try.

Finn coughs.

Hastily averting my gaze, I’m just as quick to shake off his grip and rise on shaky legs that don’t get any steadier when he rises too.

With him standing on one side of the bed and me on the other, we lock gazes across the mattress, another battle of wills occurring, one I already know I’m going to lose.

I already know that if he opens his mouth, if I give him the chance too, I’m done.

Tell me when you’re sober , I said.

Idiot .

I didn’t think he would remember. I was banking on him not remembering, but he does.

Oh, he more than remembers. He’s going to do it, he’s going to repeat all those lovely, disarming things, in the light of day this time, no alcohol clouding his judgment, and I’m not maybe going to believe him. I will believe him.

He was right. What he said yesterday. I don’t want to believe him.

It’s so, so much easier not to.

I back up a step. “Finn.”

It’s a plea. He’s a nice guy. He’ll take mercy on me, I think.

Wrong.

Finn advances, and I retreat. Retreat and retreat and retreat until my back hits the wall, until I’m so flat against it, I’m practically one with the paint.

And he advances and advances and advances, but he stops just short of crowding me.

Of suffocating me. Of making sure I can’t see, smell, touch anything but him.

There’s his mercy, I recognize.

That’s all I get, I realize.

Two fingers crooking beneath the neckline of my dress, Finn drags me to him.

He keeps his grip light, easily swatted away, yet I don’t.

Just like I don’t rear back when he stoops, even though he gives me every chance to.

The same way he gives me every chance to evade the words I swear I don’t want to hear yet I stand stock-still, braced to receive them. “I like you, Lottie.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck .

“I like you,” he repeats for good measure. “And I really wanna kiss you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Finn cocks his head. “Why not?”

Though my mouth opens, nothing comes out.

“Thought so.” Near-black eyes sparkle. “You wanna know why I think it’s a great idea?”

No. Yes. I don’t know.

It doesn’t matter, I soon learn, because it was a rhetorical question. Finn barely waits the breath it would take me to respond before providing an answer of his own. “Because I want to.”

“That’s a little selfish.”

The corner of his mouth quirks. Gets closer as Finn stoops even more. “Because you want to.”

“Presumptuous.”

“Because I like you.”

“No, you don’t, Finn.” He can’t. He… he just can’t.

Yet he insists, “I do. You said it yourself—I’ve got a giant crush on you.”

“I was joking.”

“I’m not.”

“Finn…” I sigh, weary. “ Finn .”

“Yeah, baby?”

I just stare at him, struggling to come up with the right words.

Turns out, I don’t need to. Either he reads my mind or I’m more of an open-book than I thought I was or he just knows me really fucking well, because Finn knows. I barely know, yet he does.

His face softens. His grip slackens. It shifts, dropping to find the curve of my waist. His head dips and I hold my breath, my lips fucking parting of their volition as he draws close.

His mouth brushes my cheek. Tracks dry, light kisses down to my jawline, down the slope of my neck until he finds my pounding pulse. Against it, he whispers, “It’s okay. I’m scared too.”

A vehement denial lingers on the tip of my tongue only to be slain by a wet lash of his. “You scare the shit out of me, Lottie. Have since the first day I met you.”

“That doesn't sound like a good thing.”

“Oh, it’s the fucking worst .” Finn nips at my earlobe, a punishment that feels much more like a reward.

“Here’s this girl, this angry, scowling girl, who seems to hate everyone, who seems to hate me, who I don't particularly like, yet I can’t stop thinking about her.

Can’t stop looking at her.” He pulls back just enough to grant me his eyes, to steal mine.

“My mama raised a real strong-willed, independent boy, but there I was, following you around, no better than Grouch. We’re scared for the exact same reason.

Neither of us have any fucking control over this. ”

This . What is this ? He’s giving me so much, spouting so many words, but still, nothing is clear. Still, I have to ask, “What do you want from me?”

A smiling mouth strays to my neck again. “Whatever you wanna give me.”

When Finn sucks, I gasp. I shiver. I plant my palms on his shoulders and rise on my tiptoes, an instinctual request for more that I don’t totally realize I’ve made until he gives it to me.

Until he’s bathing my neck, my chest, my shoulders in more attention than they’ve ever received.

Until he knows my skin better than I do, until he’s touched it more than I have, until I’m panting and practically climbing him.

Only then does he work his way back to my mouth, and he hovers there.

Breathing. Sharing my breath. Coaxing a confession out of me without even trying—or maybe that’s exactly his intention. “I don’t know what I’m doing with you.”

“Anything you want.”

Jesus. How the fuck is a girl supposed to react to an offer like that?

How’s a girl supposed to resist an offer like that?

I should be able to. Backtrack a month, and I would’ve been able to. If it wasn’t the most patient man in the world offering me the fucking world, then I would be capable of turning him down. With Finn, I know in my gut that for every excuse I snap, he’ll conjure up a solution.

Defeat settles in my bones, but it’s not bad. It isn’t defeat ing . It’s… clarifying. Freeing. It has me sliding my palms down his chest and physically shoving him away, but in every other way, I cradle him close.

Finn doesn’t know that, yet he goes willingly. He lets me push until the backs of his legs hit the bed. Dropping to sit on the edge, he rests back on his hands, waiting patiently as I loom over him the same way I did last night.

Except last night, I wasn’t working up the nerve to straddle him.

Last night, I didn’t slowly raise the restricting skirt of my dress until I could settle a knee on either side of his hips and drop my weight onto his lap.

Last night, I didn’t return his offered sentiment, I didn’t quietly admit, “I wanna kiss you.”

“I know.”

Cocky bastard.

I wish I felt like that. So unwaveringly confident. So sure.

I’m not sure. About this one little thing, yes, but that’s it. That’s… that’s all I know. The physical stuff. That’s all I have to offer. That’s all anyone’s ever wanted me to offer.

“I…” My hands curl around his shoulders again, clutching once more. I repeat, “I don’t know what I’m doing with you.”

Two hands rise to cup my cheeks. “You’ll figure it out.”

I’m out of excuses. I’m out of energy to come up with one. I’m…

I’m tired of lying. Pretending. Because if I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be.

I sigh. “You’re gonna make me make the first move, aren’t you?”

“I already moved, princess. Been waiting for you to catch up.”

Well, then.

What the fuck do I have to lose?

I expect sweet, soft kisses.

Something gentle, like Finn. Maybe even a little timid. I expect to be the insistent one, the firm one, to coax something wilder out in him.

I am so very wrong.

Before our lips even touch, Finn groans, a noise that’s as relieved as it is desperate, and I suppose that should’ve been my warning.

I should’ve known that even though I make the first move, the lead is not mine to take.

As he locks a forearm against my lower back, fingers cupping my ribcage while others bury themselves in the hair at the base of my skull, I should know that I am not in control.