Page 45 of Finders Keepers

“I meant it too, when I said I don’t want to lose you again either,” I whisper, then press my mouth to his, cupping his face to keep it close to mine.

I give and give and take and take until it’s all inseparable, one and the same.

Quentin is right that we’re good together.

In all sorts of ways, but especially this one.

His fingers dig into my hips, stronger, deeper as my tongue strokes his.

A loud boom! sounds in the distance, and for a moment I think we’ve somehow generated it until I remember: fireworks.

“Should we…Do you want to go watch?” I pant out.

“Not really. Do you?” he asks, his hand moving to rest on my upper thigh, skimming the hem of my dress.

“Nope.”

He kisses me again as his fingers travel upward a few inches, finding the lace trim of my underwear and humming in approval.

I hadn’t realized how much he must’ve been holding back when he kissed me on the porch that night.

Because now it feels like he’s unleashing everything he has, and the passion, the intensity, crossed with what is almost desperation, stokes that flame that’s been burning low inside of me for weeks.

This is no longer a romantic kiss, or even a passionate make-out session.

This is a precursor to more. And Quentin is showing no sign of stopping the natural progression this time around.

I have exactly one brain cell currently functioning enough to manage a “What are we…?” as his lips leave mine and start exploring my neck.

“I know we were joking before. About the fucking in the mushroom folly. But I’m starting to feel sort of serious about it,” he says, and the words vibrating against my skin make me feel molten from the stomach down.

“But…the treasure. You wanted to wait until—”

“Changed my mind,” he says.

“Oh. Okay.” My legs threaten to give out as his teeth lightly skim over my shoulder. I’m in no condition to question it beyond saying, “If you’re sure.”

“I am. Very sure. But you? You want to?”

I breathe in his enticing clean scent as I move my mouth to the hollow of his throat. “Yes. More than anything.” Boom! goes another firework, then a sizzling sound that feels like it’s mimicking the sensations in my body.

“Then I think we’re doing this.” He hooks a finger into the band of my underwear as if he’s about to tug them down, but stops himself as another firework bursts somewhere far beyond our sight. “Can I—?”

“Yeah. Yes. Please. Touch me. I need it. Need you.”

He pulls the band down on just the one side, enough to bury his hand between my legs.

I shift forward, trying to chase the pressure of his palm against me, and find that we’re both moving our hips against it, grinding against his hand between us as our lips cling together, unmoving except for the exchange of gasps.

Then he backs off and runs a finger through my folds, collecting the moisture gathered there before slipping inside me.

I arch into his touch, gasping at the sensation.

He thrusts slowly, so slowly, that I find myself whimpering against his shoulder, begging for more.

Instead of picking up speed or adding another finger like I’m hoping for, though, he takes his hand away altogether.

Before I can protest, Quentin sinks to his knees on the flagstone. “Been dreaming of this,” he mutters. He reaches back under my dress and pulls the underwear down my legs now, helping me balance as I step out of them.

“What—” I start, but as he shoves the lace-trimmed satin into his pocket as if he plans on keeping them, my mind goes blank.

“Put your foot up on the bench,” he orders.

I do, and even though I’m still covered completely by the skirt of my dress, I feel a bit of that warm, humid night air that tickled my skin the night in front of the window, and it brings back the memory of being someone brave and bold and sexy.

Of feeling. Wanting. The way I’m feeling and wanting now.

I place a hand against the pillar for support, because I do not trust my legs to be the only things keeping me upright.

Especially not when Quentin ducks beneath my dress, his head disappearing under the fabric, and I feel his fingers again, sliding over me in sensual observation, studying the terrain before his tongue sweeps over my center.

As he continues, I feel a deep kinship with the fireworks I can hear bursting and then cascading down in bright fizzing streaks off in the distance.

“Please,” I beg. “Quentin. Please.”

“Please what?” he asks, reappearing with a wicked grin on his face. “Please stop?”

“No. I mean. Yes. I mean. Do you have a condom?”

The question seems to throw him. “Oh. Um. No. I, uh, I don’t. Believe it or not, I really didn’t plan —”

“That’s okay. I have an IUD, and I haven’t been with anyone since I was last tested. So if you also…we can keep going without.”

“I got tested as soon as I got back to the States,” he says. “On account of the, you know, being cheated on thing. Thought it was prudent.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah.” I cringe, lowering my foot back to the ground. Nothing hotter than the conversation turning toward perfidious exes mid–sexual activity.

I search for a joke to lighten the mood, but before I can find one, Quentin stands, then wraps his arms around my waist. “You know, it’s funny,” he says.

“So many things that happened to me, things that I thought were awful at the time…Feel like silver linings when I’m with you.

If everything hadn’t gone to shit, I wouldn’t be here right now, about to fuck the most amazing person I know in a penis-shaped gazebo. ”

“Am I not also the most amazing person you know outside of a penis-shaped gazebo?” I quip in time with another firework boom.

Quentin chuckles, his eyes crinkling as he does, and lightly taps my butt before taking a seat on the bench where my foot was before. “Get your pretty ass over here, Groucho Marx.”

It’s hard to mind the very unsexy nickname when he lounges back, arms spread on the railing behind the bench that’s built into the structure’s curve, looking at me like he isn’t sure whether he wants to devour me or be devoured.

It’s so tempting to kneel in front of him, to use my mouth on him in return, but the fireworks seem to be increasing in frequency, shooting off not just in pairs but in threes and fours.

This magical, private world will only exist a little while longer.

So I place my knee on the bench beside his thigh and swing my other leg over him.

“It’s…it’s been a while for me,” I confess, still keeping my distance from the bulge in his jeans.

“Like, half a year or so.” Until the night we broke up, I hadn’t seen Cole for four months, and we didn’t actually sleep together during that visit.

Which isn’t surprising looking back; sex was pretty far down on our hierarchy of relationship needs, and even the most pressing ones weren’t exactly being met.

“So, um, I might be…” I trail off as Quentin nods in understanding.

I’m glad, because “rusty” was on the tip of my tongue and that is not at all a sexy description.

He strokes my sides as I reach between us to unzip his fly.

He lifts his hips and tugs his pants and boxers down just enough to free his erection.

The way his head falls back as I wrap my hand around his length is the most satisfying thing I’ve ever seen.

He lets out an incredibly hot moan as I stroke him.

“Take me however you need me, Nina. Please, I just need to be inside you.”

“Maybe I’m trying to make you lose our competition,” I say. “Remember. Whoever comes last this time.” I position myself over him, lining us up, and carefully, gradually sink down onto his cock.

“Holy—” Quentin says as I let out a sound that I’m pretty sure rivals the one I made when he drove us really fast down Carmichael Chapel Road.

Fully seated, I experiment with a few different movements, up and down, back and forth, circling my hips until I find the right pattern that has us both breathing heavier and unable to hold back the sounds of pleasure that are thankfully drowned out by the continued thundering of the fireworks display.

His hand slips between us, his thumb working in time with my movements, not giving me a chance to think about anything else, to get lost in thoughts of anything other than him and the pleasure steadily building low in my core.

He moves so deliciously, so precisely. As if he wants nothing more than to find the exact frequencies I operate at and tune himself to where I am.

“Darling Nina,” he says. “Smart Nina. Wet, tight, incredible Nina.” I whimper as he whispers the words into my ear.

“Funny Nina. Competitive Nina.” He kisses me much more softly than I’m expecting.

“Delicious Nina. Did you know that every single version of you…” His free hand reaches into my hair and directs my attention to his face.

“Is the perfect one? Because they’re all just you . My Nina.”

His Nina.

Maybe that’s who I’ve been all along.

I kiss him again, deeper this time, and find that there are still traces of me on his tongue.

“I’m…I’m so close,” I sob into his shoulder.

“Me too.”

“You first.”

He shakes his head. “No.”

I let out a moan that’s equal parts frustration and pleasure. “Quentin, I swear to god. You better—”

His lips capture the rest of my protest. “Together,” he says then. “I want…us together.”

That could have many meanings, but regardless of which one or ones he intends, it contains something potent enough to send me over the edge at that exact instant.

I’m unaware of what I’m saying, what sounds I’m making.

The only thing I can latch onto is the pulsing, rippling heat as he stills deep inside me.

The trembling of his body and the slow loosening of mine.

The sweetest, softest kiss at the corner of my mouth and the nonstop explosions have reached a crescendo, leaving behind the faintest smell of smoke drifting over from the river and a satisfied, quiet peace that mirrors itself in my heart.