Page 33 of Three Bossy Boyfriends (Honeysuckle Harbor #3)

Finley

This is such a very bad awesome idea.

Sex with Tucker Hastings has never been on my bucket list. I’m serious. Never .

Did I maybe entertain fantasies of tricking him into getting naked so I could do something terrible to his junk back in high school?

I can neither confirm nor deny.

But actual sex? Actually getting naked and vulnerable with this guy?

Absolutely not.

And now? It’s still a bad idea. But possibly for new reasons.

This is still Tucker. The guy I’ve hated since high school. The last person on earth I ever thought I’d ever be nice to, not to mention trust.

But damn, it feels good to be…soft with him.

He’s nice.

God, that sounds weak, but it's true.

He’s great. He makes me laugh. He makes me hot. He’s making me slow down and actually take a second look at him.

At myself.

And I want to be naked with him. I want him naked. So, so much.

I have a feeling Tucker will be very nice to my naked body with his naked body, and I really want that.

But I’m also definitely, no question, feeling vulnerable, and that’s scary as hell.

It’s how I feel when I’m with Evan and Christopher. Like Tucker might really see me. Might actually get me on a level other people don’t. Like Tucker might make me want things I’ve never wanted before. Things I don’t want to want.

I like being mysterious and a little confusing and untouchable.

Tucker isn’t scared of me, and he seems very determined to touch me. In all the ways.

This feels like it does with Evan and Christopher, but it feels really, really vulnerable with Tucker.

He’s not like Evan and Christopher.

They’re good guys. Decent men. Men who know how to be in relationships and who I just know won’t hurt me.

Tucker, not so much.

Okay, honestly, Evan and Christopher feel a little safer because they’re in a relationship with one another.

There’s no chance that they’re going to fall for me for real.

They aren’t promising me love and forever and commitment.

Nothing can really happen there. So I can become their friend without worry.

With Tucker—what if I really like him? Trust him? Get close to him?

I could truly fall for him and then what?

He could break my stupid heart.

And still, I’m working on fitting the key into the lock on the door to let him inside to get naked.

Of course, my hands are shaking so bad from adrenaline and lust I can’t get the key lined up with the lock.

My sisters are working at Raw tonight, so Tucker and I have the house to ourselves for a few hours. But not all night.

That’s very important.

Tucker can not spend the night. That’s too much. That’s too risky.

That’s why I brought him here instead of going to his place.

I do not want to cuddle all night with Tucker Fucking Hastings.

Okay, I do want to, but I can’t do that, so I’m kicking his gorgeous ass out of here the minute after he’s given me an orgasm.

Or three.

“Jesus, here, let me.” He takes the keys from my hands after I try twice, and fail, to unlock the door.

From behind me, he reaches both arms around my body—which serves to press his big, hot, hard body against mine and makes me take a big, deep breath of how good he smells—and unlocks the door with a steady determination that both impresses me and pisses me off.

He’s not excited? What, this is just like any other Friday night for him?

Probably.

I frown and turn in his arms. “I don’t really appreciate you?—”

He pushes the door open behind me. “I know, Finley. I know.” Then he nudges me across the threshold.

I stumble back, but his big hands are on my hips in an instant, keeping me from falling.

I grip the front of his shirt, and he steps into the house with me, practically on top of me.

“You know what?” I ask.

He kicks the door shut. “That you don’t appreciate me doing things for you, taking over, being in your space.” He walks me backward until my shoulder blades and ass hit the opposite wall. “Except that you’re a beautiful fucking liar. You do like when I take over and when I’m in your space.”

“I really don?—”

“Stop sassing me, Finley.”

I blink up at him. His eyes are hot. His whole body is hot. He moves his hands from my hips to the wall on either side of my head, caging me in.

I swallow hard.

“I get it,” he goes on. “You had the car ride over here to get these walls up again. To remember that you’re a badass.

But, just stop thinking you have to be tough for one damned minute,” he says gruffly.

He leans in, putting his nose against my temple and breathing in.

“Just be here, in this moment with me. Just soak in the fact that I want you so fucking much, that we are going to be so fucking good together, and that you don’t need to have your defenses up.

” He presses a kiss to my temple, then drags his mouth down to my ear.

“I promise to take care of you. I promise I’m going to be good to you. Let me in.”

Oh. Fuck.

Vulnerable. I’m so damned vulnerable right now.

But I want this. Him.

I want to be soft with him. For him.

I want to see what Tucker Hastings will do if I let him in.

That is scary as hell.

I squeeze my eyes shut, pray quickly that I’m not about to make a big, big mistake, and say, “Okay.”

His breath rushes out as if he were holding it, and he’s incredibly relieved right now.

Then his hands are on my face, cupping my cheeks, tipping my head back, and he’s staring into my eyes. “I’m going to?—”

“Hate fuck me,” I interrupt.

He’s not. We’re past that. I don’t hate him. I know he doesn’t hate me. That’s not what this is. But that’s what we’re going to call it so I don’t do something stupid like ask him to spend the night. Or cry. Or fall for him.

He stares at me for a long moment, studying my eyes, clearly reading me. I just stare back.

Then he nods. “Yep. Hate fuck you. So well that you’re going to hate me right back, and only me, for a very long time.”

God, he really needs to stop using ‘hate’ in place of other words that we are not going to use with one another, ever .

I am not going to fall in love with Tucker Hastings.

There are a lot of other things this man should be doing with his mouth right now.

I lift on tiptoe, grab the back of his neck, and kiss him.

A deep, rumbly growl sounds in his chest, and he immediately deepens the kiss, tipping my head, his thumb pressing into my chin urging me to open, then stroking his tongue deep and insistent when I do.

I try to arch closer, hooking a leg around his, moaning into his mouth, but he drops a hand to my hip, pinning me against the wall, holding me still, as if he’s going to take his damned time on this kiss and he’s not going to let me rush things.

The kiss is hungry, but it’s not frantic. He tastes me. Fully. Over and over.

Until I’m moaning even louder and pulling at his shirt.

He finally releases my hip and lifts his head. He pushes my jacket off my shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. “Okay, Badass,” he says. “Get naked.”

I quickly reach for the bottom of my shirt, stripping it over my head. I’m not wearing a bra, and I really appreciate Tucker’s sharp inhale.

“Fuck, Finley.”

“Less talking, more stripping,” I tell him, kicking off my boots.

He gives me a smirk and reaches behind his head, grabbing his shirt and yanking it over his head.

Oh, damn, the manual labor this man does is so good to him. I resist a “fuck, Tucker” of my own, but I can’t wait to drag my hands, and tongue, all over the planes and ridges of all those muscles.

No! No dragging, no tongues. There’s no time for that. Hard and fast. Get him out of here before he does something that makes you really stupid.

I reach back and unzip my skirt, pushing it over my hips, leaving me in only a sheer black thong.

He stops with his fly undone, his fingers in the waistband of his jeans.

“Finley…”

Then I strip the thong down my legs too. Slowly. Relishing, for just a moment, that the man standing in front of me slack-jawed, like he’s never seen a naked woman before, is the guy who once called me weird.

“What was it that you called me back in high school?” I ask, running my hands over my stomach and up to my breasts. “Creative? No, that wasn’t it.”

“Finley,” Tucker says, his voice pained.

“Cute?” I frown, cupping one breast. “No, that’s not right.”

“I’m so sorry. You know that.”

“Was it cool?” I ask. I shake my head. “I don’t think that was it.” I play with my nipple and pin him with a gaze.

He groans and shoves a hand through his hair. “I was a dumbass.”

“Creepy.” I lift my hands, running them through my hair, causing my back to arch and thrust my breasts forward slightly, my naked body on full display. He can see my piercings, my tattoos, and all my curves. “That’s what it was. You called me creepy. And weird.”

His gaze tracks over every inch of me. “I did,” he admits.

“You could have taken me to prom. You could have gotten to know me. You could have kissed me way back then. But you were a smug, egotistical jack?—”

He moves in close, dipping his knees so we’re eye to eye, making me forget what I was saying. My hands drop, and I stare into that intense gaze.

“I was,” he says. “But I couldn’t have gotten close to you. You wouldn’t have let me. Hell, you probably would have said no if I’d asked. Because you were weird and creepy.”

My eyes widen, and my mouth falls open.

He nods. “On purpose. You did all of that to keep people at arm’s length.

” He reaches up and cups the back of my head, bringing me close.

“You can’t be mad that it worked, Badass.

You didn’t want people to know you. You didn’t want people figuring you out.

Give poor, trying-to-fit-in-and-figure-my-own-shit-out teenage me a little bit of a break, huh?

” He brushes his lips over mine. “I promise you that I know who I am now and what I want. And you are not going to scare me off now.”