The Finn Factor Page 12

  He shrugged. “I shouldn’t have waited.”

  Scarlett patted the guy from Geology on the side of the face and headed for the drinks table. Rakesh’s words reverberated in my head.

  I shouldn’t have waited.

  There were a thousand reasons why I couldn’t be that person Scarlett was dating, yet as I watched the black dress pull and glide across her hips with her swaying-to-the-music walk, none of them were worth a damn.

  Something inside me snapped. I couldn’t do this anymore. Couldn’t keep waiting.

  With no idea what I was doing, I pushed off the wall and headed for Scarlett. She’d just picked up a beer and was taking a long drink. Her throat moved as she swallowed and her lips were pink around the lip of the bottle. I put my empty on the table and leaned in. She lowered the bottle and wiped her mouth. I just about went up in flames.

  “Hey, Finn,” she said, smiling at me. “This is a great party. Thanks for letting me come with you.”

  I cleared my throat. “I have to tell you something.”

  “Okay, spill.”

  “Not here.”

  Her eyebrows went up in interest. “You want to head home?”

  Home? Where the house was full of parents and sisters and dogs? “Nope.”

  I put a hand under her elbow and guided her to the door. “We’ll duck into my office.” It was on the same floor but at the other end of the corridor, so we’d have privacy.

  She didn’t hesitate to follow, but she turned her head to meet my gaze. “This sounds serious. Is everything okay?”

  “I have no idea anymore,” I said, and headed down the hall.

  Scarlett

  Once we reached his office, Finn pulled me inside and kicked the door closed. There was something very different going on with him. His entire body was tense, wired, as if ready for something.

  He left the light off.

  “Finn?” I said, tilting my head to try and get a read on him.

  “I did it again.”

  As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see the contours of his face in the moonlight glinting through the windows. He was at once familiar and foreign, and the combination was electric.

  “Did what again?” Apart from the muted sounds from the party at the end of the hall, the only sound in the room was his breathing, heavy and rasping.

  “Interfered in your love life.” He took a step closer. “I promised not to, so I’m confessing. And apologizing.” He didn’t sound in the least apologetic. He sounded fierce. Primal. I wanted to touch him, to feel all that surging power that was surrounding him like an aura, but I waited.

  “How did you interfere?” I whispered.

  “Someone wanted to ask you out and I told them not to.” His eyes had no color in the dim light. They were dark, intense, and focused only on me—a heady sensation.

  “Who?”

  “Wrong question,” he practically growled.

  A delicious shiver raced up my spine. “What’s the right question?”

  “Ask me why.” He took another step closer, and I could feel the heat emanating from his body, feel his need filling the air around us. “Ask me why I interfered this time, Scarlett.”

  “Why?” The word was not much more than a breath escaping, but it was all I could manage. My entire body buzzed with anticipation.

  “Because I wanted to be the one to touch you.” Another step, and he gently pressed me back against the wall with his body along mine. “Because I’m the one that can barely sleep at night, knowing you’re just down the hall. In your bed. Practically naked.”

  Shit. I might never sleep a wink again knowing he was in his bed thinking of me naked. His hands were still at his sides, the only place we were touching was the light press of his torso against me.

  “Finn?” I rested my hands on his arms, felt his biceps clench at the contact.

  He drew in a shaky breath. “Yeah?”

  “I’m not mad that you interfered.” My hands trailed from his biceps up to his shoulders then down over his back.

  “You’re not?” he asked, his voice tight.

  “Nope.” My hands reached his butt and I pulled him closer, sighing when I found him already hard. “And you want to know something else?”

  “Hell, yes,” he rasped and sucked my earlobe into his mouth, biting down softly. My knees buckled but his weight kept me pinned to the wall. “Tell me.”

  “I don’t care who it was.”

  His breath was warm at my ear. “And why is that?”

  “Because I want it to be you, too.” I lifted his hands and placed them on my breasts, shivering at the contact. “Touching me.”

  “Scarlett,” he said, though it sounded more like my name had been wrenched from his throat.

  “And there’s nowhere I’d rather be right now than here. With you.”

  It was nothing short of the truth. If my fairy godmother appeared and offered to send me anywhere on the planet, this was exactly what I’d choose.

  “Here, as in alone in my office?” he said, his thumbs brushing over my breasts. “Or here, as in against the wall?”

  “Here, as in pressed up against your body.” I wiggled my hips and he drew in a sharp breath. “Wherever that happens to be.”

  He reached down and lifted my leg, and I wrapped it around his waist, arching to find more pressure. We hadn’t even kissed but this was way more intimate than we’d ever been before. It felt vaguely dangerous. I liked it a lot.

  Needing to feel skin, I pulled his button-down, pale-blue shirt from his jeans, and once my fingers made contact, I took full advantage. I’d touched his skin before—of course I had—but it had always been hands or forearm, places that were safe. Places that were firmly in the friend zone. Now I was running my fingertips over his lower back, up over muscles that bunched as I stroked them, then back down to his waistband.

  This whole thing was wrong on so many levels that it probably wouldn’t happen again, which only gave my questing hands more urgency. I wanted to experience everything I could in this small window of opportunity.

  I reached for his belt buckle and his mouth landed on mine, momentarily distracting me. This wasn’t like our other kisses. This one had more…intent. No soft start, no gentle brushing of lips. This kiss began with open mouths and sliding tongues and only became more carnal from there.

  My fingers thrust through his hair, gripped, moved around to his neck, searching, wanting more. His teeth closed over my bottom lip and tugged, and I gasped as it triggered a wave of sparks through my body.

  “I might die if you do that again,” I whispered, and felt him smile against my mouth.

  “I’d better not do it, then.” His voice was ragged, yet still teasing.

  “Yeah, but I might die if you don’t do it again.”

  He did it again.

  If I didn’t survive this, it would be a marvelous way to go.

  His hands grabbed the hem of my dress and roughly pushed it up my thighs until it bunched at my waist. Not wanting to risk it falling back, I tucked the edges under the band of my bra, the next best thing to taking it off altogether, but I didn’t want to break contact long enough to do that.

  Still kissing me, his clever hands followed the trail they’d taken with my skirt, though this time it was skin on skin. Up, then down, each time moving a little further from my hips around to my inner thighs.

  We broke the kiss, gasping for air, but I couldn’t stay away for long. I kissed down to his jaw, then along the strong column of his neck. Before this, kissing him had involved rules—the first time with the no touching below the neck rule, but even after that, there had been unspoken rules about where it was okay to touch, or how turned on we were allowed to make the other when we weren’t going to follow through. But it seemed all rules were now null and void. I could touch him where I wanted. And I wanted to touch him everywhere.

  My tongue traced a path along the lightly stubbled edge of his jaw, then I found the soft skin below it and I
bit gently. A shudder racked his body, so I did it again, this time holding the bite and sucking a little. His fingers dug into my ass, grinding me against him, and he hissed my name out between his teeth.

  Then one hand found the edge of my underpants, flirting with the elastic until a finger dove inside, feeling the naked skin of my hip, then winding around the front until…pay dirt. His fingers slid against me and I almost came.

  A whimper escaped my throat, and at first I didn’t recognize it was me making the sound. His fingers moved deeper, further, moving inside me then out in a rhythm that held me captive, and I was saying things without thought, saying his name, asking him not to stop, and he was talking back to me, but I barely understood his words.

  Not even sure I hadn’t ripped any, I fumbled with the buttons on his shirt until it was open. I pushed it over his shoulders so I could kiss his bare skin, smell his scent, as he drove me out of my mind with only a hand. His movements became faster, and he whispered, “Need you like crazy,” in my ear. I bit down hard on his shoulder when everything inside me drew in deliciously tight then exploded out, taking every last drop of energy in my body, leaving me limp and clinging to Finn for support.

  He tilted my chin up and kissed me with smiling lips. “That was sexy as hell.”

  He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a little square packet, then shucked the jeans down to his ankles. I wanted to help but my fingers still felt too thick and slow. Once his underwear was gone, however, I stayed his hands. He wanted to roll the condom on. I wanted to feel him first.

  He’d been filling my fantasies and dreams since the very first night we’d kissed, and I had to know the shape of him, feel the weight of him. Know everything about him. I encircled his erection, my palm rubbing the softness of the skin that surrounded the hardness, wishing I could see better in the dim light.

  Moving my hand away, he sheathed himself, toed off his shoes, and stepped out of the jeans that had pooled at his feet. He brought my leg up to wrap around his waist again, then the other one, and held my hips in his hands. I met his gaze and we both paused, breathing heavily.

  There was something shimmering in this moment—it was the point of no return. No way were we stopping, but it was as if we each needed to acknowledge the line in the sand we were crossing. A slow smile spread across his face, and we began to move. I arched my back against the wall, giving myself purchase as he lowered my hips a couple of inches then sank into me.

  I felt myself stretching to accommodate him. The sublime sensation of the empty places inside me being filled, and that it was Finn—Finn—doing this, made the rest of my body sing as well.

  Finn’s gaze landed on a short bookcase to my left. It was higher than his desk, in fact, it was the perfect height. I nodded. Sweeping one arm out, he cleared the top of magazines and photocopied pages, then, even as those papers still fluttered to the floor, he moved me across to sit on the perch.

  With my arms and legs now freed of the job of holding on, I returned to exploring the expanse of skin available to me. My ankles moved over the taut muscles at the back of his thighs, my hands roamed his shoulders and arms, all while the rhythm of our bodies joining, thrusting together, continued, taking me higher, higher, to impossible heights.

  I’d never imagined sex with Finn would be like this. I’d thought about it a lot recently, and it was always good, but…sweet, contained. This, however, was raw and hungry, wild and glorious.

  With the soft thump, thump of the bookcase hitting the wall as the soundtrack, he changed the angle and hit something amazing, and I dug my fingernails into his back. Being a quick study, he did it again, and this time all my internal muscles clenched tight. He stopped, his eyes closing, his breath coming in pants.

  “Something wrong?” I asked, after swallowing to get my voice to work.

  First one of his eyes opened, then the other, and the heat in them was bordering on combustible. “Never been more right in my life.” He started to move again, slowly, building to the same pace as before. “So right, it’s almost too much.”

  “Know what you mean.” I’d thought I might die earlier, but now I was seriously at risk of dissolving into him, of losing myself, of being overwhelmed by off-the-scale sex.

  His eyes didn’t close again, they stayed locked on mine. It was as if we were in his office, but not there, instead floating together in a place where time and space didn’t exist, where there was only feeling what he was doing to my body, what I was doing to his.

  I was on the edge, needing more, unable to take more, desperate for more. His hand snaked down to where we were joined, gliding over already sensitive skin, and pushed me right off the precipice into a dizzying freefall. Stars burst to life behind my eyelids. My body was weightless, and I never wanted to land.

  Finn tucked his face into the spot where my neck met my shoulder and let out a muffled roar. Shudders racked his body, before his weight slumped against me, pinning me against the wall. The best place in the world to be.

  There was a crack, and the bookshelf below me gave a little, then another crack and it gave way completely. As we fell, Finn managed to pull me tight to him and roll backward, so I landed on him in the middle of the floor, instead of in the shards of cheap shelving.

  We sat up, surrounded by the magazines and papers he’d flung to the floor earlier, staring at the mess of books and plywood, then looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  “You know,” he said when he found his breath, “no one’s ever rocked my world enough to break furniture before.”

  I grinned. “What can I say? I’m explosive in bed. Or,” I glanced around, “in an office.”

  The amusement left his gaze, and he leaned in to lightly kiss my lips. “Abso-fucking-lutely you are.”

  “If we hadn’t just had sex, I’d totally do you for saying that.”

  He lay back on the wooden floor, pulling me to him with one arm and throwing the other out to the side. “Whatever happens, we’ll always have bookshelf-splosion night.”

  My smile faded as I realized how true that was—we’d always have this night. But whatever more we had, or didn’t have, was much less certain.

  I drew in a breath, pushed the thought away, and snuggled into Finn’s side, determined not to lose a moment of the now to worry. Instead I’d make the most of what I had in front of me. Or more precisely, beside me.

  Chapter Eleven

  Scarlett

  The next day I was sitting on the living room floor with Amelia, painting Harvey’s nails. It had been Amelia’s suggestion, and Harvey seemed to have no problem with it. I suspected he’d put up with pretty much anything if it meant he was allowed inside.

  My parents were on the sofa, reading the paper, and Finn had been gone for almost two hours, so was probably due back soon. Most Sundays he liked to go for a long bike ride—he said it worked out the kinks from being hunched over his desk all week—and he’d missed a couple since Amelia had come home. Today, however, he’d been up early and out the door. Of course, it had occurred to me that perhaps he was feeling awkward about seeing me…

  “When is Billie arriving?” Amelia asked without looking up from the Border Collie’s bright blue toenail.

  “Friday.” Finn’s birthday was Saturday and we were having a small family party for him. With Amelia already home, and Billie coming back for the weekend, our party list was almost complete.

  “I haven’t got him anything yet,” Amelia said. “I’ll have to do something this week. Are you giving him a painting again?”

  “Yep, it’s almost finished.” The ritual of the teddy bear painting would be continued. Which made me think of Marnie looking at them hanging in Finn’s bedroom, which made me scowl. But it also made me think of Finn in there thinking of me being practically naked, which made me swoon a little and smudge purple polish on the fur beside Harvey’s nail.

  “Do you still see Darren?” my mother asked out of the blue.

  There was only one Da
rren I could think of. “You mean my old roommate?”

  “That’s the one. He was such a lovely boy.”

  “He used to steal my underwear.”

  “Ew,” Amelia said.

  My mother frowned. “Did he? He seemed so nice.” She turned the page of the newspaper. “What about Sarah?”

  “She was arrested for growing pot in the spare room,” I said without looking up from Harvey’s nails. “She moved interstate after that and we haven’t kept in touch.”

  Amelia sat back. “Geez, you’ve had a bad run of roomies. Lucky Finn rescued you from all that. We’re much better.”

  “That you are,” I agreed.

  The year I’d been living in Finn’s house was probably the longest I’d ever lived in one place in my entire life. I felt safe here. Kinda stable, as if I’d set down roots. Not to mention only having to pay teeny tiny rent while I was saving up.

  “Good,” Amelia said. “You should live with us forever.”

  Before I could answer, the front door opened, and Finn strode in wearing Lycra riding gear that outlined his leg muscles and the breadth of his shoulders. He was panting, his hair was a mess, and his skin was covered in a sheen of sweat. I’d seen him looking that same way about twelve hours ago when we’d had sex, and he looked just as good now. I pretty much melted into the floor. His eyes skimmed over the room, snagged on me for a heart-stopping moment, then continued on, playing it cool in front of his sister. At least I think that’s what he was doing. We hadn’t really discussed what last night meant for our friendship.

  “Hey, Finn,” Amelia said, “is there anything in particular you want for your birthday?”

  “Uh, not really.” He headed for the kitchen then reappeared with a sports drink. He arched his neck as he drank, and my eyes were drawn to the strong column of his throat, to the Adam’s apple that bobbed as he downed the drink, and to the not-so-faint bruise just below his jaw that I’d made last night. Crap. I glanced around the room, wondering if anyone else had noticed the new mark, but it didn’t appear they had.