The Finn Factor Read online

  “Listen,” I’d said, my voice low so Scarlett didn’t overhear. “I know this is only your first date, but you’re going to do me a favor and make it your last.”

  The guy had screwed up his face. “Why would I do that? She’s hot.”

  “Because I asked very nicely.” I’d crossed my arms over my chest in a way I knew showed the results of visits to the university gym. Then I’d smiled in a not altogether friendly way.

  The guy took a step back. “Whoa. You two got something going on?”

  “Nope. Just like the two of you don’t have anything going on. Right?”

  He took another step back. “How about you just tell her I had to go?”

  “That would disappoint her. She’s dressed and ready, so you’ll take her out. Once. And you won’t mention this conversation, either.”

  “Okay, sure.” He’d edged closer to the door. “You know, man, I’ve met a lot of roomies before, and I have to tell you, this is not a normal conversation.”

  Mission accomplished. Then Scarlett had appeared, poured into a too-short dress, her hazel eyes smoky with all the dark makeup around them, and she’d walked out the door with a guy who didn’t deserve her.

  It had been more complicated to track down her dates in the first few years of our friendship, and sometimes they’d get to four or five dates before I could find the latest guy, assess him, and send him packing. Luckily, things had become much more streamlined since she’d moved in.

  Of course, she’d stab me in my sleep if she knew what I was doing—probably with her favorite electric bread knife—but it was worth the risk. She really needed to start picking a better class of guy. As soon as she started dating someone who could appreciate how awesome she was, I’d let the relationship go forward, with my blessing.

  In the meantime, I’d keep protecting her from the guys who were only after one thing.

  She stood and stretched, then pushed her blonde hair back behind her ears. “You finished my mojito. I’ll make some more.”

  I checked my watch. “It’s two a.m. Maybe we should stop.” Before her plan got any crazier.

  “Two a.m.” Her face fell. “That’s too late to call someone I don’t know very well, right?”

  A picture of Cole Jericho kissing Scarlett popped into my head and made me want to throw up. I had to clear my throat to get my voice to work. “You really want to kiss that actor?”

  “You’re not listening.” She pointed her index finger at me. “I want to end my dry spell. To do that I need to get past the kissing date. To do that I need to improve my kissing. To do that I need Cole to teach me. He was voted Australia’s Sexiest Bachelor again this year, you know.”

  Sure, if you liked the obvious. Which, from her expression, maybe Scarlett did. “But he’s only an expert at pretending to kiss,” I pointed out.

  She threw up her hands. “What else do you want me to do, Finn? I need someone who will understand that I don’t want to start something, just get some pointers. Cole’s an actor, he’ll understand that. What else can I do?”

  “Choose me,” I heard myself say.

  She blinked. “What?”

  This might have been a stupid move, but it was better than the alternative. “You don’t need Cole. If you want to go ahead with this crazy plan, I’ll give you kissing lessons.”

  As her mouth opened then stayed that way—and my lungs stopped working—I realized I’d probably just landed myself in a monster-sized pile of trouble.

  Chapter Two

  Scarlett

  Over the years, people had often questioned how I could be best friends with a guy. They’d quote lines from When Harry Met Sally about men and women not being able to just be friends, or quietly ask if our friendship had “benefits.” They didn’t understand the bond Finn and I had. It worked for us.

  But this? This could take our bond and muddle it up into knots, like a cat playing with a ball of yarn. Or my current thought processes after the mojitos…

  “I don’t know, Finn,” I said, chewing on a fingernail. “It’s very sweet of you to offer, but don’t you think it has the potential to get…messy?”

  “Scarlett, if we were going to fall in love with each other, it would have happened already. We’ve been friends for four years, and we live in the same house. I’ve seen you when you had a cold, and you’ve threatened me with a bottle opener when you had PMS. I think we’ve passed the point of no return.”

  True. But it still felt like we were about to cross a line. “What if we ruined what we have now? I don’t want to lose you, Finn. Or your icemaker.”

  He chuckled. “It won’t come to that. We’re only talking about a few kisses strictly for educational purposes. Not sleeping together.”

  At the words sleeping together, my body started to go into meltdown. Which is what you get when you have a long dry spell, combined with mojitos and a sex discussion with a guy. Even Finn.

  Stick with the facts.

  I drew in a deep breath and sat straighter in the sofa. “If we did this—and I’m still only saying if—how would we go about it? And when? Now?”

  His eyes widened. “Ah, no.” He shifted in his seat. “I think we should be sober.”

  Sober. Right. Probably a good idea, especially considering my body meltdown at the mere mention of sleeping together. I’d need to be in control of all my fuckulties. Hang on. No. Faculties. I’d need to be in control of all my faculties. Focused. So, yeppers, sober would be better.

  Taking a deep breath, I smiled as if this was no big deal. “Tomorrow morning?”

  He rubbed a finger across his forehead. “I have to be at school early tomorrow. How’s tomorrow night?”

  “Sure.” My stomach fluttered. Was that nerves or excitement? Or maybe the mojitos making a comeback? I headed for the bathroom, just to be safe.

  Finn

  When I pulled my car into the garage the next night, I sat for a few minutes, hands still gripping the wheel, every muscle in my body tense. On alert. Red alert. Or perhaps that should be Scarlett alert.

  Life was never boring with Scarlett, but this might be one crazy scheme too far.

  I’d first met her on a night much like this one, after driving into this very garage. I’d arrived home from a night out with friends and found my then roommate standing over a crying blonde, his hand raised as if to hit her. Going from zero to ballistic in less than a second, I’d thrown him into a wall. Then out the door. For the rest of the night, I’d sat with the frightened girl, trying to make her feel safe again.

  Thank God I hadn’t arrived two minutes later. I had two younger sisters that I’d had custody of for five years, since our parents died. Billie was Scarlett’s age, and at university in Melbourne now, and Amelia was at boarding school. Much as it broke my heart to even think it, if something like that had happened to either of my sisters, I’d hope someone would have stayed with them.

  Scarlett and I had formed a bond that night, and I guess I’d pretty much seen myself as her protector ever since, then eventually, her best friend.

  Did protectors offer their best friends kissing lessons? I groaned and thunked my head down onto my hands on the wheel. Unlikely.

  Maybe she’d changed her mind. In fact, I thought, looking up, would she even remember the deal at all? She’d had a few mojitos before we’d thought up the plan, and afterward we’d had another one each while watching a movie. She hadn’t even made it to her bed in the end—she’d slept on the sofa. I’d thrown a blanket over her and left her there.

  With my shoulders suddenly lighter, I climbed out of the car. Chances were she’d forgotten she was going to ask that actor to kiss her, and my stupid suggestion that I give her lessons, and we could move on, never mentioning it again. I barely resisted crossing my fingers.

  “Hey Finn,” she said as I walked through the kitchen door and dumped my satchel of books on the dining table. She wore her favorite green apron with white polka dots, and lime green glasses, and I could smell spag
hetti bubbling away. It could be just any other night, and if the stars aligned, it would be.

  “Hey,” I said, trying to get a read on her. On whether she remembered. “How was your day?”

  “Great.” She turned to me with a slotted spoon in her hand. “I was thinking that if we’re going to do this, we should do it properly. I ducked into the shops on the way home and bought some supplies.”

  My stomach dipped. So, she hadn’t forgotten. And then I registered her words. “What sort of supplies would we need?”

  “Breath mints.” She held up a packet. “And a new lip gloss. I want to replicate a date kiss as closely as I can. I got apple-berry. I hope that’s okay with you?”

  “Apple-berry,” I repeated faintly. The air in the kitchen suddenly felt warmer as I imagined tasting whatever would be on her lips. Scarlett had great lips. Full and lush. I swallowed. “Er. Yep. Fine.”

  “Plus, a stand for my phone so I can video us and review it later.” She poured the pasta into a bowl to rinse it.

  Wait. What? “You’re not videoing this!”

  Her hazel eyes were wide as she looked at me over her shoulder. “But it’s a lesson. What if I want to go over the material later?”

  “You won’t need to.” Sweet lord, what had I got myself into? I ran a finger around the collar of my polo shirt, which felt tighter than earlier. She’d put more thought into this than most ancient history students put into the Roman legions.

  “Okay, if you’re sure.” She shrugged and turned back to the pot of sauce. “I was thinking we could do it by the front door. This sauce is almost done. Are you ready to eat?”

  My head was spinning, trying to keep up. “Uh, sure.” I nudged past her to wash my hands in the sink. “The front door?”

  “That’s where dates usually try to kiss me,” she said, her voice reasonableness personified. “Well, sometimes it’s in the car, or on the dance floor. Oh, and there was that one time when—”

  I held up a hand. “I get the picture.”

  She ladled spaghetti into the bowls. “But from our location options tonight, the front door is the best.”

  She was so matter-of-fact about this. Was I the only one struggling with the idea? The only one a mile outside my comfort zone?

  “I’m not doing this on the porch.” Hell, the only thing that could make this piece of madness worse was an audience.

  “Just inside is fine. When I was living at my last place, if I liked them, and if the front door kiss at the end of the night went well, I’d take them to my room. That hasn’t really happened since I moved in here, though.” She sighed as she spooned sauce over the pasta. “Which is why I need your help. Thank you for doing this, by the way.”

  She smiled with that trusting smile she’d used with only me since the night we’d met. And right there was the flaw in this plan: could she trust me? She only wanted a lesson. Something impersonal. But kisses weren’t impersonal. Good kisses—and that’s what she wanted—were deep, and carnal, and arousing. My gut clenched tight. The last thing I wanted was to be turned on by Scarlett. That would be all kinds of wrong.

  But kisses were fun for their own sake. I liked kissing women—too much for this lesson to be as impersonal as tutoring undergrads in the Egyptian pyramids. The trick would be to not let myself get carried away. To remember who I was kissing—Scarlett, who was practically another little sister. Scarlett, my closest friend, who I wouldn’t hurt for the world. Probably best to keep my eyes open, to keep her in my field of vision at all times so I couldn’t forget.

  And no touching below the neck. God, no. This was about a kiss, not copping a feel.

  As she carried the bowls to the sofa—there was never any room on the table—I grabbed some glasses and a bottle of soda from the fridge.

  Given our plans for the night, I would have preferred vodka, and a lot of it, but I needed to keep my wits about me. As it was, there was already a possibility that tonight was going to drive me certifiably insane.

  Scarlett

  We ate dinner with a side order of stilted small talk. Finn told me about the first year class he was tutoring tomorrow, and I mentioned the weather—there was a chance of rain overnight. But, really, I was thinking back over my kissing history.

  Before last night’s date, I’d had two dates with Artie Campbell, a rich businessman who everyone said was as handsome as sin. And they were right. He’d kissed me at the door the two times he’d dropped me home, then called to cancel our third date. I hadn’t heard from him since. We’d been introduced by Jake Maxwell, the guy I’d been interested in before Artie.

  Jake was pretty much the definition of hot—former world champion pro surfer, who had the body to show for it. I thought he was interested in me, and even bought a special come-to-bed dress, but at a work function where I’d hoped things would come together, he’d admitted he was thinking about someone else and introduced me to Artie. Jake and I didn’t even get to the kissing stage.

  Jake was now dating my brother’s ex, which just went to show how small Sydney sometimes was.

  Before Jake, there was Brad with the red beanie. We’d had exactly three kisses—the first and second at the bar before I’d caught a cab home, and the third on our next date, at my front door when he’d dropped me home after dinner. They’d all been unspeakably awful, thanks in part to his belief that a man’s tongue should imitate a snake’s when kissing—flicking in and out. I’d been relieved when he hadn’t called, because he’d been the sensitive type and I’d been working my way around to letting him down easy.

  Larry—with the sunglasses at night—had been a good kisser. I would have enjoyed kissing him some more if he hadn’t shown his true colors by not bothering to call, then brushing me off when we ran into each other at The Three Beers that time.

  There had been much more kissing action in high school. Those dreamy nights just filled with lingering, exploring kisses. Even in my first couple of years of university, when I had some relationships for two or three weeks, there had been a lot of kissing. With a couple of guys, we’d pretty much spent the whole three weeks either kissing or in bed together. Talking was good, but I had Finn if I wanted to chat about my day, so it wasn’t as important with a boyfriend.

  Of course, that was all before the onset of the dry spell. There hadn’t been any lying around in bed with hot guys since far-too-long ago. Time to fix that.

  I finished my meal and put the empty plate on the coffee table without making eye contact with Finn. It was show time.

  “Mint?” I offered him the opened end of the packet from my pocket.

  “Thanks.” He took one, not making eye contact either. I popped a mint in my mouth, ignoring how my hand trembled a little as I did it.

  What else had I meant to do? Lip gloss! I felt around in my pocket and came out with the tube of apple-berry flavored gloss.

  “Ready when you are.” I hoped I sounded confident, but as soon as the words were out of my mouth, second thoughts bombarded me. This really was a stupid plan. Butterflies started flailing around in my stomach. Besides my family, my friendship with Finn was the most precious thing in my life. Would this mess with that?

  And he didn’t seem as sure as he had last night either. Perhaps it had been the mojitos talking…

  “Come on,” he said and headed for the front door. His dark hair was rumpled in the adorable way that happened after he’d been working on his thesis all day, and his jeans and T-shirt were just as crushed. He was so familiar and dear it hurt inside.

  I even knew without checking that his pale blue T-shirt matched all the other pale blue T-shirts and polo shirts in his wardrobe. Finn wasn’t a man to waste time choosing clothes—either in the store or in the mornings—so most days he wore the same color shirt and either jeans, shorts or trousers, and desert boots. It was exasperating and adorable in equal measures. When we reached the spot by the door, he dug his hands deep into his pockets and his dark blue eyes met mine. “Before we start, I just want to
say kissing is fun. Well, it is if it’s done right. ”

  “Noted.” I adjusted my green leopard-print glasses, not sure where he was going with this.

  “But,” he said, his voice serious, “I don’t want it to be fun for us.”

  “So, you don’t want to do it right…?”

  “No, I want this one to be done right, but…” He screwed up his face as if searching for words. “Even though it’s fun, I don’t want it to become a habit for us or anything.”

  I held back the grin that was threatening. “You think this could be a habit? Like Chinese on a Thursday night?”

  “Yes. Well, no.” He drew in a deep breath and shoved his fingers through his already rumpled hair. “I just don’t want to be giving mixed signals.”

  “Okay, no mixed signals.” That sounded easy enough. We had our signals pretty much down pat.

  He shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “To make sure, I think we should agree beforehand that there will be no touching below the neck.”

  “You think I’m going to leap on you, Finn?” I asked, giggling.

  “Scarlett,” he said, his voice exasperated. “I’m trying to be serious here.”

  My giggle faded away. He was doing me the favor, so I shouldn’t be making this harder. “You’re right. I’m sorry. No touching below the neck. Agreed.”

  “Good.” He reached out and cupped the side of my face in his palm. It felt so nice that my breath caught. He’d done it before, when I’d been sad or nervous about something, but this time it felt different, somehow weighted with expectation.

  I swallowed hard. “Anything else I should know first? Things to make special note of during the exercise? Which side to tilt my head? You want my glasses off?”

  “Ah, no,” he said, then dropped his hand and dug into his jeans pocket. My cheek was cool where his skin had been.

  “I’ll just pay attention then.” It was barely above a whisper.

  He frowned, just for a moment. “That’s probably best.”

  I winced. In all the time I’d known Finn, I couldn’t remember having a more awkward conversation, or seeing him looking more uncomfortable. If he were any more tense, he’d be one of those statues from his textbooks. Those second thoughts had been right. This was a bad idea.