Heartbreaker

by Melody Grace

  “Mmmhmm.” I gulp it down, trying to stop my laughter. The couple turns back to their meal, and the guy reaches over and takes the girl’s hand. He says something, and she gives a fake little laugh, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek.

  And then the mouth.

  ‘Ten bucks’, Finn mouths to me again, and I kick him under the table. Just like that, the tension is broken. We may be miles from where we started, but some things haven’t changed. The thought is comforting, and makes my heart lift. This doesn’t have to be labored or painful. Maybe I can just choose to have fun tonight, and forget that the embarrassing scene in the car ever happened.

  I open my menu. “Since you’re the big rock star, does this mean we’re getting lobster tonight?”

  Finn chuckles. “It means we’re getting anything you want.”

  “Good.” I smile at him. “Lobster it is. And champagne.”

  “’As you wish.’” He quotes from one of my favorite movies, The Princess Bride, and I laugh. “But I seem to remember you being a lightweight when it comes to your booze.”

  “Hey!” I protest. “Since when?”

  “Since you had two beers and passed out in my backseat on the way back from that gig in Wilmington,” Finn teases.

  “First of all, I didn’t pass out, I fell asleep,” I say, pointing a breadstick at him.

  “Same difference.”

  “Uh huh. And second, did you ever think that maybe that was my way of getting you back there, too?” I arch an eyebrow, and Finn slowly whistles.

  “There I was, thinking you were so sweet and innocent, when all along, you were the one who led me astray.”

  “I tried,” I grin. “But let’s face it, you didn’t need much leading.”

  “No,” he says slowly, a smile spreading across his face and lighting up the entire room. “Not when it came to you.”

  There’s a pause, electricity ricocheting between us until the waiter arrives to talk us through the specials.

  I sip my water fast, trying to cool down.

  Easy girl. His backseat is only a few paces away, and part of me wants to skip this whole meal and drag him back there right now.

  “Do you know what you want?” I snap my head up. Finn smiles. “Your order,” he explains.

  “Oh. Right. Yes.”

  I quickly tell the waiter, and hand my menu back. But food is the last thing on my mind. With the romantic setting and the lights glittering off the ocean, it’s hard not to get swept up and feel like we’re on a real date. It’s been forever since a guy took me out like this. Not the fancy restaurant, but any kind of dinner, just the two of us.

  “So, Eva Carmichael, back in Oak Harbor.” Finn takes a sip of champagne, his eyes meeting mine over the candlelight. “That’s a story I’d like to hear.”

  I shrug, careful now. “No story. It turned out the big wide world was a little too big for me. I tried drama school in New York, but it didn’t work out. And then Lottie, with Kit…” I trail off, wondering what he thinks of me. He went out and achieved his dreams, traveled all over the place. I must seem so small-town to him, still walking the same streets I did as a kid.

  “No plans to get back out there?” he asks, studying me. “You always wanted to try living in different cities. You had that list.”

  “What list?” I ask, confused.

  “In the back of your notebook,” Finn reminds me. “Places you wanted to go. Chicago, London, even Italy.”

  I remember it now, those idle hours in school that I’d pass daydreaming of somewhere more exotic. I sigh. “That was just a game. Things change.”

  Finn’s smile slips. “So you’re happy here?”

  “Sure, why wouldn’t I be?” I curl my fingers around my glass, feeling oddly defensive. “It’s a great town, and it’s important I’m here for Lottie. It’s been really tough on her,” I add. “She takes it all in stride, never complains – well, almost never. But a toddler isn’t easy.”

  “I can imagine.”

  Thankfully, Finn doesn’t press anymore. Our appetizers arrive, and I pick at my crab-cake. “What about you?” I ask. “How did you wind up on the front cover of Rolling Stone magazine? I mean I always knew you had talent, but you never said you had ambitions like that.”

  “I didn’t have ambition at all,” Finn answers wryly. “I was just focused on getting the hell away from here.”

  His words cut through me. My heart clenches. “I got that hint,” I reply, my voice cool.

  He winces. “I didn’t mean—”

  “No, go on. After you left,” I prompt him again, pushing my old betrayal aside. “What happened next?”

  He sighs, then leans back in his chair. “I moved around, worked here and there,” he says slowly, and I can tell he’s glossing over something. “Then one night, I picked up my guitar again, and it all came together. After that, I played every chance I got. Until one night in Austin, this guy comes and finds me after the show. Says he’s a manager, that he thinks I’ve got what it takes.” Finn’s expression lifts at the memory. “My buddy, Kyle,” he explains. “He’s a piece of work. Just think of the ultimate Hollywood hustler, and that’s him, right there. He walked in that dive bar wearing three hundred dollar pants, and shoes so shiny you could see your own reflection. I laughed in his face, thought he was crazy.”

  “But he wasn’t?”

  “Oh no, he is.” Finn chuckles. “But he’s my kind of crazy. Doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, or sleep until the deal is signed. Once I decided to give him a shot, it was non-stop. We begged and borrowed studio time, put together a rough demo, then hawked it around to every label in the country. Nobody wanted to give me the time of day.” He shakes his head, a nostalgic smile on his lips. “We would get these notes, like, ‘singer-songwriters aren’t really hot right now, can he get a band, and go more rock?’ Or this one exec, out in LA, he wanted to turn me into a Justin Timberlake guy, you know, with the dance moves and baggy pants.”

  I laugh, trying to imagine it. “But you can’t dance!”

  “Don’t I know it.” Finn grins at me. “But that’s the business now. Everyone’s trying to make you into something you’re not. Looking back, maybe it’s a good thing I never wanted it so bad. It stopped me making bad choices. You know, fitting myself into a tiny little box just to get ahead. I drove Kyle crazy,” he adds. “Turning contracts down like that. But if I was going to do it, I had to do it my way. No canned songs or big makeover. Just me and the music, the way it’s supposed to be.”

  I can see it now in the way he talks: there’s a new ease to him. A confidence, that touch of swagger. Back here in Oak Harbor, Finn was always a renegade, but there was something restless beneath the devil-may-care smile. There was a sharp edge, something straining at the edges to get out. The man sitting so casually across from me tonight is totally comfortable in his own skin. He knows himself, knows he’s been true to who he is.

  And there’s nothing sexier.

  I take another gulp of champagne. The bubbles rush to my head, but I can’t tell if it’s the alcohol, or Finn’s blue eyes still watching me, dangerously intense.

  “Still, I can’t imagine it,” I babble, suddenly feeling off balance. “The fame, the travel. You really made it. One in a million.”

  “I got lucky.” Finn dismisses my praise. “That’s the other thing about this business, it really is about being in the right place at the right time. Some Hollywood person happened to hear one of my tracks off the demo, and used it in a TV show. Suddenly, everything blew up overnight. We were all over YouTube, had calls coming in from overseas. You can’t plan for that kind of thing,” he adds, with another modest shrug. “You’d go crazy if you did, trying to make lightning strike twice.”

  Lightning.

  Was that what the two of us were, I wonder: a bolt from the heavens at the right place, the right time? If he hadn’t been there on the riverbanks that afternoon, if I hadn’t left that New Year’s party on the dark, icy road? So much
about us never made sense; maybe all along it was more accident than destiny.

  So now I look at him and wonder, would it be so wrong to feel that heat again, to invite the wild jolt to my system, the pure desire I’ve been craving for so long? He was the only one to ever make me feel like this. And if lightning won’t strike twice for me with anyone else, can I really just put the past behind me – or go back, for one last taste?

  The waiter arrives to clear our plates, and I realize the meal has passed me by. I’ve barely noticed eating a thing. “May I bring you some dessert menus?” he asks.

  “I think this one would hunt you down if you tried to keep her away from the cake,” Finn jokes lightly, making the waiter smile.

  “Right away.”

  He returns with a heavy embossed page, describing half a dozen decadent treats. Finn glances it over. “How about we get dessert to go?”

  He catches my eye, and there’s something glittering in those depths that makes my pulse kick. Here, in the confines of the luxurious restaurant, I can play it safe. We have a table between us, and people all around, playing out the polite rules of a date with small talk and light banter. But someplace else?

  The rules don’t apply.

  My blood simmers. That reckless instinct flares to life, but still, I fight to keep it down. “I don’t know…” I say vaguely.

  “There’s someplace I want to show you,” Finn says. His smile is intoxicating, full of wicked promise. “Trust me, just this once.”

  It isn’t trust that makes me consider it, but something more elemental. A desire that melts around my limbs like honey, making me remember in an instant just how good it used to be.

  How good it could be, if I let myself take that chance.

  I nod.

  Finn quickly calls the waiter back, taking care of the check and collects a couple of pastry boxes filled with dessert. Soon we’re back out in the car, his headlights cutting through the dark. All the while, my heart beats faster and my mind races to justify this reckless change of plans. It’s stupid, crazy putting my heart back on the line when I’ve barely stitched the broken pieces back together. I came here for questions, closure: firm solid facts and reasons why. But logic doesn’t play a part when it comes to pure desire, and right now, all I know is that I’ve spent five years with a restless body and an empty bed, daydreaming about this moment. Finn, and me. A dark night. An empty road, and all the possibilities waiting in the shadows.

  He was the best I’ve ever had.

  And it’s wrong, I know, but I want more.

  Ten.

  Finn drives for twenty minutes in an easy silence. He doesn’t speak again, but reaches casually across the gearstick and takes my hand in his. The warmth of his touch radiates, heating my body from the inside out, even when his fingertips start to trace lightly over the curve and crevice of my knuckles. A shiver of sensation, feather-light and all-consuming.

  I shift in the passenger seat, already feeling a heady rush of anticipation, that lurch of desire unsteady in my belly. Over and over he brushes my palm, until I’m almost melted into the seat, every nerve ending in my body alight for his touch.

  What do I want from him?

  The question echoes in my mind as the miles slip past. I know what I should do: have the conversation I’ve been avoiding all this time. About why he left, why he never said goodbye. I should ask him the hard questions that will let me finally move on with my life, untangle old memories and lust so that they don’t overwhelm me every time he walks into the room.

  It should be simple, and on the surface, it is. How many times have I watched a movie, or read a book, and been screaming at the characters to just get it together and say what’s on their mind? ‘They’re acting like a kid,’ I would think. ‘Real adults just suck it up and face the conflict head-on’. But here I am, all grown up, and I can’t bring myself to ask Finn why. Because it turns out, when the answer matters more to you than anything – when his words have the power to break your heart all over again – it’s easier just to turn away, and bite your tongue, and fall into the dizzy rush of desire rather than take the blade of truth straight to the heart.

  His hand tightens around mine, and I squeeze it in response. I push the doubts away one final time, too hungry to feel like this.

  To feel anything at all.

  Suddenly, Finn yanks the wheel and curses, sending us off the main road and onto a dirt track, pitch-black in the dark. “Sorry,” he says quickly, and I grab the seat to keep from bouncing around on the uneven terrain. “I forgot there’s no markers out here.” He glances over, a reassuring smile cutting bright through the shadows. “Not far now.”

  I hold on as the track winds deeper into the dark woods. I’ve spent most of my life along this stretch of shoreline, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell you where we are right now. All sense of direction has been sent scattering to the wind, and I only know one compass anymore: where I am in relation to Finn’s body, how far I am from his hands, and mouth, and tongue.

  Right now, it’s barely inches, but still too far. The track evens out, smoother as the dirt gives way to grass underneath the tires, and eventually Finn slows the Mustang to a stop. He looks around at the pitch-black cliff, and lets out a laugh. “I can’t believe this is still here,” he says. “Untouched. I was half expecting to find condos and some ugly shopping mall. C’mon.”

  He opens the door and gets out, and I do the same, surprised to find my legs wavering for a moment beneath me. Blood rushes to my head, and I realize just how much that simple caress of his hand has played havoc with my body, winding me tight with a slow-burn desire.

  He hasn’t even kissed me, and I’m wet for him. Aching.

  I take a gulp of cool, crisp air. We’re perilously high above the ocean, nothing but dark, rocky cliffs below. Finn’s parked far enough back from the edge that I can almost – almost – relax.

  He hops up on the hood of the Mustang and stretches his legs out, leaning back against the windshield. “What do you want?” he asks again, opening one of the dessert boxes. “Death by chocolate, or pistachio éclairs?”

  “Both. Everything,” I answer, relieved for some distraction. I clamber up and take a seat beside him. He passes me a plastic fork and we dig in, breaking the delicate pastry on the éclair first. The cream is cool on my tongue, and I sigh in pleasure. “Mmmm.”

  Finn pauses, then picks up a fragment of the treat and lifts it to my lips. My pulse skitters wildly, but I force myself to hold his gaze, parting my lips wider. He slides it into my mouth, and I sigh, sweetness melting over my tongue.

  “Good?” Finn’s voice is rough. I nod. God, I’m playing with fire here, but damn, it feels too good to stop. The air between us is shimmering with heat and wild lust, and I’m wondering how far this will go, what it’ll take before one of us breaks.

  Finn opens the other box and breaks off a chunk of the chocolate cake. He feeds it to me slowly, and the bitter, rich flavor hits me in a rush of sugar high. I shudder.

  Finn’s jaw tightens.

  Slowly, deliberately, I capture his hand before he can pull away, and lick the frosting from his fingertips.

  He exhales in a rush.

  Who am I right now? I feel drunk on power and desire. Up here on the cold steel hood of this car, nothing but the ocean waves crashing to drown out my thundering heart, I feel brave. I feel reckless.

  I feel invincible.

  Finn’s eyes are dark in the moonlight, still so controlled. He’s barely touching me. He scoops chocolate frosting from the cake and brings it to my mouth again.

  This time, I part my lips wider. He eases his thumb into my mouth, and I suck the sweetness from his bare skin, my eyes still locked on his.

  “God, Eva,” he groans. “You don’t even know…”

  “Try me,” I whisper, intoxicated by sugar and sex, and just the feel of him. The promise of so much more.

  Finn pulls back. “Do you know what you do to me?” he demands slowly
, searching deep in my eyes. “Every girl, every city, it’s always you. I feel you when I push inside them,” he continues roughly. “It’s your voice I hear when they’re begging for more. I’ve fucked you a hundred times over, in every position, in every goddamn way, and it’s never good enough. Not even close.”

  My head spins. His dirty words strike at the very heart of me, and in an instant, I’m so turned on I can barely breathe. I shouldn’t want him, not like this, but I can’t hide it. Finn’s lips curl in surprise.

  “I guess things really do change,” he murmurs, stroking along my cheek. “There I was, remembering my sweet, innocent Eva. But maybe you’re not so sweet anymore.”

  He has no idea, but I don’t want to break the moment, so I push the past aside.

  He tangles his fingers in my hair, then tugs me closer, leaning in to whisper in my ear. “Is that what you like now, baby?” His voice is rasping, seductive. “You want me to tell you all the filthy, wicked things I’m going to do to you? How I jerk off imagining your pretty mouth wrapped around my cock, taking every last drop and begging me for more.”

  I shiver against him, my mind flooded with those same images. And God, I want it too. He’s not the only one who came alone, nothing but sweet fantasies to fuel his pleasure. The nights I’ve spent in the darkness of my own restless mind, tasting him, touching him, feeling his body surge and come undone.

  I pull back far enough to look into those ruinous eyes. I’m too far gone to pretend any longer. There’s nothing but secrets between us now, hot and forbidden. “Every night,” I whisper. “You fuck me every night, and I come, and come, but I never get enough.”

  Finn’s eyes flash with surprise, and just as I’m feeling the shame of my confession, he shoves me down over the hood of his car, and claims my mouth with a hard, devastating kiss.

  Yes.

  I arch up against his body, already lost to the feel of him, the solid muscle covering every inch of me. His mouth is demanding, fevered and out of control, but I want him just as bad: tasting, licking up into his mouth and devouring him in any way I can. His hands slide over me in a haze of heat and bright, fevered sensation, gripping my waist, squeezing at my ass as he tears his mouth from mine and licks down my neck. I moan out loud, not even caring how the sound echoes on the midnight winds. All that matters is the slow, damp slide of his mouth on my skin, and the deep coil of lust demanding and hot between my thighs. I wriggle against him, trying to kiss him again, but Finn just laughs and grabs my wrists, pinning them above my head with one hand. He continues his slow, infuriating path along my collarbone, licking and sucking at the tender flesh.