by Meier, Susan
“Better be careful. You’ll end up drunk.” He smiled. “And then I might take advantage of you.”
Her breath stalled. But not with fear, with anticipation. He was hard enough to resist when they were competing, but trying to show her a good time? He was devastating.
Good Lord, she liked this guy.
“Of course, we could always dance off your alcohol.” He caught her hand and led her back to the dance floor.
From then on, they were a couple, and—as he’d said—to hell with what anybody thought. During the DJ’s break, he slid his arm across the back of her chair to her shoulders as he chatted with Tom Lashinsky, and rightness surged through her. She glanced at Ashley, and Ashley smiled. Though Ashley hadn’t been a Finn fan, once his father outed himself by publicly punching Finn, Ashley had changed her tune, declaring maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all.
With the men talking about grass seed and the women chatting about kids, Ellie didn’t think about her dad or her mom or the Dinner Belles or Barbara Beth or Tidy Whitiez or focus groups or flower sprays. She was just herself.
The concept almost floored her.
The DJ started playing music, and Finn rose and took her to the dance floor again. Every couple of dances, they’d pause for a drink.
When she finally excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, Ashley raced in with her. “So what the heck is going on with you and Finn?”
Ellie shrugged. “He just wants to have fun.”
Ashley considered that for a second. “You need some fun.”
“I do.” She did. So she danced with him, and she danced with her friends. She led a conga line. Did the bunny hop. Even did the Macarena.
But after every dance, she’d walk back to Finn, and he’d welcome her with a smile.
At a certain point, she probably should have eased off on the cranberry juice and vodka, but it was hot. The drinks were cold, and she was determined to have a good time.
The music paused for the cutting of the cake and the tossing of the bouquet. Ellie hadn’t planned on trying for the bouquet, but the Dinner Belles egged her on. Remembering something Sandy had said about showing the town she was a good sport, she ambled out to the dance floor.
The bouquet sailed over her head and landed in Ashley’s lap. Ellie laughed with glee over the shocked expression on Ashley’s face. But Ashley didn’t miss a beat. She picked up the bouquet and tossed it at the gaggle of girls gaping at her. It landed in the arms of a very happy bridesmaid.
They paid a dollar to dance with the bride in the bridal dance, had a shot of whiskey with the groom, and watched the groom carry the bride out of the fire hall and to his waiting SUV, which had been decorated with a Just Married sign and Silly String.
Standing at the open door, she sighed. “I think that’s so romantic.”
…
Finn faced her. Her eyes were shiny with tears, but he’d also noticed she’d had quite a few cranberry juice and vodkas. He hadn’t stopped her because he knew how rough her life was right now. Lately, when he’d gone to Harmony Hills Hideaway to pick up a body, he’d checked in on her dad. Mark had never remembered Finn—if he was awake. Lots of times he wasn’t. It had struck Finn dumb to see Mark so weak. He couldn’t imagine what it did to Ellie every time she went to Harmony Hills Hideaway.
So if she had a few too many cocktails, he’d let her. He’d already decided he was walking her home. She’d be safe.
She drew a deep breath. “I’m suddenly very tired.”
He slid his arm around her shoulders and led her into the starry August night. “You danced a lot.”
She beamed up at him. “I did.”
“You had fun?”
She giggled with glee. “The best.”
“I told you that you and I needed to stop being so serious.”
She poked her finger into the third button of his shirt. “And you were right.”
He laughed. “How about if I walk you home?”
“Okay, but no funny business.”
“Really?” He pretended to be shocked. “When you decide to only have fun then the whole night has to be about funny business.”
Her brow furrowed as she tried to get his joke and couldn’t. Laughing, he led her across quiet Main Street and down Luray to McDermott’s.
Leafy trees blocked half the light from the streetlamps, and the closer to McDermott’s they walked, the quieter it got. No one was out and about this late on a Saturday night. But he didn’t care. It was warm and dark, and he had his arm around the woman who turned him on so much some days he thought he’d die from it. The dim light and near silence made it romantic.
“I’m not sleeping with you.”
Her sudden statement brought him out of his reverie. Though that was the plan, tonight wasn’t the night. She was a bit too drunk. “I never said you were.”
“You know, you’re the first person I’ve actually had fun with in bed since my boyfriend Nick dumped me. Told me he wasn’t ready to settle down, and one year later to the day the rat bastard was married.”
Finn burst out laughing.
She slapped his upper arm. “It was traumatic.”
His entire being ached to kiss her, if only because she was so funny. But he knew exactly what she was saying. They both had had abysmal luck in their lives. And tonight she was so cute, so honest, that every fiber in his body had switched from wanting to kiss her to wanting to sleep with her, but he couldn’t.
He helped her up the stairs to her apartment, pushing a bit on her rear when she seemed to stall. He let her lead him to her room, where she kicked off her shoes and fell face-first on the bed.
His heart tugged. She wasn’t just physically tired. He would bet she was emotionally tired, torn apart, shredded. But that only reinforced his idea that she needed some meaningless fun.
He bent, kissed her cheek, and left, careful to lock both doors behind him.
Their day would come.
Chapter Thirteen
Ellie awakened the next morning to the sound of her phone chirping. She looked at the clock, saw it was after ten, then glanced down at her shiny pink minidress and groaned.
The phone chirped again.
She grabbed it. “Hello.” Well, gee, that sounded terrific. As if she were on death’s door. She cleared her throat and tried again. “McDermott’s. How can I help you?”
“You can tell me you’re fine.”
“Finn?”
“When I left last night, you were out cold.”
Images came dancing back. Finn dipping her. Drinking vodka and cranberry juice. Finn laughing as they walked down the street to her house.
Had she told him about Nick?
She squeezed her eyes shut, then popped them open again and looked down at her dress. She didn’t think a man who’d had sex with a woman would then redress her.
She said, “I’m fine,” wincing when it sounded as though her voice had come through rusty sandpaper.
“You need to hydrate. Go drink a bottle of water. Move around a bit, get your blood flowing, and the alcohol will leave, too.”
“Is this your official hangover cure?”
“No, my hangover cure involves hair of the dog. But it’s Sunday.”
“And I shouldn’t drink on Sunday?”
“No, I bought steaks. I thought I’d cook them at your house, and we could spend a leisurely afternoon reading the paper.”
Having him behave as if they were just any other couple set her pulse to racing, but also confused her. He said he only wanted to have fun. Should people who only wanted to have fun grill steaks?
Her stomach growled.
Why was she overthinking this? She was hungry. He’d bought steaks.
“Give me time to shower.”
“You have a grill, right?”
“On the apartment deck.”
“So I’ll be grilling in the sky.”
She laughed. “Whatever. Just bring food. I’m starving.”
&nb
sp; She hung up the phone, showered quickly, then raced out to the deck. Testing the gas grill, she turned it on and it worked, so she turned it off. She wiped the table clean, wiped down the chairs around the table, and also swiped the two chaise longues.
Remembering the bottle and a half of wine in her dad’s desk drawer, she raced downstairs. She put both bottles in the refrigerator. Just as she closed the door, the doorbell rang.
“Please do not let it be somebody with a dead relative,” she prayed as she raced down the steps. When she reached the bottom, she took a deep breath and opened the door.
Finn stood on her porch with an O’Riley’s bag full of food and a bag from the liquor store.
He presented it to her. “Some wine.”
She peeked inside with a smile. “I have a couple bottles chilling, but I’m never unhappy to add more.”
She turned and started up the stairs. Following her, he laughed, and the sound echoed around her. Her heart lifted a bit, but just a bit. He was here to make her a steak. And she suspected he wanted to begin their affair. She did too. But when she thought about that part, her stomach fell, her knees trembled. The last time they’d made love, it had been on a spontaneous burst of passion. They’d never made a decision. And she felt awkward, clumsy.
“I also brought lettuce and tomatoes for a salad.”
Trying to forget her nerves, she opened the apartment door. “I have some mushrooms and cucumbers.”
“Sounds perfect.”
She slid the bag from his hands and set it on the table. “You take the steaks out to the grill. It’s gas. Self-explanatory. And I’ll make the salad.”
She turned away and would have begun pulling out the lettuce and tomatoes, but he caught her arm, turned her to him, and kissed her.
Soft and slow, warm and deep, his kiss turned her heart to mush and blanked out any thought she might have had in her brain.
He pulled away slowly. “I didn’t get a good-night kiss.”
Her gaze clung to his. “You didn’t?”
He laughed. “And that’s why. When I kiss a girl, I want her to know it.”
What little solidity she had in her body fled.
He bent his head and kissed her again. “I wish you had that little pink dress on now. I had visions of how easy it was going to be to get you out of it.”
“This tank top comes off fairly easily, too.”
He stepped back and smiled. “Show me.”
Not really one to be bold, but determined to get rid of her nerves, she reached for the hem of her top and lifted it an inch, then another, and another.
“What are you doing?”
She smiled. “Striptease…don’t you like it?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Good.” She rolled her hips as she slowly raised the top and pulled it off.
His eyes gleaming, he put his hands on her shoulders, bent, and traced his tongue over the lace of her bra above her nipple. Her breath caught. Shivers raced down her spine. And not all were from arousal. Far too many were from fear. As long as she was doing something like a striptease, she was fine. It was when he took over that nerves filled her. It wasn’t that she didn’t like what he did to her. She certainly did. It was more the vulnerability that sneaked up on her and made her nervous.
Needing a minute to adjust, she caught his hand and led him down the hall to her bedroom.
“You don’t like being carried?”
“No. I’m using the time to ease myself into this.”
“You just did a striptease.” He stopped. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
She faced him. “I want to do this. It’s just that everything between us always happens so fast that there are no awkward moments.” She sucked in a breath. “But today we have one. I’m in a bra and shorts and you’re fully dressed.”
“Okay.” He whipped off his shirt. “Now we’re even.”
He caught her hand, yanked her inside the room, and tumbled her to the bed. His lips captured hers as he rolled her beneath him. Her breasts grazed the solid wall of his chest, sending need sizzling through her. She squeezed her eyes shut in gratitude. He’d speeded things up so she’d be more comfortable.
Her bra loosened around her, then disappeared. Answering his deliberately distracting kisses, she pulled in a breath. Determined not to overthink this, she brought her hands to his shoulders and glided them down his back. Beautiful muscles rippled beneath her touch, reminding her there was so much more to this man than simple male perfection.
But those thoughts left her when he reached for the button of her shorts. He opened it, pulled down the zipper, and in one quick tug got them off her butt and to her knees. Another tug brought them to her ankles. His hands smoothed from her calf, up her thigh to her stomach, as if memorizing her shape, sending arousal cascading through her.
She kicked her shorts off her ankles and sent them flying.
“Now you’re overdressed again,” she whispered, as she found her way to the metal catch of his jeans. She popped it open and unzipped the fly, but he sat up.
“Let’s do this the easy way.” He tugged off his jeans and threw them to the chair by the window.
When he rolled over to her again, he was naked. Warm and naked. His firm erection pressed against her thigh. As he kissed her, her hands automatically went to his arms, to the tattoos over roped muscle. She let herself explore the curves and indentation that defined the muscles, kissing him back. Her hands roved up his shoulders and down his chest, not exploring this time, but enjoying. For now, his body was hers. She almost couldn’t believe it, but it was, and she wasn’t letting one inch go untouched. Unkissed.
She flipped him to give herself time to run her tongue along the lines of his pecs down his stomach to his belly button and back up again. His firm skin tasted of soap and salt. She stopped her tongue and began to kiss him, but he flipped her before she could go any further.
His mouth slid from her breasts to her belly. She expected him to skim over her soft mound, but his tongue darted out, across her sensitive nub. Her hips arched involuntarily. He caught them in his big hands as his tongue dipped lower, until it slid inside her.
This time when she arched, he didn’t stop her. His tongue was too busy. Her breath caught as every muscle in her lower body swelled with need.
“Oh my God. Finn, stop. I’m going to come.” She’d never been so bold as to utter words like that with another man, but she and frenemy Finn breached all kinds of protocol boundaries.
He left her, and the sound of a foil packet being torn whispered through the silent room. Then he grabbed her shoulders and rolled her to her back. Her legs opened for him and he moved inside her.
He stretched her to capacity, easing the tension for a second only to ratchet it up again as he began to move. Then he brought his lips back to hers, kissing her so deeply that something tugged and snapped. It was as if he answered every prayer, every feminine need she ever had. She ran her hands down his strong back, to the curve of his butt, her fingers and senses so attuned to him that the world around her ceased to exist.
He pushed in and eased out, silkily sliding against her inner walls, sending sweet sensation through her. The easy rhythm increased, once, twice until he was pounding in and out, building the pressure of arousal that begged for sweet release. He drove her higher. Harder. Faster. Until she thought she’d die from the intensity of her need to let go.
When she finally did, she screamed. He kept the pace, in, out, harder, faster until he cried out and his own dam of arousal burst.
After a few seconds of total silence, he shifted away to the bed beside her. Her body hummed with life and energy, as her chest rose and fell from her efforts to fill it with much-needed air.
“That was…” Words failed her so she settled for, “Magnificent.”
“Magnificent, huh?”
“I could have said mind-numbing.”
He laughed.
“Or earth-shattering, but I think both are ove
rdone.” She rolled to him and caught his gaze. “You are definitely an answer man.”
He rubbed her back. “An answer man?”
“You suggested we do this. I’m just sorry it took three weeks before we followed through.”
He laughed. “I’d’ve been here before that, but my nose needed a long time to heal.”
She nestled a little closer, edging herself against his warm side. “How are things with your dad?”
He winced. “Normally, I’d say this topic was out of bounds—too serious—for our plan to just have fun, but since gossip is probably out there anyway, I’ll tell you that things are good. Not great, but good.”
“Why not great?”
“He’s leaving my mom alone, but he was supposed to file for divorce and he hasn’t.”
“Oh.”
He tumbled her to her back. “So let’s forget about that and talk about something else.”
She glanced at his tattoos, symbols of strength and male virility, which he had in abundance. “Why don’t you tell me about being in the marines?”
His eyes shifted, changing. The sparkle died as if someone had snuffed out a candle. “I don’t like to talk about war.”
She traced the lines of the Semper Fi tattoo. “Not the war, being in the marines.”
“I was always a fighter, a scrapper. Part of that I blame on you.”
“Me?”
“You made me fight for every damned prize I won.”
She laughed.
“But the marines took my ability to fight, to defend myself, and showed me how to use it. How to direct all that energy.”
“That’s why you didn’t hit your dad back when he hit you.”
“Basically, yes.” He ran his hand down her side. “Enough of that. Let’s talk about something more interesting, like the freckles on your chest.”
She knew he was changing the subject because they were talking. Really talking. Running the risk of getting close. That wasn’t just a bad thing for him. It was bad for her too. When the contest ended, no matter who won, they’d part. Getting close would cause the loss of their relationship to hurt more.
She smiled, taking the hint to let their pillow talk go in a less serious direction. “You don’t think you’re going to get a redhead naked and not see a freckle or two.”
