by Jill Shalvis
Truth was, she trusted him one hundred percent, with her pizza, with her body, and if she was being honest, with her heart too.
It was a shocking thought but she didn’t have the brain power to lend to it at the moment. She was far too busy being taken apart by Finn’s fingers as they stroked knowingly over her. But in the vague recesses of her mind, she was aware that if she trusted him one hundred percent, she needed to trust him with the facts of who she was.
And she would. It was just that things between them had heated up so quickly and unexpectedly in their short time together, and had become so unexpectedly complicated. She wanted to tell him everything, and soon. But it hadn’t really been all that long—only been two weeks—and she needed a little more time to figure it all out first.
The early evening’s breeze floated over her bare skin, along with Finn’s heated gaze. Every inch of her was crying out for his touch, needing him more than she’d ever needed anything in her life. “Finn.”
“Don’t let go of me,” he said and tugged a gasp from her when his fingers went from teasing to driving her right to the edge, moving in beat with her heart. Suddenly she no longer cared if she was in danger of plummeting to her death because she was too busy coming apart.
When she could hear past the roar of her own blood in her ears, she hoped like hell that his neighbors hadn’t been able to hear her cries. “Were we loud?” she whispered.
He grinned. “We?” he asked, laughing when she smacked him in the chest.
He caught her hand, kissed her palm, and then tore open a condom packet. Protecting them both, he plunged into her as his mouth claimed hers again.
Good God. She wasn’t going to die from a fall. She was going to die of pleasure, right here . . .
Chapter 29
#HoustonWeHaveAProblem
The week went by in a blur for Pru. It was a rare blue moon–two full moons in the same calendar month—so SF Tours held a special moonlit cruise week.
Which meant that Pru and the other boat captains worked during the day, crashed for a few hours on whatever horizontal surface they could find in the building, and then went back out at night on the water.
This went on for three days.
On the fourth day, she crawled home and into bed right after grabbing dinner—Frosted Flakes. But she came awake some time later in her dark bedroom to find someone in it with her. Then that someone pulled his shirt over his head and shucked his jeans.
She’d recognize that leanly muscled bod anywhere and swallowed hard at the gorgeous outline of him bathed in nothing but moonlight. It didn’t matter how many times she saw him in the buff, he never failed to steal her breath. With her still blinking through the dark trying to see his every sexy inch, he slipped beneath the covers with her.
Naked.
“Chris Pratt?” she asked. “Is that you?”
“You don’t need Chris Pratt,” Finn said as he pulled her into a heated embrace.
He was damp and chilled. “Hey!” she complained.
“It’s raining sideways,” he explained, wrapping himself around her. “Nasty storm. Your bed was closer than mine. And mine was missing something.”
“What?”
“You.”
Aw. Dammit. “How did you get in?” she asked. “I mean, your hands are magic but not that magic.”
“Your hidden key.” His magical hands began stroking her, while at the same time he pressed hot kisses against the back of her neck. “Do you mind?”
She loved being in the circle of his arms. Loved the way he touched her so knowingly and sure, and since he was actually licking her now, she couldn’t concentrate on anything beyond his tongue. Did she mind? “Only if you stop.”
His hands were hypnotic, his palms a little rough with calluses, his long talented fingers tracing over her breasts, teasing her nipples.
One thing she’d come to know about him, he was incredibly physical. Whenever they were together like this, he wanted to touch and taste and see . . . everything. There was no hiding, not that she could remember to. He was an incredibly demanding lover, but also endlessly patient and creative. She never knew exactly what to expect from him but he always left her panting for more. “Aren’t you tired?” she asked.
“I can sleep when I’m dead.” He slipped his fingers inside her panties to cup and squeeze her ass, and then wriggled them to her thighs.
And she was a goner.
“Missed this,” he murmured in her ear.
She’d been hoping for sleep. Now she hoped for this to never end. “It hasn’t been all that long,” she managed. “A few days.”
“Four. Too long.” Her T-shirt and panties vanished and then his hand was back to its serious business of driving her out of her mind. In less than a minute she was thrusting against his fingers. And in the next, she came so fast her head was spinning.
“God, I love watching you come,” he said, and then proceeded to show her what a true force of nature could accomplish.
Mother Nature had nothing on him.
Later Pru lay in Finn’s arms, her head on his shoulder, her face pressed into his throat, knowing by the way he was breathing that he was out cold, dead asleep. Poor baby, being a sex fiend was exhausting.
He’d left work and had come here, to her. And there in the dark, she smiled, her body sated, her heart so full she almost didn’t know what to do with herself.
Had she ever felt like this? Like she just wanted to climb into the man next to her and stay there?
Being with Jake had been good. She’d had no complaints, but she wasn’t for him. When they’d split, he’d moved on with shocking ease.
And in truth, so had she.
But it’d left her feeling just a little bit . . . broken, and more than a little bit unsure about love in general.
But then Finn O’Riley had come into her life. She knew that she had no business feeling anything for him at all. But apparently, some things—like matters of the heart—not only happened in a blink but were also out of her control.
She felt her heart swell at just the thought and before she could stop herself, she mouthed the words against his throat. “I love you, Finn.”
She immediately stilled in shock because she hadn’t just mouthed the words, she’d actually said them.
Out loud.
She remained perfectly frozen another beat, but Finn didn’t so much as twitch.
It took a while but eventually she relaxed into him again, and there in the dark, told herself it was okay. He didn’t know.
He didn’t know a lot of things . . .
The panic that was never far away these days hit her hard. She’d been telling herself that she’d waited to tell him the truth in the hopes he’d understand better once he knew her. But deep down, she wasn’t sure she’d done the right thing. Telling him now was going to be harder, not easier.
And the outcome felt more uncertain than ever.
As always, Pru woke up just before her alarm was due to go off at the shockingly early hour of oh-dark-annoying-thirty. But this time it wasn’t thoughts of the day ahead that woke her. Or the knot of anxiety wrapped in and around her chest.
It was the fact that she was wrapped around a big, strong, warm body.
Finn had one hand tangled in her hair and the other possessively cupping her bare ass, and when she shifted to try and disentangle herself without waking him, he tightened his grip and let out a low growl.
Torn between laughing and getting unbearably aroused—seriously, that growl!—she lifted her head.
And discovered she wasn’t the only one wrapped around Finn like a pretzel.
Thor was on the other side of him, his head on Finn’s shoulder, eyes slitted at her.
And she did laugh then because it’d been Thor who growled, not Finn. “Are you kidding me?” she whispered to her dog. “He’s mine.”
But no he’s not, a little voice deep inside her whispered. He doesn’t yet know it but you wrecked this—long be
fore it’d even begun.
Pru told the little voice to shut up and concentrated on Thor. “I found him first,” she whispered.
Thor growled again.
Thor didn’t look impressed in the least. She opened her mouth to further argue but Finn spoke, his voice low and morning gruff. “There’s plenty of me to go around.”
Pru felt the pink tinge hit her cheeks and she shifted her focus from Thor to Finn.
Yep. He was wide awake and watching and, if she had to guess, more than a little amused that she’d been willing to fight her own dog for him.
“He’s mine?” Finn repeated.
“It’s a figure of speech.” She grimaced at the lameness of that but he smiled.
“I like it,” he said. “I like this. But mostly, I like where we’re going.”
If she could think straight, she’d echo that thought, but she couldn’t think straight because every moment of every single day she was painfully aware she’d built this glass house that couldn’t possibly withstand the coming storm . . .
“Pretty sure I just lost you for a few beats,” Finn said quietly, eyes serious now, dark and warm and intense as he ran a finger along her jaw. “Was it what I said about liking where we’re going thing?”
She tried to play this off with her customary self-deprecatory humor. “Since where we’re going is always straight to bed, I can’t do much complaining about that, can I,” she said in a teasing voice, desperately hoping to steer the conversation to lighter waters, because one thing she couldn’t do was have the talk with him while naked in his arms.
But she should have known better. Finn couldn’t be steered, ever.
“This is more than that,” he said, voice low but sure, so sure she wished for even an ounce of his easy confidence. “A lot more.”
His gaze held hers prisoner, daring her to contradict him, and she swallowed hard. “It’s only been a few weeks,” she said softly.
“Three,” he said.
“It just seems like we’re moving so fast.”
“Too fast?” he asked.
She gnawed on her lower lip, unsure how to answer that. The truth was, she’d already acknowledged to herself how she felt about him. And another truth—she wouldn’t mind moving along even faster. She wanted to leap into his arms, press her face into his neck, and breathe him in and claim him as hers.
For always.
But she’d gone about this all wrong, and because of that she didn’t have the right to him. Not even a little.
His fingers were gentle as they traced the line of her temple. “Babe, you’re thinking too hard.”
She nodded at the truth of this statement.
“You’re scared,” he said.
Terrified, thank you very much. She nodded again.
“Of me?”
“No. No,” she said again, firmly, cupping his face. “It’s more than I’m scared of what you make me feel.”
He didn’t seem annoyed or impatient at her reticence. Instead he kept his hands on her, his voice quiet. “I’m not saying I know where this is going,” he said. “Because I don’t. But what I do know is that what we’ve got here between us is good, really good.”
She nodded her agreement of that but then slowly shook her head. “Good can go bad. Fast.” As she knew all too well.
“Life’s a crap shoot and we both know it,” he said. “More than most. But whatever this is, I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t stop wanting more. I think we’ve got a real shot, and that doesn’t come around every day, Pru. We both know that too.” He paused. “I want us to go for it.”
Heart tight, she closed her eyes.
He was quiet a moment, but she could feel him studying her. “Pru, look at me.”
She lifted her gaze and found his still warm, but very focused. “Say the word,” he said seriously. “Tell me that this isn’t your thing, that you’re not feeling it, and I’ll back off.”
She opened her mouth.
And then closed it.
His fingers on her jaw, his thumb slid over her lower lip. “You’re the self-proclaimed Fun Whisperer,” he said. “You’re the one preaching about getting out there and living life. So why are you all talk and no go, Pru? What am I missing?”
She choked out a laugh at his sharpness and dropped his head to his chest.
“Tell me what you’re afraid of,” he said.
Her words came out muffled. “It’s hard to put words to it.”
He wasn’t buying it and slid his hands into her hair and lifted her face. “Fight through that,” he said simply. “Fight for me.”
Of course he’d say that. It was his MO. Want something? Get it. Make it yours. Go for it, one hundred percent.
Which brought home one hard-hitting point—she needed to adopt that philosophy and do what he’d said, fight for what she wanted. Fight for him.
She’d left her cell on the kitchen counter the night before and from down the hall, it rang. She ignored it but once it stopped, it immediately started up again. Not a good sign so she slid out of bed. Realizing she was very, very naked, she bent to pick something from the pile of discarded clothes and heard a choked sound from the bed.
She turned and found Finn watching her every move, eyes heavy-lidded but not with sleepiness.
He crooked his finger at her.
“Oh no,” she said, pointing her finger back at him. “Don’t even think about waving your magic wand and—” Shit. “I didn’t mean wand as in . . .” Her gaze slid down past his chest and washboard abs to the part of him that never failed to be happy to see her. “You know.”
He burst out laughing. “Babe, if my ‘wand’ really was magic, then you’d be on it right now.”
She felt herself blush to the roots, which only seemed to amuse him all the more. She actually took a step toward him when her phone rang yet a third time. With a sigh, she slipped his shirt over her head and padded out of the room.
Three missed calls, all from Jake. She tapped on the voicemail he’d just left, hitting speaker so she could make some desperately needed coffee as she listened.
“You’re either still sleeping or hell, maybe you’re out playing fairy godmother before work,” he said, sounding disgruntled. “I heard from a little birdie that you got Tim a place to live.”
Damn. Not a little birdie at all. Nick had spilled the beans on her. Again.
“I don’t know how long you intend to go around fixing wrongs that aren’t yours to fix,” Jake said. “But at some point you’re going to have to let go. You know that, right? You can’t go on keeping track of everyone from the accident and righting their worlds. The seed money for what’s-her-name—”
“Shelby,” she said, as if Jake could hear her.
“Then there was the place to live for Tim. The job for Nick. And how about what you did for F—”
At the sound behind her, Pru hit delete at the speed of light.
Because she knew the rest of Jake’s sentence.
The beep of Jake’s message being deleted echoed in the room as she turned to face Finn, wearing only his jeans, unbuttoned.
“What was that about?” he asked.
“Oh . . .” She waved her hand. “You know Jake, sticking his nose into everything.”
“Sounds like he thinks you’re the one sticking your nose into everything.”
