Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WILLOW
Oh Lord, what a day this had been. I had spent too many hours doing busywork just to please my daddy when I had about two dozen more pressing issues that still sat piled on my desk. Everything I’d had on my to-do list for the Fourth of July parade had been shoved to the back burner simply so I could tend to the issues he’d thought were more important.
So I’d done everything no one else could be counted on to do. My normal quitting time came and went, and yet I’d pushed on for hours. Hadn’t even had time for more than a package of cheese crackers from the vending machine and a bottle of water.
And then Finn had happened.
I’d been struggling with those godforsaken tables that weighed a hundred pounds, and he’d come strolling along, calm as you please and looking like sex on legs. After the day I’d had, was it any wonder I hadn’t put up much of a fight when he’d helped me, made me melt with his words, then hefted me right into his arms and carried me toward a gourmet dinner of peanut butter and banana sandwiches, like some kind of modern-day Prince Charming?
I had never needed a man to save me. Had, in fact, prided myself on being self-sufficient, if for nothing else than a passive aggressive jab at my daddy. But after twenty-eight years of being the only one I relied on, I couldn’t deny it was nice to just…be. Couldn’t deny it was sort of lovely having someone else want to take care of me. And not just want to, but actually push to be able to do so.
Which was obviously why I’d allowed Finn to. After the day I’d had, I’d been tired and exhausted and…weak. I’d said yes when I should’ve said no. When I should’ve gone home to my safe little guesthouse on Momma and Daddy’s property and binged on Netflix with Mac or took out my sexual frustration on a new painting instead of into Finn’s apartment where trouble was bound to turn up.
Trouble like sitting in his lap, being on the receiving end of a near-orgasmic foot rub while his erection pressed into my ass from below. While his breath ghosted over my neck. While simply being that close to him made me ache between my legs, made my clit throb with desire.
And now he questioned what I wanted? Ha! What I wanted wasn’t good for either one of us, especially me. But Lord, would it feel amazing.
“The spark between us was never in question, Finn, and you know it.” I rested my hand on his questing fingers hidden below my skirt, stilling them on my inner thigh.
He traced microscopic circles on my flesh, heating me up from the inside out. Every inch of me felt that tiny touch. Every inch of me yearned for that same attention.
While we’d been intimate when we’d been teenagers, we’d only slept together once. And though it had been amazing because we’d been in love, I had no doubt he’d learned a few things in the past ten years. A few things I desperately wanted him to put into practice on me. He’d rock my world, undeniably.
“I do know it,” he said. With a hand against the small of my back, he pressed me closer. Close enough so he could trail his nose along the curve of my jaw. Close enough to breathe me in before pressing a soft kiss to the space below my ear. “I just wondered if you’d finally accepted it was still there.”
Accepted it? Of course I had. I wasn’t happy about it, but there was really no getting around it. Our connection was plain as day, from the way my body responded to him to the way his did to mine. And after restraining myself a torturous amount since he’d shown up in Havenbrook, I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to ignore it anymore.
When we’d been younger, I’d always felt a sort of imbalance between us. He’d been more experienced, the bad boy of Havenbrook, while I’d been a good little Haven girl. And though he’d certainly never taken advantage of me or coerced me in any way, there was no denying he’d always been the one in the driver’s seat while I’d simply been along for the ride.
And then he’d left, leaving me crumbling in his wake.
But now… Now, I held every ounce of power in this…whatever this was between us. Even though it wasn’t the best reason to start something with him, I couldn’t deny I sort of loved it. Loved that this thing would stop or continue based on only a single word from my lips.
And, maybe, after so long of pleasing everyone else, it was finally time I did something selfish. Something just for myself. Something I absolutely, without doubt, should not be doing.
The thought sent my stomach tumbling, but I swallowed down my nerves and lifted the pressure I’d used to still his hand. Guided his seeking fingers farther up my leg and deeper under my skirt. “There was never any denying it back then, and there certainly isn’t any denying it now.”
He sucked in a breath, the ridge of his cock beneath me seeming to grow even harder. His eyes were molten as he stared at me, his fingers at my back clenched tight against my skin while the ones on my thigh were soft. Careful. Tentative.
His voice, when he spoke, was low and deep. Raspy. Raw. “Be sure, Willowtree.”
Sure? I wasn’t sure about a single thing other than the fact that if I didn’t feel his hands on me, if he didn’t use his fingers to make me come, I’d die. So with a subtle dip of my chin, I sealed our fate.
He dropped his head to my shoulder on a groan and guided his fingers up my thigh until he met the damp fabric of my panties. “ Jesus , you’re wet. You want my fingers, sweetness, or do you want my tongue? Can’t say I haven’t been dreamin’ about tasting your pussy again. Every damn night.”
With each word that left his mouth, he kept his touch featherlight. Teasing me until I couldn’t take it anymore. Until every inch of me ached with want and I was desperate to feel his fingers on me with nothing separating us.
“Anything…” I panted. “ Anything .”
Finn scraped his teeth down the column of my neck, eliciting a shudder from me. “Careful, I might just take you up on that.”
Heaven help me, I hoped so.
I gripped his shirt with one hand, the back of his head with the other as he finally, finally pushed my panties to the side and allowed us to touch skin-to-skin for the first time in ten years.
“Christ,” he groaned, his forehead pressed into my neck. “I thought I remembered what you felt like, but my memories have nothing on the real thing, do they? You’re soft as a rose petal. Soft and wet and warm and just aching for my fingers, isn’t that right?”
Before I could answer him, tell him, yes, oh Lord, yes , he swiped a finger through my slit and used my wetness to trace slow circles around my clit. All the while he watched me with an intensity I didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to question.
It didn’t matter, though. As soon as he slipped a finger inside me, both of us groaning at the contact, all thought promptly left me. Unable to stop myself, I guided his mouth to mine and slid my tongue against his as he pumped his hand beneath my skirt, working me slowly toward a climax.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gotten off by someone else’s efforts. Months…more than a year, maybe. But even when it’d happened, one thing was certain: I’d never rocked myself so unabashedly against their hand. Had never ground down on them with a single-minded desperation to get myself off, unconcerned with what they’d think or how they’d respond to my wanton portrayal.
Of course, with Finn I didn’t have to worry at all about what he might think. His body language said it all. The way he kneaded my ass, guiding my movements as I took his fingers deep inside over and over again. The way he whispered the filthiest things in my ear, how his cock seemed to grow harder with each passing second, with each stroke of his fingers between my legs.
“Come on now, Willowtree. Let me feel you come on my fingers. Let’s get this first one out of the way so I can take my time with the rest of you.” He sped up his hand as he spoke, his thumb flicking back and forth over my clit even as he pumped his fingers deep inside me. “I wanna spend an hour just kissing your tits. Get you nice and worked up, then I’ll spread those gorgeous thighs with my shoulders and make myself at home between your legs. Better get you fed first, though, because once I get my mouth on your pussy, there’s no tellin’ when I’ll stop. Hours. Days .”
The desperation in his voice was what pushed me over the edge. Desperation for me . The thought of reducing this hulking man to his knees in front of me, his sole mission simply to please me with his tongue had me clenching around his fingers, his name a constant chant from my lips.
“That’s it, sweetness. Give it to me.” He groaned, brushing his lips against my collarbone as I did nothing but grip his shirt and hold on for dear life while the longest orgasm known to man or woman ravaged my body.
Finn slowed his hand, though he still pumped his fingers into me, still brushed featherlight circles around my clit as I shuddered and shook in his lap. Good Lord, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had an orgasm that powerful. Couldn’t remember the last time I’d come that hard and yet still ached for something more. Still ached to be filled.
But I did. I couldn’t deny that any more than I could deny my own name.
I knew exactly what kind of trouble Finn and I were stepping into here. There were so many unanswered questions—why did he leave? Why did he stay away? And, number one on the list, what the hell was I doing? But right then, I didn’t care. It’d been too long since I’d allowed myself the freedom of doing exactly what I wanted.
In that moment? I wanted Finn. Wanted him with every ounce of my being. Wanted everything he’d promised me while he’d had his fingers inside me. Wanted his mouth between my legs, his cock filling me until I came from that alone.
And for once, I wasn’t going to tell myself no.