CHAPTER 10
Josie
The decision is made and I don’t regret it.
I’ll never regret it.
I’m that sure.
Finn takes my hand and leads me up a sweeping staircase. The top of the stairs opens into a hallway and he turns left. His hand is warm around mine, his grip assured.
He guides me through the doorway to his bedroom, and my eyes immediately lock onto the king bed set on a low platform.
It abuts another wall of windows overlooking the water twinkling with white, gold and red city lights.
There’s a chair and ottoman in one corner with a book on the seat, and I can envision Finn sitting there reading by lamplight.
But that’s all I see because he spins on me and his mouth is back on mine. The kiss is the same kiss from downstairs but rougher, half desperation and half follow-through on a decision we’ve both made. He’s not gentle and I don’t want him to be.
A thrill runs through me when his hands find the small of my back, then slide up. Mine move to his chest, linger only briefly before I start working the buttons of my own blouse. He watches for a moment before he halts my efforts.
“Let me,” he growls low, and I feel it straight between my legs.
His hands twist the buttons one at a time, slower than I would have expected and frustrating that he just doesn’t rip it open.
I almost push him away to do it myself because I want to be free and naked with this man, but I look up and find he’s not watching his handiwork.
No, rather, he’s staring at me. His eyes roam my face to watch my reaction and I barely notice as the silk is slid free of my shoulders where it flutters to the ground.
My bra is plain white and practical. When I chose it this morning, I never thought a man would be removing it tonight, but he’s not paying attention to the lack of lace. He deftly flicks the catches at the back, and it’s gone in a more practiced motion than I would like.
I don’t have time to be jealous of every woman who came before me in this room because he’s kissing me again.
My hands grab the hem of his sweater, pulling it up his body, and he lifts his arms to allow its removal.
Before I’m able to admire him, he’s pulling me to him, bare skin against bare skin, and the only thing in the world I can think about is the heat of his body.
Finn’s mouth goes to my throat, and I tip my head back in a languid sigh. It’s magic and it drifts lower.
We’re on the move as he walks me toward the bed. The backs of my knees hit the mattress and I sit, lifting my gaze to him.
He stands over me, tall and looming, just like I remember him on the boat when he pulled me out of the water. Hungry, hungry eyes that make me bold. I reach for the waistband of his jeans, popping the button, and his breath catches as I pull down the zipper.
There’s no hesitation… my desire drives my motions.
I slide my hand inside the denim, past his cotton briefs and find him hard against my palm.
Granite and satin, thick and long. I curl my fingers around him, my mouth going dry as I realize my fingers don’t quite close around his girth.
I am, in some distant analytical part of my brain, surprised by his size and wondering if I can take him.
I tighten my grip and he makes a sound in the back of his throat that soaks my panties. I stroke the length of his cock, slow, and the wetness at the tip catches against my thumb. I drag it back the way I came.
“Jesus, Josie,” he says, and his voice has gone rough.
I freeze.
Am I moving too fast or being too presumptuous or too forward?
Does he like this as much as I do?
Finn’s hand closes around my wrist. “Don’t.”
I look up at him, my grip loosening. His face is shadowed by the dim light, and I can’t quite read his expression.
“Don’t stop,” he says gruffly. “Don’t you dare take your hand off me.”
He pushes my hand back to where it had been and squeezes it for emphasis before releasing it. I watch mesmerized as he shoves his jeans and briefs down past his hips without taking his eyes off my face, giving me space and room to pleasure him.
His hand closes around my hand again and he presses my fingers around the length of him. His voice is barely controlled but still commanding. “I like it rough, Josie.”
A shudder racks my body and at that moment, I know I’ve never truly been turned on by a man before. The need along with the command has me melting.
“Get on the bed,” I say, using my hand at his hip to guide him until he’s half lying back against the pillows. I work my way around, one knee tucked under me, my left elbow under my weight, my right hand wrapped around the heat of him.
He drops his head against the pillow and his eyes close. Finn’s jaw loosens as if he’s forcing himself to relax and I find that endearing and a little empowering.
The light falls across him at angles, illuminating a body sculpted of muscle and bronzed skin. I see a scar at his collarbone and make a note to explore it with my tongue later.
I start to move my hand, slow at first because I want to see what he does. Then faster as his breath hitches with every stroke. His hips work against my grip and he doesn’t hold back his groan of pleasure.
I run my hand up his length one more time and at the top of the stroke, I tighten my hold.
“Yes,” he growls through gritted teeth. “Just like that. Don’t change a thing.”
A swell of power rolls through me as I work him… harder, faster, watching his face for the changes in it. Mouth opened, eyes closed, head tilted at an angle on the pillows. There’s a flush down his throat and across his chest and he’s utterly beautiful.
“Look at me, Finn.” His eyes open, blinking at me in surprise. “I want you to watch me watching you as you come.”
His lips peel back in a pleasured grin and his back arches off the bed as his hips thrust up hard into my hand. I stroke a few more times, twisting at the top, and the man orgasms with a shout as the wet heat of him pulses across his stomach in pale ropes.
I keep my hand moving on him gently, letting him ride out the storm until the last of it has disappeared.
I didn’t orgasm and I don’t particularly care I haven’t in this erotic coming together. I’ve just watched Finn come apart against my hand and it’s almost as satisfying as if I had joined him in the fall.
He exhales, hard, blowing a lock of hair off his forehead, and his hips lower back to the bed. “Jesus Christ, Josie. That’s not how I had planned for things to go.”
I chuckle, sliding my hand up the length of him and then run my fingertips through the wetness on his stomach. “I enjoyed that very much.”
The question I should know the answer to is whether I’m supposed to lie down beside him now or stay where I am or say something else.
The information for what comes now should be available to me as I’m not a blushing virgin, but I’ve apparently forgotten the entire library of post-encounter behavior I’ve built since my first sexual experience.
Doesn’t matter, though, because Finn is back in control.
He moves so fast I make a small sound of surprise—an embarrassing yelp, really—and he’s devouring me with a kiss.
His hand is at the back of my neck, and his weight has come over me.
The wetness on his stomach is now wet on my own skin, and I don’t have a single coherent thought about it.
I roll onto my back, and I let him have my mouth with a groan of pure lust-driven pleasure. He traces my throat with his lips, between my breasts and then uses his teeth on my nipples, which are apparently tied to my hips as they shoot off the bed.
Finn presses my stomach back down to the mattress and then he’s dragging my skirt up my thighs. His fingers inch under the elastic of my panties, a bold finger sliding inside me with ease. I’m soaked for him.
He pulls out and drags the wetness up over my clit where his finger sets up a slow circling motion.
I cry out, the pleasure so intense my brain threatens to short-circuit.
Then his hand is gone.
I want to cry in a way that’s not romantic but more like a physical bereavement over the loss.
But Finn’s merely shifting in the bed, moving to his knees to loom over me. He stares at my half-naked body, head tilting as if considering his next move.
And then he’s roughly stripping me of my skirt and panties. I think vaguely that I have no clue where my shoes are or how they came off, but then my skin is blanketed in cool air against the parts of me that have just been uncovered.
He’s so assured with hands at my thighs, opening them and spreading my legs wide.
My breath catches, refuses to fill or deflate my lungs.
He goes prone, mouth hovering over me, and then I feel the stubble of his beard against the inside of my thigh.
He rubs his chin, abrading my skin in a way that feels delicious and then his tongue is inside me.
And while I’m not inexperienced, this is new to me.
With all my previous boyfriends and bed partners, none have ever put their mouth to my most private area.
I’ve obviously had a theoretical understanding of the potential pleasure and I very much know what skilled fingers can do down there, but the warmth and wetness and focused pressure to my clit by this sexy man is not something I’m ever going to recover from.
From this moment forward, I won’t be the same.
“Finn,” I cry out as my hands find his hair. My legs instinctually try to close. He wedges his shoulders, forces my legs open and works me with his tongue in a dance that moves from slow to fast to slow again.
It’s maddening and I want it to go on forever, but I want it to stop as well because it’s so overwhelming.
And then he’s doing something with his mouth that I don’t have a name for, but really, why should I even try?
The orgasm comes without warning. It moves through me from a place inside so deep, I don’t recognize it.
“Finn,” I gasp, sucking in a lungful of oxygen as my entire body explodes in a firestorm of release that has me nearly blacking out.
He makes a low sound against me, half laughter and half future promise, and the vibration of it sends a second orgasm on the heels of the first one still rumbling through. Just as powerful, just as devastating.
Finn gives me one last long stroke of his tongue, and I swear my toes curl to the point of almost cramping and my hips gyrate to ride the continuing wave.
Angling his head, Finn presses a gentle kiss on the inside of one thigh, then tips it the other way to repeat the gesture. It’s so beautifully soothing, tears prick at my eyes.
Then he lifts his body, grazing his lips across my hip, across the curve of my belly, up between my breasts before he kisses me. I taste myself on his tongue and it’s the most intimate thing I’ve ever experienced.
I wrap my arms around his neck and hold him there.
After a long time, he lifts his mouth and rolls beside me, his arm still under my shoulders. I shift toward him, bury my face in his neck, and he sighs in contentment.
Now that… that right there is the most intimate thing I’ve ever experienced.
“Finn…”
“Mmm?”
“I think I should probably apologize for that.”
He lifts his head and glances down at me, forcing me to make eye contact. His brows are furrowed in confusion. “Apologize for what?”
“I don’t know. The hand. The order of things. That’s not usually the… well, order of things.”
“That ship has sailed, Josie,” he says, his tone gently teasing. “It was fucking incredible and we both know it.”
“But… we didn’t have sex,” I point out. “I mean… like sex sex.”
“A problem I’m going to rectify as soon as I have a minute to recharge.”
“Oh,” I say in surprise, my eyes falling away.
His fingers come to my chin, forcing me to look at him. “What? Did you think this was a one-and-done thing? I’m only just getting started with you, sweet girl.”
“Oh,” I say again lamely. “I mean… yeah, okay. That’s good.” Finn chuckles, places a kiss to my forehead. “Should I get us water or something?”
He laughs again and pulls me harder against him. “Not going to take that long, Josie.”