Chapter 17
Finn
I had given Juliet the security code for the front door so she could let herself in. I didn’t like that she was driving to see me in her ancient, messed-up car, but if I insisted on coming to Portland to get her, the weekend would be off, and there was no way I would risk it. I settled for getting her to agree to text me when she left so that if she didn’t turn up in time, I could go looking for her in roadside ditches.
At dinnertime on Friday, she messaged me.
Juliet: Leaving now, setting up my GPS. What’s the address to your pussy palace?
Finn: 436 Sexual Genius Avenue. First glass-walled mansion on the left.
Juliet: The one that smells like massage oil and used tissues?
Finn: No, that’s my neighbor. Mine is the one with the condom delivery truck out front.
Then I texted her the correct address. I didn’t tell her that I had, in fact, gone out and bought a brand-new box of condoms, which were now stashed in my en suite bathroom. Doing that made me feel oddly like I was getting my hopes up, even though this weekend was Juliet’s idea. I was never sure exactly what she would do. Maybe she only wanted to eat pesto and watch TV.
This was a hookup. I knew that, and her bawdy joke over text was her way of reminding me. We’re just fooling around here. Nothing serious. Still, my place was tidy, my kitchen stocked, and Gary was happy in his dog bed after a long walk. To burn off my nervous energy, I turned to the leak under the sink in my guest bathroom, watching YouTube videos and then attacking the problem.
I was finishing up when my security app pinged that the front door was opening. I heard the telltale sound of Gary’s claws clicking on the tile in the front hall as he greeted her. Gary was the worst guard dog in the world, but that wasn’t why I’d adopted him in the first place.
I extracted myself from under the sink. Downstairs, I heard Juliet talking to Gary in a dopey voice that only the best people use with dogs. Her voice traveled to the kitchen, where she knew the treats were kept in a jar on the counter.
“You’re a good boy,” I heard her say. “Such a good boy. Yes, I’m happy to see you, too.”
Gary’s nails clicked in an excited dance, then went still when she gave him the treat. I leaned against the counter, listening, not feeling the need to announce myself yet. I savored the moment, the pleasure of hearing Juliet in my house, her ease and familiarity. She knew I was here, but she wasn’t in a hurry, either. She was taking her time.
When Gary had settled, I heard her leave the kitchen and pause. I knew she was wondering whether I was downstairs or up. “Finn?” she asked.
“Up here,” I said.
I didn’t move as she climbed the stairs. When she came to the door, I felt a wild beat of excitement when our gazes met. Our position—me at the counter, Juliet in the doorway—was just like the moment we’d first met in the kitchen at my old house. It was years later, and I was no longer a pop star, and she was no longer the girl with the red hair. But still, in that moment, I had the crazy idea that this was a do-over. That I could make this moment what it should have been in the first place.
She looked me up and down in a way similar to how that long-ago girl had. She was wearing loose jeans that sat low on her hips and a Fleetwood Mac T-shirt, her blond hair down in tousled waves around her shoulders. She was so hot she made me speechless. I was getting used to it.
“Huh,” she said as she assessed me and took in the tool box and the open cupboard under the sink. “The sexy plumber look.”
I glanced down at myself. I was wearing old cargo shorts and a sleeveless shirt. “Does this work for you?” I asked her.
She crossed her arms over her chest. I knew exactly what those breasts looked like, how they fit in my hands. I hadn’t tasted them yet, but I planned to. “Oddly, yes, it does,” she admitted.
The moment hung in the balance, as delicate as glass. I thought of the girl that night saying, Kick me out in the rain, Finn! I thought of her saying, See you never.
So I did what I should have done that night, even though it was the wrong time back then, because I had been leaving and she’d had a boyfriend who was cheating in the room down the hall. It would have been crazy, but I should have done it anyway, and I had known it every minute since.
I did it now. Without another word, I walked toward her and caged her against the doorway, my arms on either side of her head. I pressed closer, and her expression flared with surprise. Just as the look in her eyes changed to molten heat, I kissed her.
I knew how to kiss her now. I was learning her tells. The rush of her breath, the way she kissed me back, the feel of tension slowly leaving her body. Juliet lived with tension, her body braced. All I wanted was to make her melt. Every time.
Her hips pushed into mine as I kissed her, and I pressed her more firmly into the wall, pinning her with my body against hers. She responded by biting my lip. She didn’t want tentative, and neither did I.
I broke the kiss as her hands moved under my shirt, her palms sliding over the skin of my stomach. Her eyes were dark, her lips reddened.
“Get in my bed,” I said.
I should have done this thirteen years ago, too, but that didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was that I was doing it now.
Her expression switched to surprise again, her emotions so clear every time they crossed her face. She was impossible to predict, but she was easy to read. I would never get tired of the contradiction.
“Kiss me again,” she said, because she had to challenge me. She couldn’t quite give in.
I held her gaze, challenging her back. When I didn’t move, she coasted her hand down my bare stomach to the waist of my shorts. I caught her hand before she sent it lower and twined her fingers with mine instead.
“I think we should do this my way,” I told her calmly. “The bath was your idea, and it was fun. But my way involves me licking you until you lose your mind.”
“Finn,” she whispered, and she was turned on, but there was something else in her voice, too. Like she was trusting me.
Keeping hold of her hand, I tugged her behind me down the hall to my bedroom. I wasn’t usually bossy with women; I didn’t order them around. But Juliet was here for this, and we’d waited a long time, and I’d felt how wound up she was when I’d kissed her. I was discovering that if I had any kink, it was for unwinding Juliet, and I intended to do it again now.
Even though this was a hookup, I planned to savor it. To savor her. We were alone, uninterrupted, both single, and in my bedroom. There was no better way to spend a weekend. I was planning, as Travis had put it, to put my back into it.
She lay back on the bed at my direction, and I crawled over her, bracing on my arms and kissing her. She tugged at my shirt again, so I leaned back to pull it off. She watched me with frowning seriousness, her skin flushed and her pupils blown. “You are so stupidly hot,” she complained.
“Die mad about it,” I said, sliding her shirt up and tugging down one cup of her bra. I put my mouth on her exposed nipple and sucked.
Juliet hissed in a breath and her back arched, pressing her harder against my mouth. I responded by swirling my tongue around her in a slow, hot circle, then closing my lips over her again.
She squirmed, and then she pulled off her shirt and threw it blindly. It landed somewhere behind the headboard. “Fuck, do that again,” she said.
I slipped her other bra strap off her shoulder and moved to her other breast, but I paused. “You’re in your head,” I told her. “We’re not leaving this bed until you get out of it. I hope that part is clear.”
“I’m not in my head,” she argued, and it was such an obvious lie that I grinned.
“Juliet, you’re so in your head that there’s a smell of crossed wires burning in this room. We’ll talk it out afterward, but not now. We’re doing this first, until you. Stop. Thinking.”
She frowned again, but I didn’t give her the chance to argue. I lowered my mouth to the soft, delicate skin of her breast, sliding my lips over it and sucking gently, just enough to almost sting.
She arched her back, her hands digging into my hair. It was progress, but not enough. I licked the tang of her skin, savoring the heat of this spot that was mine alone in this moment. I traced my finger around her nipple as I licked this breast, then moved back to the first one, repeating the process.
Her fingers dug into my scalp, and I felt her unwind another notch as her skin went warm and pink where I sucked it. I lifted and smoothed my palms over the sides of her ribcage, sliding under her arched back to unhook her bra.
The bra was gone, and seconds later her jeans were undone and I was sliding them off her legs, along with her underwear. When she yanked the jeans off her ankles and threw them, they hit the blinds, making them clatter. Neither of us noticed. I slid down the bed and hooked one of her legs over my shoulder, and then I made her wait as I rubbed my stubbly cheek against her inner thigh.
Juliet squirmed, making a gasping, squeaking sound that would have been funny if it wasn’t so hot and if I wasn’t presently inhaling the absolutely life-altering scent of her pussy for the first time. I braced one hand on her lower belly so she wouldn’t buck me off while I traced a finger over her, making her still. I traced the same line again, then followed the route with my tongue.
There was nothing like the taste of her, nothing like the feel of her knees falling open and her body slowly, finally letting go. I had made her come twice now, both times quickly, and I knew the map of her, but I wanted to know more. I wanted to know how to get her to the edge, then draw back. I wanted to learn more than just how to give her a quick orgasm, like a shot of tequila. I wanted her to forget her own name. I wanted her to forget, just for a little while, that there had ever been anyone but me.
I had expanded my knowledge of her vastly, but hadn’t achieved my full objective, when she stopped me with a hand on my head. When I lifted my head, she swung her leg off my shoulder and twisted her body. She was strong, the muscles tight and compact in her thighs and her rounded hips, and a second later she had rolled me onto my back, climbed onto me, and slid down my shorts.
I was surprised, and my thoughts were muddied and short-circuited with lust. Juliet straddled me, her round ass resting on my thighs as she pressed her palms to my chest. I was gazing up at her in starry-eyed wonder when she leaned down and surprised me again by touching her forehead to mine, her hair falling around us and her breath warm against me. I smelled coconut from something she’d used in her hair. She seemed to gather her words.
“I want you so much,” she said, the words nearly a whisper.
Fuck. My hands came up to cup her jaw as I closed my eyes, my forehead against hers. “I want you, too,” I confessed. “From the first second I saw you.”
A flinch of surprise moved through her, but she didn’t pull away. When she spoke, her voice nearly cracked. “You too?”
In answer, I kissed her softly, gently. I let her taste herself on me. I tried to tell her everything with that kiss. I had no idea if I succeeded.
She pulled away and shifted over me, rubbing on me in sweet agony. “I’m on the pill.”
Instantly, my brain shut down again. It was like a movie scene in which a bomb goes off and the main character can’t hear anymore. There was only rushing in my ears.
“Finn?” she asked, moving again.
“Yeah.” My voice was a croak, and she smiled. It wasn’t my slickest moment with a woman.
Still, I liked that smile. I gathered my wits enough to run my hands over her hips, her waist, appreciating her perfect shape. I positioned my hand between us to gently rub my thumb over her, and I felt the gratifying squeeze of her knees as she braced her palms on my chest again.
“No more waiting,” I said, and Juliet agreed with me, because she lifted herself and lowered down, sinking us both into bliss. It was white-hot and perfect, and I had never been like this with a woman in my life, and all I wanted was this woman in my bed, giving me everything as if I deserved it while I gave her everything I had. She leaned forward and kissed me as we moved, and moments later she broke, resting her forehead on my shoulder as she cried out. The sensation was so tortuously exquisite that I couldn’t hold on, and I followed.
In the quiet that settled as my heart slowed, I heard the beginning patters of rain on the window. The room had grown dark. Juliet rested warm against me, her skin slick against mine.
It was just a weekend. It wasn’t going to last.
Then again, nothing lasts forever, even if you want it to. I had learned that the hard way.
I held her tighter and told myself it didn’t matter.