CHAPTER 6 #3
I open my mouth, but it snaps shut because the way he’s looking at me, like he could eat me up, is completely distracting. And God help me, I don’t seem to mind that he’s not going to tell me what I want tonight.
I have a choice.
I can stand up, thank him for a nice evening and have him drive me home. He’d do it too. He’d do whatever I asked him, I know it. Of course, the deal would be off. I will have lost the asset, lost the lead, and lost whatever this is, all in one move.
Or I can sit here and enjoy the rest of this evening.
I pick up my wineglass. “All right.”
He exhales and I hadn’t noticed he was holding his breath. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
“Why not?”
“You haven’t won anything. We’re going to talk about Voronin some other time. I’m letting you have tonight.”
“Letting me?”
“Don’t,” I warn with a faux glare.
Finn chuckles. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t ma’am me either.”
“What can I do?”
I think about it for a long moment. “Tell me something useful you learned in prison.”
Finn’s chin pulls in slightly, his eyes rounding in surprise. “That’s a deep question.”
“Not really,” I insist. “But I have to admit… I’ve never had dinner with a felon and I’m curious now.”
“Maybe not a deep question, but a good one. No one’s ever asked me about prison in that way.
” Finn takes another bite of his dessert, and I follow suit.
“Let’s see… there was a book I read called How to Cook Everything.
I worked in the kitchen for the first two years of my sentence and while we didn’t have the best ingredients, I was able to work some magic at times.
I realized that I really love to cook. In fact, I’d thought about just cooking for you tonight, but it does require concentration and I wanted my focus on you, so I had Daniel do the honors. He’s way more talented than I am.”
For some reason, I’m touched by the story. Not that he wants to cook for me, although that’s lovely, but because he found something of value in prison.
He turned something bad into something good.
We talk about books. About the things he read in prison that changed him and the things he read after that did less.
About a fishing trip my father took me on when I was eight where I caught a salmon I was too small to land.
About the first painting Finn ever sold at the gallery, which was a small abstract by a local artist for less money than the frame had cost him, and the way the artist had cried in his office afterward because it had been her first sale ever.
About the ridiculous string of failed dating apps I tried in my late twenties before I gave up and decided men were a problem I would solve later.
“Are you cold?” Finn asks, and I realize I am. A shiver runs through me.
“A little.”
I reach back to grab my jacket but Finn’s out of his chair, taking it in his hands and helping me to shrug into it. It’s such a gallant thing to do that I almost let out an audible sigh of pleasure.
“I probably should get you home. It’s getting late.”
He extends his hand to me. Not a request. Not a demand. Just a hand offered.
I take it and he draws me up out of my chair. The space between us is nonexistent, the heat lamp warm on the side of my face.
Finn looks at me for a long beat, and I get the sense he’s giving me room to step back.
But I don’t want to.
He puts his other hand on the side of my face, and his thumb traces my cheekbone. I stop breathing, anticipation threatening to choke me off completely, because when his eyes drop to my mouth, I know what’s coming.
The kiss isn’t gentle but it’s not exploratory either. It’s not the polite first kiss of a first date but rather the movement of a man who’s been thinking about kissing me for two days.
His mouth moves confidently over mine without any rush, only purpose.
He tastes like wine and blackberries, and when his hand moves to the back of my neck, a thrill of pleasure sweeps through me.
With just the barest of pressure, he angles my face the way he wants it, and I make a small sound against his mouth that’s almost inhuman.
I fall all the way into it.
The way you fall into deep water, with no ability to pretend you even want to let your feet touch the bottom.
My hand goes to his collarbone, then up to the side of his neck, where my fingers find the warm skin above his collar. He pulls me into him and it’s rough. A low sound rumbles in his chest.
My body registers the length of him before my brain does—solid, warm, all hard muscles—pressed against me.
Finn kisses me so thoroughly, I have a vague, odd thought that I don’t know if I’ve ever been truly kissed before.
His hand at my nape tightens a fraction, and I think in this very moment if he picked me up and carried me belowdecks to his cabin, I wouldn’t fight him on it.
I’m not in charge of my limbs.
I’m not in charge of my common sense.
I’m without any control whatsoever.
But he pulls back, just enough to look at my face. His mouth is half an inch from mine, I feel his warm breath, watch as his eyes search mine.
His mouth curves into a half smile. “Okay.”
The word comes out somewhat rough.
“Okay,” I murmur, a repeat in tone and depth.
A long beat fraught with tension.
“That was—”
“I know.”
“I wasn’t expecting—”
“I know.”
I take half a step back and the cold slaps the cheek where his hand had been. I touch the spot briefly with my own fingers, considering the loss.
Finn looks at me with an expression I can’t fully read except that he’s unmistakably pleased. As if he’s gotten exactly the response from me he’d hoped to get.
And he’s not entirely hiding it.
“I should get you home,” he says.
“Yes.”
Finn locks up his boat and guides me back to his car, holding my hand the entire time.
The drive home is quiet. He plays a classic rock station and quietly hums under his breath while I watch the city lights move past. I don’t look at him, most certainly not the hand so casually resting on top of the wheel.
If I look at that hand, I’ll think too much about how it felt on the back of my neck and my composure is too fragile to risk fracture.
At my house, Finn walks me to my front door. I unlock the keypad and push the door open before turning to face him. I know if he kisses me like he did on the boat, there’s a very real threat I’ll invite him in.
To my surprise, he’s moved back a step and has his hands tucked into the pockets of his coat.
“I had a really nice time,” I say.
His eyes crinkle. “So did I.”
“I’m not going to ask you in tonight.”
“That’s good, because I wouldn’t come in if you asked.”
I grin at him. “I know. I mean… I just know that about you.”
Finn smiles, and it’s so disarmingly handsome and boyish, I want to grab him to me.
“Good night, Josie,” he says, taking a step back.
“Good night, Finn.”
I move through the open door as he waits, watching to make sure I get in safe. Only after I’ve locked the door from the inside do I see him returning to his Range Rover.
A few seconds later, I hear his car start up, then pull away.
I stand in my dark entryway with my back against the door for a long time. My coat is still on, the taste of wine and his mouth still on my lips. My body’s humming and somewhere underneath it all, the analyst part of me is making notes.
The most important factor I zero in on isn’t the lovely dinner, the open conversation, the fascinating man.
It’s the fact that I didn’t think about Voronin at all after that first mention, and I most certainly wasn’t thinking about it as he drove away.
And right now, the only thing I’m wondering is when he’ll kiss me again.