Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FINN
The high from the day followed us home, sitting in the space between us as we settled in.
We’d done it.
She’d done it.
But as we picked at takeout containers on the coffee table, the line of worry was back between her eyebrows, a tiny crease the triumphant soft-opening hadn’t managed to erase. She was staring at her phone, worrying her lower lip, and I knew it had nothing to do with chocolate.
“Did Dallas get settled in?”
Emily nodded.
“Hey,” I said, nudging her foot with my toe. “Dallas is a good person. Good people get their asses kicked sometimes, but they don’t stay down. It’s a universal rule, like gravity or the fact that I look good in sweatpants. It’s gonna be fine.”
A small smile touched her lips, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You’re an idiot.”
“A correct idiot,” I countered. “She’ll land on her feet. And she’ll get a better boyfriend.”
That earned me a real smile, and the tension in her shoulders eased a fraction.
After we cleared the food away, a different kind of exhaustion settled over her.
This was the exhaustion of a massive gamble finally paying off.
She was tired, but the way she kept glancing around the room, at the door, at me, said she wasn’t ready for the day to be over.
“Want to watch something stupid?” I asked, gesturing toward the TV. “Let the brain cells cool down for a bit?”
She nodded, unmistakable relief softening her tired face.
We collapsed onto the couch together, Emily instantly tucking herself under my arm and letting her head drop heavy against my shoulder.
I pressed my lips to her hair, breathing in the faint, familiar scent of vanilla, cherries, and warm sugar.
The TV stayed dark. The remote lay forgotten on the cushion between us.
I turned my head, and she was already looking at me, her eyes dark and searching. And before I could overthink it, before I could build a game plan, I touched my mouth to hers.
It was meant to be simple—a gentle press of comfort, of congratulations. But when our lips met, a spark caught.
Right. She didn’t need TV. She needed this. Us.
Naturally, right as the kiss deepened, my phone started vibrating a hole in my pocket. I managed to wedge a hand down and tossed it on the sofa without ever breaking contact.
Sifting through her hair, I pulled her closer, deeper. She traced the muscles of my back, trailing her nails down my spine in a way that made my hips jerk against hers. Thank fuck the motion didn’t hurt anymore.
We’d been building toward this for weeks—kissing, my hands on her, the steady escalation of two people who kept calling it an experiment while our bodies ran a different study entirely.
But we hadn’t crossed the last line. The one that meant there was no framework left to hide behind.
This was just us.
My fingers found the buttons of her shirt, clumsy with a desperate urgency. She met my impatience with her own, her hands at the waistband of my jeans, the scrape of the zipper a sharp, definitive sound in the silence. We shed our clothes until there was nothing between us.
We made it to my bedroom and when we were bare, skin to skin, she pushed me back onto the bed, her body a shadow over me.
Her fingers traced a path down my chest, over my stomach, her touch both a question and a command.
When she finally closed her hand around my heaviness, a rough sound scraped out of my throat.
She met my gaze, her own dark with intent.
“You’re used to calling the plays, aren’t you, Mr. Foreman?” she murmured, stroking me.
“Always,” I gritted out. “I prefer when it’s my play on the field.”
A slow smile hit her lips as she shook her head. “Tonight, you’re my experiment. And I’m running it.”
But she didn’t get to be in charge here tonight. It was my turn.
So I shifted, rolling myself on top to kiss her until she was writhing beneath me and forgot all about wanting to be on top.
Then I moved down her body with my mouth.
“Objection,” she gasped, her voice already breathy.
“Overruled,” I murmured against her skin.
“Holy crap, you’re using a real legal term,” she breathed.
“I learned from you,” I said. “Not just a pretty face, am I now?”
“Counsel is... creating a prejudicial atmosphere...” she managed, her hips starting to rock as I used my tongue at the bundle of nerves and my fingers at her opening.
“The offense usually finds this play compelling,” I said, just before she was arching against me, her fingers tangling in my hair, her breath catching in sharp, pleading hitches. “Perhaps I should stop and call an audible?”
Her voice was a strained whisper as she whimpered, “Don’t you dare stop.”
I lifted my head just enough to meet her hazy eyes. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Just wanted to see your face when your defense completely collapses for me.”
She panted, trying to sound firm as she said, “You’re leading the witness.”
I chuckled, the sound a low rumble.
“The call on the field stands,” I said, moving against her deliberately.
“I’m… filing a motion… for a… you know… a thing that’s important,” she gasped, her body arching against me in a complete contradiction.
“You taste so good, Em,” I murmured against her skin.
Her hips moved on their own, a frantic, unthinking rhythm against my palm.
She ground against my hand and my mouth, creating a desperate friction that was only pure need.
Any remaining clever objections died on her lips, replaced by little whimpers that were all for me. Witnessing this brilliant woman dissolve into pure sensation sent a spike of possessive heat straight to my groin.
The ache forced my hips down into the mattress, seeking any kind of friction. Any relief.
A raw sound—half happy, half sob—escaped her as her body clamped around my fingers.
“I need you,” she breathed, her hands clutching at my shoulders. “Now. Please. Inside.”
There were no jokes this time, no witty asides. There was only the sound of our breathing, ragged and fast, and the slick slide of our bodies moving together. I grabbed the condom from my wallet and slid it on.
Then I gripped myself with one hand and slid inch by inch into her.
“You okay?” I asked, taking another inch.
She nodded and squirmed. “Let me just—”
There was a lot to take all at once, I got that. “More?”
She nodded, her mouth opening wider as I moved deeper inside.
“Finn, hell,” she said, still squirming. Still adjusting to the heft of me.
“Tell me when you’re ready for more,” I murmured, memorizing the way her lips parted on a silent gasp, the flush that crept up her chest, the way her head fell back against the pillow.
“More,” she begged.
I gave what she asked for and filled her all the way to the root of me. She held me against her, gripping my ass and holding me still.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Look at me,” I commanded, my voice rough.
She did.
“I’m better than I ever have been in my entire life,” I said.
“Yes,” she whispered, arching to meet my first thrust. “Please, Finn.”
We moved together, our bodies finding the rhythm of the other. Every thrust was a confession. I need you. I see you. I’m terrified of you.
But she was holding back. That much was clear.
“You won’t hurt me,” I promised, between raining kisses over her face while I continued thrusting. “Do what you need to do.”
She draped her legs over my shoulders, letting me sink impossibly deeper, meeting my rhythm with an urgency that stole the air from my lungs. Her hands weren’t just holding on; they were claiming, her fingers digging into my back as her control slipped.
She was all sensation and heat, tearing me apart and putting me back together, better. Stronger.
When she arched beneath me, her body clenching around my length as a cry was ripped from her throat, my own release shattered through me. The last thrust bordered on pain, but didn’t tip that scale.
This wasn’t just physical between us. It was a surrendering I hadn’t even known I was holding onto.
We collapsed together, tangled in sweat and sheets, the aftershocks rolling through us.
I rubbed at the knot that’d shown up on my hip and she reached for the spot, rubbing away the ache.
My pulse was everywhere—throat, wrists, even in the hollow behind my ear. I buried my face in the curve of her neck, breathing her in, trying to anchor myself to the reality of her.
She pressed a soft kiss to my shoulder.
I held her closer.
And that’s when the panic started.
This was Emily. It wasn’t casual. Definitely no longer an experiment. My chest tightened, the easy peace of moments before curdling into a knot of pure dread. I’d had sex with my best friend’s sister and I wanted to keep having sex with her.
Elliott’s voice, a ghost in the back of my skull. A warning.
I was a mess—a guy whose career was a question mark, whose future was a fog. She was building a business and I wasn’t sure what tomorrow brought.
I pulled back, needing air, needing distance.
“I’m thirsty,” I said, the words sounding rough and foreign.
“Me too,” she murmured, her voice sleepy and satisfied in a way that made the panic worse.
I stood and grabbed her a shirt out of my drawer. The first thing I touched—my jersey. I tossed it to her like that was a totally normal pick.
She pulled it on and we stumbled out of the bedroom and toward the kitchen.
Me, completely naked, and Emily, with the number eight hanging halfway down her thighs.
It’s just physical. It has to be just physical.
There was no way this was simply physical.
In the cool blue light of the kitchen, the oversized jersey did a terrible job of hiding the fact that she was wearing nothing else. She took a long drink from a glass of water, her throat working, my eyes tracking the movement.
God, I was a goner. So completely gone for her that the thought alone made me want to run. But maybe I could just white-knuckle my way through it? Hold onto this. To her. To us. To this life.
Yeah, I could do that. I absolutely could.
“Are you going to put on some boxers?” Emily asked.
I adjusted myself. “Why? You’ve already seen me naked.”
“Exhibitionist? I had no idea.”
“Doesn’t count if I live here,” I said, kissing her nose.
Her smile dropped a degree, those sharp eyes catching the exact second I checked out and the walls went up. “I want to talk to you about our rules.”
My blood went cold. This was it. She was calling it.
The experiment was over.
She was moving into her new apartment above the shop soon, and this… this was her way of ending it cleanly before things got complicated. Before I got complicated.
“The rules?” I echoed, my voice flat.
“The friends-with-benefits thing,” she clarified, nudging her glass of water. “I think… I think we need to reevaluate.”
“Right,” I said, nodding like a man accepting a diagnosis. Of course. She was getting her own space. She didn’t need to be crashing in my life, or my bed, anymore. “Your place is almost ready. I get it. Makes sense.”
She frowned, tilting her head. “What? No. Finn, that’s not what I mean.” She took a step closer, unwavering. “I mean I want to reevaluate because—”
Her words were cut off as the lock on the front door beeped, and the door opened.
“Finn? You have got to start answering your damn phone,” Elliott said before I could form a single, coherent word.
My brother-from-another-mother. My agent. Emily’s older and protective brother.
The one person who absolutely could not witness this.
He stopped dead in the entryway, his bag slipping from his fingers to thud on the hardwood floor.
There was no expression change as he glanced to Emily in my jersey, then at me, standing in the middle of my kitchen, completely, unapologetically naked.
My heart raced and I lunged for the nearest object—a striped kitchen towel. I slapped it over my groin.
It was horribly inadequate.
The wooden chair by the kitchen island? I grabbed it, hoisting it in front of me like a shield, the towel still dangling precariously.
Emily, damn her, covered her mouth with the back of her hand.
And Elliott? Elliott just stared in clear disbelief.
“Hey,” I managed, my voice an octave too high. “Want a beer?”