He rests his hands on my waist as I tip my head back and drink. The champagne isn’t exactly cold, but it’s not too sweet and it’s still fizzy enough that it tickles my nose when I swallow.
“Hey.” He reaches for the bottle. “Hey, slow down.”
I hold it out of his reach. We both know he could still get it from me easily, but he smiles instead, leaning back on his hands. I run my hand through his hair. It’s as soft, maybe softer, than mine—rude, honestly—a little damp from sweat or perhaps a champagne bath. He closes his eyes as my fingers move along his scalp. Then fly open again—shocked!—when I fist his hair and coax his head back. His Adam’s apple bobs, his jaw drops open mostly out of necessity because of the position I’ve put him in, but still. Feelspowerful.
I hold the bottle over his mouth, meet his eyes until he gives me the barest nod. The champagne fills his mouth faster than I expect, frothing at his lips and spilling over and down his chin, his jaw, into the hair at his temples, and down his chest.
“Whoops,” I tease.
He covers my hand in his hair with his own, grabs the back of my thigh with his other and, okay, I guess Finn has the capacity to surprise me still, too, because how do I feel surrounded by him with two points of contact?
“You made a mess,” he says softly, his voice a timbre I’ve never heard before.
I close my eyes. My only protection.
“You gonna clean me up?”
I smile, previctorious—because oh yes will this surprise him—and slide down the length of his body to my knees.
“Nora.”
Technically, it is impossible to both gasp and speak at the same time, but the way he says my name, Finn is as close as one can get. His eyes are almost colorless in the moonlight, but as big and wide as the moon outside is full. He looks at me, downat me, like he has never once thought ofthis. Like this image has been, until now, too much for his imagination.
That thrill is back again, that I have shocked him. But I am also grateful for the dark, so that he cannot see my blush. Because this has been all I can think about. Ever since last year, when he walked out of that bathroom, erectionless, I have imagined what it would be like to take him in my mouth. To watch him fall apart the same way he took me apart, piece by piece.
“Is this okay?” I ask. I set the bottle on the floor, a suitable number of feet away from us; to avoid spills, of course!
“Is this…? I… You don’t have to…”
I set my hands on his knees, run them up his legs. Finn’s thighs are strong, thick. He doesn’t play competitive hockey anymore, but he’s very obviously still in a league.
I stop short of palming his bulge.
“I know I don’t.” I press my open mouth to the soft flesh above his knee through the cotton of his slacks. His hands cover mine at the top of his thighs. “Can I though?”
“Hey.” He squeezes my hands. “You want to?” he asks, like he can’t quite believe it.
I look from his face to our hands. His body heat warms me when I should be freezing, kneeling in my underwear on the floor. Our friends are still awake, downstairs, but they’re quieter now, music replaced with chatter. I can picture them, set up around the big dining room table. Bea will have started force-feeding everyone water. Deepti is likely already asleep on a couch, a blanket tucked under her chin. Our absence is notable, noticeable. Like last year. And yet, our friends have never said anything to either of us. At least, not to me. And somehow, I know that Finn has said nothing to them, either. Except maybe to Faraz, who is his very best friend in this group of best friends, like Bea is mine.
It’s because of this—the safety of Finn’s company, of our friends who let us sneak off together without comment, who let me be a grump about New Year’s Eve—that I let myself admit what is arguably the most embarrassing thing one could ever admit to their former frenemy.
“I get myself off thinking about this,” I whisper.
Finn is still. Finn doesn’t say anything.
He lets go of my hands and pops the button on his slacks. I reach for the buttons on his shirt, pulling at them until his shirt is open. I sit back on my heels as he takes himself in hand. Long, the perfect fit for his own big hands, surrounded by sparse, short hair. His cock is beautiful. I knew it would be and my gosh, it feels so good to be right.
“Well,” he says quietly, looking down at himself. I don’t have the benefit of the full color spectrum in this moonlit room to confirm, so I can’t say for sure, but I think he’s blushing.
“You talked a lot,” I say. “Last time.”
He tips my chin up to meet his eyes, his thumb leaving a trail of heat across my jaw, my lower lip. “Did I?” The wrinkle is there between his brows but he’s not frowning.
I lean into his touch, draw my hands up the insides of his thighs, where he has a few soft, dark hairs. I push his legs apart and settle between them. “Can you do that again?”
“Talk?”
I replace his hands with mine, and his thighs tense around me. “Yeah,” I breathe the word across his flesh.
