He opens his mouth, like he is about to finish whatever he started to say, but instead of speaking, of filling this already full space between us with words, Finn gathers me to him, his arm around my back, his hand at my hip, and he kisses me.
My hands flutter from his arms, a sound of surprise rising from my throat, loud enough that Finn pulls away to see me, gauge my reaction. But it’s not his kiss that’s a surprise. It’s not when he did it—on a cliffhanger—or how. The shock is that we stillfittogether.
Kissing Finn is punctuated by the span of year. A year in which I’ve kissed other men, had sex with one of them. These are his same lips as last year, grinning, pouting, teasing lips, and his same hands, safe and warm. But now that I’m kissing Finn a yearlater, I realize how much I’ve missed kissing him, how hungry I am for the taste of his tongue in my mouth.
I follow the sharp edge of his jaw with my fingertip before I pull his mouth back to mine. And this time, he is the one with a sound of surprise caught in his throat as I pull him off balance. His arm reaches out to hold us up against the wall, his hand splayed above my head.
I put my hands where they’ve been aching to be all night: on his chest, his nipples, through thisteaseof a shirt. He crowds me against the wall, leaning into my hands, until I have to move them to wrap my arms around his neck, my breasts pressed into his chest. One of his hands grips my ass, squeezing me, pulling me closer until his hips are against me, his hard cock through his pants a hot presence against my stomach.
I lift my leg, wrap it around his hip to pull him closer to me. It feels illicit and fartoo muchfor what is supposed to be just a New Year’s Eve midnight kiss. But it’s because of that, because it’s been a year since I kissed Finn, and because I’m kissing him again, that Ihaveto. I have to wrap my leg around him, have to feel the wisps of his hair with the tips of my fingers. I’m kissing Finn and he hooks my leg higher on his hip and I have to, Ihaveto accept the thigh he presents, interjects, between my own legs like a belated birthday gift.
It’s for the data. Some way to compare kissing Finn now and kissing Finn last year. My dress clicks and clacks as we move against each other, his poor silk shirt catching on the sequins. His hands at my waist, pushing and pulling my hips over him. My skin is hot, and it should be too much, unbearable, except I suck on Finn’s tongue, and he groans into my mouth, and I could stay here forever, an ice cube melting in his generous mouth, against these pink lips, if it means I get to bask in this heat, his glow.
The strap of my dress slides down my shoulder and I let it, relish the feel of the smooth silk against my skin, my upper arm, until Finn hooks the strap in his finger, draws it back up my shoulder—rude, honestly!
He can’t do that. I am kissing Finn and if the pattern holds it’s something I get to do only once a year. I can’t waitanotheryear to feel my strap fall, to let my dress shift, for my exposed nipple to pebble against the cold air. I can’t wait three hundred and sixty-five whole days and nights for the chance that Finn might reach out, might brush the backs of his fingers against my nipple, palm my breast in his big hand. I can’t wait to find out if he’ll be rough with me or let me guide his mouth down to my skin. I need to know.Now.
“Finn.” I gasp his name against his mouth. “Finn.”
He stops. Not just kissing me or redressing me. He takes his hands off me, too. He pulls away. The only sign he is as affected as me are his heavy breaths when he says, “Yeah?”
And now what am I supposed to do? Demand he put the strap back where it was, or order him to pull it into the crook of my elbow? Reveal to him in all but those exact words that I want my tit out?
“I…I want…”
Finn’s cheeks are flushed, his hair falling out of his bun and around his face, his eyes wide and expectant.
“Your shirt,” I say instead. My hands flutter over the silk sleeves, the spots on the fabric that have pilled from the rough surface of my dress.
Finn follows my gaze. He puts his hand over mine, covering a particularly roughened spot over his left peck. “Nora,” he says, then again when I can’t stop myself from worrying at a pull on his sleeve. He catches my chin with his finger, asking me to look at him with a gentle tug. “I do not care,” he says, slowly, distinctly, “about my shirt.”
“Oh.”
He presses his thumb to the skin below my mouth, pulling until I release my lower lip from my teeth. Something I hadn’t even realized I was doing.
“Nora?” He plays with the ends of my hair, my earring. Touches my collarbone, my shoulder, follows the dip of the fabric of my dress down my back. “Can I make you come, Nora?”
“Oh,” I say again. Here I was thinking that letting Finn touch my tit would be the pinnacle of a New Year’s Eve kiss. Finn watches me so seriously, a crease between his brow. As if he is worried about my answer. And I guess it makes sense he’d be worried.
We are frenemies, after all. Although, can I really assign such a designation to him anymore? When a few moments ago, I wanted him to feel me up? When now, I want him to leave his fingerprints on the insides of my thighs? When I look over his shoulder to ensure no one is here so he canmake me come?
I let my leg slide to the ground, put my hands on his waist. He’s always been wiry but muscular, and I press my thumbs into him, wishing I could feel his skin without even this thinnest of fabric between us. “Oh, yes,” I say. “You can.”
His hand slides up my thigh, the sequins clinking as he lifts the skirt. And I’ll never be able to wear this dress again, retired after one use like I’m some kind of red-carpet celebrity. Because I’ll never be able to hear this sound again without thinking of Finn. Of how he cups the inside of my thigh, spreading my legs farther apart. How he presses his forehead to mine, hair falling around us. How he breathesOkaylike he is preparing himself for something. I will never be able to hear this musical little sound my dress makes without also hearing his soft inhale when he kisses me, and his whispered, “Okay, Nora. Thank you.” Like this moment between us is a gift I am bestowing uponhim.
He groans when he slides his fingers beneath my panties, the thin slip of fabric already wet. He drops his head to my shoulder, so I can feel his next groan and his words telling me to tell him to stop if I need to through my skin.
He is curled over me. One hand propped against the wall by my head, the other under my skirt. I bend my leg for him, press my heel to the wall, cant my hips toward him. I fist his shirt in my hands as he slides one finger inside me, try to stand taller in my already high heels, just to get closer to him.
It is so quiet in this dark corner of the hotel. Quiet except for my breathing and the noises I can’t seem to control as he adds another finger, as he sucks on the skin beneath my ear. Quiet except for the click-clack of my dress, the scrabble of my heel against the wall.
Quiet except for the way Finn talks to me throughout. “You’re so wet,” he says. Something I would usually feel embarrassed about, but he commends me for. “Do you like that?” he asks. “There? Right there?” This unserious boy studying me like I am a test he suddenly wants to ace. “Can you take another?” There is something like apology in his tone. Like he knows it’s a lot, the relentless pump of his fingers inside me, the slick slide of his thumb over my clit.
I move my hips with him, pull his shirt from his pants, press my hands to the sweat-slick skin of his back. I tell himyeswhen he asks if I like it, saypleasewhen he wants to give me more. I pull him in closer, press my nose into his shoulder, open my mouth over the muscle.
But every time I think I’m there, that I can give him what he wants, the pleasure plateaus, disappears, blows away like fine mist against our skin. It’s the fact that it’s so quiet but—to me—we’re so loud, the rough rub of my dress under my arm and down my back, the strap of my shoe digging into my baby toe. It’s the worry. That I’ll somehow be bad at this, like coming is askill I can list on my CV. That this moment will do something to irrevocably rupture our friend group, having made my pleasure a priority after a decade-plus of never hooking up with any of them.
“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe…” Except I can’t finish that sentence. Maybe we should what? Stop? Pause long enough to get to a bed? Maybe you should get out of your own head, Nora? But if I were able to do that, this wouldn’t be such a big deal, would it?
