“I want you as mine,” he growls.
“I want to be yours.”
He hooks a finger into the waistband of my skirt. “Say that again.”
We breathe into each other’s mouths. It’s too soon to tell him I think I alreadyamhis. So I untie his sweatpants instead. “Let me show you how badly I want it.”
He stills my hands. “It’s too soon. You’re vulnerable.”
I haven’t thought of much else in a week. Just him.Finn Finn Finn. Seeing him. Fucking him. Posing for him. I’ve already forgotten about Rich, and right now, I can’t even remember a life outside this apartment. “I’m ready,” I say.
“You’re not. It’s been a rough day.”
“That’s why I need this.” I move even closer. He releases my hands, and I slide them up his chest, around his neck. “Please,” I murmur, rising onto the balls of my feet to nuzzle his neck. I can smell him now, woodsy hints mixed with sweat and brine. He only came in his pants a few minutes ago, and I can almost convince myself I can smell that too. “I have to feel good.” I beg for a kiss and he gives me one. “I haven’t felt good in so long.”
He rests his forehead against mine. “We can’t.”
“We couldn’t ten minutes ago. Now we can. Wesocan.”
“No, I mean, we actually can’t.” He takes my shoulders but seems to brace me instead of pull me off. “I don’t have any condoms. I wasn’t expecting . . .”
Score. The red light is actually green. I smile as I suck the skin right underneath his jaw, leaning my weight on him. He’s unmistakably hard against my belly. “I’m on birth control.”
His head falls back. “Doesn’t matter. I won’t.”
I might be insulted at his insinuation if I weren’t so eager to move this along. “I’m clean. Rich and I haven’t even been intimate in a month. Are you?”
“Yes, but . . .” He finally succeeds in detaching my mouth from him. “But I just can’t. It’s not a conversation for the heat of the moment.”
The last thing I want to do is get into another deep conversation.
“I’ll go get condoms,” he says. “Make coffee while you wait. That’ll give us each time to think this through.”
I was wrong. Talking isn’t the last thing I want to do. The last fucking thing I want to do isthink. I’m not worried I’ll change my mind, or that I need time to get over Rich. It’s that I’ve fantasized about this so long—urgent need, hunger, a realman. After years of dulling everything around me, including sex, I want to be devoured by Finn. I don’t want to talk or think because I’m so hot for him, I’m about to strap on a harness and climb him like the mountain he is.
If he won’t fuck me, there are other ways to get close to him.
I drop to my knees on the kitchen tile.
“Halston.” I hear the warning in his voice.
“You don’t have to do anything,” I coo, blinking up at him. “Just stand here.”
His eyes darken. “I’m bigger than you’re used to.” Another warning.
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
I pull his pants down his thighs. His heather-gray boxer-briefs outline every ridge and vein of him. He’s right. He’s not like any of the other three men I’ve been with, but at least I’m not intimidated.
“I’m not as hard since I just came,” he says. “I will be once you touch me.”
Oh.
He’s not completely hard yet?
Fuck.
