“Just for a second,” I say. I trust myself, and only myself, not to go too far. “I just want to feel you.”
She’s nice and wet, accepting my length easier this time. Her warmth soothes me. Skin on skin is magic. Maybe I’m wrong to think I can stop. Maybe I should not have fucking done this. I’m not sure how I’ll be able to go back to having a layer of latex between us.
My hand is still around her throat. She wants things she can’t ask for. That’s why they go in the journal. I can give her all of it, but not without talking to her first. And now is not the time for talking. Still, her words live inside me, and I only know one way to get them out.
Without releasing her neck, I lean over the side of the couch and feel around for my bag. When I find it, I dig out my camera.
Her eyes follow until it’s outside her frame of vision. I get it. She’s been unsure about the camera from the start, and now she’s naked, exposed—not just her body but her face, her emotions.
“Do you trust me?” I ask.
She swallows against the palm of my hand before nodding.
It’s not the most comfortable position for me, and since I know the photo won’t turn out perfectly, I use that to my advantage. While I’m inside her, I get up on my elbow and take a picture of my hand around her throat. I keep anything above her lips or below her collarbone out of the frame. But her open mouth and splotchy skin add a level of perfection to the image that should be captured. Anyone who wants to see it, will—she’s getting fucked in this photo.
When I have what I want, I put the camera down and bury my face in her sweet-smelling hair. I move a hand to her tits and fuck her that way for a few silent, fire-burning seconds and then reluctantly put on a condom to finish both of us off.
I begin to drift, still inside her, my arms around her, my camera and her journal tossed aside together. Her breathing softens, evening out.
The clouds break and sunlight comes through the window, jarring me back to consciousness. My first thought is that I can’t wait to have her again. My next is that I’m a fucking idiot, putting my dick anywhere without a condom. But I settle down quickly when the truth hits me in the chest like a bag full of beautiful bricks.
It’s been a perfect day. Time with my daughter, then with the girl I’ve been waiting for a long time. Fucking perfect.
17
As soon as I step out of the elevator onto the yellow-lighted sixth floor and see Finn waiting in his doorway, I forget that my new heels have been pinching my feet since this morning. That my shoulders ache from three hours in a qualitative analysis seminar.
He follows me with his green, adoring eyes. He’s in slacks, a tie, and a button-down because he wore a suit to a meeting with a prospective client. I watched him shave earlier, but now golden stubble shades his jaw. I forget how to speak. I’ve stayed here every night since Friday, and each time I see him, he gets better. Sexier, because I know what he’s capable of. Those hands. That mouth. It goes beyond touch and caress. His words alone can leave my knees shaking.
“Mmm,” he says when I approach. “Take off your clothes.”
“Here in the hallway?” I ask.
“Would you?”
I tilt my chin down, keeping my eyes on his. Is he serious? By his silence, I think so. He seems to think I’d do what he says. I glance down the hall, even though we’re alone. Maybe I would. Apparently, I trust him already. I don’t believe he’d hurt me. Unlike the other men in my life, Finn doesn’t pretend to know what’s best for me. For that reason, I almost trust him more than them.
“Yes,” I say.
He cocks an eyebrow, looking pleased. “Good girl. I won’t make you. Not tonight.”
I’m relieved, but only slightly. I’m also curious how Finn’s face would look as I undressed for him here, on display for his neighbors. Not that I’m bold enough to take that kind of initiative. “You look good in the suit. Uncomfortable . . . but good.”
“I used to wear one every day. I wish I could say this is the first I’ve put it on since I quit the nine-to-five, but it isn’t.”
Finn in front of a computer all day, adjusting his tie, retiring to the break room, eating lunch in his office? I can’t picture it. He needs to be free of a cage. It’s suddenly clear how well—and how little—I know him. “What’d you do before this?”
“Wall Street.”
I start to laugh but stop when he doesn’t. He isn’t joking. He mentioned business school, but Wall Street is a whole new ballgame. “Seriously?”
“It was all wrong for me.”
“I never would’ve guessed.”
“It was what I had to do for my baby.” He shrugs dejectedly. “Anyway, I thought being an artist would mean I never had to answer to anyone, but first impressions matter. In a suit, clients treat me more like a businessman than the dreamer I am.”
I smile. “Dreamer, huh?”
