He lifts me effortlessly—hands on my hips, mouth on my throat—and lays me gently on the bed.He hovers over me, breath shaking.
“Are you sure?”he asks again, voice cracked open.
“Yes.”
And the look he gives me—raw, reverent, starving—burns straight through me.
Finn kisses down my throat, across my collarbone, along the line of my shoulder.His hands slide under my shirt, warm and careful, then bolder when I don’t flinch.His mouth returns to mine, deeper, hotter, all emotion and heart and need.
He kisses like every second matters.
Like he’s memorizing me.
Like he’s terrified this is the last time he’ll get to touch me.
He murmurs my name again—low, pleading—and I pull him closer, legs curling around him.
And the rest of the world falls away.
The fear.
The noise.
The shadows.
The man in Section 118.
All that exists is Finn’s hands, Finn’s breath, Finn’s voice breaking at the edges as he touches me with more reverence than I’ve ever been treated with in my life.
I don’t know how long we stay wrapped in each other—minutes, hours, maybe a lifetime—but eventually, the heat softens, the urgency fades, and Finn pulls me against his chest, one hand in my hair, the other tracing slow circles on my back.
His voice is barely audible.“You’re staying here tonight.”
It isn’t a command.
Or fear.
Or protocol.
It’s devotion.
I curl into him, letting my head rest on his heartbeat.
“Yeah,” I whisper.“I am.”
And Finn holds me like he’s been waiting for this moment longer than he’ll ever admit.
