I lick my lips. “Were you with a woman?”
“There were several women.”
I feel that tightness in my chest he was describing, but I push on. “And?”
“It was a group dinner,” he says. “But one of them tried to give me her number.”
My pulse quickens, but I don’t trust myself to speak.
“You know what I told her?” he asks.
“What?” I ask with a bite in my tone that seems to amuse him.
“I told her I have a girlfriend.”
I stop breathing. I open and shut my mouth a couple of times and I think I make a sound, but words fail me.
“After the incident, when that woman snuck into my apartment, I stopped taking women home. Most of the time, I go to a hotel. It makes things easier anyway. Either I leave or they leave at the end of the night. There’s never that sleeping over and cuddling bullshit. Some have begged?—”
“Can you get to the point? I really don’t want to hear about you fucking other women.”
He looks at me for a moment, before his lips tilt into a devilish smile. I roll my eyes and cross my arms, which apparently amuses him even more.
“The other night when you left, I felt…” He frowns, as if looking for the right word.
“How did you feel?” I ask, when I feel like he’s taking too long.
“Empty.”
My heart dips. “You can’t say things like that, Finn.”
“I don’t know how else to do this, Josslyn.” He runs his hand through his hair and exhales as he paces the small space. “I don’t know how to play this game. I don’t know what to say or not say.”
“It’s not a game! Just say what you feel.”
He stops pacing and walks over to me, his thighs brushing against my knees. The way he’s looking at me … I think I might die.
“I wantyou.” He runs the back of his hand along my cheek. “I want to be with you. I want more than just sex.”
I inhale sharply. I’m not sure what I was expecting. I thought he’d say he has feelings for me or apologize again or something, but…
“That sounds like a relationship,” I manage to say, pulse throbbing in my ears.
“What if that’s what I want?”
For a moment, I just stare at him. “You want a relationship?”
“With you, yes.”
“And you figured this out because you heard I was at Pearl and you thought I was hooking up with someone else?”
“I think I figured it out when I was sitting across from you at the barbecue,” he says but sounds unsure.
“You mean when you were jealous of Tiago?” I ask. “It sounds like what you want is to possess me.”
“No. It’s not like that,” he says, scowling.
“Then tell me what it’s like. Tell me what you want.”
