She's watching me. Patient. Amused around the eyes, possibly at how long the delivery portion of this evening has run. And here it is. The clean dismount. Say the good line, kiss her once, and get myself down those stairs while I still know how. Drive to the guesthouse. Figure out the rest of my life in the dark.
I find the line. It's a good one. It might be the best one I've got.
"On behalf of Bardot Adventures," I say, "thank you for choosing us for your first ascent. Your guide reminds you that trail taxes are nonrefundable, and hopes you'll consider us for all future summits."
Her mouth curves into the slow smile, the private one. "Five stars," she says. "The guide exceeded expectations. The sleeping pad is getting its own review."
"That's fair."
And that's the note. Warm, easy, everybody walks away grinning. All that's left is the kiss. The short kind. The period at the end of a good weekend.
I take her face in my hands and kiss her goodnight.
For one breath, it's exactly what I meant it to be.
Then her fingers find my collar and hold on, and her mouth opens under mine, and whatever I meant to do or say next is gone.
I pull her in. My hands relearn her, the curve of her waist, the small of her back, the warm skin under the hem of her shirt, and the quiet moan she releases into my mouth takes the last of the act with it. I kiss her jaw, the soft place below her ear, then come back to her mouth because leaving it was a mistake. Her fingers slide from my collar up into my hair and tighten, and the sting of it runs all the way down my spine and keeps going.
I'm hard against her hip and she knows it, and instead of easing back she presses in, and the sound I make against her lips is nothing short of feral.
My act is gone, all of it, the booth and the exit music and the man who ran them. What's left is her body coming up against mine and her breath going ragged, and I want her past anything polite. Past the performance. Past every clean exit I have ever made.
Nothing about this kiss has the shape of an ending. Nothing about this weekend does either, and I'm the one who's supposed to walk down those stairs and put a door between us anyway.
She pulls back just far enough to look at me. Her hazel eyes are dark. Her mouth is soft and swollen. Her fist stays closed in my collar.
"That was some goodnight kiss," she says, barely above a breath.
"I don't want to say goodnight. I don't have a single joke left in me, Darcy. That has never happened before."
Her breath catches. Her eyes move over my face, reading me the way she reads everything, and whatever she finds there must be enough.
Her grip tightens on me.
She steps backward through her open door, pulls me over the threshold with her, and kicks it shut behind us.
CHAPTER 30
DARCY
The lock clicks home behind Finn's back, and neither of us reaches for a light.
I still have his collar in my fist. His eyes are on my mouth, heated and hungry, and there's nothing in his face I recognize from the man the rest of the world knows. No grin. No wry line on deck. Just raw need, all of it aimed at me, and I want him so badly my knees dip.
I pull him down and kiss him, and he gathers me up off my heels and kisses me back like the landing never ended. None of his kisses have ever felt like this one. There's no restraint left in it. Only urgency and desire, and underneath it, quiet, unspoken, is the awareness of everything we haven't said all weekend. The reality that's going to make all of this hard to hold on to the higher we climb.
Neither of us seems willing or able to give that reality air or voice. I kiss him harder so I can't feel it, so I can't hear it whispering that the fall is going to hurt a lot worse than any of the aches I brought home with me from the trail.
We break apart long enough to fight our hiking boots off in the entryway, which is not graceful, and neither of us cares. His hands are back on me before my second boot lands. My shirtgoes loose from my jeans, his palm slides up my bare spine, and I get two buttons of his shirt open and give up and just put my mouth on the notch of his throat, salt and woodsmoke and him.
"Shower first," I say against his skin. "Then I want you in my bed."
"Yes, ma'am." He follows me down the hall so close I can feel his heat on my back the whole way.
My bathroom has an old clawfoot tub, a curtain on an oval rail, and taps that need coaxing. While the water complains its way toward hot, we finish what we started in the entryway. I peel my shirt over my head and his eyes drop and hold. He opens the clasp of my bra with one hand and draws it off me, his eyes darkening as he unveils me. The cold air and his heated stare hit my nipples at the same time, and I hear his breath change.
Then it's his turn, and I take it as slowly as I can. Shirt off his shoulders. The wide chest, the ridged stomach, the scar along his ribs I have plans for. Jeans and boxer briefs shoved down and kicked away, and Finn straightens up bare in the small steam of my bathroom, his cock already hard and standing thick against his belly.
