Page 44 of Hard to Love

My core burns with an ache that I fear only he can put out. With a want that has been simmering since that first night we met. With a desire that’s so intense, it’s scary.

“Please. Finn.” I arch my back and spread my legs, willing him to step in between. Begging him to.

But his fist is in my hair again as he leans over, the crest of his cock pressing at my entrance.

His lips kiss my shoulder, along the curve of my neck, up to my ear.

“For the record,” he growls. “I wasn’t quitting on you. I was saving you from me.”

And with that, he pushes into me. Every nerve of mine sings with pleasure at the fullness of him and the sensations it evokes.

I fist my hand in the neck of his shirt and yank his face toward mine. “I don’t need to be saved.” I steal a kiss to quiet his response in a need to understand his words but only end up confusing matters more. “I just need to feel.” I release him and lie back on the table, eyes locked on his. “Make me feel, Finn.”

There’s a moment where he stares at me, where something more than lust is in his eyes but it’s too much to process, too much to figure out as I wait for him to punish me in the most pleasurable of ways.

The moment breaks when he slides out ever so slowly, the head of his cock teasing me, while his fingers flutter over my clit.

The sensation is torture.

It’s pleasure.

It’s frustrating.

It’s all-consuming.

Exactly how this relationship between Finn and me has been since day one.

And then he drives back into me. But this time he doesn’t stop. This time the anger is back—and the greed and the lust. This time it’s hands grasping and the table moving and the sound of us connecting.

It’s his thrust and my moan.

It’s the lift of my hips and his groan.

It’s quick and it’s dirty and lacking all niceties—just how I want it.

Just how I need it.

It’s a shout on my lips as the wave of pleasure pins me beneath its current and drowns me in its bliss.

It’s a growl of my name as his fingers dig into the flesh at my hips and hold me still when he finds his own release.

And then there’s silence. Or rather the room around us is silent but for our panted breaths, and the thunder of my pulse, fills my ears as my heart decelerates and we come back to our senses.

To the knowledge that this didn’t fix a goddamn thing. He still quit and I’m still livid with him for it. But the rejection stings a little less now.

I wasn’t quitting on you. I was saving you from me.

Luckily, Finn pulls out of me and heads to the bathroom with only the sound of his belt where his pants are still wrapped around his ankles clinking with each step. It gives me a second to process everything. To sit up and pull my shorts back on so that we can face whatever the hell just happened fully clothed and without any evidence of sex present.

Like that’s going to work since the smell of it hangs in the suite around me.

I’m just finishing buttoning my shorts when his voice is behind me. “You mind telling me how exactly you got into a strip poker, tequila-shot drinking game of Texas Hold ’Em in the middle of a casino floor?” he asks.

“It’s none of your business.” And I’m not sure why my first words after he just made the earth shift beneath my feet are snippy, but they are. Maybe because I already know what’s going to happen next, and even though it’s exactly what I want to happen—him leaving with us still at odds—I’m already preparing myself for the sting.

He snorts in reaction as if he expects nothing less in an answer than that. “Good to know everything’s still the same.”

“Sure is.” My hands are on my hips as I study his face and try to read what his eyes are saying. I can’t and so I look away, afraid he might see too much in mine if I let him. “You were an itch. I scratched it. Thanks for that.”