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And if he had said yes—then I could have lain in that park with him, looking at the sky. The girl I had been had needed something like that, someone like that, so desperately, but instead, I had pulled my usual shit. I had given him attitude. I had decided to be hurt. I had been so sure I didn’t need anyone.
Granted, my boyfriend that night had sucker-punched me. But Vicki and Alistair had started dating. If I had ever wanted to track down Finn, all I needed to do was ask. I could have called him anytime in the last thirteen years. Hey, remember me? The crazy girl you met that night? Well, I’m over that asshole. Want to go out sometime?
Would he have done it? I knew the answer without asking him now, because I knew Finn. Yes, he would have.
I had wasted time.
He hadn’t contacted me, either. Because I had told him to fuck off. I had said See you never. He’d been at the beginning of a spiral—he could have used a friend, at least. Someone in his corner, someone to wake up with who thought he was worth something. I could have used that, too.
It was Finn who had made the move to show up at my door, to wait for me to come home, and I was still pulling my shit. I was still wasting time.
I closed my eyes and pressed my fingertips to my forehead, avoiding my reflection in the mirror. I had never liked a man the way I liked Finn, and it terrified me. Because there was no script. Because liking a man had never led to anything good, at least for me.
This time could be different, a voice in my mind said. This time, it’s Finn.
I took a deep, ragged breath. Finn should probably be with someone like Petra—kind, smart, decent, easy to be around. Someone who had fewer jagged edges and hadn’t ditched more than one therapist. Petra had everything going for her, and I had nothing.
But he’d had opportunities to ask Petra out, and he hadn’t taken them. He wasn’t in this hotel room with her. He was here with me.
I had been given another chance. All I had to do was take it.
I gripped the edge of the counter, staring at my hands, breathing through the fear. I glanced in the mirror, and though I couldn’t look at myself, I saw something else that gave me an idea.
Behind me was the penthouse suite’s huge, luxury bathtub.
Oh, hell yes.
It took a minute to get the temperature just right, and then I let the water run. I stripped naked and got in, feeling the water rise over my thighs.
It took Finn only a moment before he came to the door. “Juliet? Are you all right? What are you doing in there?”
I picked up a bottle of fancy hotel bubble bath and poured some in the water.
“It’s unlocked,” I called to him, the bravest thing I’d ever done. “Come in.”
The door opened. Finn walked in and froze.
I tried to picture what he was seeing. Me, naked, the bubbles up to my waist since the bath hadn’t filled yet. My hair damp in the growing steam, my makeup a little smudged. I had made peace with my body a long time ago—with my small breasts and rounded hips, with my thighs that never shrank small enough no matter how much I dieted, with my soft belly. I had played onstage since my teen years, been judged by every type of crowd. I wasn’t sexy enough—or I was too sexy. I was either too fat or too skinny. I was either trying too hard or not hard enough, dressing too dowdy or too slutty, my presence onstage meaning I must be an attention whore, a term no one used for the men. I was either getting ahead by giving blow jobs, or I was too angry and strident for any man to want to fuck me. I was the girl who was hot, so I must not really be playing. I couldn’t please anyone, so instead I pleased myself.
I didn’t diet anymore, and I didn’t work out. I ate until I was full, I played until my fingers seized, and I wore whatever fit me and made me feel good. What made me feel good in this moment was to be naked, and there was no judgment in Finn’s gaze when he looked at me. Only pure, dark hunger.
It was heady and exciting. I leaned against the back of the expansive tub, lifting my chin, raising my arms to lie along the bathtub’s edges so my breasts were on full display. “What do you say, Finn?” I asked him. “Come in.”
He was silent for a long moment, a silence that wasn’t hesitation but instead a slow, sure decision. His gaze moved over every inch of my exposed skin. His tongue made a brief, unconscious swipe across his lower lip. I knew that when he kissed me—and he would kiss me—he would taste like the wine we had both drunk. I’d had only pieces of him so far, and I wanted more of him. I wanted all of him.
He was wearing navy sweatpants and a white T-shirt. He tugged off the T-shirt first, swiping it over his head and dropping it. I took in the sight of his lean torso, the light dusting of brown hair in the center of his chest, his flat stomach. The vulnerable dip at the base of his throat was mesmerizing, and his taut biceps made my stomach flutter. Steam began to cloud the air, and the water in the bath rose to my nipples.
“Keep going,” I told him.
His answer was a grin. He pulled his socks off, hopping first on one foot and then the other, even this dorky moment making my belly heavy with lust. Then, without ceremony, he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his sweatpants and his boxer briefs and pushed them both down.
My throat released a sigh of appreciation, which he heard. His grin twisted with amusement.
I couldn’t help it. I loved the sight of a naked man, and I particularly appreciated this one. He was half hard and getting harder. His thighs were lean and dusted with hair, his hips slim, the landscape below his belly button arrowed with hair over its flat surface. He stepped toward the tub, leaned down, and braced his hands on the edge, his blue-gray eyes on me. I was fascinated by the line of his shoulders in that pose, the perfection of his throat. With effortless grace, he swung one leg, then the other into the tub across from me and lowered down.
The water splashed over both of us. Finn reached with one lean arm and twisted off the tap. Then he hooked his hands behind my knees, pulled me toward him, and took my mouth in a kiss.
It was instant fire. We tangled together, our legs hooking under the water. My hands explored his chest as he cupped my face to kiss me deeper, his wet fingers in my hair. I lifted on my knees and then I was sitting on his thighs, straddling him, skin to skin. With one motion at the right angle, Finn could push inside me, but he didn’t. Instead, he dropped his hands to my breasts and ran his thumbs over my bare nipples, making me moan.
