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I couldn’t get enough of him. I had finally learned that Finn, of all men, didn’t do things just to get to the endgame of fucking me. He wasn’t after a quick release. He was as hungry as I was, as greedy for every part of my skin as I was for his. His hands ran down my bare back, tracing my spine. I dropped my mouth to the warm skin of his neck and licked off drops of water, then sucked gently, feeling his muscles jump in response. He ran his palms over my hips, over my thighs, and then one hand slid between my legs, his fingers working their magic.
I lifted my head as pleasure pulsed over me. I was speechless.
“Admit it,” Finn said in my ear as his thumb found the right spot and worked it with just the right amount of pressure while his fingers worked inside me. “I’m good at this.”
I dug my fingernails into his shoulders. “Damn you,” I managed.
His laugh was low and sexy, deeply turned on. I pressed my forehead against his neck and breathed him in, helpless to do anything but stay where I was. I couldn’t have moved away or stopped him for anything. I could only ride the wave.
This wasn’t what I was usually like. I enjoyed sex, and I’d had one or two skilled boyfriends, but there was always a negotiation, an expectation, that weighed at the back of my mind. If overthinking was a sport, I’d win an Olympic medal. So even though I liked getting naked, it took me a little while to get there. Longer than sixty fucking seconds.
Finn Wiley was different.
My nails dug harder into his skin as I came. He bit my earlobe, and the pinch of pain mixed with the pleasure. It was a rush, a high unlike any other.
As I came down, Finn removed his hand and stroked it over my hip. “You,” he said, his voice deep with lust, “are the hottest woman I have ever seen.”
I kissed him, slow and deep, tasting the wine on his tongue, feeling the tension in the male body against mine, the power I had over him. This man was between my thighs, and he wasn’t going anywhere. Not until I was done with him.
My hands moved up the back of his neck, into his hair. My fingers slowed.
There was something there. A line of skin under my fingertips, buried under his hair. Not visible, but only discernible if you were touching him like I was.
My fingertip traced the line. One inch, two, three, four. I broke the kiss.
“Finn,” I said, “Why do you have a scar?”
FIFTEEN
Finn
I looked at Juliet, at her flushed damp skin, in momentary confusion. I was so worked up that for a second I had no idea what she was talking about.
Then the words sunk in. I felt her fingertips moving along my scar.
“It’s from surgery,” I said.
Juliet’s brows drew down. “What surgery?”
This was the worst possible time. I had the woman of my dreams naked in the bath, in my lap, my hands on her perfect skin, her thighs squeezing my hips. My body cried out in unfulfilled agony, but we weren’t happening unless I explained. I made myself speak another full sentence. “I had brain surgery a few years ago. To remove a tumor.”
She stared at me in confusion. “Finn, what are you talking about?”
Well, I knew one thing: Alistair was good at keeping my secrets. I had asked him not to talk about it to anyone but Vicki, and it seemed that he’d kept his word. “I started getting headaches while Dad was sick,” I said. “I assumed it was from stress and lack of sleep. But it kept getting worse after Dad died. It took me a long time to realize that it wasn’t just grief. That there was something really wrong. So I went to my doctor, and he sent me for scans.”
Juliet’s deep brown eyes were fixed on my face as she listened. Her fingers were still in my hair.
“It was really bad,” I said, playing it down a little. It had, in fact, been agony, and then it had been terrifying, and then it had been both mixed together. I didn’t want to lie, but the conversation was already bad enough. “The tumor was slow growing, but it was far along by the time we found it. There was no way they could treat it with radiation. They had to operate to take it out.”
“Jesus Christ, Finn,” she said softly.
I reached up and drew a finger under her eye, where her makeup was smudged. “Don’t worry about me,” I told her. “I’m a rich asshole, remember? I sleep on a bed of money. I could afford the best surgeons, the best care. I’m better off than most people. They went in, they took it out, they put me back together. They thought it might be cancer, but it wasn’t.” I drew my finger along the soft skin beneath her other eye. “Did you know that they don’t know whether it’s cancer until they take it out of you and analyze it in a lab? That’s the only way they’re sure.”
“But you thought it might be,” she said. “Until you knew the results. You thought it might be.”
She understood everything. How I’d felt in the period of not knowing, how that weighs on a person and makes them rethink everything they’ve ever known. How I had come out of that experience changed in ways I was still figuring out. She saw to the heart of it.
I watched Juliet’s expressive face as she worked this out. Her blond hair was damp against her temples, with strands stuck to her neck. I lifted the hair from her neck and stroked her skin. Now that I had her here, I was unable to stop touching her.
