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The noise that comes out of him is pure frustration. ‘Because you’re smart and loyal and mean and kind of weird, but somehow even those words don’t feel quite right, and because a smile from you is worth a hundred from anyone else, and because all of that—’ I go to interrupt him but he puts a hand up to stop me, stepping forward as he does. ‘No, please let me say this. I think for some ridiculous reason you think I couldn’t possibly like you, but I do. I really like you, okay? Not just as a friend. Because friends don’t think about friends the way I think about you.’ When he speaks again, his voice is more desperate than I’ve ever heard it, pulling atsomething deep inside me. ‘I’m sorry if that messes up this whole thing we’ve had where we pretend there’s nothing going on here. Where you pretend you don’t like me and I pretend the air isn’t on fucking fire when you’re standing too close. But it’s how I feel.’
The walls are drawing in with every breath I take. I shake my head. ‘It’s so messy.’
‘Fuck, I’m sorry. I know there’s a high chance I’m leaving soon. I wanted to be your friend and only your friend, because that’s what both of us needed. I tried not to feel like this. And then I tried to ignore it. But now it’s too late, because it feels like my entire life revolves around you. Like you’re the centre of everything.’ Heat burns through my lungs, through my veins, and something within me thaws in response to his words. His voice is strained when he continues, ‘Every decision I make I think of you. Every single happy moment from the last few months has been with you. Every time anything happens I want to share it with you.’ His chest rises and falls with the force of his admission, and his voice is quieter now. ‘And I really don’t know what to do with myself when you act like you don’t feel something too, because it's written all over your face.’
‘You can’t know that,’ I whisper. His words sit between us, and the air is sticky honey, coating every square millimetre of my skin until all I hear is the buzzing of bees in my head. ‘You don’t know me. Not fully.’
‘Really? I know that when you’re concentrating you take your ponytail out and redo it over and over. I know that you would go beyond the ends of the earth for the people you care about. And Ava,’ he moves closer and my back meets the sharp edges of the shelving unit, ‘I know that your breath catches when I’m this close to you. So tell me I’m imagining it. Tell me this is all in my head.’
Heat pools beneath my skin with every word and for a few moments all I can concentrate on is remembering to breathe. He’s one step away now, the light above our head flickering like it too feels the electric charge between us.
‘Finn,’ I whisper, but there’s no fight in it. Only fear. Because one wrong exhale and the fragile illusion we’ve craftedthese past few months will shatter. ‘We know how this ends.’
‘Maybe.’ He wades through the heaviness to take his final step, until the only space left between us is that barren no-man’s land between two sides of one decision. ‘Maybe not.’
As though I might break if he moves too quickly, his hands find their way to my face, the pads of his thumbs slowly passing over my lips, fingers gently weaving into my hair. But he leaves the final move to me.
I wonder if I’m even in control anymore. Because there’s something hopeless about this. Something inevitable.
You know what you want.
I move my head until there’s nothing at all between us, not uncertainty or indecision or fear, and my lips brush against his. That featherlight touch alone sends my nervous system into a frenzy. He dips back in, testing the waters, swallowing the sigh I breathe into his mouth. It’s even better the second time. The moment he pulls back an inch I know I’ve never been so desperate for someone in my life, so I knit my hands into his hair and tug him back against me,finally.
My lips part for him as his do for me, and it’s not sweet, or graceful, or soft. It’s months of desperate almosts and not-nows culminating in a greedy frenzy that sends me reeling with every touch. My heart’s running rampant in my chest as the kisses deepen, and I feel his mouth everywhere; my jaw, my throat, my collarbone, but I pull at his hair to bring his lips back to mine, because somehow I miss them being there already.More, I want more.
One of his hands holds the side of my neck while the other acquaints itself with every line of my body, pausing at my lower back and pulling me flush against him. That hand slides under the hem of my t-shirt and clutches at the softness of my hips and waistforcefully enough that I’m sure it’ll leave a mark, but I welcome it with raspy exhales, because it’s proof this is really happening, that I haven’t floated away into nothingness like my brain is telling me I have.
The unyielding shelves creak against my back, forcing me even closer to him, the solidity of his body pressed against mine; broad shoulders, strong arms, stomach muscles that tighten when I slide my hand under his shirt and hit the skin just above his waistband. His teeth graze my neck as his hands continue their tour of my body, until the one at my waist slides down to my thigh, pulling my leg up to hook around his hip. I let out a whimper when I feel he’s exactly where I want him, and he pushes forward and takes my lips again with half a groan as I roll my hips towards him. This isn’t going to happen again. It can’t. But I’m not going to deny myself the vision of Finn against me the way he is right now, so I clutch him tighter and kiss him harder.
I try to decipher the thoughts swirling around my head, but then Finn’s lips find my collarbone, or his breath hits my ear, or his hands drag down my lower back, down, down, and in the end I realise I don’t need words when he’s telling me everything I need to know without them.
Because Finn kisses like a man who wants to learn. To understand every sharp exhale, every slow sigh, every movement of my hips, and somehow he already knows that whenever he brings his lips to my throat, I push against him, hands dragging through his hair, clutching at his shoulders, his arms, running along his jaw, all the hard parts of him making way for the soft parts of me.
‘Fuck, Ava,’ he murmurs, kissing up my throat, leaving one hand at the base of my neck while the other slides up my waist to splay against my ribs, then down to the curve of my ass, then back up, like he can’t decide what he wants to do.
‘Don’t talk,’ I grit out.
He laughs against my ear, and even within this frenzy there’s a warmth to him that I know I could never emulate. It occurs to me that we should swap; it’s strange for someone so gentle to have a body so solid, while I’m here with this iron fortress of a heart, housed in a body that’s nothing but jelly.
But then, maybe that’s why it feels so good to be this close. Maybe we’re what the other is missing.
I can believe he’s what I’m missing when I hold his jaw and angle his face towards mine and he kisses me so intensely I feel like I’m transcending the need for oxygen. Because I don’t want to do something so mundane asbreatheright now, not when his tongue is in my mouth and sending shivers down my spine.
I can really believe he’s what I’m missing when he pulls my leg tighter around him and I rock against him to appease some of the heaviness pooling between my thighs, and I’m certain I’ve never been so furiously needy before, coming undone just being this close to him.
And then I wonder about what else could come undone, and my hands are at the top button of his shirt, and I’m clumsy and slow and perhaps in the end that’s my saving grace, because it’s at this moment that the storeroom door opens with a thunderous bang.
We spring apart and I’m so disoriented I forget where I am or why I’m here.
Rosetta stands in the doorway with a knowing look on her face. ‘Realised you two hadn’t come back and thought you might’ve had a mishap with the door. Sorry about that. Hope you weren’t too bored in here.’ There’s a glint in her eye and I smile weakly, sure my hair is a mess, my face is flushed, sure that even if I looked perfectly normal, she’d be able to feel the suffocating tension in the room.
Finn faces away from the door, breathing deeply, eyes up to theceiling, adjusting his trousers as subtly as he can manage. I have to make an effort to look away from him.
I clear my throat before I reply. ‘Thanks for rescuing us. Thought we might have to set up camp for the night.’
‘I’m sure you’d have found ways to entertain yourselves.’
30
