“I never hated you, Grey.”
He pulls back, gaze fastening on mine, brows arched.
It pulls a smile from me. “I didn’t. Or at least not after a while. But by then, you’d started dating any woman who would give you the time of day.”
He bites his lip, his head falling back, and I watch the long column of his throat, wondering what he would do if I leaned forward, dragged my tongue up the line of it. He lets out a groan that sends a pulse of want through my nervous system, lighting me up like a Christmas tree.
“I was trying to move on. Find someone else. Someone who…” He hesitates, chin dipping until his eyes are locked on mine again. “I was trying to find someone who could compare to you. And I’ve come up short for so damn long, Finley. There’s no one like you. There’s no one I want more than you.”
Any breath in my lungs hitches in my throat at that statement. My world narrows to just him, just this moment, a blip in time that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I understand why he would want to ink something onto his flesh as a physical reminder of a place and time, of a moment so important you want to make it permanent. That’s how I feel right now. I want to ink his words right over my heart so that I’ll see them every day, so that I’ll never forget how they made my heart stutter and start again.
“Grey,” I heave out.
He interrupts me again. “If you’re going to tell me you don’t feel the same, spare me, Fin.” He looks so pained, all the light going out of his uniquely perfect eyes. He looks wrecked. His hair is a mess from the water, drying in stuck-up waves all over his head, and his brows are bunched together so tightly that fine lines bracket them. “I think I’ll break if you say you don’t want me. Just don’t say anything—”
“Grey,” I say again, placing my free hand on his bare chest, my voice strong enough to break him out of his pained reverie. Mymouth lifts in a soft, teasing smile. “If you’d shut up, I could tell you that I want you too. That I’m not sure I ever really stopped.”
The relief that crests over him is enough to make his knees buckle. And before I really know what’s happening, he’s perched on the edge of his bed, tugging me forward until I’m standing between his legs. We’re eye to eye now, and his hands are on my face a second before his lips are on mine.
We’ve shared enough kisses now that none of them should be surprising. But this one is. I know for certain that he was holding back those other times, because hedevoursme with this kiss. It’s the kind reserved for movie scenes of a loved one leaving for war or the first kiss after years apart. It’s the kind where the camera zooms in and you can clearly see the naked want on each person’s face, the way they cling to each other like the other person is their lifeline.
I’ve watched these kisses hundreds of times, but experiencing it is something else.
He tugs my bottom lip between his teeth, tilts my head until it’s at just the angle he needs. When he licks into my mouth, a groan slips out of me, and he swallows it up, his hands moving from my face to my waist, twisting in the fabric of my towel.
He says my name like it’s a prayer as he pulls his lips from mine, trailing them down the slope of my neck. He’s saying other things too, words too inaudible for me to hear, but I feel them. I feel his reverence whispered into my skin.
My mind feels pleasantly blank, my vision fuzzy in the semi-darkness. Only the lights from the living room pouring through the doorway and the moonlight slicing through the windows. It makes everything feel more intimate.
His mouth reaches the top of the towel, still tucked around my chest, and I shiver when he places a soft, open-mouthed kiss right over my heart, his hands cinching me closer until I’m practically in his lap.
When he looks up at me from beneath his lashes, his mouth pressed to the delicate skin of my chest, I feel my knees buckle. Grey catches me against him, rolling us until we’re on the bed, still holding me tightly against him, his body propped slightly above mine.
I can feel his breaths against me, feel the softness of his comforter beneath me. His smell is all around me, so potent that it’s heady. He’s watching me so intently that it’s like he’s memorizing this moment the same way that I am, so he can pull this memory out again and again.
The moment stretches, like saltwater taffy folding over itself, turning into something delicious. He holds my gaze for so long that he starts to blur, our breaths moving in tandem, now heavier than before. He looks like every daydream I’ve ever had of him, lips swollen, hair mussed, shirtless and bronzed from hours spent outside in the summer sunshine.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he says, moving one of his hands from my waist and tracing the top of the towel wrapped around my chest. Goose bumps trail after his touch, and I feel it everywhere. In the places he’s touching me, in the hollow of my throat, and in a spot deep in my stomach. In the pits of my knees and the bottoms of my toes. In all the spots his hands are and all the spots I want them to be.
“I can’t believe it either,” I breathe. This makes a tiny grin start on his face, then grow into something extraordinary. This time when he kisses me, it’s with a smile, our teeth bumping up against each other.
He pulls back reluctantly, watching me with heavy eyes. “I should probably shower.”
I nod. “I should probably get dressed.”
His smile stretches. “Or not. I meant it when I said I was a big fan of having you naked in my house.”
A laugh shoots out of me, like it’s been trapped in my chest the entire time we’ve been in this room, begging to be let out. “As tempting as that may be, I’m cold.”
“I can turn on the heat.”
“I can get dressed in your clothes, then we can have more brownies and watch a movie.”
He hesitates for a moment, looking torn. “Can we at least make out some more?”
My lips curl. “Deal.”
When I wake up,at first, I think it’s a dream. Finley is in my bed. I’ve dreamed of it so often that the real thing feels like a lie, a desperate hope I’m clinging to in sleep.
