“What have your roommates made you do?”
“What haven't they made me do is the question. I've been to strip clubs, paintballing, ATVing, a firing range, rock climbing, fishing." Finn tapped a finger on the table to punctuate each activity. “I've got two former Marines living with me, and I think they’re planning to push me out of an airplane. So I can't go home."
“You can stay with me,” I said with a nonchalant shrug.
His eyes drifted around my face, lingering on my lips and then dropping lower. I could feel my unbound breasts tighten under the cotton of my T-shirt. I hated bras and was small and perky enough I could get away without wearing them. The only problem was I had fat, eraser-sized nipples, and right now they were pointing directly at Finn. He stared at them for what seemed like an eternity.
“Is that right?” His voice was husky.
The air in the room disappeared, and I barely had enough breath to croak out, “No, Ivy’s there. She and I live together now. Have for—” I paused, not wanting to bring up her recent incarceration, “—for a couple of months,” I finished awkwardly.
He made a noise in the back of his throat, one I couldn’t decipher. “So have you been seeing anyone?”
I didn’t know what to make of that. Why was he at all remotely interested in my love life?
“No, not recently. Not since—”—” I broke off again.
“Not since Ivy got out of prison,” he said dryly.
“You heard?”
“I heard.” He was done with the subject of Ivy and that was okay with me. It made me uncomfortable to talk about her while I was perving on her ex-boyfriend.
Anxious to change the subject, I asked, “What about you?”
“I don’t think what I’ve been doing constitutes as seeing anyone. Not since my dad died. Not feeling it.” His blue gaze pinned me against the booth. I heard what he wasn’t saying out loud. He had been sleeping around and from the interested way he was eyeing me, the suggestion was I could be next. “I’ve been trying not to feel for a while but tonight? Maybe tonight should be different.”
It wasn’t a question; it was an invitation. And all the teenage feelings of longing and lust rushed over me until I was dry mouthed and full of want.
He looked out the window, considering something, and then back toward me. “You had a crush on me for a long time. Am I taking advantage of you?”
I didn’t pretend I was confused about what he was asking, even though it was a bit mortifying to be confronted by my unreciprocated feelings. I shook my head. “No. I think it’s the other way around.”
“It’s not. Why don’t we get out of this place?” He stood and threw two twenties on the table and waited for me to lead the way out.
I was acutely aware of his large frame behind me as I walked carefully across the tiled floor to the entrance. The heat of his body nearly burned me as he pressed against my back to reach around me with a large, work-roughened hand to push the glass door open.
He placed a hand on my lower back and guided me to his truck. It was a monster of a thing with big black tires and a menacing silver grill.
“You really expect me to climb into this thing?”
He opened the door and in one swift motion lifted me onto the seat. “I forgot what a bitty thing you are.”
“I’m not small. You’re just very tall. With a very large truck.”
His hands didn’t release my waist; instead, he moved closer. I opened my legs to make space for him.
“Don’t worry, Winter. Everything’s going to fit fine.” With a firm hand on my neck, he drew my face down to his. I heard his lips part before I felt them press against mine.
A thousand thoughts tumbled in my head. Would Ivy be okay with this? Should I really be taking advantage of a grief-stricken man? How were his lips soft and firm at the same time? Could I have an orgasm from just kissing? Was this what love felt like?
His mouth took mine in a firm possession—no hesitation. He wanted this if not me. And I took what he gave me because when did a girl ever get to kiss the boy she’d crushed over for years? Hardly ever.
Only in the movies.
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and dug my hands into his hair, giving into every desperate desire I’d always tried to stomp down.
He groaned and pulled me tighter to him, the seat somehow perfectly situated at groin level so I felt the strong, heated evidence of his desire through our jeans. He rubbed his tongue along the edges of mine. He outlined my lips and then stroked the flat of his tongue against the roof of my mouth.
Even if I hadn’t had a crush on him, I would have been weak-kneed. Finn O’Malley knew how to kiss. He wasn’t just thrusting his tongue into me, he was exploring me, learning me, tasting me.