Hard to Love

by K. Bromberg

  FINN

  “THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS, DeAndre. I know it seems illogical, but I can’t just go and . . .” And all thoughts fade from my head as Stevie walks out onto the deck and heads toward the railing overlooking the ocean.

  The bikini. Her body. The memory of what she tastes like. Feels like.

  “Finn? You okay?” my client says in my ear.

  “Yes.” No, I’m not. “I, uh . . .”

  “Clearly you’re otherwise occupied.” His chuckle fills my ear. “That’s what I get for calling after hours.”

  “No, I’m fine.” I blink as if it’s going to rid the image of Stevie bending over to pick something up off the deck out of my head.

  It didn’t.

  “So, the answer to your question,” I say, trying to concentrate on my running back and not on her, “is that we have to wait. I know it’s not what you want to hear, but it’s how the game is played.”

  “Shit.”

  “I know. Sit tight though. We should have an answer in the next few days. Or at least that’s what I was promised.”

  “All right. I appreciate you answering even though it’s so late.”

  “Not a problem.”

  I end the call and look down at my phone in my hand for a beat before tossing it on the table beside me. Looking back up, I take a moment to appreciate the sight of Stevie.

  Her body is honed like an athlete’s but somehow hasn’t lost the curves of a woman. And that bikini—man, that bikini—is sexy and seductive and the current reason my dick is hardening in my board shorts.

  “Sorry. Did I interrupt you?” she asks as she looks over her shoulder. The coy smile on her lips and her eyes roaming down to my thighs and then back up a clear indication that the woman came out here to finish what we started earlier.

  And Christ how I want to finish it.

  But how do I do that when I’m living with her? When I can’t walk away when we’re done because I’ll have to see her in the kitchen over a glass of water at midnight or wake up the next morning and see her over breakfast?

  That’s not who I am.

  That’s not me.

  I’ve never done that before nor do I intend to.

  “No. It’s fine.” I smile as she takes a step toward me. “You’re fine.”

  “Okay. I know it’s a lot to have someone in your space all the time so I’m just trying to make sure I stay out of yours as much as possible.”

  “I told you to make yourself at home,” I say as I take a step toward the railing. “You’re not in my way.”

  But you sure as hell suck up the oxygen in every room you walk into.

  “Please let me know if I am.”

  My patio is huge, but all of a sudden it feels like it’s shrinking with Stevie and me on a collision course somewhere in the middle.

  I’m more than certain I can handle the impact.

  I’m not so certain I’d be able to handle the aftermath.

  “How were your cherries?” she asks, that smirk turning lopsided as she turns to face me, her elbows tucked behind her on the railing, the whole of her body on full display. “Should I be jealous that Faith knows your favorite things and I don’t?”

  I twist my lips and shake my head. “I have a lot of favorite things.”

  “Like?”

  “Like good cherries, a great underdog story, carrot cake with homemade cream cheese frosting . . .” I purse my lips as I think of what else I like. “A good glass of whiskey, negotiating a great contract for a deserving client, and warm summer nights on this patio right here.”

  “I didn’t expect a few of those.”

  “Like?” I step up to the railing beside her but keep a few feet between us for my own sanity’s sake. The last thing I need is to smell that subtle scent she wears or to have her arm brush against mine when I’ve yet to decide what I want to do here.

  My cock definitely knows what it wants, but I’m trying to be smart here. I’m trying to figure out my own confused head—the one above my shoulders—before I complicate things more.

  “Like carrot cake.”

  I chuckle. “Never underestimate what a lot of sugar can do to something.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” She takes a step toward me, and I swear my breath hitches like a teenage schoolboy anticipating his first kiss. It’s ridiculous. It’s awesome. “Finn?”

  “Hmm?” I ask as my eyes dart down to her mouth before I lean forward and frame her face in my hands. “This is going to be a bad idea.”

  “Sometimes those are the best kinds of ideas,” she murmurs just as my lips meet hers.

  It starts out as a soft sigh of a kiss, almost as if it’s going to take us a minute to reacquaint our lips and tongues—even though the last time I kissed her has replayed through my head way too much.

  But it’s way better than memory serves. Her taste. Her touch. The soft sound she makes in the back of her throat.

  Christ Almighty, this woman is a drug.

  I think one more kiss will be enough but then my hands are on her and it becomes one more touch. One more taste. One more fucking everything until I’m drowning in her.

  But I don’t care because it feels like we’ve been doing a slow dance of seduction for weeks and goddamn, I’m ready to get pulled under.

  “Finn,” she moans against my lips when my fingers hook her suit to the side and find her slick with desire. “Just fucking take me already, will you?”

  I don’t need any other words to spur me on.

  My laugh is muffled by her kiss.

  “You walk around this house in your dress shirts or board shorts—both do things to me I’m not proud of, Sanderson—so you better be the one to start doing me.”

  “What things?” I tuck my fingers into her as she gasps and digs her nails into my shoulders. “Dirty things? Please tell me it’s dirty things.”

  Her laugh is part moan, part chuckle as my mouth closes over hers again. “So, so dirty.” She lowers herself to her knees, and I groan in anticipation as her hands free my cock from my shorts. She kisses the tip of my head, and it jerks in reflex. “You’re in that fancy office of yours on a call with a client when I walk in. Naked.” Her lips close around me and the warm, wet heat of her mouth is like fucking heaven, hell, and everything in between.

  “That’s a good start.”

  “You fist a hand in the back of my hair and bend me over the desk so that I’m spread wide for you to see. And then you fuck me from behind.” She lowers her lips over the length of my shaft, each inch disappearing into her mouth until I feel it hit the back of her throat. She lets it sit there for a moment, allowing me to enjoy the sensation until she comes back off it with a loud popping sound when the suction breaks.

  “That can be arranged,” I pant. Her words are seductive, but I’m finding it hard to concentrate on them while absorbing every fucking ounce of pleasure her mouth is offering.

  “And while you’re doing that and talking to your client, almost growling low in your throat, I’m busy rubbing my clit just like I’m doing now.”

  I glance down and meet her eyes just in time to see her slide two fingers in her mouth before moving them beneath the yellow triangle of her bikini bottoms. Her eyes flutter shut as her hand begins to move. But it’s the moan she emits when she sucks me into her mouth again, the one that vibrates from the crest of my cock all the way down to my balls, that has every single one of my nerve endings singing with pleasure.

  She slides her lips and her free hand up and down the length of me, each twist of her hand sending shockwaves through me.

  “And when I’m close, as I’m bent over your desk”—her breath is labored as her own fingers work her up— “you’ll have to clamp a hand over my mouth because I’ll come so hard that your client will hear.”

  She licks her tongue around the ridge of my cock before sucking on just the tip. My body revolts, begging me to come now and not wait for the velvet of her pussy.

  I hit the back of
her throat again, and I fight the urge to hold the back of her head still so I can fuck her mouth until I’m good and empty.

  “God, you taste so incredible.” Then she sucks me back into her mouth and moans around my cock.

  And that’s it. That’s my undoing. Her praise. Her tongue. Her fingering herself.

  I fist a hand in her hair and pull her head back so she’s forced to look up at me. “You better stop or I’m going to fuck you hard and fast,” I growl.

  A coy smile plays on her parted lips. “I’m counting on it.” And this time, when she pulls me between her two lips, she keeps her eyes locked on mine as her cheeks hollow out and she sucks.

  My hand tightens and it takes everything I have to jerk my cock from her mouth and not finish.

  “You,” I say. A smile turns up the corners of her lips as my cock waits just inches from her mouth.

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  I’m hauling her up to her feet within seconds and crashing my mouth against hers. I can’t think of anything but the end game. I can’t focus on anything else but her.

  We crash into the chaise lounge.

  “This is just sex.” She laughs.

  We bump against the doorway into the house.

  “Just sex,” I agree against her lips.

  We knock something off a table.

  “Then give me the fucking sex.”

  We don’t stop until we’re rolling around on the floor of the great room like we’re fighting for each other’s air.

  There is nothing gentle between us. Our movements are spurred on by a mixture of need and greed and desire and demand.

  We bump heads and tables as we gasp for more. We scrape nails over bare skin and dig fingers into soft flesh. And it feels like fucking forever by the time I go get a condom and put it on, but the minute I do, we roll over one more time until Stevie is on top.

  Her eyes meet mine as she rises up onto her knees, lines up my cock to her center, and then ever so slowly sinks down onto me.

  It’s the only time we slow down. The only time we feel like we’re catching our breaths even though it feels like we stop breathing.

  And then she begins to move. To ride me with a writhe of her hips and the press of her ass. She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip as her head falls back.

  She’s fucking gorgeous. With a flush to her cheeks. With some of her hair falling over her shoulder and onto her chest—but not enough, so her dark pink nipples peek through. With the feel of her wrapped around me, milking me with each and every movement.

  She rocks over me, one hand exposing her clit while the other rubs it back and forth. She begins to move a little faster as her fingers speed up and she grows wetter.

  I can see when her orgasm hits her. Every part of her tenses around me—thighs, pussy, hands—as she stills and a broken moan falls from her parted lips.

  The sight of her, the feel of her, the sound of her . . . all three push and pull on everything inside of me until my breath is coming shorter, my hands are urging her hips harder, and my hips are pumping up into her.

  “Stevie,” I groan. It’s all I can utter, all I can think of, as I empty myself.

  She waits until we’re both done before rolling off me and falling onto her back on the floor beside me with a thump and laughter.

  “Mark off sex on a rug on the Cards O’ Fun,” she says with a giggle.

  “Cards O’ Fun?”

  She sighs and I’d like to think it’s from satisfaction, but the mischievous look in her eyes says differently. “It was a game that Vivi and Jordan made up . . .” She goes on to explain about the game. Dares and them giving her a chance to live it up. A competition she refused to lose.

  And how it led her to me that first night.

  “You’re not saying anything,” she says and pokes me in the ribs.

  “Nothing to say. You were struggling with the loss of your father. Your friends were trying to pick you up. The antics and bad press that ensued may not have been the best route to take, but it is what it is. End of story.” And thank God it was me they chose that night, or I’d have to kick some random guy’s ass for touching her.

  I shrug the thought away, distracted by her fingers still on my skin, as her comment comes back to me.

  “Sex on the rug?” I ask.

  “Yep. We had sex on the table. Now it’s on the rug. I’m not very experienced, Finn, so I’ve got to note all these important firsts.”

  Her honesty strips me bare in the best and most surprising ways. It’s not like we’ve talked about our past sex lives but for her to be inexperienced and be as secure in her sexuality as she is . . . it’s a damn fucking turn-on.

  “Important firsts will be noted from now on.” I laugh.

  “As they should be.” She sighs. “I guess the bikini worked.”

  I start laughing. How can I not? I was blatantly and willingly seduced by a yellow bikini and an irresistible woman.

  What has this world come to?

  “I thought I was supposed to be the one fucking you hard and fast, though?” I ask, needing to say something, anything, to explain why that felt like way more than mindless fucking.

  “You’ll get your turn, Sanderson.”

  “Ah yes, the desk fantasy.”

  It’s her turn to laugh.

  It’s my turn to hope.

  STEVIE

  THE NIGHT BREEZE IS COOL against my skin.

  Finn’s body is warm as I snuggle into him. My nose is under the curve of his jaw and I find an odd comfort in the scrape of his stubble every time his chest rises and falls.

  His arms tighten around me, his breath even in my ear, and I relish the relaxing sounds of the ocean muted through the closed slider door.

  I wake with a start, disoriented, and then flustered to look over and see that I’m not really in Finn’s arms but more or less lying on the chaise section of the couch while he’s sprawled out on the long side of it.

  It all comes back to me now. The yellow bikini. The incredible sex. The things I said that now I’m blushing about. And the collapsing on the couch afterward where we talked about nothing of importance until we fell asleep—an easy way for us to avoid the awkward I’m going to my bedroom and you’re going to your bedroom thing.

  So, we lay on the couches, talking about anything and everything that was inconsequential until I fell asleep.

  I turn to look at Finn and a small part of me sighs. The part that liked the feeling of my dream. The lying there together when I’ve never really slept with someone after sex, the feel of his heartbeat beneath my cheek, the subtle scent of the cologne on his skin.

  It was just sex, Stevie. Just a dream. Stop your sleep-drugged thoughts about how nice it would be to wake up in his arms. The ones you were snuggling into a dream to. Go to your own bed.

  I push myself up from the couch, my muscles sore from both practice and the rolling around on the floor with him, but then stop and study Finn.

  He looks peaceful in his sleep. The intensity with which he seems to do everything in life is softened right now by the light of the moon. His chest rises and falls evenly, and I can’t help but remember my dream. The peace and safety I felt snuggled up against him.

  Just. Sex.

  Then why as I stare at him do I feel like I . . . nothing. Never mind. The man helped me when I was in need of an escape. He helped provide it. Of course, that makes this bond between us more than just the sex, but . . . hell, we’re good together.

  I move to the wall of windows with the intention of looking out of it, but I can’t seem to tear my eyes off Finn as I relive earlier.

  A cat-ate-the-canary grin slides onto my lips.

  There was power in the sex for me.

  A sense of sexuality I don’t think I’ve ever felt, and a confidence I don’t think I’ve ever had before. Something about Finn made me comfortable enough to have it. To own it. His reactions, God, his reactions will live in my memory, because they were so goddamn se
xy and arousing and powerful. To feel his legs trembling as I took him deep. To watch his heavy-lidded eyes darken as I talked dirty to him. To watch him come undone as I rocked back and forth over him. To hear my name on his lips and know that I did that to him.

  I always thought Vivi and Jordan were full of shit when they said there was power in sex.

  Now, I know better.

  Now, I know what it’s like to own your sexuality and I can’t wait to own it again.

  His words rumble through my head.

  Important firsts will be noted from now on.

  From now on . . .

  I give in to the want and move toward him, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. A type of thank-you for whatever therapy of his this is.

  Because he is helping me. In some way. Somehow.

  He is definitely a balm to the damaged parts of me. And he’s proud of me. That’s something my dad used to say to me too. And even that gives me confidence, because Finn’s opinion matters.

  I give him one last look before I head toward the hallway and push away the thought hinting in my mind.

  The one that says our time is limited . . . so I need to enjoy it while it lasts.

  STEVIE

  “YOU SOUND BETTER. MORE SETTLED,” Vivi says.

  “I am. I think.” My laugh fills the line and hits my own ears but I like how it sounds. Genuine instead of on the edge of hysteria as it had been. “Definitely better.”

  “Is it the tennis you’re practicing, the interview you gave, or the man you’re staying with who’s helping foster that?” she asks, curiosity edging her tone.

  I think for a beat. “Maybe it’s all three.”

  “Honesty.” She sounds surprised. “I’m impressed.”

  “Gee. Thanks.” I laugh again, and God, does it feel good.

  “No, I just mean, we knew it was hard for you, losing your dad. We knew you weren’t ready to talk about it. Or the future. So, we kind of let you get lost in the outside for a bit to help quiet the noise, if that makes sense. We tried to challenge you with things to push you outside of your box to prevent you from breaking down . . . but maybe we were wrong. Maybe that’s what you needed in order to get to this stage you’re at now.”