He wraps his fingers around a small lock of my hair and glides them down to the end, tugging gently. “Look at me.”
I blink up to him, eyes wide and focused on nothing but the bow of his bottom lip, the appearance of his ironic little smile as I wait to hear what instruction comes next.
“Kiss my neck,” he whispers, so I do. I stretch on my toes and press my lips against his pulse point. It’s an excuse, maybe, to see how I affect him and whether his blood trips the same way mine does when we are this close. But his pulse is a steady and slow dum . . . dum . . . dum beneath my touch.
“Lick me.” His fingers slide up my neck and over my necklace, pressing into my scalp and gripping handfuls of my hair.
My tongue sweeps out, just barely touching his skin, and he groans, a low, hungry sound. He tastes like salt and air, as if the ocean wrapped around him when he was small and never let go.
“Go lie down.” His fingers release me but his gaze doesn’t. Right now, I remember that Finn is ten years older than me; I must look wide-eyed and naïve. I wonder if he has any idea the extent of my inexperience with lovers like him. “I’m gonna tie you up and kiss that sweet pussy for a while. I want to hear you say my name when you come on my lips.”
I back up to the bed and then turn, moving toward the middle. Having grown up on the beach, I’m used to being in bikinis around people, but Finn and I have only ever hooked up in the dark. It’s a little weird to be completely naked—with him mostly clothed—and crawling on my hands and knees on a bed in broad daylight.
When I kneel and wait for him to join me, he shakes his head. “Lie back. Close your eyes.” At my suspicious expression, he says in a quiet, deep voice, “You want it or not?”
Before I do what he says, I blink down to the worn button fly of his jeans, faded and soft over time and now distorted with the shape of him, hard beneath. He’s always made sure my body was ready, and I know that’s what we’re doing, but the threat of panic and fear lingering at the edges, and my need to get lost in something other than my own thoughts, makes me impatient.
He sees where my attention has gone and rubs the heel of his hand down the thick line of his cock, gripping it. “You’ll get it in a little bit. Lie back.”
The pillow is full and hard, but the cotton comforter is soft and warm against my bare skin. Between my legs, the mattress dips as Finn climbs up from the foot of the bed, his palms smoothing up my shins.
Finn drags the length of red rope up over my torso, coiling it around his hand. Reaching behind me, he slides the center of its length under my body and then crisscrosses it back and forth down across my torso. Looping it around one hand he coils it up one arm and then back over my chest to the other side. Wrapping it down around my other arm, he’s softly bound my arms so each of my wrists stays at the sides of my hips. In the center, just below my belly button, he ties an intricate—and beautiful—knot. I watch him the entire time; he’s focused and careful not to bind me too tight. I can tell, too, that he loves what he sees. When he’s done, he sighs, running his hands up over my hips and across my stomach, my breasts, my neck.
“I had no idea you were into this,” I whisper.
He shrugs a little, but doesn’t say anything. My breasts are displayed on either side of an X across my breastbone, and the rope is soft but sturdy; I can feel it pressing into the tender skin all along my torso.
“Is it too tight?” he asks, drawing a finger in a small circle around my nipple.
I swallow back a gasp. “No.”
“Do you like it?”
I hear genuine concern in his voice. I can tell from his trembling hand, intense gaze, and the pressing shape of his cock beneath his jeans that Finn likes this. A lot. But it matters to him that I do, too.
And fuck, I do. I don’t mind having my arms pinned at my sides as much as I thought I would. And I feel everything: the silken slide of the rope as I wiggle a little under his inspection, the cool air over my breasts, the thudding echo of my pulse in my neck, chest, between my legs.
I forgot how rough his hands are, calloused from constant work—rough and so huge he covers much of my body as his splayed fingers slide up my legs to my inner thighs, spreading me.
I resist, and he makes a quiet tsk sound, easily overpowering me as he shakes his head. He’s not looking at my face, he’s looking at me, there, between my legs.
I like to consider myself a pretty progressive woman—lots of talk about being comfortable with anything and trying everything once—but mostly, so far, it’s only been theory. At twenty-two, I’ve never had a lover who was experienced enough to be slow and force me to still under his acute attention. I’ve never been with anyone who was confident enough to be still and calm while he just looks at me. I’ve certainly never been tied up. And I’ve never had someone savor me the way Finn is right now, not even the Finn I thought I knew from before.
He settles, propped on his elbows between my legs, and kisses my thigh, looking up the length of my body at the red rope against my skin. “You look amazing.”
I whisper out a raspy “Thanks,” watching rapt as he bends, lips parted. And, God, I believe him.
He groans a split second before he makes contact, and when he does it’s like a bomb goes off inside me. Something seems to break loose with the wet slide of his tongue. I fall back, arms stiffening in their hold, back bowing off the mattress so I can arch closer. I know now that I haven’t just been waiting for this since last night; I’ve been waiting for it every second since I last felt his tongue between my legs. His mouth is warm and strong. Kissing there like he would my mouth, small kisses and gentle licks release my first cry, and he grunts, pushing his tongue up into me and just . . . losing it.
Finn was always borderline rough and clearly wanted control the two other times we were together, but this . . . this is different. It isn’t just the rope around my arms or the way he has me pinned beneath him. It’s the way it feels like we’ve crossed into a different space—before it was just a one-time thing, a two-time thing, just sex. But this time, it’s like he’s peeling away the layers to show me a secret side of him.
For a flash, I’m aware of how loud he is, sucking and smacking, and how loud I am, crying out and saying his name and other garbled words—but I can’t hold on to the inclination to be self-conscious. I can’t because with the vibration of his groan spreading through me, and the way he uses the knot at my belly to rhythmically pull me against his mouth, I’m coming so soon, so hard it claws up my thighs and explodes like heat and wet and pure fucking bliss, sliding silvery all along every inch of my legs. My skin feels flushed and electric, and I can hear my own hoarse cries echo sharply in the mostly empty room. Finn keeps going, diligently working his mouth over me, but I’m gasping as I come down, my legs trembling and weak. I want to push them together, but his hands spread across my thighs, holding me open, pressing them flat to the bed.
He grunts out a No and reaches beneath me with one hand to deliver a sharp smack on the outside of my thigh.
I’m too far gone to be shocked. When he spreads his hand over where he’s just struck me, and rubs his rough palm in slow, soothing circles as he hums, I immediately want the sharp crack again because of the way it melted into delicious heat under his sweeter touch.
Finn is watching me, his lips pressed gently against my clit, concentrating his gaze on my face. He pulls away just enough to whisper, “Tell me how that felt.”
Does he mean the spanking or the mind-numbing orgasm? Or the way I can barely move after he made every muscle in my body clench? Regardless, the answer is the same. Blinking, I open my mouth, slowly stringing the words, So . . . fucking . . . good, together in my head. Before I can get them out, he smiles against me, returning to the maddening kisses, the licks and tugging on the knotted rope. I let the words and every thought in my head fall away and push into him, circling my hips closer to his mouth.
My face feels hot, my cheeks flushed. The rope tickles along my skin, pull
ing up and down in a rhythm that matches the teasing flicks of his tongue. My nipples are hard, aching, and I want his fingers to find them, his mouth to find them. I want him everywhere at once. I feel heavy and desperate, my entire world oriented by where he’s touching me and where he’s not.
I must be saying something because the sound of his voice breaks through the fog. “That’s right,” he says, murmuring softly. “Fuck, look at you.”
But I’m looking at him. His soft hair is between my legs and his eyes, those fucking eyes are staring right back at me, waiting. He curls a finger inside and bends his head to continue sucking, and that’s all it takes. My back arches off the mattress and I cry out, falling to pieces again inside his web of silken rope.
I feel like melted chocolate poured across this bed and moan quietly when Finn’s hands smooth up over my belly, gently unfastening the knot.
“It may tingle a little when I take it off.” He kisses where the knot was, where there’s now an indentation of what almost looks like a flower on my skin. “It’ll be sensitive.”
“Okay,” I say on a long exhale. And it does; as he unwinds the soft rope from my arms, reversing the intricate crisscross pattern across my body, I can feel the air hit the delicate lines on my skin, but only for a split second before Finn’s mouth slides along the same path, licking, kissing, soothing everywhere it feels so sensitive.
It’s overwhelming how good this feels, and how gentle he is. When my hands are free, I slide them both over his shoulders and up his neck, holding his face to my chest as he licks and sucks at the rope lines beneath my breasts.
Finally, he pulls my nipple into his mouth, tongue circling. “So fucking good,” he murmurs, switching to my other breast, fingers ghosting along the fading lines.
His hands find my wrists and he guides my arms over my head, looping the rope around them again.
“Okay?” he whispers.
“Yeah.”
Bound like this, I can leave my arms over my head or loop them around his neck. But for now I leave them where they are and relish the feel of the comforter beneath my back as Finn grips my hips and drags me to the foot of the bed.
Reaching between my legs, he strokes me with two fingers, making a V as he slides over my clit and then inside, repeating the pattern again, and again.
“You’re so damn warm.” He bends, kissing my hip.
Finn pulls away and steps back so I can watch him push his jeans and boxers down his hips, kicking them onto the floor. He grabs a condom from a box in the top drawer of the dresser but doesn’t put it on yet.
Instead, he climbs up on the bed, straddling my chest. Above me, he feels like fire, the heat emanating from his skin unlike anything I’ve ever felt. I feel like I’ve grown extra nerve endings over the parts of my body that were covered by rope.
He braces a hand beside my head, gripping his cock with the other. “Kiss me.”
When the broad head of his cock touches my lips, I let my eyes fall closed at the sound of his groan. I love the tight flare of the crown, the taste of him. I lick around the tip, opening wider when he slides more into my mouth, rocking just in and out while I play, getting him wet enough to slide easily past my lips.
“You like it?” he asks, voice rasping. “The feel of my cock on your tongue?”
Nodding, I open my eyes to see an expression on his face I’ve never seen before: frenzied adoration, as if he’s never seen anything more amazing in his life.
“I never came in your mouth,” he says quietly. “I kept thinking about it, but then I always ended up wanting something else instead.”
Backing away, and proving the point he just made, he straddles my hips as he tears open the condom and rolls it down his length. If this was a movie, I would rewind and watch those three seconds again and again. I like the way he looks down as he puts the latex on, gripping himself, reaching down absently to run his palm across his balls. With a little growl, he moves the rest of the way down my body and stands at the foot of the bed, between my legs.
“Wrap them around my waist. Hold on to me with your legs.”
I do everything he says because I don’t know anything else but that I need Finn inside me right now. He holds his cock straight and rests one palm on the mattress beside my hip, sliding the head just in.
Just out.
Just in.
Watching me with his lips parted, eyes heavy, he pulls just out again.
I groan, pushing my head back into the mattress and gritting my teeth.
“I like seeing you so impatient,” he whispers, bending to kiss my collarbone. “You have any idea how you look right now? Dripping wet all over me?”
He knows I don’t have words and doesn’t really seem to expect an answer as he pushes in, inch by inch, reaching down to circle his thumb around my clit, murmuring, “Ah, ah, ah, don’t come yet.”
But when he pulls back, he barely takes a breath before thrusting back in and then I know it’s on. He gives me all of it, his hard thrusts and those low, animals sounds he makes with every one. His hands, so big, curled around my body, holding me steady as he fucks so hard.
I relish this man telling me to wait.
Wait.
Not yet, Harlow. Don’t you fucking go without me.
I said wait. I’m close. I’m so fucking close.
He pulls out just when I’ve almost burst into a thousand tiny pieces, and then he eases back inside, whispering, “Wanna come?” against my neck. And I do. I do, please please, I’m begging, and I realize it only on the second, maybe the third please, and he loves it, I can tell, because he’s wild again, and for a tiny, frantic pulse I’m startled by the memory that there is something bigger than this. I squeeze my eyes closed and fall back into feeling like there isn’t anything else in the world but Finn and the way he makes me feel.
Rational thought vanishes as quickly as it peeked in, and I’m screaming as he moves back into me, grinding, grinding, grinding until I come. His palm is cupping my ass to pull me into him, his lips are on my shoulder, and his cock is so deep inside I don’t think I ever knew I could feel so full.
Finn jerks over me, his body tense as he groans against my skin. I feel the twitching of him inside me, the pounding of his heart between us—or is it mine?—I can’t even tell anymore. I have no idea where he ends and I begin.
I’m not sure which of us is more exhausted. Finn did all the work, moving over and into me, pushing and pulling me where he wanted, and yet I feel totally drained. My legs are heavy, my bones composed entirely of rubber. I could sleep for days.
It’s exactly why I’m here.
At some point Finn has unbound my wrists, rubbed his thumb along the faint red marks.
“These will fade,” he says, examining them, a hint of regret in his voice. “Probably within an hour.”
Nodding, I close my eyes, count to ten, and then move to stand. I begin to dress, feeling his eyes on me from the bed.
“Jesus, Harlow. You don’t have to rush off,” he says, his voice thick and sleepy. The sky outside is deep lavender post-sunset. “Oliver won’t be home until late.”
I open my mouth, saying, “I should . . .” and pointing vaguely north, toward home.
He nods, watching me put everything back on before he pats a heavy hand on the bed. “Harlow, you shouldn’t run off.” Pushing to sit at the edge of the mattress, he says, “Stay. Let me . . . fuck, I don’t know. Set up a bath for you, or . . . just stay here. It was intense. Wasn’t it intense?”
It was. It was so intense that I’m suddenly second-guessing everything that brought me here.
As I gather my things to leave, I’m not sure if being with Finn is an escape, or a new dangerous obsession.
Chapter FOUR
Finn
THE LIGHT CHANGES and I step off the curb, crossing the street in the middle of a small crowd. With my phone pressed to my ear, I listen as my brother Colton rattles off a list of things that will have to be repaired, most of which nee
d to be done before the boats can leave the dock again.
“And you’re sure the wiring’s shot?” I ask. My stomach churns and I feel the need to clarify. “Do you know if it’s the wiring itself, or have you checked the fuse panel?”
I hear him sigh and can imagine him taking off his hat, using the brim to scratch the top of his head. It’s Tuesday and he’s worked straight through the weekend on this. I’m sure he’s beat. “Checked the panel myself while Levi was in the wheelhouse with a meter. We replaced any bad fuses and every goddamn one of them blew as soon as we flipped the breakers.”
“Fuck.”
“Pretty much.”
“So what’s the plan?” I ask, stepping into the shade of a bright red canvas awning. The sun is high this time of day, the sidewalks clean and nearly empty of shadows.
“I need to replace a bunch of wires, figure out how to pigtail them in on the damaged lines. It’s gonna take some time.”
“Jesus. I need to be home, not in fucking California of all places.”
I lean against the wall of a brick building, trying to figure out exactly how all this happened. It feels like it’s been one thing after another this year; add that to a long line of years with not enough fish and not enough money and well, I’m in fucking California.
But Colt isn’t having it. “Stop,” he says. “We’ve got it handled here. We need you there, figuring out the next step. We’ve made it through worse. We’ll make it through this, too.”
I take a moment before I ask the question I’m dreading. “So how long?”
He blows out a breath and I can practically hear him calculating. “I need to unbolt and pull panels from the wheelhouse floor,” he says. “At least a couple of days.”
It could be better. It could definitely be worse. I do the mental calculation of how much money we’ll lose being off the water. “You serviced the engine?” I ask.
“We serviced number one,” he says.
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