I lower my body with his help, taking him in and oh God. It takes forever to feel the length of him ease into me. I’m shaking and a little wild, wanting to ride him, but he’s holding me down on him with one fist curled around the cord at my back, the other knotted in my hair. He’s so deep, so deep inside—and I swear I can feel his pulse, can taste his need to buck up into me.
He groans, rocking his hips just the slightest bit. “Don’t make any sounds,” he murmurs into my neck. “Your little sounds will make me come before I’m ready.”
I have to bite my lip to stay quiet, and he praises me for the effort with a kiss. With his hands spread wide on my hips and across my ass, he raises me, and lowers me, and when he raises me again, he holds me there, and then starts a fast, relentless rhythm up into me. He speaks the whole time, and it isn’t even really about what he’s saying, because half the time I’m lost and can’t process anyway. It’s the sound of his voice. The richness of it, the reassurance of it. Words like pretty and good and strong and lose it, oh fuck I’m gonna lose it filter in through the haze of pleasure.
It’s so good. It’s so good.
This is the only thing I can think, over and over. He’s making me stare right into his eyes—at least it feels that way, though I don’t think he’s actually told me to. But the way he’s looking at me . . . it’s intense and obsessed and tender and adoring. I can’t look away, I don’t want to.
I don’t remember ever coming like this, where I can’t localize the sensation, can’t pinpoint where it starts, or even how long it lasts. I’m trying to be quiet, trying so hard, but my cries slip out even as I taste blood on my lip. I give up, screaming and pulling against the binding as the wild bliss tears through me.
Finn growls, thrusting up hard and fast—and then he bellows, pulling at the cord behind my back and shoving so deep in me as he comes that I feel bent in two.
He slows, and then stills, wrapping his arms around me and grunting into my neck with every quiet exhale—fuck, fuck, fuck—long after he’s already come. Around me, his big arms are shaking from exertion, wet with sweat, and I’ve never felt more overwhelmed by someone in my entire life.
I realize I’m going to cry only a split second before I feel the tears spill and run down my cheeks.
But his face is still pressed to my neck, his breaths slowly evening out. “Harlow. Don’t move. I can’t . . . just give me a second.”
I don’t think I could even if I wanted. I don’t ever want to move off him.
His mouth slides over my shoulder, and he begins to slowly massage my thighs, my ass, my lower back. Lifting me carefully, he reaches between us and takes off the condom, quickly tying it and dropping it somewhere on the couch next to us.
And then he’s loosening the knot at my back.
“No,” I choke.
He looks at me, sees the tears on my cheeks and maybe thinks I’m crying because I don’t want him to free me. I don’t even know why I’m crying. I’m just spent, and if he can’t be inside me anymore I need to be tied up, and if I can’t be tied up I need another way to know that, right now, I’m his and he’ll take care of me. That he’ll take over and fix everything because I’m not sure I know how.
Finn swipes at my face with his thumbs. “I have to, sweetheart, you can’t be bound up any longer.”
It just feels like it’s the only thing holding me together.
“I know,” he says.
Oh God. I said it out loud.
“Shh, shh, come here.” He unwraps me like a gift, running a gentle fingertip along every groove the bungee cord left in my skin, and then he picks me up like I weigh nothing—I have no bones, no muscles, only skin and lust and blood—and carries me to my bedroom.
“This one?” he asks at the end of the hall.
I nod and he ducks in, pulling back the covers with one hand and sliding me under. I’m terrified he’s going to leave, but he doesn’t. He climbs in behind me, spooning me, running a reassuring hand down my side, over my hip, up my stomach, until he’s soothing the cord lines around my breasts with his tender, rough hands and kissing my neck.
“I need to hear you’re okay,” he rasps. “Tell me you don’t hurt.”
“I’m okay.” I take a deep breath but it chokes halfway through. “But don’t leave.”
“I don’t think I could. I’m . . . it’s intense for me, too. I . . . forgot.”
I’M A LIGHT sleeper, but I don’t wake once in the middle of the night. Not for water, not to go to the bathroom, not even to roll over and find a cool section of the sheets. When my eyes do open, the sun is high in the sky, and Finn and I are in exactly the same position we were in when we fell asleep.
He’s not awake yet, but his body is. It takes about a hundred promises to myself—new shoes, ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner, an afternoon swim—to get out of bed and not roll him onto his back and take him inside my body just to see if he’ll look at me again the way he did last night.
I do get out of bed, though, because it terrifies me that the first thought I have isn’t about my mother, or whether she still needs me to drive her to her appointment later today, or how she slept last night. But it should be. Not forever, but God, for at least the first few weeks when my family—my center, my universe—needs me.
I have coffee brewing and am pacing the kitchen when Finn pads in, wearing the boxers he must have retrieved from the living room floor. I haven’t even peeked around that corner, not sure I can handle seeing the loop of bungee cord discarded so casually on the carpet.
He rubs his eyes, walks over to me, and kisses my neck. Because I’m trying not to melt, I stiffen instead and I can feel his little laugh against my skin.
“I’m freaking out a little, too,” he admits.
“It’s just that I have . . .” I start explaining. He pulls back and looks at me, those complicated eyes growing unreadable as he listens. “It’s one thing to want distraction, but I don’t need another obsession.”
Way too honest, Harlow.
But he’s already nodding. He even looks a little relieved. “I can respect that,” he says, pulling his hands from my hips and stepping away. This is exactly how I needed this conversation to go, and yet . . . it stings a little. Finn softens it by adding, “I’m in the same boat, so to speak. And last night, you stopped being an easy fuck.”
I pour us both a cup of coffee and smile over the rim as I take a sip. Lying to us both, I say, “We’ll have no problem falling back into our antagonistic ex-spouse routine.”
His eyebrow twitches. “Right.”
Chapter SIX
Finn
ANY DOUBTS I had whether Oliver’s shop would be a success—that maybe the constant stream of people on opening day was a fluke—are put to rest as soon as I walk in Friday afternoon.
Apparently there are a lot of nerds in San Diego.
The little bell over the door jingles as I step inside, and I’m stopped in my tracks, eyes wide at the crowd filling the small store. And not just kids, or hipster geeks like Oliver, but suits and soccer moms, people spanning pretty much every age bracket there is.
“Wow.”
“Right?” I turn to the voice on my right to see Not-Joe standing at the register. He flicks his blond hair out of his face before he reaches for a box cutter¸ using it to open one of the many cardboard boxes behind him. “Work at a comic book store. Thought I’d get to hang out all day, read a little. Maybe sneak out back for a blunt.” He shakes his head as I eye him and continues carefully pulling the contents out of one open box before breaking it down and moving onto another. “But dude, this place? Doesn’t slow down.”
“I can see that,” I say, impressed. “Doesn’t leave much time to browse the merchandise, does it?”
“Me?” he says, then shakes his head again. “I don’t read comic books. This might sound weird, but they kind of confuse me.”
I take in his blond dreadlocked mohawk, the constant, half-stoned glazed look, the white
T-shirt he clearly washed with something red at one point. I mean, this is the guy that pierced his own cock. Not sure I’m surprised the comic books overwhelm him. “Not much of a reader?”
“Fiction, mostly,” he admits. “Some biographies. Philosophy, if I have the time. Travel books. A little romance here and there,” he adds.
I spy a worn paperback tucked just below the counter and feel my eyebrows disappear into my hair. I’m pretty sure it isn’t Oliver’s. “Wally Lamb?” I ask. “That’s yours?”
Not-Joe laughs. “Yeah, best book I’ve ever read about overcoming self-loathing and forgiveness. Finding yourself.”
Okay. “I’m . . . wow.”
Not-Joe shrugs before reaching for another pile of comics. “Plus, it was an Oprah Book Club pick, so you know. What Oprah says . . .”
“Right,” I say. “So where’s Oliver?”
“Last I saw him, he was in the back. Want me to go grab him for you?”
“No, no. I’m good.” I look around for a moment, debating whether I should let Oliver know I’m here, or just head out and try to catch up with him later. What I should do is go back to the house and get my head straight; at the very least I should call my brothers. Most of the wiring should be replaced by now, but there’s a sinking feeling in my stomach that that will be the least of our problems once they start taking panels off and looking deeper into the boat.
My meeting with the L.A. guys is in just a few days, and I’ve barely thought about what questions I need to ask, or even whether we have another choice but to say yes. This inability to focus on the entire purpose of this trip is exactly why Harlow was right and why we need to take a step back and cool . . . whatever it is we’re doing.
Fuck. Harlow.
With a sigh, I drop down into the couch Oliver has set up near the front of the store. Being with her doesn’t feel like our comfortable arrangement anymore. Even if Harlow hadn’t been the one to step up and say something about reining this in, I’d have had to. I watched her fall apart in my arms last night; even the most oblivious person could have seen there was nothing casual about it for either of us.
God, she was so fucking perfect. I’ve never met anyone like her, as strong-willed as me and yet, just handing me everything, letting me take her apart one touch at a time.
Pulling out my phone, I see that I have one unread message, but my finger stops and hovers over the text bubble. I should read it, I know this. And I’m such an epic hypocrite for suggesting that Harlow was at a stage in her life where she hadn’t figured things out yet. When here I am, thirty-two years old and feeling just as confused and unsure of the future as she is.
“Looks like you’re thinking pretty hard there, Hercules. Don’t sprain something.”
I jump at the sound of her voice and my heart takes off in excitement. “I didn’t see you come in.”
She takes a minute to step behind the counter and plug her phone in to charge. Then she plops down on the couch next to me, her thigh pressed right to mine.
“Are you on your way into work?” I ask her.
“When you asked me that,” she says, looking at me with a cute little smile, “did you use mental air quotes for the word ‘work’?”
“Yeah.”
“In fact yes, I am headed into”—she holds her fingers up and twitches them—“work.” She lifts my arm, looks at my watch. “I have half an hour before I need to be there to deliver a tray of mini muffins to a meeting and send some faxes.”
And so why are you here? I want to ask her, but I bite my tongue, knowing if the answer is anything other than “Because I was hoping to see you, dumbass” I’ll be disappointed.
It’s sort of strange to see this version of Harlow: prim and proper and dressed in her slim black skirt, heels, and bright orange silk blouse, long hair brushed and smoothed down her back. She’s funny and charming, composed, and so different than the Harlow I see in bed, the one who begs me to spank her, begs for harder and more. And though it might seem like I’m the one calling all the shots, she’s clearly been using me, using my body to forget herself and get off. It’s a little worrisome just how much I like the idea that I’m the only one right now who gets to see the secret, unraveled version of this golden, beautiful girl.
“Since we’re doing the just-friends thing,” I say, “I can tell you that you look really fucking pretty today, Ginger Snap.”
She blinks at me, surprised for a moment before she grins. “Thanks.”
“Because the last time I saw you this early, you looked like you’d just rolled out of someone else’s bed,” I say, completely bypassing the fact that I saw her just this morning. She doesn’t correct me and . . . well, good. I think we both know that particular conversation is a land mine, one definitely better left alone.
“Not one of my finer moments, so I’m going to breeze past that and agree with you. Definitely no more Toby Amslers in my future. I’m running out of fingers, so it’s time for me to be more selective in the screening process.”
“Running out of . . . fingers?”
“Fingers,” she says, holding up both hands and wiggling all ten fingers in front of my face. “This is an incredibly personal decision, and one that can be approached in so many different ways, but I always said I didn’t want to have sex with more guys than I could count on two hands. Eight fingers are accounted for, so I don’t have room for any more mistakes.”
It takes me a second to understand that this means Harlow has only had sex with eight guys.
Or rather, Harlow has had sex with seven guys that aren’t me.
And . . . I’m conflicted. On the one hand, I’m sort of surprised. It’s not that I had some sort of preconceived notion about any of this, but rather that Harlow herself seems to go out of her way to make people think her sex life is something it’s clearly not.
On the other hand, I think of myself as a pretty progressive guy, and as long as you’re not cheating or hurting anyone, you should be able to love or marry or fuck whoever you want. Still, as hypocritical as it is, there’s something about listening to Harlow talk about the others guys she’s been with that’s making it hard to just sit here and nod.
And Harlow, who for whatever reason seems to pick up on every little thing I do, notices.
“Hey. Whoa, whoa-whoa. What’s happening here?” She brings a finger up to tap my forehead, hard. “You’re all frowny and scrunched up. Are you making a judgey face at me?”
“What?” I say. “I am not making a face.” I’m actually glad I’m not because the face she’s making is a little terrifying.
“You totally are. Are you trying to slut-shame me, Mr. Good with Rope and Ridiculous Oral Skills?”
“Absolutely not. I would never call anyone—”
“Don’t think that just because I let you put your dick in me, that you get to pass judgment on what I may or may not have done. I like sex, just like you. And I’ll fuck whoever or however many people I want, ten-finger rule be damned. Just because society would prefer that I—”
“Harlow. I wasn’t saying that. Ten fingers. It’s all good.”
“Oh.” She searches my face and seems to realize I’m being sincere. Her forehead relaxes. “Good.”
“Good,” I repeat.
“Then what about you?” she asks.
“What about me?”
“How many fingers do you have left?”
I sit forward and look around, indicating that we are in fact sitting in the middle of a crowded store. “I don’t think this is the best place to have this conversation, Snap.”
“Well, what else are we going to do? I have twenty minutes to kill, and since we’re no longer banging . . .”
“Yeah,” I say, and lean my head back against the couch. “That plan seemed to make a lot more sense right after we’d actually had sex. I was a little less tense then.”
“Right?” Harlow shifts on the couch, lifting her long bare legs and draping them across my lap. “And speaking of, sorry I sort
of melted down on you last night,” she says, and I feel something tighten in my chest.
Harlow might have been tied up in bungee cords last night, but it was like watching her bloom, and I don’t really want to hear her apologize for it. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything so real. In a matter of hours, things went from an easy, uncomplicated way to burn off some steam, to anything but simple. I like Harlow. Deciding we’re not going to sleep together anymore? Fucking sucks.
“You don’t have to apologize,” I say, and without realizing it, I place my hand on her knee, squeezing it. Her skin is warm beneath my palm and my fingers ache to move, to smooth up and over her thigh, distract us both again.
Fuck.
I move to pull away but she reaches out, taking my hand in hers while she casually studies it.
“No,” she murmurs. “Just saying I’m sorry if I made things weird.”
“You didn’t,” I assure her.
She looks at me and seems to be biting back a laugh. “Thanks. You’re so effusive.”
I nod magnanimously. “That’s what friends are for, right?”
“Is that what we are, then?” she asks. “Friends?”
“Definitely friends, maybe more? I don’t know, we were married once, after all.”
“The best twelve hours of my life, to be honest,” she says in her best Scarlett O’Hara impersonation, and straightens her legs across me, her thighs shaking slightly as her muscles stretch beneath my hands. “The days since have been nothing but a pale impersonation.”
Oliver walks in from the back, carrying a tall stack of books. “G’day. Nice to see you, mate.”
It occurs to me that I’m still sitting with Harlow’s legs in my lap, my hand resting a little too comfortably on her thigh. I blink back up and meet Oliver’s gaze. He gives me a knowing smirk, so apparently it hasn’t escaped his notice, either.
“Dude,” Not-Joe says, emerging from the bathroom with a stack of comic books in his hands. He holds them up for Oliver to see, and the two of them exchange a look. “Look what I found.”
Oliver groans, but I notice he doesn’t actually take the books. “Not again.”
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