Spin

by Bella Love

  And…not strawberries?

  I slid my gaze up. “What is it exactly that you do for a living?”

  He laughed, long and loud, beer in hand. He was back to a five-o’clock shadow, the dark hair making him handsome and dangerous and highly alluring.

  “You probably do more than build pavilions for rich people. Why don’t I know what you do?” I demanded.

  “Because you’ve been too busy having orgasms. So, you’re scared, that’s fine.”

  I laid my fist down firmly on the counter, knife pointing up. “I am not scared.” But I felt a strange excited shiver, as if he’d said we were going to jump out of an airplane. “Fine.” I gave the pile of food a swift glance. “Ginger.”

  His grin grew. “Good choice.”

  My face fell. “You know something to do with ginger?”

  He nodded.

  My knees got weak. “That’s just….” I trailed off. I was going to say wrong. I should have said wrong. Or at least morally bankrupt. But I was suddenly, rabidly curious. Worried. Scared.

  Excited.

  I leaned forward a little and whispered, “Is that even legal?”

  “We won’t tell anyone.” His voice was teasing. He leaned partway across the counter and said, “What is it you think we’re going to be doing with the ginger?”

  “Using it on my….” I faltered, not up to his level of audacity. “In me….” I cleared her throat. “My….”

  “Pussy?”

  “Yes,” I whispered primly. I was cooking a chicken, for heaven’s sake.

  He shook his head slowly. I stopped all chopping.

  “Not my…?”

  “Pussy?”

  A long, jamming rush of heat, a hammer of it, pounded my flesh so hard it pulsed.

  “I mean, we could,” he allowed, running the neck of his beer along his chin in a thoughtful way. “That would be fine with me.”

  “But then whe…?” I set down the heel of my hand on the counter, knife pointing up, and looked at him flatly. “Do you want this chicken or not?”

  His gaze swept the chicken and all the accoutrements, from my super-slicing ceramic knife to the bright green, fragrant basil leaves to the wedges of tomatoes, sitting innocently in their salty red juices. His gaze came back to mine.

  “Of course. I can’t wait,” he said, lying through his teeth. We both knew it.

  I picked up the knife. “Good. It should only be about an hour.”

  If he stifled a groan, I never heard it. Which turned him from a sexy, dangerous man into a sexy, dangerous, good man, and that was a turning point I’d never come back from.

  We talked through the hour that turned into two, drinking beer (Finn) and water with a hellacious amount of lemon squeezed in it (me) as the sun set through the windows. I suspected he missed whatever he was supposed to do that night, again, and I didn’t care enough to try to fix that thing up, that error in communication or expectation or agreement, even though that’s what I did by, trade and inclination and the dug-deep fear that things would get Out Of Control and perhaps be Broken Immeasurably.

  Because maybe…maybe this thing wasn’t even broken.

  I WOKE ON his sofa after the night had come, my legs hooked over his lap, my brain half asleep. Finn sat watching a baseball game, his hand on my belly. I felt his erection against my hips, but he never said a word, never tried to move on me all night, not during dinner, not when we tumbled down onto the couch after, not when he put on one of the Lord of the Rings movies after my eyes lit up when it came up in conversation. I loved other people’s epic adventures.

  The movie was over now and the Red Sox were quietly winning on the screen.

  I was so perfectly tired and rested and happy and content he could have put on big bass fishing and it would have been fine. I was pretty sure I should have mentioned that, in case he liked bass fishing, but I’d dozed off and was just coming to.

  “The movie?” I asked groggily.

  “There was a cave troll. Big, scary thing. I had to shut it off.”

  I laughed and glanced at the television. “What’s the score?”

  His hand made gentle swirling motions over my belly as he replayed for me all scoring opportunities held and squandered over last few innings. His legs beneath mine, his half smile, his baseball storytelling, arguing about whether a fake to third constitutes a balk (it does), his hand on my stomach—it was all pretty…perfect. Such little things. Such perfect, little things.

  “So,” he wrapped up, “it’s twelve nothing in the eighth. Someone sucks today.”

  “Aw, you’re not so bad.”

  He smiled faintly, his eyes still on the TV. “You don’t think?”

  “No,” I said in a comforting way. “You did okay this morning.”

  His eyes slid down.

  I smiled. “I’d say we’re tied.”

  His eyebrows went up, then he started unbuttoning my jeans. “Your math is way off, sister. I let you win this morning.”

  “Let me see what I can do about that,” I replied, and for a minute, it was a tangle of hands and mouths until we got situated, me facing him on his lap. “So what’s this about ginger?” I asked very innocently.

  He pulled his head back, his eyes searching mine, then he smiled faintly and shook his head. “We’re not ready for ginger, babe.”

  Whatever that meant. The rush of fear and excitement that went through me told me he was absolutely right, though.

  “It’s just that if we wait for me, Finn, we might never be ready,” I said, leaning down to kiss his chin. “You might have to push a little.”

  He just lifted his eyebrows. No, he was right. Ginger was clearly out of my boundaries. Better to leave it be.

  It’s just that I loved ginger so much.

  He got me up and into the bedroom. He laid me out on the bed and came over me. This was my favorite view of Finn, his body stretched over mine, propped on his elbows, his muscles hard, kissing me or smiling at me or just looking down at me.

  I guess I wasn’t too particular about how I got my Finn.

  Eleven

  ~ Jane ~

  SUNLIGHT, MILKY GOLDEN and soft, unfurled into the bedroom. It drifted over my face. I pulled the sheets over my head and stretched out a hand. Rumpled sheets, fluffed pillows and lots of them. The scent of sex and Finn.

  I smiled into the pillow.

  Something nudged my arm. Something rubbery and insistent. It nudged again.

  I slowly tugged the sheets off my head and craned me head around to peer over the side of the bed.

  A dog smiled back at me. He sat very politely beside the bed, very German Shepherd-y, with a long black-and-tan muzzle, his mouth open, his eyes half-shut, tongue lolling out.

  “Max,” I whispered. “Hey there.”

  He got up, tail wagging, and sniffed me from head to tail, probably because he was so good at that sort of thing. Then he gave me a lick and sat back down, his mouth open in an expectant doggy-smile.

  “You know about the steak, don’t you?” I whispered.

  “Max.” Finn’s voice drifted in, quietly calling. Max hopped up and trotted out of the room without a backward glance. On three legs.

  I sat up and watched him go, wondering what had happened to his fourth leg and when it had happened, and if Finn had gotten him before or after.

  All this thinking must have clicked my mind into gear pre-caffeine, because I suddenly remembered I had to go to work.

  I leapt up and hurried into the bathroom. After a quick shower, I stepped out into the steamy bathroom and found a thick, folded towel there with a fresh toothbrush on top, along with a comb and a small hairdryer.

  “Is this all for me?” I called out.

  “No,” came a call from the other room. “It’s for the woman I have coming over later.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, I’m going to stick the toothbrush in the toilet, so don’t tell her.”

  “Will do.”

  I touched the comb. “I brought
my own stuff from the hotel.”

  “I didn’t know what you had.”

  I smiled—that’s what I’d said last night about his kitchen—and touched the toothbrush. It was bright red. “Why do you have a supply of extra toothbrushes? Do you have a lot of girlfriends?”

  “No, I have a Costco membership.”

  I laughed and my eye fell on a charger. A phone charger. One that would fit my phone. It had not been here yesterday.

  I touched it with my fingertips, then closed my eyes.

  Then, because he’d gone to all this work, I used everything he’d brought me, even the stuff I didn’t need. I even ran back to the bedroom and grabbed my phone out of my bag and plugged it in. I smiled at it sitting there on the back of his toilet.

  Then I went into the kitchen.

  He was sitting on the long built-in bench beside the table. His hair rumpled, his face unshaved, his eyes dark and gorgeous, watching me. I smiled a bit tentatively, and he held out hand.

  As I went, I saw Max romping out on the green grass. Finn took my fingers and tugged me forward into his lap. Then he kissed me. It was a pretty good way to wake up. Even if I was running late.

  “I met Max,” I told him.

  “Good.”

  “He sniffed me out under the covers.”

  “He’s very good at what he does.”

  “Can I ask what happened to his leg?” I said softly, even though I should have left it alone, because I got a bad feeling inside me. I’d already known this was going to be bad for Max, but now I knew it was going to be bad for Finn as well. I knew by the way his whole body got still, excerpt for his eyes, which got dead.

  “Sure.”

  “What happened to his leg?”

  “It got blown off by a bomb in Afghanistan.”

  As if the words were cut onion, my eyes filled with hot, stinging tears. I looked out the window at Max, who was nosing through the tall grass. I couldn’t even picture that moment, the bomb blowing up. But a bigger, blacker fear pounded in my chest.

  “Jesus, Finn,” I said softly.

  He shrugged. “Could have been worse. It could have been all of him.”

  “Or you,” I said, my voice weirdly shaky.

  “Or me,” he agreed. “But all we left behind that day was Max’s leg, and you get to considering that a success,” he said. His eyes were going remote.

  I gripped his shoulders and put my face in front of his, the tips of our noses almost touching. “I brought something for him,” I said, matching my low voice to his.

  His distant eyes shifted to me. “You brought something for Max?”

  I nodded. “Steak.”

  A smile tugged at his mouth. His eyes seemed to refocus, and he became more present. “You brought my dog a steak?”

  “Do you think he’ll like it?”

  “Are you insane?” he said, and now he was all back, here in the room with me. “He’ll love it. And you. I’ll have to push him out of the way whenever you get home. A line will form. I’ll have to fight my way through to you.”

  Did he say home?

  “I hope you win,” I murmured, touching my lips to his, taken aback by how good it felt to help Finn, to bring him back from whatever dark place he’d started going to. All with a steak for his dog.

  I made a mental note to bring home pork next. Then bacon. I’d work my way through the slaughterhouse if needed, just to make that going-away look in Finn’s eyes stop.

  As we talked, he’d been spreading his legs apart, and I slipped down between them, my bottom on the bench, my head back in the crook of his elbow. I draped my legs over his. The whole thing probably seemed like an invitation, and Finn took it, pushing his hand down between my thighs.

  “I don’t think… I can’t….” I gestured between my legs. “I’m done in. I came a lot last night.”

  “A real lot.”

  I lifted my brows. He slid his hand up a little farther.

  “Finn, I don’t know….” I curled my fingers around his bicep. “I’m all hot and ragged and swollen.”

  His gaze was dark and unflinching. “I want some of that.” He brushed the silk shirt to the side, slid it off a breast, and ran his palm over my cool skin. Regardless of what I’d said and what was true, a shiver of pleasure moved through me and my nipple hardened.

  He arched an eyebrow at me.

  I returned a sheepish smile. “Okay then.”

  He bent to kiss my lips, a soft, gentle brush, then down he went, sliding me off his lap, onto the cushions of the bench, kissing down my chest, my belly, until I was stretched out on the bench, one leg dangling off, Finn between my thighs, pushing up my skirt, moving that endless kiss to the hot place between my thighs.

  A rumbling reverberation bounced the kitchen table. I jumped, then a muffled, tinny jazz song started playing. It was Finn’s phone.

  Finn didn’t lift his head, just pulled my underwear to the side and bent to me.

  I tapped on his head. “Your phone is ringing,” I told him after three rings and no movement.

  He tipped his head up. “And you care why?”

  “I just, I don’t care, I mean, it just…might be important. It’s eight o’clock on a Saturday morning. I mean, who’d be calling you at this hour—”

  He reached out and grabbed the phone.

  “Yeah?”

  “Dude!” came the tinny reply. It got garbled after that, partly because it was a phone and partly because Finn had gone back to touching me with his thumb, soft sweeps over my clitoris, the phone to his ear, his eyes on me.

  “Ohh,” I whispered, not wanting to be heard. I leaned my head back against the bench and closed my eyes and listened to his side of the conversation.

  “I was busy,” he said into the phone. I felt his body shift, then his breath was on my belly, then lower.

  “No,” he said to the phone.

  He put his hand on my thigh, pushed it to the side, and leaned down.

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  His tongue slipped lazily across my sensitive clitoris, slow and coaxing soft, making my body stretch out, long and relaxed. I lifted my arms over my head, dropped my hands off the end of the bench, and arched up for him. If he wanted to talk on the phone this way, who was I to argue?

  He curled an arm around the small of my back and sank his tongue deep inside me. Then his teeth grazed me. I froze.

  He tilted the phone away from his mouth and nipped me.

  My hips shot into the air. I shoved the heel of my hand into my mouth to silence my whimpering cry.

  Then he said, “So?” into the phone, and I dropped back onto the bench, ready and vibrating for whatever he decided to do next.

  He swirled a finger around the heated entryway to my vagina. I circled my hips restlessly.

  “She’s special.”

  My eyes popped open. I peered down the length of my body. One leg was tumbling off the bench, the other was bent, knee up, Finn’s gorgeous body tucked between them, his fingers in my wetness, his tongue making sweeps of me as he talked on the phone.

  “Me?” I mouthed silently.

  He nodded, then said into the phone, “So I missed a practice. I never miss. I’ll be there Friday.”

  I could hear a metallic little voice respond, but it was hard to make anything out. Finn hit a button on the phone, lowered his mouth and took a taste of me, a hard, fast stroke with his tongue straight up the center of my pussy.

  I dropped my head back as he nudged his tongue up inside me, then he pulled back and slapped my pussy with his hand, hard and wet, so hard it stung. It also almost made me come.

  I flung my head back and cried out. I couldn’t help it. Finn’s tongue, slow and coaxing and hot, licked up after his sting. My hips lifted into the air, my blood electric and dangerous.

  I felt one hand go away. He hit a button on his phone—he must have muted us—and said, “Okay, fine. I know that.”

  He hit the button again, and I curled my fingers into his h
air, pulling his face into me and moving against him, rocking my body into his mouth as the tinny voice went on and on.

  It was the oddest, freest moment, to be used like this, to have Finn watching me, making me wild, doing something so mundane and controlled with one part of his brain, while I came undone on the bench in front of him.

  I had my arms up over my head, hanging off the end of the bench. Finn held the phone with one hand and worked me with the other, gently curling his fingers, dark, hard pressure, until that feeling undulated through me. Like a deep water vibration, it rocked through me from the bottom up.

  He knew it. He mouthed, Like this? Then he did it again, slow and deep, aiming for the spot.

  He hit it.

  I came hard. I held my hands over my face and shuddered, and he kept the rhythmic pressure up as my muscles clenched around his fingers. The phone voice went on and on while Finn made me come, crying, half-naked on the bench in his kitchen.

  Then he clicked on the phone, said curtly, “I said I’d be there tonight. Later,” and flung the phone onto the table. It skidded off and fell to the floor. He rose up, stood between my legs, and unbuttoned his jeans. He didn’t even pull them down, just shoved the waistband out of his way and pushed into me.

  He leaned over me, one hand on the bench above my shoulder, and pumped in hard, swift strokes, looking at me.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, and I said, “So are you,” and then he laughed as he came inside me.

  God, I loved when he came inside me. I loved the way his head went up, the way the muscles in his neck stood out, the way his jaw locked down, knowing that inside, his hard body felt explosively good.

  Because of me.

  Something was happening here between me and Finn, something bigger than I intended and bigger than I knew how to handle, and I was powerless to stop it.

  He took hold of me and swung us around and sat me on his lap, holding me close, kissing my head, his hand behind my back.

  I closed my eyes—because they were hot, pressed with tears—and leaned into him. He stroked my hair and every so often I felt his lips on the top of my head with gentle, absent kisses. It was like the calm after a storm. We sat like this for a very long time.