by Bella Jewel
Flap rubbing.
Not fun.
And now Finn has somehow managed to find us, which is just weird. How many other people have walked past? God. I do not even want to think about that. Was I moaning? Highly unlikely, considering it didn’t feel good.
I shuffle away quickly, fixing my panties.
This is awkward.
“Who the hell are you?” my island lover growls, shifting further away from me.
Thank god.
“Going to kick your ass if you don’t get up and go, that’s who I am.”
Oh boy.
Finn.
Hot.
“Is this your boyfriend?” he asks me. Not Finn. Flap rubber.
“Well, no,” I say, “but he will probably kick your ass. So you should probably go.”
“Can I call you?”
“Leave!” Finn growls, stepping closer.
Standing, Island Boy looks down at me, shakes his head, and then disappears. Phew, I didn’t have to give him my number. I glance over at Finn, and my cheeks get a little red, I won’t lie. He just saw me getting very brutally rubbed by a random. After I gave him a big lecture about not enjoying men that share. Whoops.
“Enjoying yourself, were you?” Finn mutters, walking over and sitting down beside me.
“I was until you showed up.”
“Bullshit.”
I turn to him, and I can only see the curve of his face under the moonlight. Hard jaw, thick hair down and flowing around his shoulders. Gorgeous.
“What do you mean bullshit? You weren’t here …”
“I watched you for a few minutes. You giggled. No woman giggles if she feels good.”
I snort. “I can’t argue that.”
“You won’t keep fucking me, but you let dick bag put his fingers in you …”
“FYI,” I mutter, “he didn’t put his fingers in me. Hell, I don’t think he would have even been able to find it. So, no, all I got was poorly rubbed and slobbered on.”
Finn snorts. “I can change that.”
“Finn Knight,” I say, leaning back on my elbows and tipping my head back to look up at the stars and breathe in the salty air, “I’m sure you can. But that would be a bad idea.”
“Only for you.”
He moves quickly, practically flipping his body over mine, and then he’s grabbing my hips, jerking me until I fall flat on my back, ripping my panties aside, and shoving his mouth into my pussy. I could stop him, I mean, Finn is not going to force me. But with one flick of the tongue, I lose my shit. I arch, I scream, I writhe.
And he eats me like he hasn’t been fed for a damned year.
Tongue, lips, fingers, he brings me to an orgasm so intense I’m sure anyone within a one-mile radius can hear my screams of pleasure.
Then he’s leaning over me, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and murmuring, “I’ll always make it better. I’ll make sure you never forget me, Erin.”
“And why, exactly, would you want to do that?” I whisper, body still shaking, pussy still aching.
“Because, for some fuckin’ reason, I can’t seem to accept you walkin’ away.”
Wait.
Does Finn Knight … like me?
Oh, boy.
4
ERIN
“He doesn’t like you,” Lucy says, rolling to her side and facing me, her skin going more pink than bronze, which is exactly the opposite of what she’s going for.
“Why don’t you just say it how it is, don’t spare my feelings.” I frown, rolling to my stomach and propping myself up on my elbows.
“I’m just being honest.” Lucy shrugs. “Everyone else here is thinking it.”
I glance at Shania, Ellie, and Amalie. Indi has gone for a massage, so I decided to take the chance to tell them what happened last night with Finn. I mean, I haven’t stopped thinking about it. It has played in my mind over and over again. Making my skin prickle with pleasure every single time I relive it.
“Are you all thinking it?” I pout, looking at all the ladies.
“Sorry, honey,” Shania says, “but yep.”
“Sorry,” Amalie whispers.
“Sorry, chicky.” Ellie smiles.
At least she has the audacity to look like she feels sorry for me. The others are enjoying my stupidity.
“Well, explain it then,” I say, putting my chin in my hands and raising my brows at them.
“He only said that because you didn’t give him what he wanted. You didn’t throw yourself all over him and beg, you said your piece, got up, and walked away. Then he found you with another man, which only proved that you’re more than capable of moving on. He didn’t like it, because men like Finn don’t like being told no. They like girls with spunk, who won’t give them what they want, even if they don’t know it,” Shania says, matter of factly.
“So you’re saying because he got what he wanted last night, that’s it? He’s done?” I frown.
“No, honey, what she’s saying is that while you’re playing hard to get, Finn is going to chase and act like you’re the only thing he wants. As soon as you give him what he wants, he’ll get bored and move on.” Lucy smiles at me. Clearly proud of herself.
“Great, so now I’m a game.”
“No, you’re just not like everyone else he’s with,” Ellie says, reaching over and patting my arm.
“I think maybe you could change it for him.” Amalie shrugs, looking at me. “I mean, weren’t they all big players before they found us?”
She makes a point.
Or maybe she doesn’t and she’s just making me feel better.
Either way, it’s working.
“Well, I stand by my word anyway.” I shrug, reaching back and untying my top so my back gets an even tan. “I’m not going to be a number in a line up. I’m not going to be anybody’s toy. He knows this. I’ll find another man to enjoy my time with.”
“What happened to the one last night?” Ellie asks me.
“Do not even go there, sister,” I mutter. “He wouldn’t know a vagina from a foot.”
They all burst out laughing, even Amalie who is mostly quiet.
“Ladies.”
Malakai’s smooth voice has us all turning in the opposite direction to see the guys all lined up, keys in their hands. What the hell have they got keys for? They’re all shirtless, bronze skin glistening in the sun. I’m not going to lie, my vagina may do a little happy dance at the sight of pure perfection standing in front of us. I mean, it isn’t every day you see a group of such stallions together.
I snort.
Stallions.
Still, every woman on the beach is looking, and that’s not an understatement. Also, there are a lot of women, and this group of hotties have managed to catch everyone’s eye.
“What you got there?” Lucy asks, nodding at the keys.
“Jet skis.” Lincoln grins. “Time for some fun. Who’s in?”
“Me!” I squeal, jumping up so fast I forget my top isn’t tied.
If my boobies were big enough, they’d hit me in the face, that’s how hard they bounce. And now every set of eyes on the beach is on my bare chest. Screaming, I put my hands over them, face flushed. I was so excited about the prospect of going on a jet ski, something I’ve wanted to do my whole life, that I forget I didn’t do up my top.
Luckily for me, Ellie is quick. She stands, handing me my top, tying it for me when I manage to shuffle it on. She even held up a towel, bless her. Once it’s secured, I turn back around, and it’s Finn’s eyes I catch first. They’re all lusty and basically screaming to me that he wants to take me right now. Dammit. This isn’t helping my case at all. The rest of the men are grinning.
Dirty animals.
All of them.
“Bit excited there, were you?” Slater snorts.
“Eat a dick, Slater!”
“Well, now we’ve got that out of the way.” Malakai chuckles. “Who wants to go for a ride?”
“I think Erin does,” Lincoln teases,
big grin on his stupid handsome face.
“You can eat a dick too.”
“Buddy up, you ladies will have to take turns.” Slater claps his hands. “Let’s go, baby.”
Ellie grins and jumps up. I glance at Finn, who is still staring at me. “Let’s go,” he orders.
“I’ll wait for someone else to be free …” I squeak, still horrified by my latest show.
“Get on the jet ski or I’ll put you on myself.”
Bossy.
“Fine, but only because I’m really really excited. I don’t like you, Finn. Remember that.”
He grins at me.
He knows I like him.
Damn him.
I follow him down the beach and Amalie, Shania, and Ellie come with me to have first turns. We reach a spot where a man has a bunch of jet skis lined up. Slater hands him a note, and then we all get a life jacket and get on a machine. That easy. Finn climbs on the front, and I stomp through the water until I reach him, nearly tipping us as I throw myself on the back.
Not graceful at all.
Not even close.
“Ready?” he says, grabbing my knees and pulling me right up against him.
I’m starting to think wearing a bikini wasn’t such a good idea.
“I ride hard, hang on.”
Oh boy.
I put my arms around his waist, and then he’s off. A narrow slide to the right has me squealing with pure delight, and then he takes off, flying through the water. We bounce over the waves and I scream with both fear and happiness. I’m clutching Finn, really damned hard. If I’m going to come off this thing, he’s coming with me.
Finn’s laughter fills my ears, and for a moment I’m so taken by surprise, I forget about my hold on him and loosen it. I’ve never heard him laugh, hell, it’s hard to even get a smile out of him. The sound makes my heart sing. I can’t help the stupid grin that spreads across my face.
That grin is quickly wiped when we hit a wave, my arms unlock from around him, and I soar, literally soar, into the air. I hit the water hard, sinking down a bit before flinging back up. I cough and splutter, my skin burns a little from impact. I blink and rub my eyes, but that only makes them burn from the salt water. I float there, getting crashed a few times over with waves as I focus on where Finn is.
He’s spun back around and is coming toward me.
For a moment, he looks concerned, and then, the big giant douche is laughing.
He’s laughing.
When he stops next to me and looks down, I want to throttle him.
He reaches a hand down and, through his laughter, he says, “Come on.”
Hell no.
I grab his hand, and as hard as I can, I jerk. He isn’t expecting it, so he slides right off the jet ski. He lands in the water beside me, and now I’m the one who’s laughing.
“That’s what you get for laughing at me, Finn Knight,” I yell at him through my giggles.
“You’ll pay for that.” He grins, and damn, he looks mighty perfect when he’s grinning.
“Now, how the heck are we going to get back on it?”
“We don’t, we wait,” he murmurs, looking at me.
Unexpectedly, he reaches over and moves a huge strand of hair off my face that was partially covering my eye. He tucks it behind my ear, and my heart does a stupid little flip.
Calm down heart. You’re acting like a love-struck teenager.
The noise of another jet ski approaching distracts me, and I look over to see Slater and Ellie coming to a stop beside us.
“Can’t ride, eh, brother?” Slater grins.
“Fuck off, Slater. Help me back on.”
Slater pulls his jet ski up next to Finn’s and then somehow, with a lot of grunting, Finn gets back on. Then, he reaches down and pulls me up. When I—very ungracefully again—get back on, we take off. This time, it’s laughter, so much laughter. We both fill the open ocean with the sounds of our joy.
And it’s marvelous.
Truly marvelous.
~*~*~*~
“Tell me something about yourself, Finn,” I say, sipping my beer and looking over to him.
We’re sitting on the beach, just down from the hotel, drinks in hand, sun setting. If it wasn’t for the fact that Finn isn’t romantic at all, I’d say this was a damn nice date. But date it is not. He and I met up at the pool, not planned, and we had a drink together. Then we took a walk. And now here we are.
Not a date.
But damn, does it feel nice.
After today with the jet skis and the laughter, it is making it very hard to accept that Finn just isn’t the kind of man I’m looking for.
Yet I find myself unable to stay away from him.
Sucks to be me right now.
“Not much to tell,” he murmurs, sipping his drink.
He looks good. Damn good. Shirtless, wearing only a pair of shorts. His big, hard body looking mighty fine under the setting sun. His hair is out, falling around his shoulders, all salt kissed and hot. Damn him for being so perfect. I want to eat him alive. I want to do so many bad things with Finn Knight, it is alarming.
“Don’t give me that standard answer.” I nudge him with my shoulder. “Everyone has something to tell, you should know that.”
“Nothing I have to tell is interesting.”
“I don’t believe that for a second.”
He looks to me. “You tell me something and I’ll tell you something, seems fair.”
I snort. “Alright, I’ll play it your way. What do you want to know?”
“Something nobody else knows. Something you keep locked inside. A dirty secret, maybe?”
I laugh. “Right to the juicy stuff, hey? Okay, fine. The night I found Ellie, cold and wet on the streets, not a single clue in the world who she was, I was in a bad place. A really bad place. Nobody knows that, because they only know me now. But I was unhappy, scarily so, and I was considering doing things that I shouldn’t have been considering doing. I don’t know what was wrong with me, all I know is that I was messed up. And when I found Ellie, I don’t know, I got strong, really strong. Because if she could live through that, what did I have to complain about?”
Finn stares at me for a moment, and I wonder what he’s thinking about. Is he looking at me like I’m weak? God knows I felt weak. I mean, I have a good life, a really good life. All my dreams came true when I started my bakery, and I have good friends, I’m strong in my love life, but for some reason, I felt so utterly alone, and broken, and confused.
I don’t know what caused those feelings, and I think that made them worse.
I felt like I didn’t really have a good excuse for them. Like they weren’t valid.
When I met Ellie, I realized that they really weren’t so bad. I mean, look what she had lived through. And I was complaining? No. I promised myself I’d never be ungrateful again and so far, so good.
“You don’t seem like the kind of person to get depressed.”
I frown. “Because I’m always so happy?”
“No,” he says, looking at me, “because you’re so strong.”
Finn thinks I’m strong?
“What makes you think that?”
He takes another sip of his beer. “You took on a broken girl with no memory and you protected her better than some mothers protect their own children. She could have been anyone, Erin. She could have been pretending, she could have been drug addicted, you didn’t know what she was, but you took her in and you made her strong again.”
I never honestly considered that Ellie was anything but broken. I don’t know. When I saw her, on that street, cold and wet … there was something in her eyes that told me she wasn’t lying. I’ll never forget it. It feels like just yesterday, and it’s a night that will live in my memory forever.
I readjust my backpack and hurry toward my car. It’s late, and I’m not a big fan of being out late on my own, especially not in the side streets where things are dark. But I went out with friends and I didn’t thin
k I’d be gone so long. But after dinner, movies, and some laughter, time got away.
I’m not complaining, though, I feel a little better after spending time with them.
Like my world isn’t so … lonely.
It’s raining, so I’m moving as quickly as I can toward my car, even though I’m already mostly wet. When I reach it, I hear a soft sound. For a minute, I think I’m imagining it. I glance over my shoulder. Nothing. I unlock my car and hear it again. Frowning, I walk around behind it and see a girl hunched over the curb. She’s just sitting there, soaking wet, head dropped, body shaking.
Is she okay?
What is she doing sitting out in the rain?
I walk down beside her so I’m in front of her and carefully, I say, “Ah, are you okay?”
She looks up at me, and her eyes are so broken. I’ve never seen eyes so empty in my life. She’s been crying, and she’s clearly freezing. She also looks underweight. Her hair messy. Poor girl. Is she homeless?
“I don’t … I don’t know who I am.”
I blink. “Pardon me?”
“I don’t know who I am. I don’t know where I am. I’m … scared.”
Her voice is ragged, and broken, and so frightened.
“What’s your name?” I ask her, crouching down so she can see my face a little better, and I can see hers.
“H-h-h-he called me Raven, but that isn’t … it isn’t … my name.”
“How did you get here, Raven?”
She looks at me, eyes scared. “It’s … a long story. I escaped, but now … I don’t know where to go. I don’t know anything.”
She’s clearly suffered some sort of injury. I can see in her eyes that she’s genuinely scared. She doesn’t know who she is. How is that so?
“Come on,” I say to her. “Let’s get you out of this rain and we’ll go to the police, they’ll be able to help us. Here, let me help you up. I’m Erin.”
She looks up at me, and I stretch my hand out, offering it to her.
She takes it.
And I help her up.
And I wonder how this poor girl came to be sitting on a street in the cold rain.
Mostly, how she forgot who she is?
“I never thought that she was dangerous,” I say to Finn, shaking myself from the memory. “I just knew she was scared and lonely and terrified, and she had forgotten everything about who she was.”