Текст книги "The Finn Factor"
Автор книги: Rachel Bailey
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 15 страниц)
Chapter Nine
Scarlett
Later that night, long after Amelia was asleep and the lights were off in the backyard, I was up in my painting attic, splashing color around on a canvas without much thought. I’d been sure Finn had gone to bed as well, until I felt him standing in the doorway. He’d been part of my life—part of me—for so long, I always knew when he was around.
“Tell me how to fix this,” he said, his voice deep and determined. “I want us to be friends again.”
Since we’d talked—argued—at the bar, I’d been thinking about our relationship pretty much constantly, and I hadn’t come up with any answers that satisfied me.
I turned and pointed at him with a brush coated in tangerine paint. “I’ve been wondering something. Were we ever really friends?”
“What the hell does that mean? Of course we’re friends. You’re my best friend.”
I shook my head. When I’d been thinking about us, this was the point that kept coming up—the thing that was frustrating me. “You see me as another one of your sisters. Someone you have to look out for. But I’m a grown up, Finn, and I have a set of parents if I need them.” I dropped the brush in a jar of water and crossed my arms under my breasts. “I don’t want that from you.”
“What do you want from me, then?” His intense blue gaze was hard to read, which was unusual. Most times I knew what he was thinking. Now, not a clue. Or not anything that made sense, anyway.
So I squared my shoulders and put the truth out there. “I want you to see me as an equal, not a third little sister.”
“God, Scarlett. I don’t see you as a sister.” He groaned and speared his hands through his hair. “That’s half my problem.”
I stilled but my pulse picked up speed. “What do you mean?”
He took a step closer. “I mean,” he said, his voice almost fierce, “I’ve been having the most un-brotherly thoughts ever since we kissed.”
At the mention of the word “kiss” my brain went into meltdown. I’d had no idea he still thought about that night. My eyes were drawn to his slightly parted lips, then back to his eyes, and the air around me seemed to grow thicker, heavier. I had about two seconds of warning for what was coming, but I didn’t move away. Couldn’t. Finn was about to kiss me again, and I was going to let him.
His lips brushed lightly over mine, and my whole body trembled. Then his mouth settled more firmly, pressing, then biting down on the flesh of my bottom lip. Electric sparks shot out through my body and I grabbed the front of his pale blue T-shirt. As soon as I did, I froze—last time we’d kissed, there had been a no touching below the neck rule. Not that this was another kissing lesson. I had no idea what this was, but no way did I want to do anything to prematurely end it. But Finn didn’t seem to care about me breaking the rule, since he didn’t stop, so I used the handhold to drag him closer.
He took the hint, wrapping his arms around my waist and stepping into me, close enough that I could feel his arousal pressing against my abdomen. A fire burned bright inside me—nothing in the history of everything had ever been as hot as Finn being turned on for me. Me. I moved my hips from side to side, feeling him, and he breathed my name against my mouth before taking the kiss deeper.
And in that moment, with Finn’s tongue stroking along mine and his erection pressed firmly against me, I knew I’d found heaven. I wanted to climb all over him, to take and be taken, to give in to my body’s demands. His hands smoothed up my back until they reached my neck, then he laced his fingers at the base of my skull, holding me in place.
After a minute—or an eternity, I’d lost the ability to track time—Finn eased away, kissing me once, twice, gently on the lips, then resting his forehead on mine as we tried to catch our breath. His hands still rested at the back of my neck, and my fingers were still gripping the front of his shirt.
Maybe I was out of practice with kissing but there were some things you didn’t forget. One of them was a kiss that felt like it gave your life meaning, and if I’d ever felt anything remotely like that before when a guy kissed me, I absolutely would have remembered it.
I disentangled my fingers from his shirt, then gave it a little pat, as if I could smooth out the wrinkles I’d left. “We did it again.”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah.”
“We said we wouldn’t.” It was a stupid thing to say, but my brain hadn’t yet really started to work again.
“Yeah,” he said, still breathing heavily.
He dropped his hands to his sides, and the connection between us ended.
I took a little step back and rubbed my arms. “We decided it would put our friendship at risk.”
“I’m sorry.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “Totally my fault. There’s just been so much tension around here lately, then you not talking to me…”
I frowned. “You thought kissing me would make me talk to you?”
The corners of his mouth twitched once. “Well, it did, didn’t it?”
I drew in a deep breath, but before I could speak, he barreled on. “Look, it wasn’t deliberate. I just meant that with everything going on, I guess I wasn’t thinking.”
“So you accidentally kissed me?”
“I guess so,” he said on a sigh.
“And I accidentally kissed you back.” I paced to the other side of the room, trying to get some space in my head, or some air that wasn’t full of him. There was too much of him—he was everywhere I looked, everywhere I went…just everywhere.
“Finn, this is crazy.” I clenched my hands and dug my nails into my palms. “We’re best friends who live in the same house, are involved in each other’s families, interfere in each other’s love lives, and now we accidentally kiss. Doesn’t that seem a bit much to you? Maybe a bit unhealthy? Enmeshed or codependent or something.”
He winced. “Yeah. We need to back off a bit.” There was silence for a minute before he said, “Look, I need to apologize.”
“You did, though I should probably apologize for kissing you back.”
“Not about the kiss, about…” He swallowed and looked at the ceiling. “Having a word with your dates.”
“Okay, then.” That apology, I was totally up for. I lifted my chin. “Do it.”
He nodded and looked back at me. “I’m sorry. While my intentions may have been good, I should never have said anything to your dates without your knowledge. I was horrible and I’ll never do it again.”
As apologies went, it was a pretty good one, and after that kiss, I was in a forgiving mood. I nodded. “Thank you. Just remember, you’re not the authority on who’s good for me.”
“I’ll remember. Are you still mad at me?” He flashed me an uncertain smile.
“A bit. But I also realize I probably overstepped the line a few times with you, so I’m willing to be lenient. This time. But”—I summoned a serious expression—“we now have a zero tolerance approach to your involvement in my love life.”
“Got it. No kissing you and no stopping other guys from kissing you. A healthy friendship is the name of the game.” He let out a breath that sounded a bit pained and headed out the door. “See you in the morning, Scarlett.”
“Night,” I called after him, then went back to my painting. Only this time I wasn’t painting away my annoyance at him. No, this time my brushstrokes were all about the fire in my body that had lit when he kissed me. The fire that—despite how much I wished it wouldn’t—was still burning now.
Finn
Waiting in the veterinarian’s consulting room, Harvey sitting at my feet, I still wasn’t sure how I’d ended up here. John and Jane had made the appointment for him as we’d agreed, but had needed to rush off to a friend’s emergency involving the breaking down of a car full of rescued chickens. Scarlett couldn’t get time off work, and I didn’t have any classes today, so they’d asked me to bring him in. I could hardly say no when I’d been the one to demand the appointment, but still.
Harvey had been thrilled about the trip, especially the car ride. He loved the vet nurse who took his details, and showed her his sore right paw. She made sooky noises at him and told him he was a brave boy, and he looked up at me with his ears back and his eyes half closed, doing a slow pant—his grin looked suspiciously triumphant today.
The vet, an older woman with curly gray hair and kind eyes came in with a clipboard in hand. “This must be Harvey.”
“Yes,” I said, and shook her hand. “And I’m Finn.”
“We haven’t seen Harvey here at the clinic before?”
“He’s not actually my dog. He was a stray and we’ve taken him in for now.”
“You’ve rung the shelters?”
I nodded. “And left our number at them all. But in the meantime, I just wanted to see if he needed any shots or anything.”
“That’s very responsible of you, Finn.”
I didn’t tell her it was mainly concern for the welfare of my household in case Harvey had anything contagious…
She whipped out a handheld device. “I can also see if he’s micro-chipped.” She held the device near his ear then shook her head. “Unfortunately not, but it was worth a try.”
At the end of the checks and injections, she said, “Is there anything else you’re worried about with him?”
I looked down at the dog. “He sometimes limps and acts like he has a sore paw, but I think it comes and goes.”
“Which one?”
“Front left,” I said without thinking, because that was the paw he’d shown Scarlett and Amelia. But a little while ago, he’d shown the vet nurse his front right paw. Hadn’t he? “Actually, I’m not sure.”
She picked up Harvey’s front left paw and did a thorough inspection, followed by the same for the front right. “I can’t find anything, and he doesn’t seem to be reacting as if he has pain in either paw, but perhaps it isn’t acting up for him just now.”
Harvey glanced over at me, giving me his satisfied slow pant.
“Could he be faking it?” I asked.
She put her hands on her hips and looked at him. “Possibly. Border Collies are very intelligent, and since he’s been a stray he might have learned that pretending to be injured gets better results when he begs for food.”
Aha. I knew it.
The vet grabbed some dog treats. “Would you like a treat, Harvey? Have you been a good boy?”
Harvey stilled, then held up his front left paw and whined. The vet held back a smile as she said gently, “Do you have a sore paw? You poor boy.”
Harvey stood and did a limping circuit of my legs before sitting in front of the vet, once again holding his paw in the air. The vet laughed and gave him the treats. “Yep, I’d say you have an exceedingly intelligent dog on your hands, and he’s learned how to manipulate people into giving him sympathy food.” She rubbed the top of his head. “Good for you, Harvey.”
I was torn between grudging respect and unwillingness to be outfoxed by a Border Collie. Harvey grinned at me.
“I know this will probably sound weird,” I said, glancing back at the vet, “but can dogs smile? Sometimes I get the feeling that he’s grinning at me.”
She gave Harvey another treat. “It’s not uncommon for dogs to smile. Dalmatians have their own special one, but smart dogs, like Harvey, can learn to mimic elements of human facial expressions.”
I looked down at the dog sitting at my feet—showing his fake sore paw to the vet, while grinning at me. Yeah, this was my life now. I narrowed my eyes at him, hoping he read human expressions enough to work out that I was on to him, then I sighed and went out to pay the bill.
Scarlett
Eight minutes after my lunch break had started, I turned my house key in the lock and opened the front door to find Finn working at the dining table and Harvey sitting on the other side of the screen door, waiting patiently, as if he was certain Finn would open it for him soon.
Finn glanced up, startled. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m on my lunch break so I can’t stay long.” Luckily work was only five minutes away, but I’d have to keep an eye on the time. “I wanted to check on Harvey.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You could have called.”
“I wanted to see him.” Which was part of the truth. There was something I wanted to talk to Finn about, and lately, we rarely seemed to be alone. Well, except for the night in my attic studio, but not a lot of talk had happened then anyway…
I slid the back door open and let Harvey in. Finn opened his mouth to say something, and I held his gaze, challenging, and he hesitated. Finally his shoulders slumped a little as if he was giving in. “Just promise me you won’t do that when the others are home. I don’t want it to be a habit.”
“Sure,” I said. Baby steps. “What did the vet say? Did he get a clean bill of health?”
“Yep, all fine.” He leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head, and I tried not to watch the play of muscles in his arms as he did. That was new. Not the muscles—my inability to look away from them.
Though, given how much I’d been fantasizing about those arms being around me again, it probably wasn’t surprising. Even when I’d been mad and barely talking to him, I’d been replaying his kisses over and over in my mind. Making up new endings. I swallowed and looked away before he guessed.
“Uh, that’s good,” I said, glancing back at Harvey.
“She checked for a microchip but couldn’t find one.”
“That’s because he’s our dog now, isn’t that right, Harvey?” I sank down to the floor and wrapped an arm around Harvey. He leaned into my side and panted happily.
“He’s not ours. If no one claims him, he’ll be your parents’ dog. And leave when they leave,” he said emphasizing each word.
I dismissed his warning with a flick of my wrist. “Details.”
“You know,” Finn said, coming over to where we were, “the vet thinks he’s faking about his foot.”
“He is not faking. Harvey wouldn’t lie, would you, boy?” I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his fur. He was so soft and smelled of my mother’s apple shampoo. We’d have to get him some dog shampoo, but his first bath had been a matter of making do with what she had.
Finn dropped onto the floor beside us, but instead of patting Harvey, he leaned his back against the wall and watched us. “The vet said he might have learned to do it to help him beg for food.”
“She was probably covering her tracks because she couldn’t find the reason it was sore.” I turned back to Harvey. “Don’t you worry, we’ll get your foot fixed.”
He watched me a moment longer before asking, “So was that really the only reason you dropped home?”
I flashed him a reluctant smile—he’d always been able to see through me with too much ease. “I was called in to see the boss this morning.”
“Problems?” he asked, suddenly more alert.
“Nope. In fact, they offered me a promotion.” It had been totally unexpected and my first thought was I needed to come home and talk it over with Finn.
“Promotion to what?”
“Personal assistant to one of the lawyers. More money. My time would be more flexible because I wouldn’t be tied to the front desk. More job security.” It had all sounded pretty good, and the two partners who’d offered it to me had seemed surprised when I told them I’d get back to them about it. They’d given me till the end of the week.
He fixed on me with a serious expression. “Why would you need security when this is a temporary job just to save up before finishing your accounting degree?”
“Well,” I said, trying to sound like the voice of reason, “as you pointed out, I’m supposed to be saving up, and there would be a pay raise.”
His eyebrows rose. “You’re actually considering this, aren’t you?”
Sighing, I snuggled back into Harvey. He let me cuddle him and licked my cheek. See, Harvey understood. Finn, on the other hand seemed to have already made up his mind.
I peeked a look at Finn from around Harvey’s fluffy neck. “It might not have been what I’d planned, but I’d be crazy not to at least give it some thought.”
“Scarlett, if you were serious about your accounting career, you wouldn’t be contemplating getting more involved in your temporary job.”
He had a point, and it was the same one that was niggling at the back of my mind. I disentangled myself from Harvey and headed for the kitchen. I came back with two small tubs of yogurt and tossed one to Finn, then passed him a spoon. When I opened my tub, Harvey waggled his ears hopefully, but didn’t beg. I liked that about him, so I held out the foil lid for him to lick. Finn gave a pained sigh but didn’t say anything.
“Here’s the thing,” I said, pointing my spoon at him. “Sometimes life throws us a curve ball but it turns out to be the best ball because it curves around to where we were supposed to be and so we should follow to where it leads.”
He blinked once, twice. “I have literally no idea what that means. You’re supposed to hit a curve ball, not follow it.”
“Work with me here, Finn. I’m saying I didn’t expect it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good thing.”
“I’m trying, but you’ve always said that you wanted to be an accountant.” His eyes were concerned. “It’s been your entire justification for not letting yourself try a career in the arts.”
Yeah, that was the kicker. I checked my watch. “I need to go. Thanks for the advice. I’ll think about it.”
As I left, Finn gave me a wave from his spot on the floor, then went back to his yogurt—watched closely by an optimistic Harvey, who was lying at his feet. I smiled as I closed the door behind me. They looked good together.
Then again, lately Finn pretty much looked good to me no matter what…
Chapter Ten
Finn
“Hey,” Scarlett said when she got home from work that day.
I looked up from the dining table and scrubbed my hands through my hair, trying to wake myself up from a studying trance. Amelia was at dance class, and Scarlett’s parents were visiting her brother, so I’d barely moved from the books all afternoon.
Perhaps it was the study-trance, but she looked like an angel standing there in front of me, her blond hair softly falling around her face, her lush mouth smiling sweetly, her white button-down top covering curves… no, wait. Those curves weren’t angelic, they were made for sin. And that sweet smile? It was knowing. And God above, what I wanted to do to that mouth.
No doubt about it, I was going to hell.
I scrubbed my hands through my hair again—this time to wake myself from a Scarlett-trance—and managed to say, “Hey.”
She went to the kitchen, talking over her shoulder. “I stopped at the store on the way home to get dog shampoo and a couple of things, and ran into your friend Rakesh.”
“Oh, right,” I said, and looked over the notes I’d been making.
“He mentioned he dropped by your office today but you weren’t there so I told him you’d worked from home so you could take your dog to the vet.”
“Harvey is not my dog,” I pointed out, but Scarlett wasn’t listening.
“Anyway, he asked me to give you a message. Said you still hadn’t bought your tickets for the departmental fundraiser this Saturday.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I’ll—”
“So I told him we’d be there and bought two tickets.” She appeared again in the archway with a smile too bright to be real. Yep, I was right—there was nothing angelic about her.
“You bought them?” I hadn’t even decided yet if I was going, and even if I did, taking Scarlett didn’t seem right.
She drew them out of her bag and handed them over. “I figured that things had stalled with Marnie, so you’d need a date. Rakesh seemed to expect it would be me, anyway.”
“I wasn’t sure I was going this time.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “If you still want to take Marnie, or someone else, that’s fine. You can pay me back later.”
“I’ll pay you back either way, but…” I let my words trail off, unsure how to put it.
“Finn?” she said, pulling out the chair beside me and sinking down into it. “Have I done something wrong?”
Aw, hell. Not much got to me more than seeing Scarlett’s worried face. “No, it’s just… I just thought we should be playing it a bit more…cool between us.”
“Because of a few kisses?” She cocked her head, her hazel eyes puzzled.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “We don’t want to get into a habit, and going out at night, on something that could feel a bit like a date, might…” Again, I let my words trail off. I had nothing. I got up and headed for the kitchen. Caffeine would help. Caffeine was my friend. I poured water and ground coffee into the pot and flicked the on switch.
“You think if I go with you,” Scarlett said from behind me, “I won’t be able to keep my hands off you?”
Without turning around, I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Her accusation was the exact flipside of the scenario that was keeping me awake most nights. Given half the chance, I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off her.
“Of course not.” I grabbed a mug from the cupboard and spooned in sugar, trying to keep my stupid, disobedient hands busy. “I just want us to keep our relationship boundaries clear in our minds.”
“We’ll be fine. I’ve been your date at these things heaps of times and the boundaries didn’t fall down.”
“But there was nothing pressing against the edges back then.” I leaned my fists on the counter, my whole body tense. Scarlett’s hand rested on my shoulder, warmth seeping into my skin. My heart rate spiked. A hand on a shoulder was something friends did, something we’d done to each other over the years without thinking. But right now, I wanted to turn under her hand so it was over my heart, then lean in closer—
“Three kisses are not going to make it too difficult to be your friend at a work function.”
I edged away from her hand and faced her, my body practically vibrating with tension. “For God’s sake, Scarlett, it’s not just a few kisses.”
Her forehead scrunched up. “What is it then?”
She wanted to know? Well maybe if I told her, she’d be more careful and give me some space. “It’s the way I keep replaying those kisses,” I said, my voice sounding almost angry. “It’s the new endings I keep giving them.”
“New endings?” she whispered.
“Where we don’t stop.” My chest was heaving as I tried to get enough air to tell her the things in my head. “Where we make it to my bed. Where I don’t stop after kissing your mouth, but keep going till I’ve kissed every part of you I can reach, then keep going some more.”
The pulse at the base of her neck was throbbing. “Geez, Finn.”
Her eyes were wide and unblinking. I’d gone too far. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Covering my face with a hand, I thumped my head back on the cupboard behind me. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Just pretend I didn’t, hey?”
There was silence. If it wasn’t for the absence of footsteps leaving, I might have thought she was gone. No, even then I’d know she was still there—I could feel her nearness, like I had an extra sense. My skin was alert when she was close by.
I dropped the hand shielding my eyes and found her watching me, waiting. Her lips were slightly parted and there was a pink flush on her cheeks, running down her neck.
“I’m not shocked you’re thinking these things,” she said, her gaze not wavering. “I’m surprised it’s not only me.”
I groaned. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, but in my endings, we stayed right where we were. Up against the wall.”
Jesus. She was trying to kill me. I closed my eyes again, hoping that would make it easier, but then her voice came from right beside my ear. “I wrapped my legs around your waist and you drove me out of my mind.”
A shudder ran up my spine. I swallowed. “But we won’t. If we sleep together, there’s no going back.” She was too important in my life to risk. We’d discussed this. Decided already.
“No,” she said beside my ear. “We won’t. Even if you kiss me again like your life depended on it. Even if I’m so turned on right now that I’m trembling.”
The last of my willpower snapped. Without opening my eyes, I turned my head the fraction I needed, and found her mouth. She leaned into me, and I slid my hands from her thighs up her sides, reveling in the curves I found along the way.
Her mouth was all heat and decadence, and the way her tongue stroked along mine proved she’d never needed any sort of kissing lesson. Within a few moves, she had me totally at her mercy. As my hands reached her neck and slid into her silken hair, a soft sound escaped her throat. It reverberated through me, straight to my groin.
The sound of a key in the door stopped me cold. The only other people with a key were my sisters, so that would be Amelia coming home from her dance class. The last thing I needed was my little sister finding me in the kitchen with the biggest hard-on known to mankind.
Wordlessly, I pushed Scarlett back, looked down to my jeans then jerked my head in the direction of the front door. Scarlett grinned, understanding. She ran her fingers through her hair, undoing the rumpled effect my hands had created, and headed out of the kitchen to give me some cover so I could escape. First item on the agenda: a cold shower.
Finn
We’d been at the departmental fundraiser for a bit over an hour, and I was slowly going insane. Scarlett was standing a few steps away, surrounded by a group of male PhD students from various faculties, laughing and teasing and generally being the life of the party. She was so damn hot I was having trouble breathing.
Her old-time movie star curves were hugged by a slinky black dress I’d touched briefly when I’d put a hand on the small of her back as we walked in. My palm still burned. She’d even worn her green leopard print glasses, which had always been my favorite. Her laugh lit up her eyes, lit up the room, and when she threw me an occasional glance, she lit me up, too.
I’d known bringing her was a bad idea, but since our conversation about it had devolved into a make out session, I hadn’t wanted to discuss it again. Later that night she’d said, “I’ll still come to the fundraiser with you,” and I’d nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
Rakesh appeared at my elbow and handed me another beer. At this rate Scarlett and I would be catching a cab home and I’d pick up my car in the morning.
“You know,” Rakesh said as he twisted the top off his bottle, “I’ve always been jealous of your friendship with Scarlett.”
“Mmm,” I said, watching her say something that made a guy from Geology blush.
“Yeah.” He took a swig of the beer before he continued. “You two have something nice. Always looking out for each other, and you’re there when things go wrong with your girlfriends or her boyfriends.”
“Sure,” I said, still watching Scarlett.
“Actually, I want to ask you something.”
“Shoot.” I took a mouthful of beer.
“You going to have a problem if I ask her out?”
My skin turned ice cold.
“I know it’s kind of strange to ask you, and it’s not like I’m asking permission, but we work together and I don’t want things to get weird.”
I looked at him and tried to control my breathing. Rationally, I should be thrilled. Rakesh was a really decent guy who always treated the women he dated well. He’d known Scarlett for a couple of years, and they’d hit it off from the start, so he wouldn’t only be interested in getting into her pants. He must really like her. Here, finally, after four years of scrutinizing her dates, was a guy I could approve of. Plus, if Scarlett dated Rakesh, it would help us move back into the friend zone.
I should have told him he totally had my blessing to ask her out.
But I couldn’t.
The thought of Rakesh kissing her lush mouth, of him touching her smooth skin, made me want to throw up. Or grab her and kiss her in front of everyone so they’d all know to back off. Which she definitely wouldn’t appreciate.
So instead I shook my head sadly at Rakesh. “Don’t waste your time. She’s seeing someone.” The lie rolled easily off my tongue. Too easily.
He cast a speculative glance in her direction. “Is it serious?”
“Yeah, seems so. They’re keeping it quiet for now, but she’s really into him.” I was definitely going to hell. No question about it. I’d promised not to interfere in Scarlett’s dating life again and here I was doing it. Worse, I didn’t regret it in the least.
Rakesh sighed. “To be honest, I’ve always had a bit of a crush on Scarlett, but never thought I’d have a chance with her.”
“Seriously?” I’d had no idea. I drank the rest of the beer to give myself some thinking time. What if Rakesh was The One for Scarlett and I’d just ruined it for her? He might be the love of her life. But even the thought of them together made everything inside me tense—I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t tell him she wasn’t seeing anyone. I was a bad, bad person.
He shrugged. “I shouldn’t have waited.”
Scarlett patted the guy from Geology on the side of the face and headed for the drinks table. Rakesh’s words reverberated in my head.
I shouldn’t have waited.
There were a thousand reasons why I couldn’t be that person Scarlett was dating, yet as I watched the black dress pull and glide across her hips with her swaying-to-the-music walk, none of them were worth a damn.
Something inside me snapped. I couldn’t do this anymore. Couldn’t keep waiting.
With no idea what I was doing, I pushed off the wall and headed for Scarlett. She’d just picked up a beer and was taking a long drink. Her throat moved as she swallowed and her lips were pink around the lip of the bottle. I put my empty on the table and leaned in. She lowered the bottle and wiped her mouth. I just about went up in flames.
“Hey, Finn,” she said, smiling at me. “This is a great party. Thanks for letting me come with you.”
I cleared my throat. “I have to tell you something.”
“Okay, spill.”
“Not here.”
Her eyebrows went up in interest. “You want to head home?”
Home? Where the house was full of parents and sisters and dogs? “Nope.”
I put a hand under her elbow and guided her to the door. “We’ll duck into my office.” It was on the same floor but at the other end of the corridor, so we’d have privacy.
She didn’t hesitate to follow, but she turned her head to meet my gaze. “This sounds serious. Is everything okay?”
“I have no idea anymore,” I said, and headed down the hall.
Scarlett
Once we reached his office, Finn pulled me inside and kicked the door closed. There was something very different going on with him. His entire body was tense, wired, as if ready for something.
He left the light off.
“Finn?” I said, tilting my head to try and get a read on him.
“I did it again.”
As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see the contours of his face in the moonlight glinting through the windows. He was at once familiar and foreign, and the combination was electric.
