Page 76 of Stirring Up Love
She turned, and Finn was right there, his eyes darkened to pools of deepest midnight, his chest heaving.One breath, two.
When their lips collided, it was a gale meeting a hurricane. A whirlwind consumed her—Finn’s kiss, custom made to sweep her off her feet. She yielded to the press of his lips, and his fingers cupped her jaw, slid down her neck in a caress. In an instant he had her backed up against the car. An inevitable force, this need between them.
Greedy and insistent, she rocked up against his body, deepening the kiss, breathing him in like oxygen, drinking him down like the sweetest water. He moaned, and all of a sudden his hands clasped under her thighs. He lifted her up and stepped impossibly closer.
Pressed against the car door, she wrapped her legs around him. Tucked her heels against his back and gripped tight as they chased this yearning into uncharted waters.
She brushed her lips against his, teasing them apart, and underneath her, his whole body shuddered. His tongue swept against hers, his touch flooding her senses like a river overflowing its banks. Her fingers found their way into his hair, tugged him down, and he rumbled out a groan that shot straight to her core.
This didn’t feel like a bad idea, not at all. The connection between them felt powerfully, inescapably right.
CHAPTER 26
FINN
Finn didn’t know where he ended and Simone began. Swept up in her windstorm, he kissed her like there was an eternity in this kiss. Time ceased to exist; there was only the two of them, clinging to one another in the eye of the storm. The taste of her left him winded and hungry and desperate.
Wrung out and wanting more. Wrecked.
She was a force of nature, and he let himself be swept away, lashed by the current of her body. She molded against him, and he answered her with a dig of his hips, a sweep of his tongue, searching for deeper and more. He wanted all of Simone Blake. He’d never been in love, but he imagined it would feel like this. Insatiable.
Passion snapped between them like a lightning bolt. Hunger and fulfillment. If their kiss in the car was an exploration, their kiss in the cabin a question, then this was the answer.
Yes. A thousand times, yes. For all his lifetime, yes.
She was his person. The truth hit him in the quiet space between heartbeats, before a bark pierced the air and doused the wisp of magic. Gasping, he pulled back, his breath coming hard and hot in vapors.
Simone pressed a shaky hand to his chest. “That’s a heck of way to say thank you.”
He tipped his forehead to hers. “You did tell me to stop saying it, so ...”
“One of my better ideas.”
He kissed her again, helpless not to. “I thought all of Simone Blake’s ideas were good ones.”
“Oh, you’re slick, Finnegan.” She kissed him again. Quick. Easy. Like she’d do it again in a heartbeat. “I think I’ll keep you.”
He let go of her legs and lowered her to the ground. And though he knew it had been a throwaway phrase, his heart beat a hopeful rhythm in his chest.I’ll keep you ...
They only had a day left. He should be used to temporary by now. Should be comfortable in impermanence. He scrubbed a palm down his face and opened the door. Got in.
Maybe, just maybe—went his heart—this time would be different. Maybe, just maybe, she might decide to keep him by her side. Maybe, just maybe, he would be enough.
They stopped for lunch in Albuquerque. He ordered a burrito smothered in green chile, and Simone got a bowl of posole and a Diet Coke. She said, “My sister fills the world with sugar; I’m doing my part to restore balance to the universe.” So he went ahead and ordered horchata to go, just for the joy of seeing her roll her eyes.
They made a pit stop in Amarillo. Simone had drunk all of his horchata, and he’d finished off her sugar-free soda. When they met at the hood of the car to switch drivers, she brushed his hair off his forehead and told him maybe he should’ve packed mousse. He asked, “Mousse?” and she dropped her hand to his shoulder and kissed him.
They filled up the tank in Oklahoma City. Between the kiss and a bathroom-key fiasco—it was attached to a rabbit’s foot, which they’d both refused to touch, and insisted the owner provide another or open the door himself—they’d forgotten to fill up in Amarillo. The sun had dipped below the horizon, and by the time morning dawned, they’d be home. Too soon, though not soon enough.
So while Simone was inside prepaying, he pushed the button and motored the top down. Opened the trunk and pulled out the parka she’d worn in Sedona.
Ankles crossed, trying to play it cool, he was leaning against the side of the car when she walked out.
“Finn,” was all she said. But she pulled the coat out of his hands and slipped it on.
Midfifties and cloudy—not top-down weather, but Simone hadn’t stopped smiling since she climbed behind the wheel, and Finn couldn’t remember a time he’d been happier.
Happily en route to his own send-off. Speeding toward farewell in the passenger seat, but he’d lived through plenty of goodbyes, and this felt more like a see-you-later. There was still hope for him. For them.
