Dirty Rowdy Thing (Wild Seasons, #2)(57)

“When I met you at the bar back in June,” he says, gaze traveling from my lips to my hair to my neck, “you walked up to me and looked me up and down like I was put up for auction, and then sat down right next to me and said, ‘I’d love a tequila gimlet.’ It was like liquid slowly spilled out on that chair. You were so f*cking beautiful.”

“Like an oil spill?”

He wipes a hand across his face, eyes crinkling in my favorite Finn smile. “Exactly. I just knew I would never be able to clean you off.” We both laugh and then his expression straightens. “I’ve never been able to be myself with anyone, not the way I am with you.” He bends down, kisses me. “I just figured you only wanted f*cking, and so it’s the only place my mind went. I didn’t think we fit this way.”

“Me, either,” I admit quietly. “I just assumed you were like every other guy and would disappoint quickly enough.”

“That may still be true,” he says, kissing along my jaw. “I might just take a little longer.”

What he’s doing feels so good, just his lips on my throat and his fingers slyly sliding my dress up over my hips. “Take all the time you need,” I mumble.

He talks as he undresses me. “You liked watching me at that party tonight?”

One of my shoes, and then the other, hits the floor.

“Yeah.” In fact, I loved it. He didn’t seem completely in his element, but he was happy enough to try, for me. It’s what we’ll do for each other, I can tell. We’ll try to find that common ground and live there.

“Did you refer to me as your boyfriend to the Kardashian look-alikes in the kitchen?”

His hands slide up under my dress, hands spread across my hips before he grabs and pulls my underwear down my legs. Way, way too slowly for my mood.

I push up into his touch. “I didn’t refer to you that way, but your fangirls seemed disappointed that it might be true.”

He rolls me slightly to reach behind me and unzip my dress. “Did you confirm I’m taken?”

“They knew,” I say, arching so he can slide my dress down my body. When I’m completely naked, and he’s staring at me like I’m Thanksgiving dinner and the Crown Jewels and a Playboy centerfold all rolled into one naked body, I add, “They could tell from the way you looked at me.”

He snorts, unbuttoning his dress shirt. “The way I looked at you?”

“Yeah.”

He shrugs out of his shirt and leans back over me, immense. “And how do I look at you?”

His arms strain against the cotton of his undershirt and it seems somehow to barely contain his biceps, the width of his chest. The way the T-shirt is smoothly tucked into the flat front of his black dress pants . . . sweet Jesus.

He runs a warm palm up my stomach and spreads his giant hand across my ribs. “Snap?”

“Shh, Poodle. I’m having a Johnny Castle, Dirty Dancing moment right now.”

“Is this a good thing or a bad thing?” he asks, bending to lick up my neck.

“I carried a watermelon.”

He pulls back and looks at me before ducking to sniff my breath. “How drunk are you?”

“For the love of God, man, I’m not drunk. Get naked or put that mouth between my legs.”

I expect him to be a good boy and comply—he’s been so good tonight—but he disappoints.

Standing, he reaches for my hand and pulls me up, wrapping his arms around my waist. “I’m not f*cking you on the floor,” he says.

“Then why did you put me there?”

“Impatient. Maybe clumsy.”

I laugh. There is not a clumsy bone in Finn’s body, but there are definitely 206 impatient ones.

He leads me down the hall to my bedroom, passing the hall closet without a second glance.

“You’re not going to tie me up tonight?”

He shakes his head.

“But I like it.”

I hear his quiet laugh. “I like it, too. I just don’t want to do it every time we’re together.”

“I’ll put my hands all over you,” I say, as if it’s a threat.

“That’s the point.” He turns, bending to kiss my neck and inhales slowly, smelling me.

Reaching down, I pull his shirt free from his pants. “So the rope isn’t really for bondage, it’s—”

“Sometimes it is,” he admits quietly, sucking on my pulse point. “I like the freedom it gives me to touch you any way I want. I think we both know I’m a controlling type.”

I laugh and it turns into a moan when he runs his hand down my shoulder and across my breast.

“But I also just like the evidence of it.”

I bite my lip, grinning as I unbuckle his belt, unfasten his pants, and push them down his hips. “

‘The evidence?’ ”

He watches my mouth, stepping out of his clothes. “I like leaving marks. I like seeing you wet, and watching you walk differently in the morning because I f*cked you so good your legs aren’t working right.” Finn swipes his tongue over my throat, making me shiver. “How you looked the morning I saw you at Starbucks? You’ll never look like that after a night with me.”

I exhale a jagged breath when he sucks hard against my shoulder, pulling a mark to the surface. “I like seeing what I do to you,” he says, “especially you, because I can tell how much you trust me—and seeing how good I can make you feel makes me insane. Rope is just something I’m very, very . . .” He lifts his head from my neck and kisses my mouth, my jaw, my cheek, and hovers near my ear, whispering, “Very comfortable handling.”