Like Gravity(52)

I wasn’t a virgin by a long shot. I liked sex, a lot – it was my drug of choice, after tequila. But this was different. It was all-consuming. A need like I’d never experienced rushed through my veins and demanded more of him. His hands moved again, and then my tank top was on the floor and I was standing before him in just my bra and shorts.

Thank goodness I’d had foresight enough to put on my cute lace bra set from Victoria’s Secret before I got dressed this morning.

“Beautiful,” Finn whispered, gazing down at me and dragging his thumb across my bottom lip. Before he could move it away, I gave it a playful nip with my teeth and then traced my tongue lightly along the pad.

He let out another throaty groan, and pulled me against him again so my nearly bare chest aligned with his. My hands slithered down his sides and found the bottom hem of his shirt, yanking it up impatiently when I realized I was too short to lift it over his head.

He chuckled darkly and bent slightly at the waist, lifting his arms so the shirt could slide free. I carelessly tossed it next to me with no regard for my aim, and watched as the black v-neck sailed into a pan of cerulean paint.

“That’s the second shirt of mine you’ve ruined,” he grumbled in my ear, pressing kisses along my jawline.

“I’m sure I’ll think of a way to make it up to you,” I breathed, gasping as his mouth moved over a particularly sensitive spot beneath my ear.

Before I could react, I was lifted into the air, cradled in Finn’s arms as if I weighed no more than a feather, and gently laid down on one of the paint-splotched drop cloths covering my hardwood floor. I could feel the slightly tacky wetness of the paint sliding over my bare back as he laid me down, but I quickly forgot about that as he settled over me, with one arm braced on either side of my head and his legs straddling mine.

He kissed me again, and I leaned up into him so our chests were touching, skin to skin. My hands wrapped around his back and I explored the solid muscles there, tracing their fluid movements with the tips of my fingers. I used my grip on his back to leverage myself, sitting up beneath him. He rose with me, leaning back on his knees and somehow never disengaging his mouth from mine as we moved.

We kneeled eye to eye, our breathing ragged as we stared at one other. He stilled as his eyes flickered down to notice the light scar that marred my collarbone, and his eyes clouded over with more emotions than just lust; something darker, harder, scarier filled his eyes as he saw the mark my childhood had left behind, but it was tempered by a tenderness that made my heart turn over. He was angry that someone had hurt me. He didn’t know who, or what, or when it had happened, but I could tell from the storm raging behind those gorgeous cobalt eyes that he hated the idea of me bleeding for any reason.

Someone examining my imperfections so closely should have embarrassed me, and likely would have – except it was Finn. He didn’t look at me with pity or disgust; he didn’t flinch away or ask probing questions. Instead, he leaned forward and gently kissed the scar, as if tracing it with his lips would make it vanish, and take away the painful memories it was a permanent tribute to.

I wanted to cry. None of the guys I’d slept with in the past had ever even noticed my scar, let alone tried to kiss it better for me. A pang of longing lanced through my chest, one I didn’t understand and didn’t want to overanalyze at that moment – not when there was a beautiful, half-naked Finn kneeling inches away.

Taking him by surprise, I launched myself at his chest and we toppled roughly backwards. He landed on his back with me sprawled half across his body, my hands planted on his shoulders. Our shift had upset one of the paint pans we’d used earlier, and there was a sudden rush of cerulean liquid leaking across the drop cloth and onto our tangled limbs.

I laughed as Finn realized what had happened, dipping my right hand into a paint puddle near his head and then splaying my fingers wide across his bare chest. When I pulled my hand away, there was a perfect blue handprint over his heart, like some crazy tribal war paint. I giggled at the surprised look that came into his eyes, but my laughter cut off abruptly as they narrowed in a promise of retribution.

“Don’t,” I half-begged, trying to hold in more giggles as I watched him examine his decorated chest. His eyes shifted to mine and in a flash he was sitting up, with my legs straddling his lap. We were pressed close, nose-to-nose.

“Oh, you asked for it,” he said, smiling roguishly as one hand snuck around my back and unhooked my bra with a quickness that could only be achieved with years of practice.

I was so preoccupied with my disappearing bra, I hadn’t noticed what his other hand was doing until it was too late. As his right hand tugged each bra strap down the lengths of my arms and threw it to the floor beside me, his left – dripping paint – trailed across my collarbone and between the valley of my now exposed breasts.

I watched, mesmerized, as his long fingers deftly swirled the paint in blue patterns across my skin. His fingers streaked down to my stomach, circling gently and drawing a perfect blue ring around my bellybutton. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so unbelievably turned on.

This gives a whole new meaning to finger-painting.

My own fingers dipped back into the paint by my sides, and I began to paint his body in whorls of color as I explored in turn, creating a labyrinth of blue that matched my own.

His fingers felt like fire as they trailed along my skin, burning a path from my stomach down to the top of my shorts. My hands stilled on his chest and my belly fluttered as his fingertips slid under the elastic, following the band around to the small of my back. With his hands hooked half inside my shorts, he pulled me flush against him. I felt the air leave my lungs in a whoosh as the apex of my thighs brushed against his arousal for the first time – even through his jeans, I could feel how hard he was for me. A sound that might’ve been a moan escaped before I could stop it.