Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 92368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
“So much you should wear it home,” he says.
“Like a sex trophy?”
“Exactly, Jules,” he says, and it turns out I do like getting to know him as much as I enjoy kissing him.
So much that I have to satisfy my curiosity. “Do you have a thing for honeysuckle? I smell it outside the window. I noticed it when I arrived.”
“There’s a shrub in the little yard. It was there when I moved in several months ago. Do you like it?”
“It’s pretty. It reminds me of…”
But am I really going to say it reminds me of my first teenage fantasies? To tell him it makes me think of an afternoon tryst on a hot day, the kind I used to daydream about when I first thought about sex, when I first craved a man’s touch, and now already it reminds me of you?
That’s a lot for a one-night stand.
“What does it remind you of?” he prompts. He’s not going to let me get away without answering.
But maybe I can say a little.
“Wanting,” I say, and that seems like more than enough. “It reminds me of wanting.”
Finn lets out a low rumble. “Then now it will remind me of you.” He holds my gaze with a particular intensity that emboldens me.
“How old are you?” I ask.
He smiles softly, perhaps a little embarrassed. “Forty.” There’s a pause, like he’s waiting for a reaction from me. Shock? Surprise? But that’s not what I’m feeling. I’m feeling like forty is the sexiest age ever.
And I’m getting the sense he wants to know I think that. “A very sexy forty,” I add.
“And you are…?”
“A no-longer-virginal twenty-five,” I say.
His eyes gleam with possession and pride.
“And I got to be the one,” he says, and I love that he seems as pleased by that as I am.
Soon, the food arrives, and after he pays and thanks the guy, he gestures to the stairs. “Want to eat on the balcony? It’s my go-to dining room on warm nights. I call it my outdoor café.”
No fucking way.
But I don’t want Finn to read this part of me. I absolutely don’t want to admit to him that I have OCD. So I try my hardest to put on an easy smile. “Kitchen is fine,” I say, breezily. “I mean, I’m half-naked.”
Like that matters. But maybe it’ll distract him from asking more.
Something flashes in his eyes, though, as he opens the fridge. Something like understanding. “I should have remembered. You don’t like heights?” he asks, grabbing a jar of chili flakes.
Oh.
Wow.
He remembers the rooftop, and how I said no to it. I cycle through my options—I could deny, or I could make light of it. But he’s been open when I’ve asked questions about his son and about his best friend.
I want to give him a morsel of honesty in return. “You’re right. I really don’t like heights.” That’s a true thing. I won’t share the scope of my dislike. That’s part of the side of me that goes to therapy, the side my family doesn’t even know about.
“That must be really challenging,” he says thoughtfully as he sets the flakes on the counter. How is this guy a sex master and super understanding?
“They make me really uncomfortable,” I admit. Apparently he has truth serum powers too. “They kind of freak me out.”
Wow. That was…sort of cathartic. I didn’t know I’d needed to say those words.
Irrational fears are so embarrassing. So hard to admit. But a tiny weight’s been lifted now.
“Is it just heights outdoors? Or was my third-floor bedroom uncomfortable for you too?” he asks, and I rush to reassure him.
“Bedrooms are fine. Indoors is fine. It’s just things like balconies, bridges, and rooftops.”
“I get that. I do. Everyone has fears. We all have things we try to avoid just because…And it works just as well to eat here,” he says with kind eyes and a welcoming smile.
That’s not at all how he looked at me when he was seducing me. That’s not how he looked at me when he fucked me either.
It’s a new look, and it makes my heart speed up. How is it possible that in a few short encounters, I’ve glimpsed so many of his sides? His determined side, his hungry side, his dominating side, his loyal side, and then his guilty pleasure side that said fuck the world, I want her more.
Now I’m seeing another side, and I bet this is the man he is with his son. Kind, thoughtful, big-hearted, and accepting.
“I guess that’ll be our secret too. My fear of balconies,” I say, and I’m sure this one is as safe with him as the others.
“I’ll keep them all, Jules. Every single one,” he says, and there’s resignation in his voice.
In my heart too.
He hands me a plate, and I scoop some noodles onto it, but when I open the jar of chili flakes, I arch a brow, then show it to him. “Empty.”