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Stepping forward, he crouched down before me on the floor, reaching out to trace a path over my healing ankle with a feather light touch. My nerves were still damaged in some places, so it was hard to feel the touch, but that didn’t stop heat from racing over my skin as he brushed his fingertips over the area around my scars.
“See? These right here? These tell the story of a girl who’s gotten back up every time she’s been knocked down. Every. Single. Time.”
He stood slowly, tracing his fingers up my leg before catching my hand in his and raising my arm to hold it between us. Still grasping my hand in one of his, he traced the pink lines across my forearm and bicep. “These tell the story of a girl who gave four assholes a chance to redeem themselves.”
His touch moved higher, gliding lightly over the pink marks where my seat belt had cut into my skin. He ran his hand down the angled line of that scar, resting his palm on my upper chest. “And this right here? This tells the story of a girl with the biggest heart I’ve ever met. A heart an asshole like me would be only so lucky to know.”
“You’re not an asshole, Finn,” I murmured, feeling his hand move with my body as I breathed.
“Ah, come on, Legs.” A grin tilted his lips as he chuckled. “Let’s not get too carried away. Of course I’m an asshole. Or at least, I used to be one. Still am a lot of the time.” His expression grew more serious, the teasing smile slipping from his face. “But that girl? The one from the story I was telling you about—the one with the huge heart? She’s teaching me how not to be one.”
My heart slammed hard against his palm as something almost painfully sweet burned in my chest. I lifted my own hand to cover his, securing him to me as I limped awkwardly forward, closing the distance between our bodies. My leg was too weak for me to rise up onto my tiptoes, but when I slid my arm around his neck, he came to me, dropping his head to press his lips to mine.
He kissed me the same way he had touched the rest of me, with tender worship, as if he was trying to heal me through the press of his lips against mine.
Or maybe he was just trying to remind me I wasn’t broken.
I slipped my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, feeling the smooth skin and strong muscles there. He tasted like sunshine—felt like sunshine—and I pressed myself into the curve of his body, fighting against the weakness in my leg to get closer to him. His arms banded around my waist, supporting me and holding me tight, as his lips explored mine and our breathing quickened.
Fire swept through my body. I had wanted to do this for too fucking long.
Tugging the hand that was sandwiched between us free, I wrapped that arm around his neck too, using the leverage to haul his face closer to mine. When his hands slid down my waist and over my hips, squeezing my legs and lifting, I tightened my hold, helping him pull me up into his arms.
We didn’t stop kissing, and I wasn’t sure I could stop. I was drowning in everything that was Finn.
In his optimism.
In his bright light.
In the goodness I didn’t even know if he saw in himself.
A noise that was almost a groan rumbled in his throat, and he carried me across the room before setting my ass down on the barre that ran in front of the mirror. He kept his hands on my thighs, keeping me steady as our lips, teeth, and tongues teased each other.
Ever since the wreck, I had felt like I didn’t know how to live in this new body, like it didn’t truly belong to me—as if it were a broken down old thing on loan from a stranger. But as Finn’s large hands caressed my thighs, sending sparks of heat trailing like flares through my nerve endings, my body felt like my own again for the first time in weeks.
It was the best feeling I could possibly imagine.
I tipped my head back, letting him kiss and bite along my jaw, angling my head this way and that to invite his touch to different parts of me. When he pulled my earlobe into his mouth, sucking gently as he worried it between his teeth, a jolt of pure sensation shot down to my clit. I jerked in his hold, a strangled gasp falling from my lips, and the sound of his answering chuckle seemed to melt my bones.
Fuck. I want you.
I wanted Finn Whittaker. Wanted him more than I had ever let myself admit until this moment.
In some ways, he had been the first of the Princes to work his way into my heart, which had only made the hurt of his betrayal worse.
But it also made this moment better. As if some part of my heart, my body, my soul—or maybe all three—had always known this was meant to happen between us.
As if all the bullshit in between was just the obstacle course we’d had to run to reach this moment.
Chapter 11
God, please don’t stop.
I didn’t say the words out loud—I was sure of it—but Finn answered my prayer anyway.
He trailed his lips over my collarbone before working his way to my other ear, and even though I knew it was coming, the feel of his lips and teeth on my earlobe still made my body jump and pulled an involuntary sound from my throat. When he kissed me again, I swept my tongue into his mouth, trying to hike my legs higher so I could wrap them around his waist.
I didn’t have enough strength to manage it, so I gave up and settled for digging my fingers into the hard, sculpted muscles of his back through his soft t-shirt.
