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Finn tightened his hold, nestling her head in the crook of his arm, and with his free hand, he cupped her face and neck, lacing his fingers into her hair as he deepened their kiss until she became lightheaded. Every stroke of their tongues throbbed between her legs.
The voices of the people around them, the presence of the short-haired girl, the sequin and her boyfriend, Finn’s other friends, the music, and the ambient club lights were all gone. All that remained was the pulse of the bass that beat inside her body and the taste of Finn, and his smell, and the feel of his hands on her. He didn’t break their kiss even as they shallowed it to draw air. He then deepened it again and roughened it, their lips bruising as if they were trying to consume one another.
She felt, more than heard, the groan that rose from deep in his chest where she placed her hand over the hard muscles that the cotton of his shirt covered. Hearing it, feeling it, made her moan into his mouth. Her body was liquid fire.
“Anne, Anne,” someone called repeatedly from afar.
For one dreadful moment, she was certain it was her mother who had come to wake her up in the middle of a dream. But the unmistakable scent and taste of Finn were real, and so was his tongue in her mouth, and his palm that now nestled the back of her head, and his fingers that gripped a fistful of her hair as he melded her further to him.
“Anne.” The voice was close, and it was Finn who broke their kiss, leaving them both heaving, their faces an inch apart, their lips raw, their eyes blazing into the other’s in a mix of incredulity, surprise, and something else that she couldn’t unravel.
“Anne.” A hand now touched her shoulder as Finn released her hair and untangled his fingers from within it and his arm from around her.
She pivoted toward the voice. Bella.
“I was looking for you, but I see you’ve been busy,” Bella said, moving a grinning face between her and Finn.
She was too lost for words to reply, so she just nodded as Bella said, “Come on; I called my dad from a payphone, and he’s here to pick us up. I told him I couldn’t find you, and he said he’d come up to help me look for you. We don’t want that, so let’s go before he gets here or calls your parents.”
She turned to look at Finn. The sofa beyond him was empty. Two of his male friends were standing at a distance from them, speaking among themselves, as if used to waiting for one of theirs to finish his business.
Their eyes met again. His lips looked wet and swollen, and he was still slightly panting, like she was.
“Jane,” he just said in a hoarse voice.
“I have to go.”
He grabbed her hand as she got up. “Don’t. I’m sorry. I … I hope you’re … I’m …” He didn’t seem sorry or rueful; he seemed shocked, like her.
“It’s okay,” she said. She thought she was smiling but wasn’t sure. Her body still felt like he owned it, not her.
His eyes looked like a mist had settled over the ocean. He got up, still holding her hand. “Jane.”
“Come on; my dad’s waiting.” Bella grabbed her by the crook of her elbow and dragged her.
“I’ll call you,” he said, releasing her hand.
“What was that?” Bella asked as they walked away. “Finn Brennen? Oh my God!”
“I don’t know,” she mumbled, glad Bella had her arm linked with hers because her knees felt weak.
“I got the phone number of that guy I danced with, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to see him before he goes back to his base,” Bella said.
She hardly slept that night. Her mother took her for a girls’ fun day the next day, and the next, she helped at the bakery. Finn called her house twice and missed her both times, leaving messages. She returned his calls, but they didn’t get to talk before he had to go back to his practices. She flew back to school a few days after.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She watched Brad Pitt kissing Julia Ormond on the screen. Bella, on the sofa next to her, wiped a few tears.
That kiss with Finn had become the standard by which she measured every other kiss. None came close.
She had been young then and too busy trying to excel in her field, knowing that he had been doing the same. Though she had thought of him with a racing heart for weeks after, it hadn’t hurt in a searing way. It was an ache of a missed opportunity. Maybe they’d been too different to work out anyway, but she knew for certain that Finn had always made her feel special, cherished, cared for, even in that brief encounter after years.
The look in his eyes that she had seen that night—she’d discover an infinitely deeper version of it a few years later, when they’d fall so hard that they wouldn’t have come out of it the same even if the sky hadn’t tumbled down on them soon after.
