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The drive back to my apartment is tense silence. There’s so much I want to say. Questions I’m dying to ask him, but I know I’m not ready. My grief is still all-consuming at times, and I know if I give him a chance and he lets me down, my heart will never recover.
Finn walks me up the two flights of stairs to my door. We stand in the hall staring at each other like two preteens unsure of how to say good-bye at the end of an awkward first date. Just as I’m about to thank him for helping me again, the door opens, and a very sleepy Kendall is standing on the other side.
“I thought I heard the rumble of Finn’s badass skunk,” Kendall says, motioning for us to come inside. It almost feels like she’s inviting me into my own apartment.
“Skunk?” Finn inquires as he toes off his shoes, closing the door behind him.
Kendall and Finn haven’t spent much time together. They’ve met in passing a handful of times, mostly at parties our freshman year before I began avoiding Finn like the plague. They don’t have much in common but that never stopped Kendall from interacting with people like they’re old friends.
“Yeah. That white racing strip reminds me of a skunk. Why? What do you call your car?”
“Sasha.”
“Sasha? You actually named your car?” Kendall seems surprised by this. I’m not, of course. My brother named his first truck. It was a piece of shit, didn’t like to start in the winter, and the gas gauge didn’t work, but he loved that truck and saidshedeserved a name.
It must be a guy thing.
“She takes care of me, and I take care of her. She deserved a name,” he explains, echoing my thoughts.
“Well, thank you andSashafor taking such good care of my roomie tonight. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to bed. I have beauty sleep to catch up on.”
She sashays away, her little sleep shorts accentuating her curves.
When I turn to Finn, I find him watching me intently. I get lost in the sea of emotions in his eyes. The magnetic pull I feel any time he’s around wraps itself around me, and I’m suddenly standing right in front of him. His hands are on my waist and my good palm is flat against his chest, over his heart.
“Mind if I stay here tonight?” he asks. When I don’t answer right away, he continues, giving my hips a little squeeze, “I’d feel better if I was here to change your bandage in the morning.”
He could always come back, I want to point out. He only lives six blocks away on the other side of Lake State’s downtown campus.
“Sure,” I hear myself say. I must be having some sort of out-of-body experience right now from the blood loss.
Wrapping my hand around Finn’s, I tug him down the hall toward my bedroom. The door closes behind us with a soft click, our eyes meeting over my shoulder. Without a second thought, I release his hand and turn toward him, pulling my T-shirt over my head and dropping it to the floor. He does the same, tossing his shirt on top of mine.
When I go to unbutton my jeans, I fumble, the large dressing the doctor put on my finger in the way. Finn’s hands land on mine, pulling them away before returning to my button and slowly popping it through the eyehole. Sucking in a breath when his fingers skim my exposed skin, I hold it, waiting for him to pull away. Instead, he slowly lowers my zipper, the sound echoing in my ears, seeming to go on forever.
My stomach drops, my arousal heightened. My panties are damp, my nipples rubbing against the material of my bra.
Jesus. He hasn’t even touched me really and I’m a hot mess.
“I think you better take it from here or I’m going to have to leave,” Finn whispers, cutting through the silence.
Apparently, I’m not the only one effected by the sexual tension in the room.
Shimmying my jeans over my hips, I let them pool at my feet and step out, kicking them onto our growing pile of clothes with my toe. I expect Finn to mimic my actions, but instead, he flicks the overhead light off, bathing us in darkness.
“What are you doing?” I ask as I blindly reach for my bed, pulling back my covers.
“Putting you to bed.”
“Are you going to sleep in your jeans?”
He doesn’t respond until after I’ve crawled under the covers. He slides in behind me, gently wrapping one arm over my waist and tucking me against his body.
Heaven.
“There has to be something between us, LT. Otherwise, neither of us will get any sleep. I want the next time we make love to be when we’re both ready, and I know you’re not right now.”
Make love.
