Like Gravity (18 page)

His eyes
were hooded, and I immediately saw the desire that swirled in their depths. My hands slid from his shoulders around to the front of his coveralls, the residual paint on them leaving blue streaks in their wake. When my fingers found the zipper, they trembled.

Finn
leaned down slowly and pressed a kiss to the hollow of my throat. My hands began to move, drifting downward and dragging the zipper along with them. As my fingers traced slowly down across his stomach, I felt the muscles there contract and an involuntary puff of air slipped out from between his lips.

When there was no more tread left in the zipper, I slid my hands lightly back up to his shoulders, taking my time to graze each taut muscle of his abs and chest as I went. His head lifted from the crook of my neck and he started down into my eyes as I gently shoved the material of his coveralls off his shoulders. His eyes darkened even further, the cobalt irises nearly disappearing into the black of his pupils.

The material dropped around his feet, revealing a tight black v-neck and faded gray jeans that looked like they’d been washed a million times and fit him like a dream. He was utterly still, watching me. Waiting to see what I’d do next.

“Step out,” I whispered, echoing his earlier command.

At my words, he took one stride forward and was on me, invading my space completely and hauling me up against his chest. His mouth crashed down against mine and I lifted up automatically onto my tiptoes, determined to meet his kiss head on. I poured all my pent up frustrations from the day into that kiss, letting my lips tell him in no uncertain terms what I’d never admit out loud – that I’d been suffering without his touch for hours and wouldn’t, couldn’t, stand another minute without his hands on my skin.

He groaned into my mouth, a sound
that made me want to do cartwheels around the room because it told me he’d been suffering too – he was just better at hiding it, apparently. His hands were everywhere, skimming from my hips up my sides, just grazing the undersides of my breasts before moving away to explore the small of my back. His fingers lightly traced the exposed skin between the edge of my tank top and the elastic of my thin cotton shorts, and mine were fully ensconced in the unruly hair at the nape of his neck.

His lips were relentless, his tongue unhesitant
and proprietary as it entered my mouth, like he was reclaiming something that was already his. I tugged at his hair, trying to pull him even closer – to deepen his crushing kiss.

I wanted more.

His hands slipped beneath my tank top and traced along my spine, sending shivers radiating through all my limbs. I’d never felt like this – so out of control in my need to possess someone. And I’d certainly never before wanted to be possessed in turn. But right now, I had to push all of my normal hang-ups about sex from my mind, because Finn was invading my senses completely and using up all my brainpower. When he was in my head, there was simply no room for anyone, anything, else.

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 ha
lf-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.

I’d never been this out of control before; sex had always been a well-choreographed dance, a predetermined sequence of actions with an established conclusion. This was different – it was wild
, spontaneous. Finn wasn’t playing by any of my rules; he’d abandoned the steps altogether.

And I loved it. 

My hands trembled as I reached for the button of his jeans, and he captured them within his own, halting their progress.

“Hey,” he whispered, using his nose to nudge my face up so we were looking into each other’s eyes. “
We don’t have to do this, you know.”

I waited a beat, seeing the sincerity radiating from his gaze and knowing that if I asked, he would wait as long as it took for me to be ready.

“We really do,” I said resolutely, reaching for the zipper of his jeans again.

“I was hoping you’d say that
,” he grinned against my mouth; I couldn’t respond because he was kissing me again.

Within seconds, he’d rid me of my shorts and panties, and I was struggling to pull his jeans and boxers down his legs. He kicked them off impatiently, and then he was on top of me again, his mouth
fused to mine. With one knee, he gently nudged my legs apart and settled in the space between them.

I knew, at that moment, that my life was about to change irrevocably. I saw the change coming – I was standing in the middle of the tracks watching as the train bore down on me. I could’ve jumped the track. I even could’ve tried to outrun the damn thing, knowing it was futile but still intent on
making an attempt at escape.

I did none of those things.

I looked at Finn and I knew that this would change everything, not just between us, but for me as a person. For years, I’d used sex as nothing more than an avoidance tactic – a way to shut out my grief and bury the hurt. It was an escape; with my body engaged, my mind was, for once, at rest.

This was d
ifferent – I knew it in my soul, deep in the marrow of my bones, in the essence of my very self.

Finn
’s words from earlier came back to me.

A
t some point, you have to let the life you should’ve had go, and start living the one you’ve got.

He was right.

Now, as he gently traced my face with his fingertips – no doubt leaving blue streaks along my cheekbones – I realized I was ready to start living.

I leaned up and kissed him, trying to tell him this
with my lips.

He’d always been good at reading my mind.

I gasped as he slid inside me, all thoughts fleeing as I tried to acclimate to the feeling of him. As he rocked into me, eyes locked on mine, I met him thrust for thrust and spiraled slowly toward oblivion, my world going fuzzy around the edges. The only thing in focus was the paint-covered man above me, who was staring into my emerald eyes with a look of rapturous incredulity, as if he couldn’t quite believe this was happening.

My own mind
swirled with the same turbulent ecstasy, reeling at the utter intimacy of the moment. I almost wanted to look away from his eyes, to break the emotional connection between us, to go back to pretending that this didn’t mean anything. But I couldn’t – Finn wouldn’t let me. And more importantly, I wouldn’t let myself.

With our eyes
mirroring thoughts neither of us had ever voiced, we let the world disappear and fell utterly into one other.

We
were covered in paint – a living, breathing form of art – entwined and breathless and caught up in each other. Spackled in blue from head to toe, a masterpiece of limbs, we lay tangled together on my floor and for a single moment in time, the individual creatures called Finn and Brooklyn ceased to exist. We simply weren’t
them
anymore – we were one form, one being, connected in the most primitive of dances. Our defenses obliterated in an elegant give and take, an equal exchange of breaths and caresses and thoughts and vulnerabilities, that would alter everything.

Afterward, we
stayed wrapped around each other without speaking – as if we both feared what might come next and didn’t quite know how to break the silence. It had been intimate – shockingly so. I’d never experienced anything like this before, so I didn’t really understand the protocol. Typically by this point, my clothes would be halfway back on and I’d be edging slowly toward the door, preparing for a swift departure and leaving no forwarding address in my wake. But for now, I just let Finn hold me in the circle of his arms and tried not to tense up or bolt.