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  “Right.” I was shaking.

  He kissed to where the buttons came together over my cleavage; then he pushed up off me and tugged me to a sitting position. “Sit here.”

  Bands of electricity tightened around my body. I was in a coil, a vise grip of excitement and fear. I sat there.

  He went into the kitchen and came back. With a ginger root, one nub of it peeled.

  “Slide forward,” he murmured.

  I did. “I’m scared,” I whispered.

  He knelt down in front of me. “You’re excited.”

  “Pretty sure I’m both.”

  “That’s the point, Janey. You focus on what there is to be scared of, instead of what there is to be excited about.”

  “I think you’re saying something important,” I said hoarsely, running my hand down his cheek. “But I can hardly hear you.”

  He gave a low rumble of something. I think it was a laugh, but his gaze was so hard and fierce and wild. If we weren’t doing what we were doing, I’d be scared if he looked at me like that.

  He pulled my food-stained shirt off and removed my skirt in quick, competent moves. The ginger root sat beside me on the couch, gleaming golden. I felt like I should scoot over for it.

  He leaned to me and kissed my mouth; then, much as I was liking that, he started moving down my body. “There are lots of things that are very similar,” he said as he went down the center of me. “Different states of mind and emotion that seem like they’d be total opposites, but they’re not.”

  “Right,” I said, shaking.

  “Like fear and excitement.”

  “You got that.”

  He pushed my knees apart. “Pleasure and pain.”

  “Jesus,” I whispered.

  He lowered his face to everything that was wet in me and reached for the ginger. I loosed a hot exhale and watched him slide it across my abdomen, while lower down, his mouth finally moved down between my thighs and deep into my pussy. The breath shot out of me. I parted my legs, and his tongue worked me, slow and confident, until, as tense as I was, my eyes began to close and my head dropped back.

  He slid the cool, golden ginger root up my inner thigh. My eyes popped open.

  “I’m going to put this inside you,” he murmured.

  I was hyperventilating. “Right. That’s what I was thinking.” God I was an idiot.

  He smiled and slid the ginger through all my wetness, up to my clitoris, gently dancing over, then down through every wet fold. He followed after it with his tongue. “That tastes good,” he said, his voice rough.

  “Finn, fuck.” I whispered the little chant.

  His dark eyes lifted from his work. “Do I stop?”

  “You do not.”

  “Are you scared?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I don’t stop?” he confirmed again.

  “Stop asking, or I might say yes.”

  “I’m just making sure.”

  “I know what you’re doing.”

  If he wasn’t so into me, I’d be scared if he looked at me like this. He moved the ginger up against my opening, rubbed it up and down. “I’m going to put it inside you, Janey.”

  “I thought maybe,” I whispered, because that was insane, and I was into insane right now. I felt like I was on another plane of existence, being concurrently pushed out on a cliff by Finn and held by him.

  “But not here.” He swirled it around my wetness some more, slippery and hard. “Because when ginger is inside you, it burns if you put pressure on it, and we don’t want that here.” He tenderly kissed me, then slid the ginger root down farther, between my legs, to the back of me, and slid it up between my bottom cheeks.

  “Oh. My. God,” I whispered.

  “Here’s where I’m going to put it.” He pushed it up between my cheeks, then farther, up inside me a little, with slow, firm pressure. My body bucked up off the couch. I gave a gasping cry.

  He straightened on his knees, stretched up over my body, his chest over mine, while his hand was still down low, at my bottom, holding things in place. He pushed it up a little farther, just nudging it up inside me.

  “Fuck,” I whispered, frozen.

  “Okay?” His voice was hard heat. His body was tense.

  I gasped. “Okay.”

  “Now, baby, if you squeeze, you’re going to feel it.” Our eyes were locked. “Squeeze.”

  I did. Stinging, burning, hard, dangerous, fuck.

  The breath ripped out of me, swift and ragged as I stared into his eyes.

  He rose up on his knees and nudged my legs apart, making me tense, which made me squeeze, which made it burn, which was so fucking insane.

  “We’re going to leave that in you, and I’m going to fuck you.” He gripped his shaft with one hard hand, the head of his cock positioned to enter me. “Yeah?”

  “Fuck, yeah,” I gasped. Because who was I?

  He plunged into me with a hard shove and froze, his head thrown back, his jaw locked, his eyes closed.

  I screamed. In pleasure.

  “I’ll go slow,” he rasped.

  “Just go.” I wanted everything he had.

  He pulled back and moved into me, full pressure, long burn. Then he did it again, and again. Every thrust of Finn’s body jammed me front and back, filling me, burning me, getting off on me. My body shuddered and bucked. It took about two seconds for me to come. And I came forever.

  Finn’s gaze was locked down between our bodies, watching his cock move in and out of me while I came. God, I loved when he did that. I loved when he hooked my knee over his forearm and fucked me straight to the wall. I loved how into us he was, how much he loved being inside me.

  God, I loved dirty sex.

  “I FEEL LIKE you had a point, way back there at the beginning,” I said in bed later, tired and curled as close to him as I could be without actually crawling inside him.

  “Being afraid isn’t the end of the world,” he said flatly.

  I lifted my exhausted, heavy head and looked over. He was lying on his back, his palms crossed behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. I couldn’t see his eyes, but he had that remote, going-away feel. I didn’t like that.

  I pushed up on an elbow and looked down at him. He turned his head to me, but his eyes were distant, like he was only partly here.

  “You’re not talking about me, are you?” I asked quietly.

  “Probably not.”

  I toed the line erected by this noncommittal answer for a few seconds; then I stepped over it.

  “I don’t know what you’re scared of, Finn, but maybe I can help,” I said, but so quietly he didn’t have to hear me if he didn’t want.

  For a minute, I thought that was how it would go. Then he reached over and ran the backs of his fingers down my cheek.

  “I’m scared of snipers, unexploded bombs, and what you’re doing to me,” he said.

  The little fissures across the hard shell of my empty center trembled and I felt a huge welling up inside me, hot and shivery. Oh, I thought, as my eyes filled with tears, so I am not just a shell after all.

  I leaned up to kiss him, and he leaned down to kiss me, and we didn’t stop for a long time. In fact, we sort of fell asleep that way, breathing into each other, the conversation turning into a dream, that being afraid wasn’t the end of the world.

  Fourteen

  ~ Jane ~

  THE WORK WEEK dawned hot and bright, perfect weather to wrangle a caterer, find music, hire help, and get my body handed back to me on a platter by Finn every night.

  I never spent another night in the hotel room, but I had it, reserved in my name, a testament to my self-reliance and power, and that had to count for something more than just a significantly larger bill at checkout.

  Right?

  Under everything I did was Finn. Stressors on top, Finn underneath, so I felt like I was riding above it all. It made me feel kind of drugged, in a good way, but that was probably not a good thing in an event planner. Still, I
couldn’t help noticing that in dealing with the sometimes less-than-amiable conflicts between Katie the Caterer and Mrs. Lovey, I was a lot less…noisy. Perky.

  Annoying. I was a lot less annoying.

  And the problems got solved anyhow. Shocking.

  I had a sort of I-can-handle-that glow. Moreover, an Even-if-I can’t-it’ll-be-okay, because-I’m-going-to-be-with-Finn-tonight kind of glow.

  Calm and upended, that’s what Finn did to me.

  Apparently my relaxed, postcoital, drugged state was enough of a concern that Mrs. Lovey asked several times if the heat was too much and ought she turn up the air-conditioning? I smiled and said no.

  Then she asked if I was pregnant.

  That knocked me out of my dreamy state. I immediately got more perky and uptight, and she stopped eyeing me with that suspicious, concerned look. Understandable. No one wants their event planner to lose her maniacal edge two weeks before their big event.

  And when she saw I was still in the game, she brought up DC, and Mr. Peter J.’s multinational corporation and its various, far-flung event-planning needs. Turns out he was part of a lobbying group too, so there’d be Congressional events as well.

  I felt a little dizzy. As long as I stayed sufficiently perky and uptight, here it was, my ticket. I was going to make it.

  I handled shit that week. A lot of shit. I handled the shit out of shit that week. Katie the Caterer was amazing and knew it, therefore, she knew she didn’t have to take all these hassles with the Peter J.’s. Which was true. I convinced her to. I don’t know how; I offered nothing but a heartfelt plea. No promises, no lies, not even one of my special drinks. And somehow, it worked.

  Katie was a good woman.

  I managed landscapers, an ice sculptor, two of Olivia’s small and ineffectual moral stands, and one extremely randy valet company owner, whose valets, I’d heard, were also a pretty randy bunch.

  I briefly but earnestly considered starting an all-girls’ valet service.

  I hired two night-of staff members, based upon the recommendations of Katie. I met with them. They seemed responsible and unflappable, two essential traits in event help. I eyed them suspiciously while we talked, tossing in a string of non sequiturs, at one point gestured over their heads and said, “What, wait, is that…? A UFO?”

  They looked, sure, who wouldn’t? But neither of them so much as blinked.

  I am not a fan of blinking. I hired them on the spot.

  My assistant, Savannah, was taking care of our other, less map-y clients. We had alternate-day video calls set up to help manage this. I handled them on my laptop at the hotel, because it had wifi, unlike Finn’s place. Initially, the lack of wifi had been a concern. A big one.

  It stopped being one after I tallied up our time together and realized we were mostly having sex or cooking or watching raptors soar overhead or stars falling out of the sky. Any of those was better than what I’d found online.

  After a couple of days, the spotty phone reception stopped bothering me too.

  Still, I couldn’t drop out of the world entirely. Our summer-event season was hard in progress, and while this week was not too busy, all the weeks to come were. Savannah and I talked every other day, just to stay on top of the ever-morphing piles of to-do’s and near misses.

  I loved the near misses and to-do’s.

  Today we covered the basics, including what things I needed from home for the Sandler-Rosses’ event, including our favorite flair bartender, David, who we loved with a passion. Enough to ship out for the event. He cost dearly—we made sure of that—but Mrs. Lovey wanted “wow,” and of everyone, Lovey knew you had to pay for “wow.” It was one of her most endearing traits.

  Savannah and I were barely halfway through our mountain of last-minute items, running through them one by one. It’s not that Savannah couldn’t manage them. She could. In fact, she’d asked to. You might say she’d begged to. I just liked to, you know, be in complete control of everything.

  “So, the Jaspers were okay with the date change?” I asked, ticking things off a paper tally list and then on my computer too. If only I had a holographic calendar, I could project it everywhere I went, viewing people through small square boxes and checking them off when I was done with them and their issues.

  It sounded sort of horrible, if you thought about it. So I didn’t.

  The things you don’t think about define you.

  I didn’t think about that either.

  “Yes, Jane,” Savannah drawled in her Savannah way. “The Jaspers are good.”

  “And you know to keep the ex-Mrs. Jasper away from the current Mrs. Jasper, or there’s going to be trouble in the sandbox.”

  “I know.”

  I shifted my attention to a color sample Savannah had emailed over. “And they’re sure they want the royal blue this time? Not the peacock? Or the pea green?” Or any of the other three colors they’d previously selected and discarded for the table runners.

  “That’s what they say.”

  “Pin them down,” I said. “On paper. With an actual pin if you have to.”

  Savannah laughed, and we moved on.

  “And Missy Forner knows the dress order was pushed back two weeks because of the size change? And that’s a rush job, so she’s just going to have to hunker down and chew nails or something while she waits. Why don’t you teach her some breathing exercises?” I said, trying to muster some enthusiasm for teaching this spoiled bride-to-be how to calm the hell down so everyone else could do everything for her. “I’ll find some websites and send them over.” I filled it in both calendars with the to-do. “And tell her I’ll go pick the dress up myself if I have to and pin it on her skinny butt, but she needs to stay calm, because I will not let her burn you out.”

  Savannah nodded. “I’ve got the breathing exercises, Mac. And she can’t burn me out. I’m a superstar.”

  I smiled, but it didn’t spread to anywhere. The weight of the minutia could get to a girl if she let it.

  I looked at Savannah’s clear-complexioned brown face in my computer screen. “You know we’re babysitters, right?” I told her glumly. “Just a couple of babysitters.”

  She nodded. “You got that right. A couple of high-paid babysitters who banked six figures last year.”

  I laughed and shrugged off my odd mood just as a knock sounded at the door. Either Finn was early or I was late. I glanced at the clock. I was late.

  Damn. I’d wanted to avoid this, my clue-sniffing assistant being presented with evidence of the man I was having wild monkey sex with. It could only lead to trouble. For me.

  I excused myself and opened the door with an index finger pressed to my lips. Finn stood there, looking way more dressed up than usual, with his face shaved close and a white button-down shirt and real, honest-to-God slacks. He looked good. Real good.

  He leaned in and kissed the finger I had across my lips, then shut the door quietly after him.

  I sat back down at the computer. “Well, I guess we’re all done then,” I said in a bright, casual voice.

  “Done?” Savannah’s eyes narrowed. “Done? You’re done now? Who was that at the door?”

  I had every intention of saying no one. I opened my mouth to say no one. But I was looking at Finn and his blue eyes, and apparently I couldn’t lie when I was looking at his stupid blue eyes, so instead I said, “An old friend.”

  Savannah’s radar snapped on. “You met an old friend way out there? Jeez, what are the odds?”

  “I know,” I said quietly. “It’s like magic.”

  Nothing got by Savannah. A thousand miles away, she sat up straight. “Magic?”

  “No!” I said, snapping straighter too. “No, not magic magic, just…you know, unexpected.”

  “Mm-hmm. Girl, you better tell me everything.”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” I insisted, glancing at Finn, who was leaning his perfect ass back against the desk. Grinning. I looked back at the screen. “Nothing at all.”
/>   Savannah shook her head. “Oh, there’s something.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Lots.”

  “Nope.”

  “Is he good in bed?”

  I grabbed the sides of my laptop and leaned in real close to hiss at the screen, “Savannah, so help me God, I will get in my car right now and drive home and hunt you down with my shotgun.”

  Her smiling face beamed at me. “So he’s really good?”

  I almost sobbed. “He’s right here.”

  Her face got real bright, manically bright, and she sang out, “Hello, Old Friend.”

  I covered my eyes. Finn came and stood behind me, bending down to the screen. “Hey there,” he said, in his low, calm, all-I-have-to-do-is-talk-this-way-and-you’ll-have-to-fuck-me voice.

  Savannah’s grin got stupid. I knew because I was peeking out from between my fingers. “My name’s Savannah, honey, and I work with Jane, but I guess you already knew that.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Savannah. I’m Finn, and I sleep with Jane, but I guess you already knew that.”

  I groaned and my forehead thunked onto the desk.

  Savannah draped herself over her keyboard to get closer. “Finn? Finn Dante?”

  “Noooo,” I said miserably.

  Finn said, “You’ve heard of me?”

  Savannah said, “Honey, Jane told me a story about you that—”

  I slammed the laptop shut. The room got quiet. I kept my forehead down on the desk. My hot breaths filled the little cocoon of space, smelling of varnish and fake wood. “Can we not talk about this?” I mumbled.

  “Sure. Want to just forget it ever happened?” This would never, ever be forgotten.

  I lifted my head. “Okay, fine. I told one story about you. One.” I spun the chair and looked up at him.

  His grin was beautiful and awful to see. “Which one?”

  “The one about when your pants fell down on the playground in first grade.” I pushed past him and marched into the bathroom. Because I had a lot of stuff to do in here. Like stare at myself in the mirror.

  His laughter followed me in. “Yeah, you’ve always liked my ass.”

  “I’m going to kick your ass if you don’t stop laughing.”