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  “Oh. My. God,” I whispered.

  “G spot,” he whispered back.

  “I know what it is. I didn’t know I had one. Why didn’t you do this last night?”

  “Would you have stayed?”

  “Forever.”

  “It doesn’t always work. Not always easy to find. Lots of things affect it.”

  “It’s working now.”

  “Yeah, if we do circus tricks every time, we should be good.” His voice sounded a little strained. His elbows were back on the table, his hips slightly in the air, holding me up.

  “Don’t stop,” was all I could say.

  He helped me move just the way I wanted, my head sometimes dropping forward so our foreheads touched, sometimes flung back by a wave of pleasure so hard my hair trailed down my back and he could grab it with the hands he had cupped around my bottom. My gasps and cries were coming more stuttered, more breathless, until I froze and whispered, “I’m going to come.”

  He brought our mouths real close together and looked me dead in the eye. “If you ever walk out on me again, Janey, I’m not coming after you.”

  “Now?” I moaned. “You tell me this now?”

  “It’s important.”

  “It’s blackmail,” I whispered.

  “Yep.” His voice was rough, and I was helpless.

  I couldn’t stop. I was a machine of getting fucked. I buried my face in his shoulder and cried as undulations of fire rocked through my body, and he didn’t stop, he kept me going, harder, deeper, lifting his hips and pushing my body mercilessly, head to toe, pushing my limits, testing my fears, exposing my desires. Finn made me come for the sun and the blue sky and him, my body wide open, my legs dangling off the edge of a picnic bench, my body totally undiscovered territory.

  He kissed me for a long time after, first hot and hard, then soft, until I came back down. First to the table, then, when I was ready, he helped me to stand. Always the gentleman, he walked around me in a circle, smoothing down my skirt.

  “Well,” I said. As the first word after all that, it was unimpressive.

  Everything about him bespoke masculine pride, from his lopsided grin to the way his head was tipped back, to the blue eyes laughing across at me. It was well-earned. I’d let him have it.

  “So, Janey Mac.”

  I cleared my throat. “Yes, Finn Dante?”

  “You coming over tonight?”

  I didn’t hesitate even a second. “Yes. Absolutely.”

  And then I’d fly out tomorrow night. But I didn’t mention that right now. Because I was really, really good at avoiding pain. I just kept walking. I never looked back.

  He put an arm around my back and dropped a kiss on my mouth. “I’ll be there around six.”

  Less than eight hours to go till the next magic show.

  “Let yourself in if I’m not there,” he said. “Max won’t be there.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “Max?”

  He smiled. “My dog.”

  I smiled back. Big. “You have a dog?”

  “You like my dog, and you haven’t even met him.”

  “I like dogs.”

  “Me too.”

  “See you at six.”

  I walked out of the little hedge-lined corridor of grass first, leaving Finn to come out later, after a discreet pause, and examine circuit breakers or electrical-current capacity or whatever other thing he was here to do. The grass was cool and soft underfoot, still dewy in some spots. It was springy and pleasant if you weren’t wearing three-inch heels. The grass was nice, actually. My heels were less so.

  Wait. I loved my heels. I hated grass.

  Right?

  I actually didn’t really care right now what I loved and hated. I floated above it all, smiling, pulling my hair back into its tie as I crossed the lawn. I circled the pavilion and saw Mrs. Lovey through the window, on the phone. I reached the door and swung it open.

  Peter J. stepped out.

  I stopped smiling.

  “Jane,” he said slowly, nodding. “Glad you made it. Did you just arrive?”

  “No, sir, I was just over there.” I swung my hand in the general direction of east. Away from the pavilion and the corridor of grass and the picnic table.

  He glanced where I’d waved, then nodded. “Phone working again?”

  “Yes, thanks.” I debated trying to scoot around him, but he wasn’t looking too scootable.

  “Good, good. And the new electrical panel? What have you decided?”

  I narrowed my eyes slightly. “Mr. Dante is managing that.”

  “Is he?” Something mean was in his eye. “He’s managing a lot of things, isn’t he?”

  He hadn’t seen us, I knew that, or else the energy coming at me right now would have been a lot weirder. And worse. But Peter J. was suspicious, that was for sure. I lifted my chin a fraction.

  “I don’t know what you mean, sir. I need to see your wife, so if you’ll excuse me.”

  He took a step forward, which made me back me up, a little rerun of our past encounters. We kept backing each other up. He and I were like dogs in a ring. Except his bite would hurt a lot more.

  A movement out of the corner of my eye made us both turn. Finn stood there, dark and tall and scruffy. You couldn’t tell where his sunglasses were aimed, but you knew that might be vital information, whether or not he was zeroing in on you.

  “Ms. MacInnee?” he said, real low. “Can I see you for a second?”

  Mr. Peter J. backed up fast. I nodded, astonished by how shaky I felt, and skirted around him to walk to Finn.

  He escorted me directly to my car. “Can you work from somewhere else today?” he asked.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I mean, for some of the calls I have to make, yes, but I have to come back later for a meeting with the caterer, and—”

  “Do it. Leave. He’ll leave for work soon and won’t be here when you get back.”

  Our eyes met. I gave him a weak smile. “Good idea.”

  “Yeah, I’m filled with them.” He ran the back of his knuckles over my cheek. “Want me to make him stop?”

  I pictured all the ways Finn would do that. “No, Finn. God no.” How could I ever explain “Lover Assaults Overly Amorous Client” on my resume?

  I put my hand on his arm. “I’ll talk to Mrs. Lovey and leave. Then you leave. Then I come back when he leaves. And we never have sex in their backyard again. I think that’ll solve the problem.”

  He leaned down to kiss me. “I don’t have a problem. If you need him to have one, let me know.”

  He strode back to the pavilion, and I watched him walk away. I might have sighed. Dummy. Then I glanced toward the house and saw Mr. Peter J. watching me through the bay window.

  I lifted my chin and turned away, feeling oddly unafraid. I guess it was good to know someone had your back.

  No one had ever had my back.

  I went to find Mrs. Lovey to set up a time to meet with the caterer. And at the end of the day, I did something I’d never done for anyone before.

  I bought a roasting chicken for Finn.

  And a steak for Max.

  Ten

  ~ Finn ~

  I SAW JANE from a distance of five hundred yards as I drove up the road to my house. She might as well have been glowing. She smiled when she saw my dust.

  I could tell she smiled, even from five hundred yards away, because I didn’t need to see it. Seeing was for chumps. I didn’t need to see her smile. I could feel it.

  I pulled up behind her car and killed the motor. She was looking good in jeans and a little white shirt, her hair pulled back, sandals on, toenails painted some funky shimmering color, holding something huge in her arms.

  She smiled and lifted the bundle. It was baby shaped.

  A shot of fear went through me. No. No, it took nine months.

  “Chicken!” she called out happily, lifting it a little higher.

  Me? The fear edged to panic. No, it. She meant it was a chicken
.

  I swung out of the truck, and when she walked over with the chicken for me to admire, I did so dutifully. “It’s beautiful.”

  She beamed at me. “I know. It’s free range.”

  I examined the paper wrappings. “Not anymore.”

  She laughed and peered over my shoulder into the truck. “Where’s Max?”

  “A friend’s bringing him by in the morning.”

  “You lend your dog to your friends?”

  “When they need something rescued or sniffed out, I do.”

  She smiled at that. “Wow. Good dog.”

  “Yeah, good dog.”

  We got done grinning at each other and she dumped the chicken into my arms and turned to the house.

  “I was going to order a pizza,” I said, balancing the chicken a bit awkwardly.

  “Oh, no, no, no. Not tonight.” She started to reach for one of the grocery bags that sat piled three deep on my small porch.

  I pulled her back to me by her elbow, up against my stomach, the chicken between us. I lowered my mouth to hers. “Did you miss me?”

  She breathed against my lips. “Yes.”

  “Did you think about me?”

  “All day. I mean, no, not much at all.”

  I laughed and she hopped up into the air and hooked one of her sandaled heels around the small of my back. I grunted and caught her with my free arm. The chicken was getting squashed between us.

  “Girl, it’s you or the chicken. I can’t do both.”

  “Well, you don’t want to miss out on my chicken.” She kissed me, then dropped to the ground.

  We carried about four hundred grocery bags inside and a bag of her items that she’d picked up from her hotel. I directed her to the important things—fridge, cabinets, all of which she could have found on her own. Then, seeing as I was of no help at all, I relaxed while she began preparations for the invasion.

  I sat on one of the stools at the kitchen counter, a beer in hand, and watched the performance. She was like some kind of demon. The fast-moving, dangerous kind. The spread-flour-everywhere kind. She was magnificent and competent and terrifying. She needed a chef’s hat. I had no idea how it was going to taste, of course, but it looked like a lot of effort for a fucking chicken.

  “It’s all in the sauce,” she explained.

  “You love this,” I said, gesturing to the crowded counter of food and bowls and cutting boards.

  She looked up. Evening sun slanted through the windows and made her glow in shades of red and yellow. “Yeah, I love it.”

  Janey looked good in my kitchen.

  She made me a drink, handed over something that had been muddled and blended and well-iced. It was pink.

  I sipped it, nodded, and set it down. “Girls will like it.”

  Her face looked smug. “You like it.”

  I half shrugged. “It’s good.”

  Her face fell. “You don’t like it.”

  I went around and kissed the top of her head. “I love it. It’s fucking icy, and it tastes like an orchard. I want to have sex in it.”

  She slung her arms around my shoulders and grinned. “Careful with that, it’s prickly pear.”

  “Or maybe not the sex.”

  She laughed. “I’ll make you something beer-y. Or whisky-y.”

  My gaze drifted over her shoulder to the counters piled high with prey from her shopping trip, then I reached around her and picked up an unfamiliar knife off the countertop. “Yours?”

  Her face flushed slightly. “Yes.”

  “You travel with knives?”

  “I don’t travel with them. I bought it this afternoon. I didn’t know what you had on hand.”

  “A knife? You didn’t think I had a knife here at the house?”

  “It’s not a knife,” she explained loftily. “It’s a Kyocera. Ceramic. Very nice.”

  “Very expensive?”

  The guilty flush on her cheeks expanded. “Well, sort of.”

  I turned it over, examining it. “Why’d you buy it?”

  “May I have it back? Before you break it.”

  I handed it over. “It’s a knife, Jane.”

  “It’s ceramic.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. “You bought a breakable ceramic knife to cut vegetables for dinner tonight,” I said, working it through aloud.

  She hesitated, then looked down and set to chopping. “What can I say, I love to cook.”

  “That’s good,” I said in a highly skeptical tone, because that didn’t actually explain anything.

  She started whacking away at a stalk of celery. “It’s a weakness. I see kitchen equipment, I have to get it.”

  “Okay.” I watched her. Her head was bent. Her face was tense. “We’ve all got weaknesses,” I said slowly. “If yours is knives, we can deal.” I glanced back at the knife. “I think.”

  She smiled a little and lifted her head. “I actually have a lot more knives than I need.”

  “You probably shouldn’t be telling me this.”

  She laughed, and her body started to relax.

  Because the way I saw it was, if Jane needed knives or blenders or colanders to be okay, who the fuck cared? Some people needed meth or liked to open fire on crowds of innocent people. If Janey wanted kitchen things, it was hard to see how the world would suffer.

  Except for the knives, I thought, my gaze scanning the way she held the blade in her hand, so competently and casually. The knives were a little scary.

  Maybe we’d talk about the knives sometime.

  ~ Jane ~

  I FELT FINN’S energy, which was a little grim, but very accepting, and he kept eyeing the knife. This might have to be explained a little better.

  I took a breath. “It’s not just the knives. It’s everything,” I said, admission style, my head down, my eyes focused on the chopping. “I have way more stuff than I could ever use, even if I was home to cook, which I hardly ever am. But I do love it,” I added, thinking fondly of all my friendly blenders and sturdy garlic presses and stainless steel kitchen shears, sitting in my glistening, barely used apartment. Some people would call it a home, but I was there so little, it was really more of a storage unit. For all my pretty kitchen toys.

  But something happened when I bought stuff for the kitchen. I felt…safer.

  Probably it was knowing my house was well-stocked to become a home, should the situation ever arise.

  “I should probably stop buying stuff,” I admitted, glancing around at the mountain of purchases I’d made.

  “You should not.” The grimness in his voice made me tip my head up. “You absolutely should not stop.” He picked up a set of measuring spoons, still in their plastic tie. They were rectangular, with sloping sides, made of stainless steel.

  “These are nice,” he said in a friendly way.

  I laughed again and took them away. “You don’t have to compliment the measuring spoons, Finn.” I set them down. “Although they are top-notch.”

  He sat back, clearly satisfied to have top-notch measuring spoons in his house. “So what are we having to eat?”

  “Okay, well, that’s a long story.”

  The corners of his mouth curved up. “Figured.” He cracked open another beer.

  I started on the other veggies, the knife moving through them like butter. Yes, the Kyocera was an extravagant one-trick pony—you couldn’t use it to smash a garlic clove—but it was a pretty awesome trick. As I worked, I explained the complicated nature of my chicken to Finn. He mostly looked tolerant. I ended with the finale, “Wrapped in bacon.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  “So,” I said, reaching for a brown grocery bag, “if you want to fire up the grill, I’ll marinate some veggies, and we can grill them.”

  “Sure.”

  “Here.” I handed him the bag. “Wash and prep.”

  He took it and peeked inside. “This is broccoli.”

  “Not a fan of broccoli?”

  He pursed his lips. “Not usually.
”

  I went back to chopping. “You’ve never had my broccoli, Finn. Prepare to be amazed.”

  He got up and went to the sink, perfectly content to have me amaze him.

  We had a companionable silence, during which I chopped and Finn drank, then started the grill. He came back in and watched me awhile longer.

  “Well, I don’t know if I could get you sweatier,” he finally observed aloud, “but I could make sure you had more fun. And with some of the same stuff,” he added.

  “Who said I’m not having fun?” I asked as a tendril of sweat trickled down my temple. I brushed it away with the back of my hand. “I love this.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the chaos.”

  I lifted my head and stared at him. “What do you mean, ‘with the same stuff’?”

  He gestured to the countertop piled with innocent, healthy vegetables that, after all, I’d brought. I snorted and resumed cutting. “Hardly.”

  “Definitely.”

  I straightened, the knife in my hand. “You would use carrots?” I was incredulous. “With us?”

  “Well, I could. If you wanted. Worth a try.”

  “A try— If I want…?” I looked at the vegetables in horror. “Celery? And the…not the broccoli.”

  He grinned and pointed with his beer. “You’re scared. That’s okay.”

  I stilled. “I am not scared.”

  “Mm. You seem it.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I just don’t think celery seems comfortable.”

  He laughed. “I have no affinity with the celery. I wasn’t even thinking of celery. Pick whatever you want.”

  I slid my gaze up, then looked over my shoulder with deep suspicion at the pile of foods. Dusty-brown ginger root, pale green celery, ripe red strawberries. I sniffed.

  “Strawberries. You’re probably thinking strawberries. How predictable,” I said, my disdain lofty, and went back to my complicated celery work.

  “I’m never predictable, Jane.”

  I stared down at the julienned celery. No, Finn hadn’t been predictable, not for five seconds. Oh, he was easy-going and laid back, so you could misunderstand him. Misattribute him. Underestimate him. But Finn was volcanic, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t just in bed.