One for the Money

He kisses a line along the inside of my thigh, and I whimper. No. No. Yes.

I’m standing with one foot on the floor of the gazebo, the other on the bench. Completely exposed to his hands. His mouth. He presses a hard, open kiss to my pussy, and I sob. It’s like crash landing on earth after fearing you’d never come home. It’s pain and relief together. My hips rock in an ancient motion, riding his tongue.

He builds me up to the breaking point and then stops.

It’s cruel.

“Please, Finn.”

“You beg so pretty,” he says, his voice low. “Do it again.”

“Please make me come,” I say, desperate, my voice echoing off the water.

His tongue circles my clit, and I come with violent shudders and hoarse cries. I would fall to the ground if he didn’t hold me up. He moves my body as if I weigh nothing. He turns me around so I’m facing the bench. Blindly I reach out and hold the railing. Wood grain imprints onto my skin. He lifts my hips until I’m standing. I hear behind me the tear of a condom wrapper. Even now he’s safe. We won’t lose our minds again. Even in the middle of a hurricane, we’re protected. Then he plunges inside me, and I cry out.

“Yes. More. Please.”

“That’s right,” he says in a growl. “Eva Morelli, who handles everything and everyone. Eva Morelli, the queen of goddamn Bishop’s Landing. And here you are getting railed. You love it, don’t you? My cock inside you? Your pussy’s sucking me like a goddamn mouth.”

I whimper. “Finn.”

“You know who makes you feel this good. It’s me, isn’t it? It’s always me.”

Then he comes, his fingers tightening painfully on my hips, a roar behind me. The pulse of his cock inside me pushes me over the edge, and I cry out, free falling, even as I cling to the gazebo’s railing, losing myself in the rapture that shouldn’t be real.

Chapter Twenty-One

Finn

I’ve slept with Eva in her bed plenty of times, though I don’t linger. I usually head home when the first rays of summer sun peek over the skyscrapers so I can be home before Hemingway wakes up. I’ve never woken up with her here, though.

And somehow, it feels more real.

Visiting her loft is like being a tourist in a beautiful foreign country. I could enjoy my time and then return, leaving it behind. This is in the same house where I’ve lived my entire life.

The same house where I plan to die.

I pull her closer as if it can keep time from taking her away. She’ll go either way. That much I’m sure about. I can keep this fake now, and she’ll walk away. Or I can wait until the bitter end.

I can make her feed me and bathe me. I can make her a shell of her former self, and then, only to save what’s left of herself, would she finally leave.

Actually, seeing how she is with her family, she wouldn’t even leave then.

I’d take her down with me.

I would steal her future the same way the curse stole mine.

“Finally awake,” she says, her breath stirring the hair on my chest.

“How long have you been up?”

“Not a long time, but I didn’t want to move. This felt too good.” She moves to get up, pulling away from me before I can stop her. “Though I can get out of here, if you want. Before Hemingway sees me.”

“No, I—” I sit up, capturing her hand. “I told him about us. I told him it’s not real.”

Some emotion crosses her face, but it’s gone before I can grab it.

“He found out about the engagement on Instagram somehow.” Embarrassment flickers through me. I’m the one who made the lie, but I couldn’t even follow through. “He’s had an unsteady family life. I didn’t want him to think I’d really have gotten engaged without him having met you.”

A flush touches her cheek. She’s turned away from me, so I can only see the expanse of her back, the slender column of her arm, the dark tip of her breast. Her black hair spills around her like a veil, shielding her.

But I can see it anyway, despite her hair and her poise.

I’m hurting her.

Every time I say that our relationship is fake or that our engagement is pretend, it hurts her. She always looks away so I can’t see it in her eyes, but I see it now. It’s in the angle of her head, the heaviness of her heart. I was worried about hurting her in some distant future, but it’s happening right now. It’s already here.

“We’re a hashtag,” she says.

“A what?” I ask blankly, still stunned from my realization.

“It’s a mashup of our names. #Finneva.”

“Christ.”

“There’s also a TikTok sound.”

“Listen, Eva. I know I’m the one who sprung this engagement on you. And the one who came up with the whole idea of fake dating in the first place. And I want you to know that—”