Page 36 of Business or Pleasure

“I feel like it’s going to be all the fun ones.”

I give him a grin. “When I’m with someone, I don’t want to feel like I’m just a collection of body parts. And you might find that your partner really likes to be touched somewhere you didn’t know,” I say. “That’s the most important part. You have to take your cues from what they’re giving you. This”—I gesture between us—“doesn’t work if we’re not communicating.”

He grimaces. “You were trying to. That first night. And on paper, I get it. It’s just not always the easiest thing to do in the moment.”

“But always worth it,” I tell him. “I’m probably going to say this a hundred times, but the waiting builds up tension. I’m very rarely ready to just go all in right away, no matter how attracted I am to the person.”

He nods as he takes all of this in. “All right,” he says, with this chipper readiness that somehow manages to send a shiver up my spine when he utters his next sentence: “I’m going to figure out what you like.”

He leans forward, but instead of kissing me, which I’m expecting him to do, he presses his mouth to my forehead. “How’s that?”

“Sweet. Very sweet.”

A kiss to my cheek. “This?”

“Are you just going to try every—”

I break off as his lips slide along my neck, a thumb tracing the shell of my ear, dragging out a shallow breath. Oh. Now the shiver is a full-on quake, and I can feel him grinning against my skin before he draws my earlobe into his mouth, tongue flicking the gold stud that I rarely take out.

Then he does something I’m not at all expecting, although I’m starting to think that with Finn, I should drop my expectations completely—he scrapes his teeth along the rim of my ear, sending a bolt of pleasure down my spine and straight to my core.

And I fucking moan.

“Well,” he whispers into my ear, right before he does it again, “that’s a nice surprise.”

I clutch at him, trying to get closer, both wanting him to keep going and somehow, inexplicably, wishing he’d try something else because it’s almost too good. There’s no awkwardness, just the heat and scent of him and a lovely, fuzzy feeling of weightlessness.

Slowly, blessedly, he explores some more, giving me a chance to catch my breath. He trails his fingertips up and down my spine, across my shoulder blades, keeping everything above my T-shirt. When he accidentally grazes my ass, he whispers “sorry” and returns his attention to my back. I close my eyes and lean into his touch. It’s been ages since I had anyone explore me like this: zero sense of urgency, just a quiet curiosity as he learns what I like.

His eyes snap to mine as he reaches for one of my hands. He brings it to his mouth, stamping a kiss to the inside of my wrist. Then the other. His movements are so delicate, drawn-out seconds punctuated by a strange tenderness that somehow manages to steal my breath.

“You’re... really great at following directions,” I say, because it’s true. Maybe Finn will be a fast learner, and we’ll be done with this before I finish writing the book.

“I’ve had a director say that once or twice.” He readjusts on the bed, bending down to brush his mouth along my bare knees.

“Ahhh,” I say, laughing, trying to pull them up onto the bed.

“Ticklish?”

“No.”

Eventually, he makes it back to my mouth as I reposition myself on top of him, legs on either side of his hips. His shorts do exactly nothing to hide his arousal, and the first time I push against him, I swear it’s an accident.

“Is that okay?” he asks, as though worried he was the one who initiated it. He runs a hand up my back, tracing the strap of my tank top.

It wasn’t in the outline for today, but...

I move his hands to my hips, telling him yes with another forward motion, the friction dragging a groan from my throat that he meets with one of his own. God bless gym shorts.

We alternate control; sometimes he guides me and sometimes I take the lead, grinding against his hard-on until he clutches me tighter and tighter, one hand at the nape of my neck and the other on the small of my back. Everything I’m wearing is damp, sweaty, but neither of us cares.

“See?” I pant out. “Look how much fun we can have without taking any of our clothes off.”

From the half-lidded contentedness on his face, hair askew and cheeks flushed, it’s obvious he’s enjoying this, too. “The way you cried out when I was inside you,” he says, mouth on my collarbone. “Back in Seattle. I can’t wait to make you do that for real.”

An ache settles low in my stomach. I’m about to tell him that maybe we won’t need that dirty-talk lesson at all, and I can’t help wondering what might have happened if he’d done these things that first night we were together.

Except this isn’t a rewrite.

---