Page 40 of Hearts Adrift
“P-Please…” he groans.
Is he begging me to stop? Or begging me not to?
I reach around and pull his shirt off over his head, both freeing myself and Finn from its confines, flinging it aside. His hands weave through my hair and grab hold, keeping my face pinned to his nipple, now without the shirt. Guess I gave him a taste and he wants more. I continue to lap and tongue hisnipple all over—a pet to a bowl of his favorite food, incapable of consuming enough. The more I squeeze his ass, the deeper he presses into my lap, thrusting against me. Both of us are so hard, it’s starting to ache.
He pulls on my hair—an unexpected act that tugs my head back—and his mouth dives onto mine again. The lack of speaking between us as we grapple with one another’s bodies tells me no words are needed. He wants everything I’m doing to him. I want everything he’s doing to me.
We trust each other. Something I haven’t been able to say so easily about anyone in years.
How amazing it feels, to realize how safe I am when I’m with Finn.
He stops mid-kiss, out of breath. “Sorry.”
“Sorry?” I gasp. “What for?”
“I’m … I’m losing myself with you. This isn’t … This isn’t professional. Or right.”
“Professional? Right?” I laugh. “Since when have we cared about professional or ‘right’?”
“Someone could still find us. This isn’t a private beach, technically, and—”
“I know, but …” I wonder if there’s another reason he stopped. Is he panicking? Is this too much too fast? “We … We can slow down, Finn. We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.”
“Oh, I want to do things,” he says. “I want to do many things. To you. On you. With you.” He glances off up the coast at the trees and dirt path leading back, as if he sees something. “I’m just afraid if … if someone finds us …”
“I shouldn’t have sought you out at the Fair,” I blurt.
He looks at me. “What?”
“I’ve risked dragging you into this. So selfish of me, to do that to you and your family.”
“No, no,” he quickly says, hushing me. “Nothing has happened. No one knows. You’ve not done anything, don’t worry. I’m more concerned about you, and …” He rethinks it. “Well, I guess it maybe wouldn’t be good for either of us if someone saw me. Everyone on the island knows me. Even several of our recurring visitors at the Fair. Dots can be connected. Just one measly post online could lead to … well … I guess we’rebothkinda playing with fire here.”
“We can stop if you want to.”
He gazes into my eyes.
I return his gaze, lost in the warmth of his face.
The next instant, he presses me back against the sand, and our lips crash together like they’d never separated. We forget the world and all the concerns we just dug up as our bodies entwine on this secluded, crime-scene beach.
We’re the crime.
He abruptly stops again and sits up, straddling my hips. “And no, we donothave to slow down.” I wonder if he’s been thinking about it this whole time. “All I’ve known is slow. For years and years. So slow that I feel like I’ve been stopped. Stuck.Trapped. I don’t want to know that feeling anymore.” I just noticed that he’s undoing his shorts.Wait, what?“If you want this as badly as I do—and I really hope you do, I hope I haven’t been misreading all of this—I am really,reallyready to give it up to you right now, right here, right on this beach, you, me, the waves, and none of the noise of our lives.”
None of the noise of our lives.
It only just now seems to fully set in that Finn is trying to get away from his own noise. His own life. Maybe even things I don’t know about, spinning out of his control.
We both escaped here to this beach.
He stops fumbling with his shorts. “Oh … I don’t have a condom. Or lube. Or literally anything.”He needs more than acondom and lube?“I’m so used to doing it with the same guy for so long, we never needed protection, and—”
There’s a noise from the woods—skittering, scurrying, crunching of branches.
Finn and I look, both having heard it. No one’s there.
But it always feels like someone is.
