Three
Beah felt Finn roll out of the bed, and as soon as the bathroom door closed behind him, she left his bed and looked around for her clothes. Not finding her dress or her underwear—clothes had flown as soon as she’d stepped into his massive luxurious suite—she pulled Finn’s black shirt over her head, grateful when the tails hit her knees. Picking up a glass of water off his nightstand, she tipped the glass against her lips and allowed the water to slide down her parched throat.
She’d kill for some coffee. Beah pushed her curls back from her forehead, wincing as she remembered how Finn had pulled her pins from her hair, wrapping his hands in her out-of-control curls. Beah knew most of her makeup had either been kissed or rubbed off and her freckles would be on full display, making her look like the young woman she’d once been, instead of the woman she was now.
Her makeup and hair were shields, some of the many she kept up as barriers between her and the world. And she’d keep them up. She wouldn’t let a hard-bodied, superbly-talented-at-making-her-scream man sneak through her defenses again. She’d worked too hard to transform herself, to become financially and emotionally independent. She couldn’t allow herself to slide back. Finn had taught her that the only person she could trust, the only person she could rely on, was herself.
No, she needed to make it clear to him this was only about sex. They’d shared a night exploring each other’s bodies and that’s as far as they could ever go.
They had chemistry, not a connection.
As the door to the bathroom opened, Beah reached up to scoop her long hair off her back. She wished she had some pins or a band, but having neither, she twisted it into a messy knot, thinking anything was better than looking like a wild Irish waif.
Conscious of Finn’s eyes on the tops of her thighs, Beah dropped her arms and the shirt fell a couple of inches. Trying to act cool, like having soul-shattering sex was something she was accustomed to, Beah rocked on her feet. She needed to say something clever or, at the very least, utter a casual greeting but...man.
How could anyone act casual when she was confronted by six feet three inches of sculpted muscle? Beah allowed her eyes to dance over his ridged stomach, across his chest lightly covered with blond hair, over those huge arms. He didn’t have an inch of fat on him and, if possible, was stronger and fitter than he’d been in his midtwenties. His narrow hips were covered by a white towel and Beah lifted her fingers to her mouth to check she wasn’t drooling.
Shake it off, sunshine.
He wasn’t perfect; he never had been. He was aloof and distant and while he was supersmart, his communication skills needed work. A lot of work...
Finn walked over to the bedside table and picked up the phone. Beah stared at his bare back, heard him order coffee and thanked God one of them had their priorities straight. A shower, a quick cup of coffee and she was out of here.
Finn replaced the phone in its cradle and turned to face her. He gestured to the bed, and his green eyes, mysterious and unfathomable, pinned her to the floor. “That was...”
It wasn’t like Finn to look for words. “Fun? Interesting? A mistake?” Beah attempted to fill in the blanks.
Finn folded his arms across his chest. “One and two. A mistake? Not if we don’t want it to be.”
Finn was a master of speaking in riddles. “Meaning?” Beah snapped.
“It only becomes a mistake if we allow it to be one,” Finn slowly responded. “In my head, it was a great night spent with a woman I once adored.”
Adored, not loved. Hearing him speak about his feelings in the past tense shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. Beah straightened her shoulders, more annoyed with herself than she was with him. They’d been divorced for so long, but he still could prick at her. It was ridiculous. She was ridiculous.
Finn glanced at the door and then back at her. He gestured to the vacant bathroom behind her. “Would you like to take a shower? I’ll find your clothes while I’m waiting for room service.”
Oh, it was obvious he couldn’t wait for her to leave, that while he loved her body, he wasn’t keen on her company. It was fairly obvious not much had changed in a decade.
But she wouldn’t let him see even a hint of discomfort. She would not make this out to be anything more than a night of shared pleasure. “A shower sounds great, and I’ll have a quick cup of coffee. I still have to get home before making it to Paris’s house by nine.”
“I can handle Paris if you want to skip the meeting.”
Oh hell no. She’d been trying to get her foot into the door with Paris Cummings for years now and she wouldn’t let Finn do her job for her. She would join Finn at the meeting and she’d get Paris to sign an official Murphy International document and she would add another collector to her already impressive client base.
And when she saw Finn again, nobody would suspect he’d licked her from tip to toe, that they’d brought each other to orgasm after orgasm with startling regularity.
Nobody would suspect a damn thing.
Because it was one night, not her life.
“Take your time.”
Finn’s words jerked her back to the present and she nodded. Right, head on straight, Jenkinson. Be cool.
As she crossed over from the window to the bathroom door, she heard Finn’s phone ping with an incoming message. Hers probably had a dozen emails and another dozen messages, all from clients needing advice, wanting to sell or needing to buy.
Shutting the door behind her, Beah resisted the impulse to find her phone, to see what she’d missed. Fifteen minutes wouldn’t make a difference. She was allowed a little time to enjoy this luxurious shower and the upmarket lotions and potions the hotel provided its guests.