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Her head rested on his chest. They were both still catching their breaths. He held her tight, and she felt his lips on her hair.
“What are you doing for the rest of your life?” Finn’s voice vibrated inside her body.
Her heart skipped at least one beat. Did he guess what she felt as she listened to his heartbeats—that she would never want to be without his embrace?
Though it’d been four years from that night at the club, from the moment she turned around at Life’s A Beach and saw him, it was as if no time had passed, as if years were bridged over from that kiss to the hug they shared while her smoothie was being made. And the next twenty-four hours squeezed years into them. They had their own language, inside jokes, references, history. Their kiss on the beach had sealed it for her. Though it defied every logic, she knew beyond a doubt that she was in love with Finn Brennen.
If failing in San Francisco and coming home meant this—this man and the way he made her feel—then it was well worth it. All she hoped for right now, when she was still wrapped tightly in his arms and filled with his scent, his touch, his semen, was that he had meant at least part of the “God, I love you,” he had blurted earlier at the gallery. She didn’t want to be just a torn page or a chapter in his book, especially not when she knew that, given the chance, he could make up all the chapters in hers.
What would she do for the rest of her life? She lifted her head, and just to be on the safe side, in case it was something he meant as a joke, she looked into his eyes and said, “You.”
His laughter surprised her.
He pulled her up so that her face was at level with his and kissed her. He then looked at her, and in the deep blue, she saw he meant every word when he said, “Great, because that’s what I want you to do.”
When he flipped her over and sank into her again, he stilled inside her, caressed her hairline, and skimmed his eyes over her face. “Jane,” he said. One word, her old name, but she knew he was claiming her for himself with it, cementing her as his own. There was nothing she wanted more.
They didn’t leave her house for three days. They hardly left her bed. Even when they did, they found themselves fucking in her tiny shower or against a random wall, knocking down an easel and stumbling over scattered paint tubes, brushes, and cloths.
She excused herself from going to the bakery, telling her mother over the phone that she found a gallery to exhibit in and had to paint.
“Are you always like that?” he asked in one of those times, panting in her ear, hugging her from behind, still inside her as she was bent over the back of the sofa, and he was bent over her, his chest pressed against her back.
“Like what?” She tried to catch her breath, still riding the aftershocks of another Finntastic orgasm.
“How many were there before me?” he half-whispered in her ear, still gripping her.
“Few.” She smiled, turning her head to the side so she could kiss him. “Very few.” She didn’t add that, even put together, the few men she had been with couldn’t match him. “You?”
“A few. Not one of them kisses or fucks like you,” he said right into her ear, and the aftershocks between her legs almost hurt from the vibration that his low rasp and words sent down her body.
“How?”
“Like it’s the end of the world and it’s your last time.” He gripped her jaw and turned her head toward him, kissing her as if they hadn’t just finished. “Like you want to make sure you’re still alive, and you want it just as you like it—hard and a bit rough.” He kissed her again, and she felt him hardening inside of her. But then he pulled out of her, and with his hand still around her waist, he straightened up with her and spun her in his arms to face him.
He grabbed under her thighs and lifted her, kissing her again. He might have aimed for the bedroom, but they found themselves in the kitchen. He set her on the counter and pushed into her just as soon.
She wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck, and they kissed as he moved inside her, gripping her hard and thrusting even harder.
“Fuck, Jane,” he groaned against her neck when she threw her head back. He cupped her breast with one hand while holding her tight against him with his other. He pushed the mound up into his mouth and sucked on the soft flesh and hardened nipple.
She gripped his neck and stabbed her fingers into his short hair.
They cupped each other’s faces in a forceful kiss until they had to breathe, together, as they came hard, gazes linked, lips a centimeter apart.
Finn’s pulsation inside her matched her own. He wrapped his arms around her torso and buried his face in her neck.
“I love you, Jane.” His voice against her neck was muffled, but the words were clear.
Finn pulled his head back and looked into her eyes. His were a misty ocean. “I love you,” he repeated.
They stood there, naked, him still inside her, as they held each other in the haven of her little house.
“I think I began a long time ago,” he added, caressing her cheek.
She nestled it further into his palm and kissed his wrist. “I love you, too, Finn. I never thought I’d get to tell you.”