Spin (11 page)

“
Finn,
” I whisper-gasped.

“What?”

“You…” I’d been going to say
can’t
.
You can’t.
I changed it to
shouldn’t
in my head, but
somehow, it came out as a question. “Should we?”

He grinned down at me. “I thought you were
in, Janey Mac.”

I’m pretty sure that was a challenge.

My entire career was predicated on
challenges. I delicately arched an eyebrow at him. “Oh, I’m
in.”

His smile got bigger. “Let’s see what you
got.”

“I’ve got lots— Oh!” I gasped as he bent his
legs a little, tightened his hands on my ass, and lifted me to
perch against the edge of the picnic table.

“Lots of what?” I could hear amusement in
his voice.

“I—ideas.”

His low laugh rumbled over me. “Let’s hear
them, tiger.” He stepped between my legs. I could feel his erection
pressing against me as his gaze raked down my body.

“I’m just a little scared,” I whispered.

His eyes lifted to mine. “No you’re not.
You’re excited.”

“You keep telling me when I’m scared and
when I’m not,” I complained as firmly as I could, considering he
was sliding his hand up my skirt and I wanted him to.

“That’s because you keep getting it wrong,”
he said and turned his hand over and fluttered his fingers right up
against me.

I’m pretty sure he meant what came next to
just be a kiss, a touch, a test. Get us hot and maybe, if he was
really good, get me done real fast. But it hit me like logs falling
off a truck—Finn had come looking for me.

For
me.

Sure, maybe it was because he’d been angry
and didn’t like to be jerked around, but I didn’t really see Finn
as the kind of guy to hunt someone down to tell them off.

He’d just write them off.

But he came after me.

I felt like my heart was fissured by this
realization, opened up. And into that opening slipped all sorts of
important things—my knowledge of bad boys and the trouble they
caused; my vow never to let anyone gets close enough to see the
emptiness inside; my good intentions never to have sexual congress
in a client’s backyard.

All these things and others went tumbling
into the fissure of my suddenly opened heart.
Finn had come
for
me.

Okay, I might have gone a little nuts.

Our roles from that river kiss were
reversed, because although Finn might have started this kiss, I
most definitely finished it off.

I pushed his hand away and sat up
suddenly.

“Whoa,” he said quietly.

“You’re not in charge here, buddy,” I
whispered and moved to the edge of the table to wrap my knees
around his hips. His mouth curved up against my lips.

The hard seam of his jeans rubbed against
me, pushing roughly over my clit, so I started panting and making
crazy little sounds, trying to climb up his body.

He pulled back, tore open a condom packet
that he’d materialized out of thin air, while I fumbled with his
pants, unbuttoning them. In a second, he pulled me forward and
sheathed himself inside me, hard and fast, without stopping, his
head back, his jaw clenched, the muscles in his neck strained.

I cried out, dropped my head forward onto
his collar as he lifted me and turned us so he was leaning back
against the table, holding me up.

“Drop your legs,” he ordered roughly, his
hands firm on my bottom.

So I did, and he bent his legs to lower
himself, shifting our angle. My feet weren’t touching the ground,
but close, my legs spread. It was awkward and uncomfortable, more
so for him than me, and I really thought our experiment with this
position should end about now, when he tilted himself back,
bringing me forward slightly, my legs dangling, and he surged up
inside me and hit or created some place of insane pleasure.

I gasped real loud, then moaned. “Jesus,
Finn,” I whispered. He kept moving in a way that could not be
comfortable for him but was magic for me.

He lowered us slowly, sat on the bench, and
I straddled him, leaning into him as he pushed my shirt up and
kissed my breasts under the rising sun. I became a technician,
reaching for that feeling again, one foot on the ground, one knee
on the bench, my head bent, my back arched. He put his elbows on
the table behind him and lifted his hips and that’s when he hit it
again.

It moved through me like a wave. It started
in my feet, moved up my back, through my bottom, across my breasts
and belly. I was electric. I flung my head back with a hard, sharp
cry and knelt down on him, taking him in me hard and fast.

Hot undulations whipped through me and
I—hand to God—screamed in pleasure.

I flung my palms over my mouth. He laughed,
low and pleased. I ripped my hands off my mouth and moved them to
hold his face. I brought our eyes real close together.

“Oh. My. God,” I whispered.

“G spot,” he whispered back.

“I know what it is. I didn’t know I had one.
Why didn’t you do this last night?”

“Would you have stayed?”

“Forever.”

“It doesn’t always work. Not always easy to
find. Lots of things affect it.”

“It’s working now.”

“Yeah, if we do circus tricks every time, we
should be good.” His voice sounded a little strained. His elbows
were back on the table, his hips slightly in the air, holding me
up.

“Don’t stop,” was all I could say.

He helped me move just the way I wanted, my
head sometimes dropping forward so our foreheads touched, sometimes
flung back by a wave of pleasure so hard my hair trailed down my
back and he could grab it with the hands he had cupped around my
bottom. My gasps and cries were coming more stuttered, more
breathless, until I froze and whispered, “I’m going to come.”

He brought our mouths real close together
and looked me dead in the eye. “If you ever walk out on me again,
Janey, I’m not coming after you.”

“Now?” I moaned. “You tell me this now?”

“It’s important.”

“It’s blackmail,” I whispered.

“Yep.” His voice was rough, and I was
helpless.

I couldn’t stop. I was a machine of getting
fucked. I buried my face in his shoulder and cried as undulations
of fire rocked through my body, and he didn’t stop, he kept me
going, harder, deeper, lifting his hips and pushing my body
mercilessly, head to toe, pushing my limits, testing my fears,
exposing my desires. Finn made me come for the sun and the blue sky
and him, my body wide open, my legs dangling off the edge of a
picnic bench, my body totally undiscovered territory.

He kissed me for a long time after, first
hot and hard, then soft, until I came back down. First to the
table, then, when I was ready, he helped me to stand. Always the
gentleman, he walked around me in a circle, smoothing down my
skirt.

“Well,” I said. As the first word after all
that, it was unimpressive.

Everything about him bespoke masculine
pride, from his lopsided grin to the way his head was tipped back,
to the blue eyes laughing across at me. It was well-earned. I’d let
him have it.

“So, Janey Mac.”

I cleared my throat. “Yes, Finn Dante?”

“You coming over tonight?”

I didn’t hesitate even a second. “Yes.
Absolutely.”

And then I’d fly out tomorrow night. But I
didn’t mention that right now. Because I was really, really good at
avoiding pain. I just kept walking. I never looked back.

He put an arm around my back and dropped a
kiss on my mouth. “I’ll be there around six.”

Less than eight hours to go till the next
magic show.

“Let yourself in if I’m not there,” he said.
“Max won’t be there.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Max?”

He smiled. “My dog.”

I smiled back. Big. “You have a dog?”

“You like my dog, and you haven’t even met
him.”

“I like dogs.”

“Me too.”

“See you at six.”

I walked out of the little hedge-lined
corridor of grass first, leaving Finn to come out later, after a
discreet pause, and examine circuit breakers or electrical-current
capacity or whatever other thing he was here to do. The grass was
cool and soft underfoot, still dewy in some spots. It was springy
and pleasant if you weren’t wearing three-inch heels. The grass was
nice, actually. My heels were less so.

Wait. I loved my heels. I hated grass.

Right?

I actually didn’t really care right now what
I loved and hated. I floated above it all, smiling, pulling my hair
back into its tie as I crossed the lawn. I circled the pavilion and
saw Mrs. Lovey through the window, on the phone. I reached the door
and swung it open.

Peter J. stepped out.

I stopped smiling.

“Jane,” he said slowly, nodding. “Glad you
made it. Did you just arrive?”

“No, sir, I was just over there.” I swung my
hand in the general direction of
east.
Away from the
pavilion and the corridor of grass and the picnic table.

He glanced where I’d waved, then nodded.
“Phone working again?”

“Yes, thanks.” I debated trying to scoot
around him, but he wasn’t looking too scootable.

“Good, good. And the new electrical panel?
What have you decided?”

I narrowed my eyes slightly. “Mr. Dante is
managing that.”

“Is he?” Something mean was in his eye.
“He’s managing a lot of things, isn’t he?”

He hadn’t seen us, I knew that, or else the
energy coming at me right now would have been a lot weirder. And
worse. But Peter J. was suspicious, that was for sure. I lifted my
chin a fraction.

“I don’t know what you mean, sir. I need to
see your wife, so if you’ll excuse me.”

He took a step forward, which made me back
me up, a little rerun of our past encounters. We kept backing each
other up. He and I were like dogs in a ring. Except his bite would
hurt a lot more.

A movement out of the corner of my eye made
us both turn. Finn stood there, dark and tall and scruffy. You
couldn’t tell where his sunglasses were aimed, but you knew that
might be vital information, whether or not he was zeroing in on
you.

“Ms. MacInnee?” he said, real low. “Can I
see you for a second?”

Mr. Peter J. backed up fast. I nodded,
astonished by how shaky I felt, and skirted around him to walk to
Finn.

He escorted me directly to my car. “Can you
work from somewhere else today?” he asked.

“No.” I shook my head. “I mean, for some of
the calls I have to make, yes, but I have to come back later for a
meeting with the caterer, and—”

“Do it. Leave. He’ll leave for work soon and
won’t be here when you get back.”

Our eyes met. I gave him a weak smile. “Good
idea.”

“Yeah, I’m filled with them.” He ran the
back of his knuckles over my cheek. “Want me to make him stop?”

I pictured all the ways Finn would do that.
“No, Finn. God no.” How could I ever explain “Lover Assaults Overly
Amorous Client” on my resume?

I put my hand on his arm. “I’ll talk to Mrs.
Lovey and leave. Then you leave. Then I come back when
he
leaves. And we never have sex in their backyard again. I think
that’ll solve the problem.”

He leaned down to kiss me. “I don’t have a
problem. If you need him to have one, let me know.”

He strode back to the pavilion, and I
watched him walk away. I might have sighed. Dummy. Then I glanced
toward the house and saw Mr. Peter J. watching me through the bay
window.

I lifted my chin and turned away, feeling
oddly unafraid. I guess it was good to know someone had your
back.

No one had ever had my back.

I went to find Mrs. Lovey to set up a time
to meet with the caterer. And at the end of the day, I did
something I’d never done for anyone before.

I bought a roasting chicken for Finn.

And a steak for Max.

~ Finn ~

I SAW JANE from a distance of five hundred yards as I
drove up the road to my house. She might as well have been glowing.
She smiled when she saw my dust.

I could tell she smiled, even from five
hundred yards away, because I didn’t need to see it. Seeing was for
chumps. I didn’t need to
see
her smile. I could feel it.

I pulled up behind her car and killed the
motor. She was looking good in jeans and a little white shirt, her
hair pulled back, sandals on, toenails painted some funky
shimmering color, holding something huge in her arms.

She smiled and lifted the bundle. It was
baby shaped.

A shot of fear went through me. No. No, it
took nine months.

“Chicken!” she called out happily, lifting
it a little higher.

Me? The fear edged to panic. No,
it.
She meant
it
was a chicken.

I swung out of the truck, and when she
walked over with the chicken for me to admire, I did so dutifully.
“It’s beautiful.”