She turned and found him watching her. She rubbed her lips together. “Bathroom?”
He pointed toward the bed area. “Pocket door in the back corner. No bathtub, but a shower and all the other necessities. If you prefer a bath, there’s a jetted one in the main house you can use.”
A jetted bath. At his place. She cleared her throat. “Showers are fine. I’m not here for a luxury vacation. Just need a place to sleep in between working and keeping you out of trouble.”
He ran a hand over the back of his head. “Right. Okay, well, I’m going to grab a shower and wait for the pizza while you get settled. I’ll let you know when it’s here.”
She nodded. “Sounds good.”
He stared at her for another few seconds, as if he wanted to say something else, but then nodded. “All right.”
He headed to the door.
“Finn.”
He turned. “Hmm?”
“Thank you for this.” She tucked her hands in her back pockets, feeling awkward. “I know this wasn’t your plan—to have a guest. It wasn’t mine either, but I appreciate it. I probably wouldn’t have taken the plunge otherwise.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, you would’ve. You wouldn’t have let that letter go unanswered. Not the Liv I know.” His gaze met hers. “But for what it’s worth, I’m glad I get to be here to watch you do it.”
With that, he stepped outside and shut the door behind him, leaving just his scent behind—a heady combo of fresh-cut grass and man. She moved to the window on the opposite side of the room and watched him walk up the stone path that led to the back door of the main house. She sighed and rested her forehead against the glass. She was in so much damn trouble.
chapter
TWELVE
Finn watched his rock plunk into the water after one sad skip on the surface and cursed as the ripple circled out, marking his defeat. “That rock was defective.”
Liv burst into a laugh beside him, the sound drifting over the dark lake and echoing. She turned to him, her expression dancing in the flickering light from the fire pit. “You are seriously the worse rock skipper I’ve ever seen. That rock was the perfect skipping rock. I gave you the best one. It could’ve won awards for Most Awesome Rock.”
“Worst rock ever,” he said with mock severity.
She bent forward and laughed harder, her beer clutched against her waist, and he allowed himself a moment to watch her. Jubilant expression, pale-blue T-shirt clinging to full, soft breasts, and long, tan legs making khaki shorts look like lingerie. Unfairly sexy. She’d been pretty in high school. Quirky cool. But now she was just flat-out beautiful.
And successful. And hella smart.
And off-fucking-limits.
He dragged his gaze away before his brain started weaving fantasies about sweeping her off her feet and carrying her into the house, spreading her across his bed, and making up for all the hurt he’d caused her with orgasms. For every second of pain he’d brought her, he’d pay her back with pleasure—with his mouth, his tongue, his cock—until she was limp and smiling and all his.
Stop.
“Aw, don’t make that face,” she teased, taking his grimace for something else. “It’s okay to lose to a girl.”
He sniffed and sipped his beer. “This isn’t about you being a girl. This is about you stacking the deck.”
They’d eaten their pizza and wings by the shore in a set of Adirondack chairs that flanked the new fire pit, and they were now each working on their second beer. Liv had been the one to propose the rock-skipping contest—apparently, because she was some secret rock-skipping champion. She’d managed a solid four skips with her last attempt. Despite his words, Finn didn’t care that he was losing miserably. Seeing her so entertained at his ineptitude was worth it.
“If this were a fishing contest, I’d be kicking your ass, Livvy. Just wait. I’m putting that on the agenda tomorrow.”
Her eyes crinkled at the corners, and she waggled her fingers. “Oh, I’m scared now. How many fish have you caught in the last few days, Big Talker?”
“Three.”
“Ooh, three.” She sipped her beer, still smiling. “I’m sufficiently intimidated now.”
“You should be. I think all three times it was the same fish. I keep putting him back, but he has a death wish.”
She snorted. “Poor guy. Not the smartest of the school, huh? Ooh, it’s that bright, shiny thing again! Oh. Damn.”
He chuckled. “And now I won’t be able to eat him. You’ve given him a personality.”
“Mr. Tough FBI Guy is sympathetic to a fish?” Liv put her hand to her chest with a dramatic flourish, no qualms about teasing him. “I’m shocked.”
Finn attempted a wry smile, but the effect of her standing there so relaxed was too distracting. How long had it been since he was able to be so unguarded with another person? Even outside his undercover work, he couldn’t remember the last time things had felt so easy with someone. She made him feel like that kid he used to be. And like that kid, he wanted to reach out and pull her to him, taste the beer on her lips, feel her smiling against his mouth.
He looked away, pretending to stare at the lake. “Don’t tell my boss. You’ll ruin my street cred.”
“Right. Street cred.” She got quiet for a moment, and he sensed her watching him. “How did you deal with that kind of thing undercover? I imagine you had to be pretty ruthless.”
Unease moved through him and he glanced at her, finding her expression curious but without judgment. He squatted down, busying himself with finding another rock. “Ruthless was the name of the game. Showing any emotion besides anger could be deadly. Showing sympathy was as dangerous as showing fear. I had to…turn off those parts of myself.”
“Sounds tough.”
He picked up a rock and squeezed it. “It was at first, but then it got easy. Too easy, probably.”
When he’d put a bullet in Dragonfly’s second-in-command, he’d barely felt a blip on his moral radar. Yes, the guy had been a threat and would’ve killed Finn without thought. But if Finn could do the same, how different were they, really?
“Which is why your boss is worried,” Liv concluded.
“Yeah,” Finn said, a familiar dread moving through him. A dread that whispered that he could never go back, that promised him he’d shut off machinery that couldn’t be switched back on.
She crouched next to him, selected a different rock, and then gently pried his fingers open.
He lifted his gaze to meet hers. She placed her rock in his palm next to his rock and gave him a soft smile. “I’m not worried.”
He curled his fingers around the stones, catching her fingers in the process. “Why not?”
“Because you mean it when you say you’d feel bad about the fish.” She stood and pulled him up with her. “Now let’s see if you can suck less at this rock-skipping thing. I’ll show you my secret tips.”
Finn didn’t want to let go of her hand. Her easy certainty in him was more than he deserved…and dangerous. “Don’t give me so much credit, Liv. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but you’d be horrified by some of the things I did while I was under. And more horrified by the things I looked away from and didn’t step in to stop. The fish is just a fish. Don’t absolve me over that.”
Her jaw flexed, determination filling her eyes. “Did you kill anyone?”
“Yes.”
She flinched, but the resolve didn’t waver. “Who wouldn’t have killed you?”
“No.”
“Rape someone?”
He grimaced. “Of course not. I would never—”
“I know,” she said and let go of his hand. “Don’t you get that? I wouldn’t be here if I suspected you’d really gone to the dark side. I get that you had to do what you had to for your job. If that meant numbing your emotions to survive, then that w
as the cost. You can’t expect everything to snap back in place overnight. Believe me, I was a pro at numbing things. It takes a while to remember how to feel stuff again. I’m still working on it.”
He let out a breath, still uncomfortable with her faith in him. “What do you mean?”
She set her beer down and shrugged. “I stopped getting wasted and getting high. I stopped sleeping around while wasted or high. That was a start. Then I focused on my career.” She shook her head and frowned. “But I’m beginning to realize that the job thing has its own numbing effect. Workaholic still has aholic in it.”
Finn rubbed his thumb over the smooth rock in his hand, considering her and honored that she’d trust him with that kind of personal information. But he could tell the admission had cost her something. He tried to think of a way to shift the focus away from such serious topics. “So this is your solution? Taking a break and agreeing to hang out with a dude who’s exponentially more screwed up than you?”
She laughed under her breath—the soft sound getting devoured by the snapping of the fire—and put her hands on her hips. “Yes. Exactly. I am super brilliant.”
“And super beautiful.”
The second the words slipped out of his mouth, he cringed.
She blinked, her superhero pose sagging.
“Sorry,” he said quickly. “I… The filter’s dialed to low tonight. Ignore me and show me how to throw this damn rock.”
She stared at him for a moment longer, the awkwardness tangling between them, and then nodded. “Right. Let’s give it a try.”
* * *
Liv’s blood was thumping in her ears, almost blocking out the sounds of the night around her. The way Finn had looked at her and his words had blindsided her. But what should have sent her scrambling to reassert their boundaries had her skin heating in ways it shouldn’t. Maybe it was the fire. Probably the fire.
She led him to the edge of the lake and picked up her own rock, trying to focus on the task at hand. Rock skipping. She could do rock skipping. “Okay, so I think your problem is that you’re too erect.”
There was a strangled sound next to her.
Shit. Shit. Wrong word. Now images were happening. Images she didn’t need while trying to form words. “Uh, I mean, you’re so tall, and you’re standing straight when you throw. You have to crouch a little so that when you sidearm it, you’re closer to the lake’s surface. Like this.”
She demonstrated and got her rock to skim the surface with three perfect skips. Plink. Plink. Plink. Plunge.
“See. Your turn.”
Finn grunted. “You making it look so damn easy is only going to further injure my ego when mine sinks like an anchor.”
“Positive thoughts, Dorsey. Be the rock.”
He sent her a come-on-now look but shifted his stance, crouched, and threw. The rock skipped twice, then sank. Not great, but better than his previous attempts.
“Hey,” she said, turning his way. “You did it.”
But there was still a look of consternation on his face. “I need three.”
“Maybe you should stop while you’re ahead.”
“Not my style.” He palmed the rock she’d given him, a nice flat, smooth one, then got into position again.
The wrinkle between his brows was adorably serious, like he was trying to figure out a missile launch for NASA instead of rock skipping. He gave it a toss, and it tapped the surface. One, two, three times. With a shout, he raised his arm above his head. “Score!”
“You did it!” She whooped and joined him in the celebration, making a cheerleader vee with her arms. “Go team! I’d do a toe touch, but then we’d have to go to the hospital.”
He turned to her, grinning. “Thanks, Coach. Obviously, I was too erect.”
She choke-laughed and pressed her hand over her mouth.
“I mean, really? I slip up and say something I shouldn’t, and you go with erect in the next sentence?” he teased. “Way to make it weird, Arias.”
“Hey, erect is a perfectly proper word. I can’t help it if your mind was in the gutter.”
“I’ve been celibate for two years. Assume it’s always there. I’ve set up shop and built a little gutter town. We’re about to elect a mayor.”
She crossed her arms and tilted her head, goading him. “So during this whole deep conversation about emotions and past trauma and recovering, your mind was really just thinking—”
“Sex, skipping rocks, beer, sex, maybe more pizza, sex.”
She rolled her eyes. “Nice.”
He smirked. “No, but seriously, I’ll try to do better at not making this awkward. I’m not trying to make a move on you. I wanted you here for exactly the reasons I told you. No ulterior motives. I just slip up sometimes because you’re…I don’t know”—he swept a hand in her direction—“you.”
She swallowed hard, trying to ignore the sizzle of awareness that sent through her. “And because you’ve been hard up for two years.”
“Yes, that, but mostly the other thing.” He shrugged, honesty in his eyes. “You hit all my buttons, Livvy. Always have. But I’m smart enough to know not to screw up what could be a great summer for both of us with something stupid like lust. I’m a big boy. I can handle myself.”
“Did you just say big and handle yourself?”
He smirked, all male confidence. “Now whose mind is in the gutter? And yes on both. I’m a pro at handling myself. PhD level, in fact.”
She pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth. “Okay, we need to stop.”
“What?” he asked, eyes sparkling with humor. “Making embarrassing admissions?”
“No, making…hot admissions. That’s too much information.” Her gaze tracked down his body of its own volition, and she forced her attention away. “You said no lust. Talking about how you use your hands is not an effective strategy for that.”
Lust. Like what was building up in her right now. Not just at the images he’d ruthlessly painted in her head—him going up to the house, slipping out of his clothes, and curling that strong hand around himself, stroking and taking his time, maybe thinking of her. Even more distracting was hearing him tell her that she hit his buttons, that she’d always done it for him. That something specific about her made Mr. Cool-and-in-Control slip up. She’d had guys tell her she was pretty or sexy or whatever, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever heard something so…specifically personal.
She knew what he meant, though, because it was the same for her. Her reaction to him had always been visceral, an awareness that even in light moments forever hummed beneath the surface. Like power lines linked directly to her libido. She fought the urge to step into his space, to inhale how the smoke from the fire mixed with his scent, to feel the heat of him against her again. To offer to take care of any erect situations herself.
“Right, sorry,” he said, his tone gruff. “This was probably safer via text. We can’t let joking turn into more than it is.”
“Because that would be stupid,” she said, annoyed at how breathless the words came out.
“Yes.”
He held her gaze for a beat too long, as if he could see her thoughts. Heat crept up her neck, but then he rubbed his hands on his jeans. “It’s getting late. We should probably head back up to the house.”
She nodded, mouth dry. “Sure. Good idea.”
Without another word, he moved toward the fire, dousing it and tossing their trash into the grocery bag he’d hooked on the back of one of the chairs. She followed behind him, picking up what she could, but mostly watching him, her thoughts chasing each other around her head like angry cats.
Or horny cats.
She was here for a break. She was here to do photography. She was here to help Finn acclimate back to normal life. She was not here to get naked with him.
Naked.
Well, that wo
rd was the wrong one for her to think, because now she was watching how his pants slipped low in the back every time he bent to pick up a beer bottle, revealing the dips below his spine and the top curve of what was sure to be a muscular ass. She wet her lips, feeling like a pervert for ogling him, but she didn’t look away.
What would happen if she walked over to him, put her hands on that exposed skin, and slid her palms underneath his T-shirt? Would he jump away? Would he lecture her about lust? Or would he let her slip his shirt off and touch her, too?
The image was almost too much, and a little grunt passed her lips.
Finn peered back over his shoulder. “You say something?”
“Uh, no.”
He gave her an odd look. “If you want to go on to the guesthouse, you can. I can finish cleaning up.”
“No, it’s okay. I don’t mind helping,” she said, snapping out of her frozen state and emptying another cup of water onto the fire to make sure it was fully extinguished. She imagined that the ensuing sizzle was what her thoughts needed. Something cold and wet thrown on them.
Wet. Another word that bounded down the wrong path. Her body was more than ready for all that lust they were purposely ignoring. She stepped a little closer to him, like iron drawn by a magnetic pull. She could feel dangerous words—propositions—hovering on her lips. Recklessness welled in her, but then her foot kicked one of the empty bottles.
Alcohol. Her personal invitation to bad decisions. She hadn’t had much tonight, but it was there, her old familiar pattern. Feel stressed. Drink. Get in bed with someone.
Only this someone wasn’t a stranger. And there wouldn’t be an anonymous thanks for a great night, see you in the next life in the morning. This was Finn.
She closed her eyes, inhaling a deep breath.
“Hey, you okay?”
Liv’s eyes popped open to find Finn standing too close, his body heat wafting her way. He put his hand on her shoulder, and everything inside her went molten and wanting. Kiss me.
No. She needed to get to bed. Or into a cold shower. She was not going to act like that girl she used to be. She was not going to mess this situation up before it started.