The Red Bikini (23 page)

“That was the Toyota thing,” Fox interjected.

“I know. But then there was that Thursday, when you were out until three, and—”

“We had that event with the regional medical offices, and the awards ceremony.” His voice was straining for patience. It was obvious this had been discussed ad nauseam between them.

“I know that’s what you said. But then there was last Wednesday, too, with Evangeline—”

“Tamara, I have to
court
these people.”

“I know, but you see this is a pattern on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and it just made me nervous. I thought tonight would be a good night to plan something with another couple, on a Wednesday, but then you—left—” Her face crumpled.

“Tam.” He wrapped his arms around her.

Fin stood stiffly, eyes averted, then cleared his throat.

“Fin, listen, I’m sorry,” Fox said. “You were—well, you were something out there. Really. But I saw
this
.” His hand swept across the living room and the broken lamp. “I didn’t know what to think. I thought of . . . Jennifer.”

Fin’s face turned to stone.

“But I know . . . I mean, I know you didn’t . . .” Fox glanced at Giselle.

“Drug her?” Fin spit out.

“Yes.”

Fin moved across the room and straightened the lamp with enough force to snap it in two.

Giselle felt something collapse inside her chest for Fin. Even those who believed him would bring Jennifer up again, unspoken thoughts hanging on tips of tongues, released when stress and pressure became too great. No wonder he wasn’t able to forgive himself.

Fox moved closer to Fin and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Listen, Hensen, I know this has been a hard year for you. And I’m sorry. That was a shitty thing to say.”

Fin nodded but didn’t turn around. He threw an errant blanket back on the couch.

“Fin is a
hero
,” Giselle announced. As soon as everyone turned to stare at her, she felt a wave of horror. She sounded like an idiot.

But Fin turned last and set her with a shocked stare.

“He saves these women, and cares about their safety,” she went on. She knew she sounded like a simpleton, or—at best—a groupie, but she wanted to make sure everyone saw the obvious. “He is more responsible than most men I know, and he takes on everyone else’s problems. But these are
grown women
. He’s not responsible for watching them.”

“I’ve been telling him that,” Tamara said. “Giselle’s right.” She turned toward Fox. “Fin isn’t responsible for babysitting me. I think you owe him a bigger apology.”

A strange understanding seemed to pass between the two men. Fox nodded, mollified, then offered a hand. Fin stared at it for a couple of seconds before shaking it.

Tamara walked over to pick up her purse, the pajama cuffs dragging behind her. “We should go.” She stood there looking like a vagrant who managed to have a great Gucci bag. Impulsively, Giselle rushed over and threw her arms around her. Tamara might be a little wild and crazy, but, for some reason, Giselle adored her.

Tamara laughed and leaned toward Giselle’s ear. “Hang on to that guy,” she whispered. “He’s got amazing arms.”

She slipped her fingers through the crook of her husband’s elbow. “C’mon, baby. Let’s get our sitter home, and then you can show me how glad you are that I’m alive.”

G
iselle watched Fin run his hand through his hair and stare at the place in the entryway just vacated by Fox and Tamara.

“Thank you,” he said over his shoulder. “For what you said.”

She stared at his back. “It’s important that you believe that, Fin.”

He nodded but didn’t turn around.

“You believe it, don’t you, that you’re a hero?”

“I think I have a hard time believing that.” He went out to the patio, where he quenched the tiki torches with a metal snuffer. The sliding door gave a quiet
hiss
as he came back in, then snapped off the floodlights. The sea went black.

“It’s how I feel about you,” she said quietly.

He studied the floor for a long time, then snapped off two more lights from the kitchen. “Do you want to stay?” He didn’t look at her.

Giselle swallowed. It would be strange to pick up where they left off. But she did want to stay. She wanted to hold him, actually. It was the same compulsion that made her throw her arms around Tamara. An acknowledgment that life was fragile, and that it could end for anyone, anytime. That when you found something worth hanging on to, you should hold on to it.

“Would it be weird?” she asked.

“I don’t know if the night got too crazy for you.”

“Was it too crazy for you?” she asked.

“Too crazy to have sex.” He turned off the coffeemaker and set the carafe in the sink, then turned and caught her expression. “Kidding.”

“Oh,” she said, as her heart resumed beating. “I didn’t . . . I didn’t know. I . . .”

His low chuckle fell into the wooden floorboards. “I’m a
guy
, Giselle. Guys can always have sex.”

He planted his hands on his hips and surveyed the living room to see whether he’d turned everything off. “But you . . . I don’t know how this night felt for you. I don’t know if you want to stay. I don’t know if we were saved from ourselves, or what.” He gave her a strange look, then glanced over at the sliders again. “Damn, I should have closed that. I can’t believe I left it open.” He glared at it as if it were his new archenemy.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

He moved toward it, as if to inspect the lock. “It even crossed my mind when we were in the bedroom. Not that—you know—not that my mind was wandering. I was pretty focused on what you were doing with your clothes. Or, you know, focused on where your clothes were going. But I should have come out here. If I weren’t so wrapped up . . .”

“Fin.”
She stepped toward him. “You are
not
responsible for these women. And you’re not responsible for me, or what I decide to do. Or if I want to have casual sex or not.
I
am.”

His body seemed a shelter to her now, and she had a stab of courage that allowed her to step into it. She laid her hands on his chest, dragging them across his sweatshirt. She wanted to test the strength underneath. Feel its tautness. Feel the beating heart . . .

“Do you really see me as a hero?” he asked quietly.

“I do.”

“I don’t want to let you down.”

“You’re not.”

“Or Lia.” He frowned and shook his head, as if frustrated he couldn’t make his point. His hands remained on his hips.

Giselle would have to keep the momentum going for both of them. Her fingertips continued moving across his shirt. “Lia wants what’s best for me. And what’s best for me right now is you. And I’m a grown woman, and can make my own decision on this.”

He looked at her skeptically. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m not hurting.”

“. . . at how temporary this is, Giselle. I actually care about you. But I can’t stick around.”

“I understand.” Her hand made its way up his chest. It was as muscular as she’d imagined. “Fin, can you take this sweatshirt off? I’ve been wondering what—”

She didn’t even have time to finish the sentence. He yanked it off with amazing speed, the way he must do it when it was his turn for a set. And wow, he was stunning. A light came in from the hallway, hitting the tops of his shoulders and illuminating the side of his face and neck. His shoulders were hard and round, his skin a glorious color of sunshine. Giselle allowed herself a thorough sweep of his pectorals, his shoulders, his biceps, those abs.

She ran her finger along the ridge that formed between his shoulder muscle and his arm, the one she’d seen the first day she’d spotted him.

“You were wondering what?”

“What you looked like here.” Her heart was thundering. “What
this
 . . . felt like . . .”

He frowned at the line she was tracing on his arm. “That’s it?”

She smiled, embarrassed.

He shrugged. “I guess that’s a start.”

Pulling her closer, he pushed a strand of hair away from her face. “When were you wondering that?”

“The first time I saw you.”

“In Rabbit’s apartment?”

She nodded.

“Really? I thought you weren’t paying any attention to me.”

“I was.” A heat rose up through her cheeks.

A chuckle rumbled in Fin’s throat. “I didn’t think women like you noticed guys like me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“A sophisticated, smart, doctor’s wife like you—I didn’t think you’d notice a beach bum.”

As he watched her reaction, his grin went from embarrassed to a little wolfish.

“I did,” she squeaked out, dropping her gaze.

He kissed the corner of her mouth. “So we’re good with this, then?”

The deepness of his voice, the smile against her mouth, the tease of his lips, were all conspiring to turn her knees to jelly already. He slid a row of kisses down her neck.

“Yes,” she breathed out, giving him further access.

“Because . . .” He drew a long teasing pull to that point below her ear that curled her toes. “You were looking a little terrified earlier, if you don’t mind my saying.” He leaned back to gauge her reaction to that.

“Terrified?”

He nodded.

“I guess . . . you make me a little nervous. . . . I don’t think . . .” She stared at her fingertips across his sculpted chest and wondered how much to admit to. “I don’t think I’m very good at this.”

Fin’s eyebrows shot up. “At sex?”

She nodded.

“What on earth makes you think that?”

“Well . . . my ex’s two affairs, mostly.”

Fin pressed his lips together and looked at a point over her shoulder. “Giselle. Did we say your ex is a complete idiot? Because if we didn’t agree on that yet, we should.”

She let her fingertips rove across the carved canyon of his pectorals. Roy did make her feel dowdy: undesired, matronly, set out to pasture already. But here she was, in the arms of a Greek god who was staring down at her with a heat in his eyes. Maybe Roy
was
an idiot.

“He was stupid for letting you go,” Fin said quietly, tucking her hair behind her ear.

She let the words float around her, along with the light touch of his fingertips and the tenderness of his voice. They were the words she’d been longing to hear.

She’d thought she’d wanted them from Roy—an admission of sorts—but now she realized how much more satisfying they were coming from a man who was looking at her like this, who was going to have her clothes in a heap on the floor and his gorgeous body wrapped around hers in another five minutes. . . .

But there was another worry pressing on her chest.

“And . . . well, I’m not perfect, Fin.”

A crease formed in his forehead. “I don’t expect you to be perfect.”

“But you’re probably used to . . . well, you know. Women like Veronica, bikini models . . .”

The crease deepened. He shook his head. “No, I’m not used to that. And besides, only nature delivers perfect. And only sometimes. The most interesting parts of nature—the imperfect leaf, the imperfect rock—are the best parts. They make you feel real, and whole, like you belong and can fit in. Because we’re all imperfect.”

She ran her finger down the center of his chest. This chest seemed pretty perfect to her. But she saw his point. It was exhausting trying to live up to an expectation that could never be met. Fin saw that clearly, and he didn’t want to try to live up to it, either.

And he certainly wouldn’t expect her to.

She smiled. “Are you calling me an imperfect rock?”

“How about an imperfect leaf? The most beautiful of all.” He smiled, as if his point had been proven, and turned his attention to the finger running down his chest. “But if that finger goes any lower, this conversation is going to get harder and harder for me to continue.”

She slowly dragged it down across his stomach.

His breath caught and he held her gaze in a half challenge, half reprimand. “Giselle.”

She smiled and ran it farther to his waistband.

“
That’s it
,” he choked. He stepped into her and covered her mouth with his.

She stumbled back as he pressed into her and slammed against something sharp, which she thought might be the television wall unit. She felt with her hands to move around it, but rammed instead against the glass of one of the sliders. She could feel the night chill, trying to reach in from the other side. But Fin’s mouth was warm—demanding—pulling on her lips. His biceps came up on either side of her and pinned her against the glass. She could smell coconut coming up as a tribal heat from his chest.

“I’m glad you’re okay with this because I have to hear you make this sound,” he whispered.

She was breathless, incapable of making sense of his words, as she tried to concentrate. “Sound?”

He broke the kiss, but kept his lips near hers, as if he weren’t committed to leaving just yet. “Turn around,” he muttered.

 • • • 

Giselle faced the slider, bringing her palms up and leaning into the glass. Fin drew them higher with one of his. Fog misted around her fingertips.

Fin tugged at the sweatshirt around her and pulled it over her head from behind. He flung it on the floor, and she shivered again—her back and shoulders exposed now from the halter top. He guided her hands back over her head and against the glass, the turquoise ring caught between them, and used his other hand to trace the valley of her back.

She shivered, dropping her head and resting her forehead against the cool slider. He stepped closer and pushed her hair up off her neck, then leaned down and kissed her, right there, just below his palm at her nape. She gasped.

“There we go,” he whispered.

His mouth curved against her skin as his lips moved across her neck, delivering a row of electrical kisses that brought her to her toes. She continued to let out little gasps, rolling her shoulders against the chills he gave her. She pressed her cheek into the glass as he found every exquisite pulse point across the back of her neck and behind her ears. She couldn’t stop the sounds escaping from her throat.

“Gis
elle
,” he whispered, as if he were thrilled, or surprised; she couldn’t tell.

She laughed, embarrassed.

“I knew you would make that sound.” He kissed her again, and she gasped, and he chuckled. “But there are some other things I want to get to.”

He leaned into her, his full body now pressing her harder into the glass. She could feel the length of him, aroused, and she marveled at the idea that she could elicit that reaction in this gorgeous man. He reached down for the hem of her dress, bunching it in his fist to start working it upward.

“Did you put your panties back on? Because they’re coming off right now.”

“I couldn’t find them.”

Fin stilled. “You don’t have your underwear on?”

“I couldn’t find them.”

“You’ve had your underwear off all night? While we were sitting here with Fox and Tamara?”

She meant to answer again, but he’d already run his hand up her bare thigh to find out for himself, and then up and over her behind. He moaned. “God, Giselle,” he breathed out.

The glass was fogged in an outline from the heat of their bodies. He got her skirt pinned against the slider so he could explore her bottom. His hand traced the shape of her behind, pushing away any fabric that dared get in the way; then he opened his palm and slid it over her hips and down her front. She sucked in her breath as he slipped his finger between her legs.

He seemed to like that sound, too.

“
This
is where I want to be,” he said into her shoulder.

His mouth moved against the back of her neck, sending chills through her arms. But his fingers, now between her legs, were delivering a new level of ravishment. He parted her, and she drew in a sharp breath. He nudged her foot with his, and she spread her legs, a little, but the last vestige of her primness kept her from moving any more. The sensation was almost more than she could stand—the air swirling up from the ground, cooling where he parted her, making her feel too vulnerable, too open. He nudged wider, saying something into her ear that she couldn’t begin to make sense of, and his fingers explored inside her, stroking lightly, sending spasms through every nerve ending. Her legs were going to buckle. She concentrated on breathing, not just gasping, as she leaned hard into the glass and heard the ocean roaring on the other side. His fingers went deeper.

“
God
, Fin.” She didn’t want him to stop. She let herself live in the emotion for a moment, focusing on the sensations that were rocking her: Cold glass. Coconut scent. Heat from his body. Hands sliding. Slick fingers. And then his thumb, pressing down from the top, drawing circles, pressing harder, finding that delicious nerve. Her legs were going to give, and she felt her own wave rush up to overcome her, like it was enveloping her in blackness. She called out—something, she didn’t even know what—and then she crested, and floated, and came down in the darkness, and pressed into the glass. Everything else fell away.

The perfect wave.

 • • • 

Fin caught Giselle as she slumped forward, and resisted the urge to breathe out
holy fuck
as he managed to remove his fingers from her body and get her turned around and facing him. He watched her expression—he wanted to see her eyes, but she wouldn’t meet his—so instead he lifted her so her legs were around his waist. He wanted her in his bedroom.