Authors: Lauren Christopher
He pushed her skirt up again so he could reach underneath. He couldn’t believe she’d had her underwear off all night—that was about the hottest thing he’d ever heard, from this prim woman who could barely say the word “sex” out loud—but now he just wanted her nakedness against him, and he bunched the skirt against his chest so he could feel her against his stomach.
Damn
, she was wet. As he carried her into the bedroom, he touched her once with his fingertip, from underneath, and she bucked against him but didn’t let go—just let out another of those breathless gasps.
He needed to get his clothes off
now
.
He shoved his sweats down with one hand, balancing her with the other, and they were almost near the bed, but she had her arms clasped around his neck, clinging to him as if she couldn’t let go.
“Giselle?” he said, muffled. “You okay?”
She nodded, so fastened to his body—her arms and legs both—that he could let go with both hands and she’d still cling. It gave him a chance to push his pants down, at least to his thighs, and he kicked them off the rest of the way with both of his feet and then stood naked. This was an excellent position for both of them—if he just
sliiiiiiid
her down, just a little, then he could press her up against that wall right there and be inside her in—
A tiny sob interrupted his game plan.
“Giselle?”
She shook her head and buried her face in the crook of his shoulder.
What the hell?
He held her across her back with one hand and tried to lay her on the bed, prying her arms from his neck. He got her perpendicular to the edge, resting her back onto the comforter, until she finally let go. She flung the back of her hand over her eyes before he could see them. She was definitely crying.
“What’s
wrong
?”
“Nothing.”
“How can you say nothing? You’re crying.”
“It’s okay. It’s nothing.”
“But why are you crying? Is this—”
“
Fin
,” she said sharply.
He simply stared at her.
“It’s
nothing
. Seriously. I’m just . . . emotional.”
“Emotional?”
“You could have died out there tonight. Tamara could have died. And I . . . I’m . . . happy.”
He peered at her to see whether she were telling the truth. This was a new one on him. He’d never had a woman cry, like this, underneath him. And then say she was
happy
. And . . . emotional? He nodded. Okay. Maybe emotional could explain it. He was feeling something, too, that felt pretty foreign—something that smacked of . . .
gratitude
, or something. The precariousness of life. The fact that it could be over at any second. He didn’t know. All he knew was that he wanted to kiss her in a thank-you kind of way, along her cheek, then down her collarbone, then along her shoulder. To thank her for not getting swept into the ocean. For being there when he came out. For wrapping her arms around him that way, on the sand. For being here, now, before he went to South Africa. . . . He just wanted to kiss every inch of her—her hair, her eyelids, her nose, her lips, her neck, her breasts. . . .
He focused on the last thought. That felt normal. Wanting to see her breasts, then rip her clothes off—
that
he was familiar with. Focusing on raw sex was much easier than focusing on the feelings that were tightening his throat.
He stood at the edge of the bed and tried to figure out the fastest shortcut. He shoved her dress up, pushing it past her waist as she wriggled her naked bottom to help him.
“Spread for me, Giselle.” He wanted more of those gasps.
She hesitated. So prim. Her skirt was up by her face and she couldn’t see what he was doing. She paused for what seemed like an excruciating eternity. She gave him about an eighth of an inch.
“Farther.”
She gave him about another sixteenth.
He smiled and waited.
“Farther, baby.”
Maybe another eighth.
She couldn’t seem to move more than that. It would have to do. He brought his mouth down, between her thighs, and she about bucked off the bed when his lips made contact.
“Fiiiiiiiiinnnnnn,”
she cried out.
But he just smiled. Debauching Giselle wasn’t making him feel guilty at all. He could show her desire. He had it in spades. And it was going to be a long night.
• • •
Giselle couldn’t remember when one experience ended and another began, but Fin was everywhere—his mouth was everywhere; his fingers were everywhere. He undid her dress in a wild desperation, bent her into several delicious positions—over the side of the bed, across his lap, her hips high on a pillow—and explored every inch of her body with his fingertips and lips, across her breasts, down her stomach, over her hips, between her thighs, murmuring things like, “That’s what I wanted to hear,” until she tingled through every raw nerve.
By the time he rolled away to reach into his nightstand for a condom, she thought she was going to combust. She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath while he tore the packaging open with his teeth. When she opened her eyes, he was frowning at her.
“We’re okay?” he whispered.
She gave him a smile that she hoped conveyed all the headiness she felt. “We’re more than okay.” She pulled him toward her, her hands splayed across his shoulder blades.
He took her mouth again, frantically rolling on the condom, then hovered over her, triceps shaking, ready to enter her. His eyes opened suddenly and caught her gaze, as if he didn’t mean to.
He stilled. “Giselle,” he said in almost a whisper, as if something were surprising him.
It seemed some kind of question—a question he’d been trying to ask all day, but had been unable to formulate. And she didn’t know what it was. But somehow she knew the answer—she simply nodded, not letting him look away.
He kissed her tenderly, then thrust, hard, catching her in a rhythm she quickly picked up. She went over the edge quickly this time, and opened her eyes to watch him—reveling in his squeezed eyes, trembling triceps, and spent glance at her, which came with a smile.
They took a catnap and awoke at five—he reached for her, looked her straight in the eyes without a word, and her body arched toward him with a need she never knew existed.
Late in the morning, she lay with her cheek on his chest, tracing the shape of his pectorals with her index finger as the morning sun came in through his bedroom window and cast shadows over the blond stubble on his jaw.
“I’m usually surfing now,” he said in a gravelly, drift-away way.
She lifted her head. “Do you want to? You can go.”
“No,” he said quickly. “No. This is . . . infinitely better.”
“I thought you said surfing is like sex.”
His deep chuckle rumbled within his chest. “I said there are
comparisons
. Sex is definitely better.”
He stared at the ceiling for a while. “Your ex is an idiot.” He looked down at her and smiled. “Got it?”
She nodded.
“And I might have to redefine my idea of perfection. That might have been it.” He lifted her palm off his chest with his other hand and kissed it once right in the center.
She let his warm lips, and his words, surge straight into her heart and settle there, comfortably, where she knew she’d pull them out and unwrap them again in the future. She’d turn them over in her mind—not examining them, just listening to them—whenever she was feeling bad about herself, or feeling too much like someone’s mother, or feeling too much like the “good girl.” She’d press them against her cheek, like the kissing hand, and make use of the memory when she needed it most. Perfection. Fin Hensen. With her. She’d think of it every time she saw his picture on a surfing magazine, every time she saw him online—every time she saw that intense expression, balancing on his board.
“You make a lot of sexy sounds,” he said.
“I do not.”
“You do. Do you seriously not know that?”
“I do not.”
He ignored that. “I knew you’d be vocal in bed. You’re so reserved in your beauty-queen way, I just knew that once you got worked up, you’d be one of those gaspers.”
She laughed this time. It pleased her that he thought so—both that he spent time predicting it and found it to be ultimately true.
“Does it bother you?” she asked.
“Well, if ‘bother’ is a euphemism for ‘make you go hard,’ then yes. But I could get used to it.”
The comment sent a strange rush through her, just for a second. But the hope turned to sadness, and she let it wash over her.
This was temporary
.
She traced another figure eight across his golden pectorals. “I have to pick up Coco today.”
“Oh.”
It was just a single sound, but he spoke volumes with it: disappointment, guilt.
“So, I guess . . . you know . . . I’ll have to go,” she said.
He stroked her hair for almost a minute and thought that over. “What time do you pick up Coco?”
“At noon.”
He glanced down at her. “All right, then. Are you hungry? Because I can feed you, but we’re in no way leaving this bedroom.” He got up on his elbow and tilted his alarm clock. “I have two hours to see how many times I can make you feel desired.”
“I’m not hungry,” she said, a little breathlessly.
He gently pushed her shoulder toward the bed. “Then turn over.” He adjusted her naked body, facedown on the sheets, and pulled the blankets away so he could see her more fully in the daylight. Then he pushed her hair up off the back of her neck and started the slow process all over again.
A
t eleven thirty, Giselle leaned against the marble bathroom countertop and ran Fin’s brush through her hair. She scanned his bathroom counter, peeked into his medicine cabinet. Everything about him suddenly fascinated her—what deodorant he wore, what type of brush he used, what his soap smelled like. She stopped short at inspecting the hamper, but only after she’d begun to open it. Her hand drifted to her side as she tried to get ahold of herself. This might be a slippery slope into groupie-ism.
She could hear him in the front room, moving around in the kitchen, getting ready for his day. She didn’t have any experience with “morning-afters” and didn’t know how to navigate them. Should she walk out and wrap her arms around his waist with a little kiss on the cheek? Or was she supposed to walk out and act casual, no strings attached, since that was their agreement? She tried to figure out what Veronica would do in this scenario. She might have to get a bracelet: What Would Veronica Do? Although WWVD had the sound of a venereal disease.
As she continued brushing her hair, something on the windowsill caught her eye.
She sucked in some air.
Next to a tan-colored soapstone was Coco’s broken abalone shell.
She’d thought he was fibbing when he’d told Coco he kept it. But there it was—right where he’d said. Of course, he wasn’t keeping it in his pocket, as Coco had suggested. Men like Fin didn’t need help being princes—men like him probably weren’t in the least bit interested. But she ran her fingers across the iridescent blue and lavender of the shell, feeling its broken smoothness under her skin. She wasn’t sure whether it was the sudden realization of Fin’s honesty, or the sweetness that he’d kept a little girl’s gift, or the idea that he saw this broken thing as something beautiful and worth keeping, but a balloon of warm air settled in her chest, and she went back to slowly brushing her hair.
She was in trouble. She was feeling much too much.
• • •
Giselle settled into Fin’s bucket seats as he drove her home. The masculine scent of sandalwood soap and toothpaste mingled with the leather interior.
Fin had hardly said a word since they’d left. Maybe he’d already moved on. She reminded herself again of his multiple warnings: no thoughts of long-term. He’d wanted her to feel desired. And she had. End of story.
Giselle forced herself to stop stealing furtive glances at his profile and instead watched the bougainvillea and palm trees speed past her window. This might be the last time she’d see him. He’d drop her off; she’d say good-bye. He’d wave as he pulled out of the lot. She’d keep his photos, of course, and scan them and send them back, as she’d promised. She shuffled the edges together carefully in her lap.
In the future, he might ask Lia about her. Or maybe not. Maybe he’d never wonder about her again. Maybe this was how things went once you slept with Fin Hensen.
“Do you have a busy day today?” She forced a conversation just to avoid the silence that was starting to feel awkward. WWVD?
“I have to train,” he said, glancing in her direction. “Run a little. Pack for a couple of weeks.”
She nodded and forced herself to turn toward the window again. Fin had given her what she’d thought she’d wanted—being desired—but he was right: It wasn’t what she wanted at all. She wanted to
matter
. She wanted to be his favorite. She wanted to be remembered. . . .
“Are you trying to figure out how this works?” he asked.
“What?”
He was smirking. “You’re wondering how to talk to this guy who had you bent over the side of his bed last night, and his hand running up the inside of your leg—”
“
Fin
, stop.” Giselle rearranged the photos in her lap.
Fin’s low chuckle drifted through the car.
She pretended she was studying the soul-arch photo. “So . . . okay. Yes. I’m wondering. Are there rules?”
Another smile slid her way. “Sometimes.”
She bounced sideways in the seat to face him. “Tell me.” She was actually curious.
The greenery off the side of the freeway sped past his profile as Giselle studied him. She was always going to remember Fin in profile, with bougainvillea behind him.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
“What am I supposed to say during a ‘morning-after’?”
“You sound like you’re taking notes. You’re not going to make this into a habit in Indiana, are you?”
“Maybe,” she joked.
He stared out the window, but the amusement slid off his face.
“So do I say, ‘I’ll call you later,’ or do I wait for
you
not to say that, or what?”
His cheeks grew ruddy. “I usually just grunt in my caveman language. She figures things out.”
“I don’t suppose we become Facebook friends?” She smiled sweetly.
He cut her a sidelong glance that bordered on a glare.
“Do we—”
“All right, all right, let’s change the subject. What are you doing this evening after you pick up Coco?”
Giselle raised her eyebrows. She didn’t see that one coming. “I . . . uh . . . don’t know. I’m not sure if Roy is going to be there, or if we’re going to talk, or how late that might go.”
“Will you be okay? With him?”
“Of course.”
Fin didn’t seem appeased. “Why don’t you and Coco swing by afterward? If you haven’t had dinner, we can do that. And if you have, we could . . . get ice cream . . . or something.”
“Is this typical of morning-afters?”
“Not usually.”
“Is this a
date,
Fin Hensen?”
“Does it involve
sex
, Giselle?” She’d been kidding, but his voice had taken on an edge. He actually looked angry. Maybe she’d taken the questioning a little too far.
“No,” she admitted. “Not when I have Coco.”
Another two blocks of palm trees went by. Giselle watched a cluster of kids getting off a city bus with towels over their shoulders. Fin’s breathing slowed.
After the next stop sign, his palm reached across the console and squeezed her thigh. “Sorry,” he said. “I know that. I just . . . I don’t know why I’m inviting you, honestly. I want to make sure everything goes okay with your ex. And I . . . just want to see you again, I guess. It’s not typical.”
Giselle allowed herself three seconds of joy from the tiny flutter of hope that rose in her chest.
But then his hands were back on the steering wheel; his attention was back to dropping her off; and she tamped the flutter down and focused on reality.
That was what Veronica would probably do.
• • •
Giselle approached the well-manicured flagstone walkway of Joe and Lovey’s house. She couldn’t wait to see Coco again. She could feel the tiny weight her little girl would throw into her arms—her silky hair against Giselle’s shoulder, the smell of waffles coming off her like a cloud.
“Darling,” said Lovey, opening the door before Giselle had even knocked. Lovey gave her a weak smile, one that hinted at too many days of excessive emotion.
Giselle glanced over Lovey’s shoulder, then around her hips. Coco wasn’t running to meet her. “Good morning,” she said hesitantly.
“Oh, you remembered,” Lovey said, taking the pink baker’s box from Giselle’s hand. She peered inside at the glazed old-fashioneds. “You’re so thoughtful, dear. Come in.”
Giselle closed the massive door behind her and followed Lovey’s clicking kitten-heeled slippers through the entryway.
“Coco went out with Roy,” Lovey called over her shoulder. “They’ll be back in a bit.”
Giselle tiptoed past the doorway where Fin’s nose had bled and stepped around the corner into the empty massiveness of the house. The marble emptiness had the feeling of a tomb. Giselle wondered whether Lovey would stay here, all alone, now that Joe was gone. She knew she wouldn’t.
“Where did they go?” she asked. She didn’t know why it should bother her so much. She welcomed any moment Roy could act like a father—she knew it meant a lot to Coco, and she had always wished Roy would be more like her father had been: playful, fun, full of surprises, full of love and life.
“They went to the park,” Lovey said from the kitchen. “Coco wanted to show him how she can cross the monkey bars. Coffee?”
“Sure.” She’d welcome having something to do with her hands. She put her purse down and pressed her palms into the cool granite countertop so they would stop shaking.
“So your friend Fin? How did you meet him?” Lovey whirled into the center of the kitchen with the coffeepot.
Giselle felt a sudden catch in her throat at the unpredictable mention of Fin’s name. Or maybe the idea that Lovey called him her friend.
She took a deep breath. She wondered how horrified Lovey would be if she knew that Giselle, scrapbook mom extraordinaire, had just had a one-night stand of acrobatic, meaningless sex with a man she barely knew, simply because that man had agreed to, and he’d had the most amazing blue eyes, and a body to die for, and made her heart pound when he stood too close.
“I . . . um . . . met him through Lia,” Giselle said, staring at the countertop.
Lovey arranged the doughnuts on a china plate.
“We’re just . . .
friends
.”
Giselle felt the need to add the last part, despite the fact she knew Lovey wouldn’t judge. Lovey had always seemed embarrassed by what her son had done and seemed sensible enough to know that any blame that might get slung around would have to begin with him.
“Fin Hensen’s pretty famous around here.” Lovey reached for two gold-rimmed mugs. “Shame what happened to that girl.”
Giselle cast her eyes down again at the granite. Yes, very much. And yes, Fin was right. This was going to end up being what he’d be known for—not his beautiful shape, not his skill in the ocean, not his soul arch. But this—this terrible, ugly thing.
“I’m sure he had nothing to do with it,” Lovey added. “He seems like a nice young man. But it’s still such a shame. She was a beautiful girl. She came here for dinner once.”
Giselle’s head shot up. Lovey rummaged for creamer in the fridge.
Came here for dinner?
Her mind stalled, trying to put it in the right context, trying to connect it to the right people.
“Why did she come here for dinner?”
“Joe knew her,” said Lovey, shrugging. “He was friends with her father, and Jennifer and a few of the other surfers used to do some safety benefits with the children’s hospital down the street. She came here a few times. Roy met her.”
Giselle raised her eyebrows. No wonder Roy was so upset about the whole thing, or Fin’s possible involvement. It softened her a little toward Roy—maybe he had been sincerely worried—but it also bothered her that this went on without her: dinners with surfers, here in California, and the fact that he never told her about this tragic death of a family friend. What kind of a charade had she been living all these years?
“What was she like?” Giselle asked.
Lovey tilted her head. “Beautiful. Dark. Hawaiian influence in her family—dark skin, long black hair. She spoke with her hands a lot. She had a charming laugh. . . .”
The women both stood there in silence for a moment, sipping their coffee, paying homage to a beautiful girl whose life was cut short. Giselle remembered the online images she saw of Jennifer on her surfboard, with her Hawaiian good looks and silky hair. Giselle let her mind drift to the fact that Fin had known her, and taught her to surf, and traveled with her. She wondered whether he’d called her “wahine.” She wondered whether he’d slept with her. . . .
Of course, he’d said they were just friends and didn’t have a relationship, but he could say that about Giselle, too. The thought of him sleeping with Jennifer just for fun twisted a knot in her stomach, taking her by surprise. First she felt guilty for begrudging a dead girl any joy, and then she felt guilty for feeling a twinge of jealousy about a man who never claimed to be hers in any way. Guilt was followed in short order by sadness, though. Giselle must have been crazy to have thought being with Fin for one night would make her feel better. It just intensified her feelings—made her realize what she’d been missing all these years—and made her feel about a hundred times worse that she’d continue to miss it, possibly for the rest of her life.
“How are
you
doing, Lovey?” she asked, forcing herself to stop thinking about Fin. With the idea of loss still hovering in the air, Giselle thought it would be a good time to find out how Lovey was holding up.
“I’m okay. It helped to have Coco here. It gave me other things to focus on, and reminded me how life goes on. I’m so glad you let her stay.”
The women leaned into the kitchen counter and sipped their steaming coffee and shared the little they had left in common.
• • •
Fin wandered along the patio beneath the extinguished tiki torches, coffee mug in hand, and inspected the surf. He was surprised he’d missed his morning session. Especially right before a contest. According to the tide charts, the surf was supposed to have been great at seven this morning, but he could catch some good lefts later today at Trestles, if he could make it down there in time.
But his mind was wandering.
Which bothered him to no end.
It was wandering to Giselle’s lower back, and how she had those two sexy dimples there that became more pronounced when she lay on her stomach on his sheets. He thought about her crazy golden-strawberry-reddish-blondish hair, and how it felt sliding through his fingertips this morning as they lay against his starched pillows and stared up at the ceiling fan. He thought about her languid smile when she woke up, and how she ran the back of her hand across her eyelids like a child and laughed. He thought about what a relief it had been in his chest when he’d told her about Jennifer, how he’d felt an enormous weight lifted when she’d told him she didn’t see it as his fault. He thought about how she’d defended him to Fox, called him a “hero.” He thought about that strange stab of jealousy when she’d joked that she might continue having casual sex in Indiana. . . . At least, he hoped she’d been joking.
And did he just ask her and Coco over
tonight?