But it bubbled out of me before I could stop it. Not a full onhaha, you’re so funnylaugh, but one that sounded like I’d choked on that word he’d thrown at me.
“Sure, Finn,” I clipped. “We can be friends.”
I tried to ignore the way my chest was ripping apart as I slid off the barstool, ready to go back into the club and get my mind off this conversation. But before I could take a step, Finn’s fingers caught the belt loop of my jeans.
He tugged me to a stop, pulling hard enough that I had no choice but to face him. My cheeks burned when I met his gaze again, when I saw his jaw set like that. It reminded me of the first night he touched me, the night I found out he wasn’t just good with his hands in the kitchen.
“You look so pretty like this,” he growls against my lips, hand splaying my throat before curling just enough to make me gasp and arch into the touch. “Wearing the way you want me like a red lipstick you want everyone to see.”
“Finn…”
“That’s it, Firefly. Call out my name. Beg for what you want.”
I blinked, cursing the memory and the way it sent electricity straight between my thighs.
“I mean it,” Finn said. He dropped his gaze to where I was staring at his fingers in my belt loop, and then cleared his throat, releasing the hold. “We need to work through this together. Especially with…”
He glanced at the camera I just remembered was with us, and I flushed deeper.
“Let’s be a team,” Finn added. “We make a good one, if you remember.”
I’m trying to forget.
But I didn’t say the words aloud. Instead, I sighed heavily, but nodded, leaning my arms on the railing again. As much as the idea of beingfriendswith Finn Pearson made me sick, he was right. This was a huge chance to further my career, to secure myself gigs I couldn’t even dream of at the moment.
It was a chance to prove myself to my father with the world watching.
I wouldn’t waste that — especially not on feelings that should have been long dead by now.
“Fine,” I relented. “Let’s be a team. But only if you mean that. Don’t take your little chef fits out on me. You can throw dishes and play Fruit Ninja all you want, but don’t be a dick to me.”
The corner of Finn’s lips curved. “No dick behavior. Promise.”
I smirked back, rolling my neck against the strain there. “I think I need another drink.”
“I think I need my bed.”
“Old man.”
“Never felt that to be more true than this moment,” he admitted, and right on cue, a huge yawn stretched his mouth.
I chuckled. “What happened to the FinnIused to know? You were always the last one back on the boat. You’d be out until you had to provision the next day sometimes.”
“I guess we’ve both aged.”
“Guess so.” My smile fell a bit, eyes flicking over the new lines on his face, the way he looked older now. The floor dropped out from under me.
I hated that I’d missed out on those years.
“Is everything okay with you and Gisella, by the way?” I tried not to sound as desperate as I was to know the answer when the question left my lips. “She seemed a little… perturbed at dinner.”
Finn sighed. “That’s one word for it. She was fit to kill.”
“Why?”
“The producers thought it would be fun to tell her during post-charter interviews that you and I used to date.”
Shit.