Free Falling

11 | kiss

As soon as I unlocked my front door and let Finn in, I made a beeline for my room and shut the door behind me, leaning back on it and firmly shut my eyes.

Did I really just invite him in? So much for staying away from him. So far I was doing a terrible job at steering clear.

I locked my door—just in case he was in the mood to invade my privacy—and took my clothes off, heading into the bathroom. I took a thorough shower and brushed my teeth, using the mouthwash twice when I remembered my mouth had been in that creep's the previous night.

With my body feeling less exhausted and cleansed from the horrors of a night I hoped never to relieve, I returned to my room and pulled on a pair of jeans and my most comfortable shirt. The aforementioned shirt was a black faded T-shirt with my highschool's crest on it. I probably should've been bothered that Finn was going to see me looking less... appealing, but I was starving and honestly couldn't care less.

It could deter him from me anyway, which I half-heartedly hoped for.

I returned to my living room and Finn was standing next to a table, a picture frame in his hands. He was distracted by the picture so much so I suspected he wasn't aware of my presence.

I didn't need to look at the picture to know what he was staring so intently at. It was one of the few I kept around.

"That's my family."

He dropped the picture and turned to me, his expression blank. "The boy and the girl, what are their names?"

"Lars and Josephine. I'm the oldest, obviously."

"You guys look happy. Do you love them?"

"Very much."

"And they, you?"

I nodded in response.

His lips curled down for a second. "I've never had much of a bond with my family. The whole concept irks me."

"Your dad's late. So it's just your mother in the picture?" I asked, recollecting the content of the article Ingrid had read to me the day I met him.

"If you look at it that way."

I didn't think much of his reply and went to the kitchen, pulling out pans and riffling through the pantry. I decided I was too hungry for anything that would take over twenty minutes to make and got out flour, milk and butter instead. Pancakes, it is.

The thought of Finn basically just existing in my apartment made even cooking pancakes require a lot of concentration. I had no idea why he was even affiliating with me, when his league consisted of women of high class. I was a uni student in her senior year, trying to make her parents proud and get my dream job, living an ordinary life. I didn't get it.

He just wants to get in your pants.

The voice in my head sounded rational and my body tensed up in defence, reinstating all the walls I'd built around myself that had began to chip since I met Finn.

Minutes later, Finn entered the kitchen. I glanced over my shoulder to where he was stood near my fridge, a placid expression on his face as he watched me work.

"You cook?" He asked.

"How else do you think I survive?" I c****d an eyebrow. He remained quite, staring at me. "Well, yeah. But right now would be a terrible time to support that claim, seeing as I'm only making pancakes." I said, flipping a pancake with a spatula, pretending like Finn's presence in the room had not made the kitchen ten times smaller. And hotter.

"Then you'll show me another day." I could hear the smile in his voice. I turned to him, uncertain I heard him right.

"Another day?"

"Yeah. It can be tomorrow, the next or even this night. I quite frankly want to see you everytime." He said, causing my heart to flutter in the most smitten, annoying kind of way. He pushed himself off the wall and walked towards me. My breathing halted and I turned to the pan, my grip on the spatula growing tighter.

He stopped only when he was behind me, his height giving him the ability to peer over my shoulder into the frying pan.

"God, I'm starving." I jumped at his close proximity, his breath fanning my ear. His voice was raspy, hinting that his statement went more ways than one. I shut my eyes for a while to regain my composure, hating and loving the way his presence was making me feel.

"They'll be done in a minute." I managed to choke out, the spatula moving to scoop out the pancake. Then he left the kitchen. Flushed, I slumped over the counter and inhaled. f**k, he was like a silent tornado, sucking everything in his path without you being aware of it.

After I plated two stacks of pancakes and got two glasses of orange juice on a tray and made my way to the living room, he was nowhere in sight.

Goddamnit. Where are you, Harris?

I noticed the glass door of the balcony was open, so I curiously peeked out. Finn was seated on one of the chairs I had outside, his phone pressed to his ear.

"Tell Michael to go ahead with it, immediately. He's supposed to have reported back to me since last month. And get the young man from human resources an appointment on Monday morning... okay. That's fine, Jared." He looked at me expectantly and ended his call as I dropped the tray, placed a plate and a cup in front of him and did the same for myself.

"I think I lost an eggshell in there somewhere, so I might not make the best first impression." I tried to laugh but ended up making a wheezing sound instead.

"Better than anything I could ever make." He chuckled, pushing away the blond hair from his forehead. I tried not to watch him eat as he cut out a large piece and brought it up to his mouth, but I couldn't help myself. With his charm and attractive features, he looked way too young to be heading such a massive company and didn't exactly fit the stereotype of a business man I had in my head. Most guys I knew his age were still busy bar hopping and struggling to figure out what to do with their lives after college. Well, except Nate. He got himself well grounded early, much thanks to the support he got from his parents.

Finn took a long drink from his cup and licked the juice droplets from his lips. I bit mine. Hard.

"This is really good," he mused, eating the last chunk of pancake on his plate. I had barely touched mine, too distracted watching him.

"Thanks." I said in return, downing the contents of my cup in a flash. My mouth was dry. Too dry.

"What are your plans after you graduate?" He asked, his eyes trained on me.

"I plan on getting my master's after college and further my education so I can work as a CRNA," I explained. The slight frown on his face urged me to clarify. "A certified registered nurse anesthetic. It allows me to administer anesthetics to patients."

"Sounds technical." His lips curled up into a half smile. I never knew how incredibly sexy his smile was until right now.

"It is technical." I said, matter-of-factly.

"Why do you want to be a nurse?"

"I feel like I'm on a job interview," I giggled.

He shrugged. "Pretend you're on one and I'm your potential employer. So tell me, Amanda Reed, why do you want to be a nurse?"

"Because I want to stick people with needles. I feed off the fear and terrified looks on their faces."

Finn shook his head, holding back a smile. "You won't only be sent away, but every hospital in the country will be warned to steer clear of you. You'll be blacklisted."

I let out a loud laugh, almost choking. "Sounds like a dream. But seriously, I decided to be a health worker when I was six. My grandma was a paraplegic due an accident which made her unable to walk and loose function from her chest down. It was hard for her to do a lot of things, like breathe properly. She had to be cared by nurses and caretakers at her house since she didn't want to go live in a nursing home. I loved her a lot. My dad told me I was her favorite grandchild, although she never admitted to it to the rest of our extended family. The memories I have of her are vague, but she was loaded, divorced and loved to take care of herself."

"I spent my afternoons with her since my mom had her hands full with my younger siblings who had just been born, so she and my dad appreciated having me out of their hair for a few hours. Grandma spoiled me a lot, and I loved watching while her nurse took care of her and administered her meds. When I asked my dad why she took a lot of medicine, he said it was because she was sick and old. When I asked if she was going to die, he told me she wouldn't because her nurse took care of her. And I thought that was the best thing in the world."

"One day, I found her on the floor and I didn't quite understand what it was all about. Her nurse was nowhere in sight and I thought she was dying, so I went where her drugs were kept and took as much bottles I could to her and got a glass of water, hoping she'd take it and be okay again. But she was gasping like a fish out of water, and eventually the door came open and my dad rushed down to her. There was a lot of screaming, some of which were at me to get out of the way as he dragged her out of the house. I learnt when I was older that her nurse was late and no one else was in the house to help, even her caretakers."

"She survived, but my dad wasn't taking any chances so he took her to the nursing home. She passed away eleven months later. As I got older, I grew into my affinity for the profession. I haven't imagined doing anything else."

I didn't tell him that she'd left me a lot of money in her will, much of which was intended to fund my tertiary education no matter what school I decided to go to. It meant I could live in a nice apartment in a nice city without fussing about a part time job. A lot of times I wished she had lived long enough that I would've had the chance to know her better.

Finn was quite, attention unwavering. Then he smiled. "I'm sure you'll make a great nurse."

I pursed my lips. "Yeah, well, you know quite a lot about me as it stands, and I feel disadvantaged that I barely even know you... well, past what Google offered." I shut my eyes after the words left my mouth, not so subtly hinting that I'd been online stalking him. It was just that one time!

The half smile widened a notch. This time his eyes lightened up in the process. "Ask away." I let out a breath of relief seeing he wasn't going to make fun of me over the fact.

"You took over your dad's company at nineteen. Wasn't that too early?"

The smile on his face disappeared and for a second I thought he wasn't going to answer. "What if I didn't have a choice? My father died when I was just five years old and I was made his successor. The faster I assumed my role, the better. A lot was at stake and soon I was graduating highschool at thirteen and university at eighteen." The bitterness in his voice was unconcealed as he spoke, his handsome features contorted in deep displeasure.

"You don't sound like you enjoyed it."

"Because I didn't. Sorry, can you ask me something else? Like my favourite food or colour or anything but that." His tone was firm but his eyes were pleading. I nodded.

I wanted to ask him how many girlfriends he has had, or how many girls' pancakes he's eaten. If anything his brother River had told me the other day was true, then Finn was indeed the kind of person I had to stay away from. I didn't like hidden agendas or lies or deception.

"You think a lot, you know that?" His voice brought me out of my clustered thoughts.

"How so?"

"You have that look on your face. You're looking, but you aren't seeing. And you sucked in your lower lip with the smallest frown on your face." My mouth hung open. Was I that easy to read? "You have that look on a lot. Around me, anyway. A penny for your thoughts?"

"Why are you here?" My voice was low. I sounded tired. Maybe I was, more than I was letting on.

"Isn't it obvious? I like you. A lot."

I turned away to hide the fact that my face was going different shades of red. "What ever happened to me staying away from you?"

"Sometimes I say things I don't mean. That was one of them."

"And now isn't?"

He sat back in his chair and smirked. "What do you think, Amanda?"

"That this is all fun and games to you. As a man who was in a fake relationship."

"My arrangement with Hailey was purely business."

"So what is this with me supposed to be? Games?"

"How can I get you to trust me?" I scoffed. His eyes narrowed and I noticed his hands curl into a fist. "Or do you have a boyfriend?"

"I don't," I said sharply.

"Why not?"

I glared at him. "You tell me why you don't date."

He smirked. "What makes you think I don't?"

"Someone said," I grinned in satisfaction at the puzzled look on his face, "that you don't date. That you're just a bad little boy who has a lot, a lot of flings."

That might've made him mad. It was cute seeing him be the one all riled up for a change.

"Who?"

"River, your brother."

His eyes darkened as anger marred his perfect features. "You've been talking with my brother?"

He made it sound like I had committed a sin.

"Once. The second time I was at your office."

"What else did that asshole tell you?" He growled. I was suprised at him much emotion he was barring at this moment. Finn was usually calm and collected, barely loosing his composure.

"Nothing else. You don't deny it, then?"

He shrugged. "I'm willing to make an exception. People change, decision do too. You have no idea how bad you drive me crazy, Amanda." His voice was deep and warm, like chocolate seeping through my bones.

His hand trailed up to my face and pushed the hair that had escaped my ponytail out of view. The contact of his skin on mine made me shiver, sending heat coursing through my veins.

"You want this too, but you keep fighting it."

I shut my eyes and inhaled, breathing his scent in.

"I see how I affect you. I see how your skin turns red, how your breathing speeds up." He sounded so close as he whispered, "how you tightly press your thighs together."

As I let out a shocked gasp, he claimed my lips in his in a kiss. His lips were demanding as he kissed me roughly, coercing me to open up.

"Kiss me back, Amanda." He said against my mouth. His other hand found it's way to my waist and pulled me over him in the seat.

Don't kiss him back. Don't.

Kiss him back. How long will you hold back?

He'll break you heart! They always do!

Fuck it, and kiss him!

His tongue traced the seam of my lips and I found myself opening up, my tongue meeting his, tasting of orange juice. One hand fisting the hair on the nape of neck and the other greedily bunching the material of his shirt, I surrendered.

Just now. Forget about later, focus on the now.

He held my head in place as he slanted his head, deepening the kiss. He sucked on my tongue and I let out a sultry moan, forcing myself to take more. He was intoxicating, more than anything else could be.

Hovering over his body, my legs straddled his big frame, struggling to accommodate him. He was hard and tense everywhere, and I found myself rubbing my body against him as his hand slipped under my shirt and met with the bare skin of my lower back.

"Amanda?" I heard a call from inside. It was Nate. I froze. Finn didn't.

Hungry a*s.

I pushed myself away from him and fell back on my former position on the chair, turning away as I jumped off. My pulse was racing, lips throbbing and hair disheveled. My skin burned from everywhere his hand had been.

I can't believe I let him kiss me. And I actually dry humped him. f**k.

Finn was still seated, looking just as flushed as I felt. His hair was messed up from my hands running through them and his eyes were wild with l**t. My face went hot when I noticed the strain in his pants. He licked his rosy lips and sucked them in, biting back a seductive smile. He wasn't helping one bit.

"Amanda?" Nate called again, stepping out into the balcony. He frowned at my appearance and turned to where Finn was seated then back at me, putting two and two together. "What the hell?"