Only in Your Dreams (The Mountains are Calling #2)

14. Finley

Our group is late getting to the rodeo because we underestimated the dinner lines, so we end up not being able to get seats together. Wren, Holden, June, and Mom find four seats together, and I have to swallow down my frustration. I don’t want to be alone with Grey, not after the moment on the Ferris wheel. I’m tired of being so in my head, of questioning everything, including what I’m feeling and what I want. So I just said it out loud, and it felt like my heart stopped beating as I waited for his reply.

It hurt more than it should have when he said he didn’t know why he always knows exactly where I am. It shouldn’t have hurt at all. But for a moment, I thought maybe he was going to tell me the reasons, that it was because I was somehow special to him, different from all the other women he’s been attracted to, dated.

We finally find two open seats near the top of the grandstand, illuminated by the bright lights that flicked on the moment the sun started to set, and it’s not a moment too soon, because my feet are killing me. Earlier today, I felt blisters forming, and I’m pretty sure they’ve already popped. I let out a soft, relieved noise when we sit, and Grey gives me a curious look.

“It’s nothing,” I say, but his eyes trace down my legs to my boots, and I watch as a smirk turns his lips up.

“Are the boots hurting your feet, Fin?”

This, at least, feels normal, and I want to kiss him for easing some of the tension. I also think I might just want to kiss him.

“No,” I say, kicking them out in front of me, letting my heels rest on the metal floor of the bleachers.

“Are you sure?”

I nod. “Absolutely. Couldn’t be better.”

His smile widens, and I know he thinks I’m full of shit. Before he can respond, the announcer begins talking over the loudspeaker, introducing the bareback racers who will open the show. It’s too loud for us to talk after that, other than the occasional comment about one of the racers, but I’m okay with that. I feel like I’ve laid myself too bare today, and taking bets on the competitors, or screaming with the rest of the people in the stands when someone wins feels normal. Good. Easy. Like it should.

When the bull riders come out, I pick the most attractive one to bet on, and tell Grey, “Him.”

He looks down at me, brow wrinkled. “They said he’s least favored to win.”

“But he’s prettiest,” I say with a cheeky smile.

He rolls his eyes, looking back out in the center of the grandstand. “He’s going to lose.”

“Careful, Grey. You sound jealous.” I mimic his words from earlier, on top of the Ferris wheel.

The look he gives me makes my insides quiver, the hairs on the back of my neck stick up. It’s heated, warm fudge on the top of an already steaming brownie. “And if I am? What does it mean?”

This feels dangerous, like propping your feet up on the edge of the fire pit with your shoes on, feeling the rubber soles grow hot and sticky. Once again, I repeat his words from earlier, throwing them back at him. “I don’t know, Grey. You tell me.”

It’s a challenge, one I desperately want him to take me up on.

The words feel taut between us, a live wire humming with electricity, and I want to see which one of us is going to be shocked.

But before he can respond, the crowd around us changes, the energy growing excited. The elderly man beside Grey taps him on the shoulder, motions to the other side of the grandstand. We follow the line of his finger, seeing a giant image of us in this moment, red faced and nervous, plastered on the Jumbotron. We’re encased in a red heart, with the words Kiss Cam above it.

I watch my eyes go wide on the screen before I rip my gaze away, fixing it instead on Grey. He’s already watching me, but he’s not smirking like I would have guessed. Instead, there’s a determined look on his face. One I only see when he’s concentrating or on the clock.

He leans in until he’s close enough that only I can hear, face hidden from the camera so no one can read his lips. “I think I better kiss you.” He pauses, and the weight of his breath on my neck is heady, making heat pool in all the tender places of my body. “But only if you want me to.”

I don’t allow myself to overthink it. I don’t allow myself to wonder what this means or why I want it. I just say “yes.”

He doesn’t hesitate either. The moment the word has left my mouth, his lips are on mine.

It would be a lie to say I’ve never imagined what it would be like to be kissed by Grey Sutton. I would have expected it to be practiced, for him to have a technique. He does this enough to be a pro at it, I would imagine. He’d go slow, work his way up to a tempo that feels right, leave me weak in the knees and wanting more.

I never would have imagined it would be like this.

This kiss is hungry . He devours me in a way I’ve never experienced, his hands on my face, turning it just how he likes it. His teeth sink into my bottom lip, then his tongue is in my mouth. And I don’t feel weak-kneed at all.

I feel electric. On fire. Burning everywhere we’re touching, aching everywhere we’re not. It’s all-consuming and somehow still not enough.

When I let out an involuntary moan, my hand fisting in the collar of his shirt, he rips his mouth from mine. His eyes are wide, wider than I’ve ever seen them before. I think he says something about dreams, but now that he’s not ravaging me, consuming my every bit of attention, the rest of the world seems to trickle back in, filling in the barely there gap between us.

I hear the sound of the crowd cheering. Whistling and hollering. The elderly man who tapped Grey on the shoulder now telling us to get a room. His wife asking him why he’s never kissed her that way before. Him saying he would have if she’d looked like me.

“Oh, gosh,” I say into the fabric of Grey’s shirt, burying my face there to hide the redness of it.

He chuckles, his chin landing on the top of my head, arms banding around my middle. Somehow, despite everything, this doesn’t feel weird. I just made out with my older brother’s best friend, with the man I had a massive crush on when I was too young to even have an idea of what I wanted. I just had his tongue in my mouth, and mine was in his. I know that he tastes of the fresh lemonade we split at dinner and that he feels even more solid than he looks and that the way he kisses is unexpected and all-consuming and perfect.

And I know that I want to do it again.

“You want to get out of here?” he asks, and my heart stutters. I don’t know what he’s asking, what this means, but I know that I don’t want to be here with him, surrounded by hundreds of people.

I want him alone. I want to see if he will kiss me again when the whole town isn’t watching.

“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s get out of here.”

Leaving hand in hand after our performance is even more embarrassing than coming back to earth, remembering we weren’t alone, and that the kiss had been projected to everyone in the grandstand. The same people who were cheering for us during the kiss make suggestive comments as we pass, elbow their partners in the side, shoot us winks, like they know what we’re leaving to do.

I wish I knew, but there’s also something about the anticipation of not knowing, of guessing, of using my imagination, that’s somehow better .

Are we going to talk? Is he going to kiss me again the moment we’re alone? Are we going to regret it? I don’t think I will unless he does. It’s Grey and it’s complicated, but it was good in a way I could have never imagined.

We pass Wren, Holden, June, and Mom, and Wren raises her brows at me, a smirk on her face. I lift my shoulders, wondering if I look even half as confused as I feel, or if I just look freshly kissed. Absolutely ruined.

When we finally get out of the grandstand, I pull him to a stop. “I can’t walk in these boots anymore,” I say, using his shoulder to hold myself up as I tug one of them off. “You don’t get to say you were right, understand?”

I look up at him, dropping down an inch when I finally get my boot off and step onto the dirt. He’s smiling, eyes crinkled on each side, the lines disappearing into his hairline. “How are you expecting to get back to the truck?”

“Walk?”

“Half these stands are selling drinks in glass bottles, Fin. You can’t walk barefoot.”

I kick up my foot, showing off my now dusty white sock. “I’m not.”

He rolls his eyes, but there’s no actual exasperation in his expression. He takes the boots from my hands and spins around so his back is facing me. “Hop on.”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t be carrying me today,” I say, but I’m already stepping closer, itching to feel him against me again.

“I have no control where you’re concerned, sweetheart.”

I can feel the roughness of his voice scraping down my spine, making the fine hairs there stand at attention. My skin flushes hot, warmth pooling low in my belly, in the spots on my face and neck where his hands were resting a few minutes ago when he sank his teeth into my bottom lip and tugged.

“That so?” I ask, my voice sounding as shaky as I feel.

He looks at me over his shoulder, his eyes looking unusually dark, pupils wide. “I thought that was fairly obvious when I kissed you.”

The way he says it so casually feels pornographic. I swallow, heat rushing to my face. Instead of commenting on it, he turns back around, bending so I can easily jump onto his back.

I do, the breath heaving out of me when he transfers the boots into my hands and places his on my exposed legs. These shorts felt like a good idea this morning when I was dressing for the weather, but now, with his calloused fingers denting the skin of my thighs, holding me in place as he starts toward the exit, I think maybe this was the worst idea I’ve ever had.

Feeling his hands on me is too much, and by the time we get to the truck, I think I’m going to combust. It’s been too long since I’ve been touched. He holds me like he was made for it. Like I was made for him, for his hands and his body and his kisses.

When he finally sets me down, I’m shivering with anticipation. I’m equal parts hot and cold. He opens the door for me, and I feel his eyes like a caress as he watches me climb in, his forearm planted on the door frame. He’s not smiling this time as I look up at him through the fringe of my lashes. His gaze is hot, searching.

“Where to?” he asks, voice the scrape of sandpaper on wood.

I hesitate for only a moment, considering, but I finally offer what I want most. “We could go back to my place.” It feels bold, but I want privacy. I want to see what he will do if the whole town isn’t watching.

He holds my eyes for a long moment, and I think I see a muscle in his jaw flicker, see his gaze drop back down to my lips again. “Okay.”

“If you want to?” I ask, feeling vulnerable, unsure.

This, at least, makes a small smile twitch across his lips. It’s not wide, bright. It’s soft, private. Like a secret between the two of us. “Yeah, Finley, I want to. I’ll stay until you kick me out.”

We’re quiet on the drive across town, windows down and radio on, playing a softly staticky country station. Anticipation pulses beneath my skin the closer we get to my apartment, and my imagination runs wild.

This isn’t the first time he’s been there, obviously, and not even the first time we’ve been there alone. But it is the first time we’ve been there alone after kissing like it was an appetizer. After breaking apart like neither of us wanted to. After seeming to acknowledge the attraction growing between us over the last few weeks.

Or maybe it’s been longer. I’ve been aware of Grey for as long as he’s been a part of my life. Although him calling me annoying when I was in high school made my crush on him crash and burn, nothing could make his inherent magnetism disappear. I may not have wanted him for the past fifteen years, but I would be lying to say I wasn’t still attracted to him.

Time feels funny on the way back to my apartment, both rushing forward and standing still until we’re there, parking the truck in the little lot behind my building. When he opens my door again, tapping his fingers on the roof of the truck, I’m tugging my boot back on, cringing as they scrape against the blisters.

“What are you doing?”

“I dropped a jar of pickles from my groceries on the stairs up to the apartment last week and I haven’t gotten a chance to sweep up the little pieces yet.” I grit my teeth when I try to squeeze past a particularly painful blister on my pinky toe. “Shit, that hurts.”

“I can just carry you,” he says, pulling the boots from my hands.

I swallow and look up at him, the nerves flaring back to life in my stomach. “Okay.”

I expect him to turn around, give me his back once more, but this time, he picks me up with one arm behind my back and the other under my knees, bridal style. The air rushes out of my lungs, and I loop my arms around his neck to keep from slipping.

The pulse in his throat beats against my arm, racing faster than it should. It settles my anxiety a little, knowing he’s just as affected by this as I am. So I let myself be honest and say, “This is nice.”

His eyes settle on me, warm, tender. “I think so too.”

“Maybe I should hire someone to carry me around all day.”

“That might look a little weird since I’m supposed to be your boyfriend.”

My lips lift in a smile, stomach swooping when his eyes dip to follow the movement. “You’d take the job?”

“If you want someone to carry you, Fin, just call me, and I’ll be here.” His hands tighten, hauling me almost unintentionally closer to his body, and I sink farther into him.

I sigh, and the breath makes the messy hairs beneath his ball cap billow. “I see now how you get all the women. You can be really charming when you want to be.”

“I don’t want all the women, Finley,” he says, climbing the last stair and setting me down on the stoop so I can fish out my key from my tiny shorts pocket.

My eyes fix on his, questioning. “Right, just the one woman that you won’t tell me about.”

He holds my gaze for so long, his body tense, that I think he’s not going to respond. But he finally looks away, says, “You were really drunk that night. You shouldn’t trust your memory.”

Maybe he’s telling the truth. Everything is still a hazy, fuzzy mess, but I could have sworn I heard it. I let myself imagine, just for a second, that he’s been harboring some kind of inexplicable attraction to me for all these years like I have been with him.

“Maybe not,” I say, fitting my key into the lock. It opens, letting out a blast of cold air that feels good against my overheated skin.

My blisters scream as I take my first step, and I wince, breath hissing out between my teeth.

He sighs loudly, walking in behind me. “Were the boots worth it?”

“I looked pretty hot,” I say, limping toward the kitchen. “So yes.”

He follows closely behind, and when I stop at the medicine cabinet, he’s beside me. When I glance over at him, his gaze is heavy on me, trailing from my feet up to my face, and I get the sense that when my back was turned, he took a lazy perusal in the other direction. “I think I agree.”

Liquid heat pulses through my veins, making me hot despite the chilly AC. A deep flush works its way up my chest and into my cheeks, made worse by the way Grey follows it. Slowly, like he’s wishing his hands or tongue were tracing the same path.

Finally, his throat bobs in a swallow, and he tears his gaze away from my chest, fixing it on the open cabinet beside my head. He reaches around me, pulling out a box of pink bandages. This makes his lips twitch in a smile.

His hand pats the counter beside me. “Hop up. We need to clean these blisters before putting the Band Aids on.”

I know this, had planned on retreating to the bathroom to wash my dusty feet in the bathtub and clean everything with alcohol before bandaging it, but I follow his instructions instead, heart beating in my throat.

The counter is slightly too tall for me to easily hoist myself onto, and my breath stalls when Grey’s hands settle on my waist, fingers twitching as he lifts me. They linger there for a moment too long, on the sliver of space between my crop top and the waistband of my shorts. I feel that touch everywhere, even in all the places he’s not touching. All the places I wish he was.

Then he drops his hands, gathering the rest of the supplies he needs—damp paper towels and dry ones, the bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a chair. He drags it in front of me, sitting down and settling my feet in his lap.

I’m not breathing when he strips my sock off, lifts his eyes from the admittedly brutal blisters, and fixes me with a chastising stare. “Finley Blankenship.”

I roll my lips together to keep from laughing. “I couldn’t tell you. You would have been right.”

“I was right,” he says as he wipes the blisters with the damp paper towel before wetting one of the dry ones with the rubbing alcohol. “This is probably going to sting.”

A little hiss escapes from between his teeth, and he immediately removes the paper towel from my skin, eyes snagging on mine.

“You okay?” he asks, concern etched in every line of his face. He’s so attentive, attuned to my every movement or sound, and I realize, for the first time, that he’s like this with everyone. It’s part of why he’s so charming, why he’s so good with women. He reads people so easily, adjusts his approach according to whatever they need.

So even though it stings, I know he won’t hurt me. I won’t even have to tell him, because he will notice if he does. I nod. “It’s fine.”

He’s quiet as he finishes cleaning the blisters. There are six of them between my two feet, some already painfully popped, others close to it. Every movement he makes is gentle, almost reverent, but also efficient, reminding me that he’s trained in this.

When he finally finishes, he looks up at me, the pale blue of his eyes looking especially striking in the dimness of my apartment. I left the bathroom light on and a lamp in the kitchen, but the rest of the place is dark. I suddenly realize how truly alone we are, how close we’re sitting, how his hands are still wrapped around my ankles, thumbs moving back and forth in slow circles. Every pass of them against my skin makes me burn hotter, want settling heavily in all the untouched places.

“I should probably go,” he says.

My mind is so fuzzy from his touch that it takes me a moment to decipher his words. “What? Why?” I don’t care that I sound desperate.

A smile touches his lips. “If I stay, I’m going to kiss you again,” he says, making my heart rate ratchet up a notch. “And I don’t think that’s the best idea.”

“Why not?” My voice is breathy.

“Because you might decide later that it was a mistake.”

“And you won’t?”

His shoulder lifts in a shrug, not an answer.

“Shouldn’t I be the one to make that decision?” I ask.

He shakes his head, eyes soft. “Not this time, Fin.”

“I know what I want,” I say, adamant. But I’m not actually sure I do. I know what my body wants right now, but my heart is thumping, equal parts excited and terrified. My mind is screaming that I wouldn’t be able to handle a future rejection from Grey, someone who is so intricately involved in my life, always there for me when I need him.

He stands, dropping my feet, and leans in to press a chaste kiss to my brow. He lingers there, says into my hair, “If you still want to kiss me later, just call. Just like if you need me to carry you. But only ask me if you want me to. I don’t think I could handle it any other way.”

His words settle heavily, and when he pulls back, he holds my gaze for a long moment, a thick, tenuous want settling in the space between us.

Swallowing, I nod. “And if I asked you now?”

His body goes ramrod straight, and I feel his heart pounding fast against my shoulder. His mind may be unsure, but his body wants this as much as mine does. Finally, he shakes his head, his stubble catching in my throat.

“Don’t ask me, Finley. My self-control is holding on by a thread.”

“There are scissors in the drawer beside your hip,” I say.

He groans, pulling back. But some of the tension has left him and is replaced with a smile.

I stare up at him. He’s taller than me even when I’m sitting on the counter. “I won’t ask tonight.”

And as much as I want to, I know this is the right decision. Everything has happened so fast. It’s only been a few weeks, and we still have to carry out this charade for a few more. And after that, we will always be in each other’s lives, bound together by Holden. If we’re going to do this, we need to be sure it’s what we want.

He nods, says, “Good night, Fin.”

“Night, Grey.”

I watch him as he makes his way across my small apartment, something nagging at the back of my mind. When his hand is on the door handle, I ask, “Grey, are you sure you didn’t say something about a woman the night of Holden and Wren’s wedding?”

My heart beats in my throat, and my breath hitches as he hesitates at the door, body going rigid. I want him to say it’s me that he was talking about that night. I want him to say there’s more between us than just attraction, that I’m finally enough for someone. For him.

He doesn’t turn around. Just says, “You were drunk, Finley,” and lets himself out the door, leaving me alone in my apartment, still holding my breath.