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

19. Finley

I will never admit it to Grey, but his shower is as good as he always claims it is. I want to stay here forever. Or at least long enough for him to come knocking, asking me what’s taking so long. I want to drag him in here with me, show him in all the ways I can think of that he’s important. Cherished. Worthy. Loved.

There’s a sticky feeling in my chest when I think of him. Something I don’t want to name. Something that feels too vulnerable to acknowledge. But I can’t ignore it for much longer, or it will devour me.

Deciding to shut the shower, and hopefully the path of my thoughts, off, I wrap myself in one of the giant charcoal gray towels I found in the linen closet, finally feeling warm and clean. Grey’s bathroom is just as stunning as the rest of his house. Something I was actually a bit surprised by. I knew he and Holden had been slowly renovating it over the past few years, but I couldn’t have imagined it turning out anything like this. Despite the bachelor-esque lack of decor, the paint and finishes and overall aesthetic of the home is immaculate. Exactly the way I would have designed it if it were mine. Warm and cozy, while still modern and clean. It’s a lot like Unlikely Places, a modern twist on the vintage mountain-town feel of Fontana Ridge.

And there’s a picket fence, which makes me feel giddy inside.

When I step out of the shower, I realize my mistake. Throwing my damp dress onto the kitchen floor, knowing Grey was watching from outside, had felt good, but now I’m wrapped in a towel with no clothes.

I can already imagine the smug look on his face. For some reason, I don’t feel as bothered by that as I should. I just feel anticipatory and a little jittery. Like his eyes are already on my body, making my skin flush with heat and desire.

Slowly, I open the door, the steam from the bathroom drifting out, the chill of the AC making goose bumps ghost across my damp skin. I find Grey in the living room, spread out on the couch, still shirtless and wearing his shorts from earlier. One of his arms is crooked behind his head, making his bicep look obscene, and he’s got his feet kicked up on the coffee table, his eyes trained on the TV.

I want to drink this image in. He looks divine . Like something out of an equally erotic and domestic daydream. I can’t believe I’m here with him right now, that I’m the only woman who has ever been here, even though I can’t quite believe that. It makes something heavy settle behind my belly button, spreading out like liquid warmth to all my limbs.

I must make a noise, because his gaze swings from the TV to me, widening and heating as he slowly peruses me from toe to head, taking his time, lingering in all the places I’m aching for his touch.

A smile kicks up one corner of his mouth as his eyes settle on me, and I feel it everywhere.

“I could get used to this,” he drawls, not moving from his spot spread out on the couch.

“To what?”

His eyes sear into mine, but he doesn’t hesitate before saying, “Having you naked in my house.”

Oh, hell.

My free hand, not the one holding on to the towel for dear life, presses against my throat, and Grey follows the movement, his smile widening. In one fluid motion, he pushes to standing, his feet eating up the distance between us, until he’s only inches from where I’m hovering in his doorway.

My feet are rooted to the floor, and I have to tilt my head to look up at him. I think I might actually pass out when he places one hand on the top of the doorframe and leans down until his lips are against my ear, his breath skating down the slope of my neck.

“You left your dress on my kitchen floor, Fin.”

I swallow and dip my chin in a nod. “My bad.”

I can feel his laugh against my skin. “I think you just wanted to come out in a tiny towel to torture me.”

My gaze drifts down to the towel wrapped around me. “Grey, this is a bath sheet. I’ve never been more covered in my life.”

He leans back, grin widening. “In my imagination, it’s smaller.”

“You must have a very vivid imagination.”

“You have no idea.”

I have to press my lips together to keep from smiling. “Just get me some clothes.”

He shakes his head, slipping past me into the bedroom. “Fine, but what a damn shame it is.”

I turn, my gaze following him as he rifles through his drawers, pulling out a very faded T-shirt. His movements are easy, smooth. Like he’s so effortlessly comfortable in his body.

When he bends down to retrieve a pair of heather gray sweatpants from his bottom drawer, I catch sight of his ribs. Of the dainty flower inked there. A poppy.

My heart stutters in my chest as I stare at it. My favorite flower. Tattooed on his skin.

Grey stands to his full height, and when he looks at me, he sees where my eyes are glued. I watch in fascination as a heated blush starts at his neck and works its way up to his cheeks, staining them the prettiest shade of pink.

There’s a feeling beneath my skin, a pulsing, and a thought in my head that I keep unsuccessfully trying to grasp, like cupping water in the palms of my hands. Without thinking too much about it, I’m moving, closing the distance between us. My hand reaches out of its own accord, fingers touching the poppy, bumping over the ridges of his ribs.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathe, quiet enough that I can barely hear it over my heart beating in my ears. “When did you get it?”

I drag my gaze up from his torso, and when my eyes lock on his, I feel the weight of his stare zipping down my spine, coming to settle behind my belly button.

He swallows, hesitates for a moment, before finally saying, “When I was nineteen. That first summer Holden came back from college.”

His words feel heavy with meaning, but I can’t parse it out. Though I know that I want to understand the significance of this thing he felt was important enough to ink on his skin.

“Why did you get a flower? A poppy?”

This time he waits even longer to answer, his eyes searching mine for long moments. One heartbeat turning into two, into five, into ten, until I’m sure he’s not going to tell me. But then his throat bobs in a heavy swallow, and something changes behind his eyes. Determination, I think, and something softer, more vulnerable.

“You have a dress covered in tiny poppies,” he says, so fast I almost don’t hear it. His hands reach out, sliding over my ribs like mine were doing to his just a moment ago. “It’s tight here, and all bunched up.”

“Smocked,” I fill in.

He nods, even though he looks like he has no idea what that means. But I know the dress he’s talking about. I found it at a vintage store in Charlotte when I was visiting Holden during his freshman year of college. If it weren’t for the smocked bodice, there’s no way I’d still fit into it. My thirty-one-year-old body is much different than my sixteen-year-old one.

Even through the thick material of the towel, I can feel the warmth of his palms as they trail down my waist, settling on my hips. “It flares out at the bottom, and you can really see the poppies there. They’re red.”

I nod, unsure of where he’s going with this, too hopeful to think clearly.

“But red isn’t your favorite,” he says.

“I like all of them.”

Grey shakes his head, mouth quirking in a small, knowing grin. The one that makes my pulse flutter, my skin feel hot. “Blue is your favorite. Like my eyes.”

If he didn’t look so devastating right now, I’d roll my eyes, make some comment about how big his head is. But I’m beginning to realize he’s not nearly as confident as I always thought he was. He’s tender in so many places, and I want him to know that what he’s saying is true. That when eleven-year-old me met handsome fourteen-year-old him, the color of my favorite flower changed to match his eyes. That the next year, I planted a whole bed of blue poppies and thought of him every time I tended to them.

“They’re my favorite,” I echo, watching the words seep into him and fill him up with something I can’t quite name.

“Well, red poppies are my favorite.” His eyes are deep with meaning. “Like your dress. I saw you that summer, and that dress was a punch to my gut. You were a punch to my gut, Fin.”

He pauses, waiting, and my heart thumps wildly as I try to process his words.

He remembers what I was wearing on a random day almost fifteen years ago. I remember that day too. I remember that although I’d always noticed him, always wanted him to notice me, that day, he looked different. It had been too long since I’d seen him. I remember putting on that dress, hoping he’d look at me the way he is now. I remember feeling his stare following me for the first time, feeling pretty and powerful and desired.

“So you’re saying you liked my dress so much you got it tattooed on you?” I ask, lips curling into a smile.

He just shakes his head. “It wasn’t the dress, Fin. It was you.”

I stare up at his eyes, a hollow, swooping sensation building in my stomach. I can feel my heart beating in my chest, so hard I think he could probably see it moving beneath my skin. “What does that mean?”

Grey moves closer, closing the bit of space between us until there’s nothing but breath left, until his mouth is at my ear, and I can hear the shaky inhale he takes. “There’s only one woman I’ve ever wanted in Fontana Ridge, Finley.”

His words trickle over my skin like warm summer raindrops. I don’t think my lungs are working, and I think my heart has stopped beating, pausing until my breath and heartbeats sync with his.

My eyes trail up the long line of this throat, up the stubble covering his jaw, until they focus on the pale blue eyes that I’ve been dreaming of more and more as the summer has gone on. I don’t want to draw any conclusions about what he’s saying, but the moment my gaze locks on his, I know I’m not. The desire reflected in his eyes is the same as my own.

It’s the kind of desire that transcends the physical, that goes soul deep. Like when you hear a song that feels like it was written for you, and it’s the only thing you want to listen to, over and over again, because it makes you feel like nothing else does. It’s the kind of desire that you have for a piece of art. Art that speaks directly to a broken, fragile piece of your heart, that seems to heal it a little just by looking at it.

It’s the kind of desire you feel to know someone, to want to memorize them. To know them better than anyone else and be their person, the first one they call when they get good news or bad. The one they want to celebrate with and share their secrets with and hold on to when their world is falling apart.

“Grey—” I start.

He cuts me off, like he’s wanting to leave nothing up to interpretation. “It’s you, Fin. You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted, here or elsewhere. I couldn’t get you out of my head that summer, or any of the ones after. I was so gone for you that I drove two towns over and had someone tattoo your favorite flower on my ribs. And rib tattoos are a bitch, Fin.”

This makes a wet laugh startle out of me, choked with tears.

His hands still haven’t left my hips, and I feel his fingers digging in, pulling me flush against him until I can feel his heart beating against me, fast and hard, mirroring my own. “I wanted you so bad, and Holden knew it. So I told him I didn’t, that you were like an annoying little sister to me.”

I remember that moment vividly, how it crushed me, how I used it as leverage to protect myself for years. And he was doing the same thing.

“You heard. And you hated me,” he breathes into my ear, his voice sounding pained. “I don’t blame you for it, because it was stupid of me. So I thought I’d bide my time. You couldn’t hate me forever. But—”

“I never hated you, Grey.”

He pulls back, gaze fastening on mine, brows arched.

It pulls a smile from me. “I didn’t. Or at least not after a while. But by then, you’d started dating any woman who would give you the time of day.”

He bites his lip, his head falling back, and I watch the long column of his throat, wondering what he would do if I leaned forward, dragged my tongue up the line of it. He lets out a groan that sends a pulse of want through my nervous system, lighting me up like a Christmas tree.

“I was trying to move on. Find someone else. Someone who…” He hesitates, chin dipping until his eyes are locked on mine again. “I was trying to find someone who could compare to you. And I’ve come up short for so damn long, Finley. There’s no one like you. There’s no one I want more than you.”

Any breath in my lungs hitches in my throat at that statement. My world narrows to just him, just this moment, a blip in time that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I understand why he would want to ink something onto his flesh as a physical reminder of a place and time, of a moment so important you want to make it permanent. That’s how I feel right now. I want to ink his words right over my heart so that I’ll see them every day, so that I’ll never forget how they made my heart stutter and start again.

“Grey,” I heave out.

He interrupts me again. “If you’re going to tell me you don’t feel the same, spare me, Fin.” He looks so pained, all the light going out of his uniquely perfect eyes. He looks wrecked. His hair is a mess from the water, drying in stuck-up waves all over his head, and his brows are bunched together so tightly that fine lines bracket them. “I think I’ll break if you say you don’t want me. Just don’t say anything—”

“Grey,” I say again, placing my free hand on his bare chest, my voice strong enough to break him out of his pained reverie. My mouth lifts in a soft, teasing smile. “If you’d shut up, I could tell you that I want you too. That I’m not sure I ever really stopped.”

The relief that crests over him is enough to make his knees buckle. And before I really know what’s happening, he’s perched on the edge of his bed, tugging me forward until I’m standing between his legs. We’re eye to eye now, and his hands are on my face a second before his lips are on mine.

We’ve shared enough kisses now that none of them should be surprising. But this one is. I know for certain that he was holding back those other times, because he devours me with this kiss. It’s the kind reserved for movie scenes of a loved one leaving for war or the first kiss after years apart. It’s the kind where the camera zooms in and you can clearly see the naked want on each person’s face, the way they cling to each other like the other person is their lifeline.

I’ve watched these kisses hundreds of times, but experiencing it is something else.

He tugs my bottom lip between his teeth, tilts my head until it’s at just the angle he needs. When he licks into my mouth, a groan slips out of me, and he swallows it up, his hands moving from my face to my waist, twisting in the fabric of my towel.

He says my name like it’s a prayer as he pulls his lips from mine, trailing them down the slope of my neck. He’s saying other things too, words too inaudible for me to hear, but I feel them. I feel his reverence whispered into my skin.

My mind feels pleasantly blank, my vision fuzzy in the semi-darkness. Only the lights from the living room pouring through the doorway and the moonlight slicing through the windows. It makes everything feel more intimate.

His mouth reaches the top of the towel, still tucked around my chest, and I shiver when he places a soft, open-mouthed kiss right over my heart, his hands cinching me closer until I’m practically in his lap.

When he looks up at me from beneath his lashes, his mouth pressed to the delicate skin of my chest, I feel my knees buckle. Grey catches me against him, rolling us until we’re on the bed, still holding me tightly against him, his body propped slightly above mine.

I can feel his breaths against me, feel the softness of his comforter beneath me. His smell is all around me, so potent that it’s heady. He’s watching me so intently that it’s like he’s memorizing this moment the same way that I am, so he can pull this memory out again and again.

The moment stretches, like saltwater taffy folding over itself, turning into something delicious. He holds my gaze for so long that he starts to blur, our breaths moving in tandem, now heavier than before. He looks like every daydream I’ve ever had of him, lips swollen, hair mussed, shirtless and bronzed from hours spent outside in the summer sunshine.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he says, moving one of his hands from my waist and tracing the top of the towel wrapped around my chest. Goose bumps trail after his touch, and I feel it everywhere. In the places he’s touching me, in the hollow of my throat, and in a spot deep in my stomach. In the pits of my knees and the bottoms of my toes. In all the spots his hands are and all the spots I want them to be.

“I can’t believe it either,” I breathe. This makes a tiny grin start on his face, then grow into something extraordinary. This time when he kisses me, it’s with a smile, our teeth bumping up against each other.

He pulls back reluctantly, watching me with heavy eyes. “I should probably shower.”

I nod. “I should probably get dressed.”

His smile stretches. “Or not. I meant it when I said I was a big fan of having you naked in my house.”

A laugh shoots out of me, like it’s been trapped in my chest the entire time we’ve been in this room, begging to be let out. “As tempting as that may be, I’m cold.”

“I can turn on the heat.”

“I can get dressed in your clothes, then we can have more brownies and watch a movie.”

He hesitates for a moment, looking torn. “Can we at least make out some more?”

My lips curl. “Deal.”