across the street.
A guy going in used his fob to unlock the door and then held it open for me. I added shit security to the list of cons for Adele living here, but otherwise the place looked nice. I took the elevator to her floor, heart beating wildly in my chest. She was so close but holding herself so far away and I didn’t get why. If she felt nothing for me, then just tell me that. If she wasn’t talking to me, it meant she was hiding something, and I wanted to know what it was.
When I came to her apartment door, I knocked loudly. “Adele, it’s Finn.”
It opened immediately like she’d been standing just on the other side. And I guess she had, judging by the fact she wore her coat and had her purse in hand.
I walked in without an invitation. I turned and watched as she hesitantly closed the door and faced me.
“You didn’t show.”
“And you found me anyway.”
“Why won’t you talk to me? I don’t understand. Ever since that night… the night I kissed you, you’ve been running away. I thought we were friends. I thought I at least deserved to be heard.”
“I’ve heard you loud and clear.” Her voice was louder and angrier than I’d expected. She shrugged out of her coat and tossed it, then put her purse down on a table near the entryway with a slap and came toward me. “All I can hear is you. Since the day I met you, you won’t shut up. If you’re not talking to me directly, it’s plastered on social media or the news. Did you know there’s a billboard with your cheeky grin on Times Square? I’ve been listening to you, Finn, but what you say and do contradict. You profess you miss me and want to talk like you have something life altering you need me to hear, but there’s nothing to say. Drunken nights, girls on both arms, kissing supermodels in clubs… should I go on or have I made my point?”
“You might have been listening, but your comprehension skills suck, sweetheart.” I closed the distance in two quick steps and framed her face with my hands. I brought my lips to hers in a crushing kiss. Was it possible to kiss the truth into someone? I was damn well going to try.
Her lips gave under mine and I swept my tongue inside. She pushed at my chest, breaking our lips, and staring up at me with fire in her blue eyes. “You can’t just kiss me. Who do you think you are?”
I smiled. “I’m the guy that gets you so riled up you forget to put up your guard.”
“Oh, it’s up, you just bash through it headfirst with no regard for your safety or mine.”
“Safe is boring.”
The hint of a smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. I brought my lips back to hers and this time I felt her resolve crumble away. Months without her, a lifetime before her not realizing there was someone who could make me feel this way, I put all of that into the kiss. I was either going to scare her off for good with the intensity vibrating through me or she was going to understand once and for all that she belonged with me.
When she wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her body against mine, I lifted her and started walking. I’d barely given the place a once over when I’d walked in, but I knew there was a couch somewhere behind me.
I laid her down on the leather sofa. Brown hair splayed out around her, chest rising and falling as she tried to catch her breath… I’d remember the way she looked right now until the day I died.
I hesitated, wondering for all of two seconds if we should slow down before she looped her finger in the pocket of my jeans and pulled me down on top of her. Somehow, she still smelled like California and the sweet fragrance that was hers alone. If Bear Grylls were talking in the background, it’d be exactly how I imagined it all the nights watching TV with her. Not that I liked to include another dude in my Adele fantasies, but it’d come to be something we shared.
“God, I missed you.” I kissed a path from her neck to her collarbone as she ran her fingers through my hair.
My lips roamed every inch of available skin thrice over. I wanted