Page 29 of Code Name: Harbor

“Don’t,” I warn with a faux glare.

Finn chuckles. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Don’t ma’am me either.”

“What can I do?”

I think about it for a long moment. “Tell me something useful you learned in prison.”

Finn’s chin pulls in slightly, his eyes rounding in surprise. “That’s a deep question.”

“Not really,” I insist. “But I have to admit… I’ve never had dinner with a felon and I’m curious now.”

“Maybe not a deep question, but a good one. No one’s ever asked me about prison in that way.” Finn takes another bite of his dessert, and I follow suit. “Let’s see… there was a book I read called How to Cook Everything. I worked in the kitchen for the first two years of my sentence and while we didn’t have the best ingredients, I was able to work some magic at times. I realized that I really love to cook. In fact, I’d thought about just cooking for you tonight, but it does require concentration and I wanted my focus on you, so I had Daniel do the honors. He’s way more talented than I am.”

For some reason, I’m touched by the story. Not that he wants to cook for me, although that’s lovely, but because he found something of value in prison.

He turned something bad into something good.

We talk about books. About the things he read in prison that changed him and the things he read after that did less. About a fishing trip my father took me on when I was eight where I caught a salmon I was too small to land. About the first painting Finn ever sold at the gallery, which was a small abstract by a local artist for less money than the frame had cost him, and the way the artist had cried in his office afterward because it had been her first sale ever. About the ridiculous string of failed dating apps I tried in my late twenties before I gave up and decided men were a problem I would solve later.

“Are you cold?” Finn asks, and I realize I am. A shiver runs through me.

“A little.”

I reach back to grab my jacket but Finn’s out of his chair, taking it in his hands and helping me to shrug into it. It’s such a gallant thing to do that I almost let out an audible sigh of pleasure.

“I probably should get you home. It’s getting late.”

He extends his hand to me. Not a request. Not a demand. Just a hand offered.

I take it and he draws me up out of my chair. The space between us is nonexistent, the heat lamp warm on the side of my face.

Finn looks at me for a long beat, and I get the sense he’s giving me room to step back.

But I don’t want to.

He puts his other hand on the side of my face, and his thumb traces my cheekbone. I stop breathing, anticipation threatening to choke me off completely, because when his eyes drop to my mouth, I know what’s coming.

The kiss isn’t gentle but it’s not exploratory either. It’s not the polite first kiss of a first date but rather the movement of a man who’s been thinking about kissing me for two days.

His mouth moves confidently over mine without any rush, only purpose. He tastes like wine and blackberries, and when his hand moves to the back of my neck, a thrill of pleasure sweeps through me. With just the barest of pressure, he angles my face the way he wants it, and I make a small sound against his mouth that’s almost inhuman.

I fall all the way into it.

The way you fall into deep water, with no ability to pretend you even want to let your feet touch the bottom.

My hand goes to his collarbone, then up to the side of his neck, where my fingers find the warm skin above his collar. He pulls me into him and it’s rough. A low sound rumbles in his chest.

My body registers the length of him before my brain does—solid, warm, all hard muscles—pressed against me.

Finn kisses me so thoroughly, I have a vague, odd thought that I don’t know if I’ve ever been truly kissed before.

His hand at my nape tightens a fraction, and I think in this very moment if he picked me up and carried me belowdecks to his cabin, I wouldn’t fight him on it.

I’m not in charge of my limbs.

I’m not in charge of my common sense.