I brushed the toast crumbs from my plate into the sink, and when I turned around again, Finn was suddenly close behind me. I hadn't heard him sneak up; I jumped and clutched my chest.

"Jesus," I said.

Finn smirked. "Not quite, but close."

I rolled my eyes.

His smirk only widened. "You're telling me I didn't take you to heaven just now?"

"Oh, God."

"Now you're just flattering me."

"As if you need any more flattering," I muttered.

Finn took a step closer, crowding me with his hard body. "I'd say I've earned that flattery, wouldn't you?"

I pretended to think about it.

"Oh, it's like that, is it?" Finn chuckled.

I smiled sweetly at him.

He leaned forward, like he was going to kiss me, and I eagerly tilted my face up.

Finn grabbed my hips and abruptly spun me around.

"What are you doing?" I said, even as I arched against him.

Finn nuzzled the back of my neck. "Taking you to heaven again."

His fingertips brushed the backs of my thighs as he grasped the hem of my T-shirt and lifted it over my head. He placed one palm on the small of my back, bending me over until my whole torso was pressed flat against the counter, and my legs were already going weak, even though he'd barely touched me yet.

For some reason I thought that we were going to take things more slowly this time, so I wasn't ready when Finn's cock suddenly plunged deep inside, jolting me forward.

I let out a cry that was half-surprise, half-delight.

Finn braced one hand on the counter beside my head, the other still on my back, pinning me in place while he surged in and out, and there was something so fucking primal about letting him take complete control like this. I could barely move, and I loved it.

Finn's rhythm was relentless, his cock hitting that magic spot over and over and over again. My hips jolted against the counter edge, but I couldn't feel anything over the building storm of sensation. I couldn't get enough air into my lungs. My hands curled into desperate fists as raw sounds fell from my mouth.

Too good.

It was too fucking good.

Finn was right – if there was a heaven, it was here, now, with this man fucking me into absolute oblivion.

I came with a hoarse cry, convulsing on the counter as wave after wave of pleasure hit me, as hard as Finn was still slamming into me from behind. His hand was still braced beside my head; I grabbed his wrist and held on as I rode the powerful wave of orgasm.

Finn rammed in once more and held himself still, coming inside me with a husky groan.

For a long, breathless movement neither of us moved.

Then, still buried inside me, Finn swept my hair away from my ear and bent lower over me.

"Feel free to call me Jesus again," he said.

"Smug bastard," I mumbled.

Finn chuckled. "Damn right."

He shifted position, finally slipping out of me and taking his hand off my back, but I didn't want to move.

I felt drunk.

I was floating on a cloud, my head filled with delicious fog.

Electricity still sparked between my legs.

"You good?" Finn asked.

All I could manage was a sigh of pure satisfaction. I tipped my head back, resting against Finn's shoulder. He wore the smuggest smile I'd ever seen.

"And I found your tattoo," he added, squeezing my butt.

"Cliched, I know," I said.

"The tattoo or the placing?"

"Both?"

"Why did you get a butterfly?"

"Why did you get a flying dick?"

He grinned. "Because I'm an idiot."

"I don't know why I got it. It seemed like a good idea at the time, something to tick off my bucket list, but once I was in the parlour, my brain went blank. I had no idea what would be interesting or meaningful, so I plumped for a butterfly."

"The girl with the butterfly tattoo on her arse," Finn's smile sharpened. "There's a song in there."

"There'd better not be," I said.

"You don't want to be immortalised in my next album?"

"Not if you're singing about my butt."

Finn gave it another squeeze. "It's a good butt. Worth singing about."

I nudged him. "I can't tell if you're joking or not."

"What if I'm serious?"

I stared up at him, but Finn's gaze was fixed on the opposite cabinet. His smile was gone.

The atmosphere had suddenly shifted. I wasn't floating on a cloud anymore.

"Sorry, are you actually suggesting that you're going to write a song about my tattooed ass, even if I don't want you to?" I said.

"I wasn't going to mention you by name," Finn said.

Anger sparked beneath my skin. "Not the fucking point, Finn."

"Most women would be flattered to have a rock song written about them."

I leaned away from him. Still he didn't look at me. "I'm not most fucking women."

Finn rolled his eyes.

"Don't do that," I said, my throat tightening.

"Do what?"

"Act like I'm some fucking groupie who should feel lucky just to be in the presence of the great Finn Donovan." I looked around for my T-shirt but couldn't see where Finn had thrown it. As if getting dressed would erase the imprinted sensation of Finn surging between my legs, anyway.

Finn's jaw tightened, but he didn't deny it. He rubbed his leather bracelet with one palm, a tense, repetitive movement that I wasn't sure he even realised he was doing, and some of my anger drained away.

"You did this back when we first met," I said.

"So?"

"So, I don't think you were really hitting on me back then. I think you were playing the role of the cocky, arrogant rockstar because that's what you thought I expected. But you don't have to do that."

"I'm not," Finn muttered.

"Yes, you are. You broke away from Momentum because you wanted to find yourself, rather than being the clean-cut boy-band member that people wanted you to be. But you're still not being you. You might have changed the image but you're still trying to live up to one. And if that's what you want to do, I can't stop you, but don't do it at the expense of the women you meet. Don't treat us like props for your persona."

Finn said nothing; his jaw was clenched. But I didn't sense anger from him, though I couldn't say quite how.

Tentatively, I touched his hand. "You don't have to play a part with me, Finn," I said. "I want you to be real with me, because the real Finn Donovan is far better than the show he puts on."

"You think so?" Finn said, his voice so low it was almost a whisper.

I put my finger under his chin and he let me turn his head so he was facing me.

"I know so," I said.

His eyes, dark with clashing emotions, searched my face.

"I never let anyone into my bed," he said.

"Sorry?"

"You want real? The real Finn Donovan is too fucking paranoid to let anyone into his bed, no matter who she is."

That rumour was true, then. A couple of weeks ago, the journalist in me would have leaped at this juicy nugget of information. Now I just felt sad.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Halfway through Starfinder, I started dating the daughter of one of the makeup artists. Since I'd already been pressured to break up with my previous girlfriend for the sake of the show, Justina and I agreed to keep our new relationship secret. I stuck to that promise." His mouth twisted. "Justina didn't."

"She told people about you?"

"She told everyone about us. Every private conversation, every personal moment, fucking everything. But she didn't just tell people – she sold all this as stories to the press," Finn said.

I shifted uncomfortably. This was cutting a little too close to home.

"She sold photos too, of our whole relationship. I hadn't even known she was taking them. Turns out that while I was sleeping in the bed next to her, she was snapping shots to sell." Finn shoved his fingers through his hair. "It really fucked me up, you know? You're vulnerable when you're sleeping, and someone I trusted took advantage of that. Maybe that doesn't seem like a big deal to you –"

"It does," I said. "You were sixteen, and your entire life had been flipped upside down. I can't imagine how an invasion of privacy like that must have felt."

"Scary," Finn said after a pause. "I dumped her as soon as I found out what she'd done, but it didn't fix anything. I started getting panic attacks, waking up in the middle of the night thinking that people were in my room, trying to photograph me. Strangers would come up to me on the street to tell me how cute I was when I was sleeping, and that would be fucking creepy at any time, but they were grown adults and I was sixteen. I know it could have been worse, and I know that many famous people have had it way worse – Jude included – but I was a fucking kid."

He sighed and rubbed his palm across his jaw. I heard the faint scritch where he hadn't shaved.

"Going from nobody to superstar overnight was overwhelming enough, especially when no one really helped prepare me for it, but yeah, that was one invasion of privacy too far," he said. "After I ended things with Penny Lang, I started dating this wannabe model, and I finally thought that maybe, just maybe, it was time to get over my paranoia and let her share my bed."

My stomach lurched; I could guess how that turned out.

"At least she didn't sell the photos, which makes her less of a shit than Justina, but she still posted them across all her social media platforms, and she still did it without my knowledge or permission. That was the last time anyone shared my bed," Finn said.

"I'm guessing you don't talk about this with many people," I said.

"I'm not sure most people would understand. Lola certainly didn't."

"Lola Perez?" I said.

Finn nodded. "Penny has her own trust issues so she understood mine, but it was always a problem with Lola. She thought I might eventually be okay with sharing a bed with her, and when she realised I wasn't . . ." He shrugged. "The relationship went to hell and I've been single ever since."

"I'm sorry," I said.

He gave me a quick smile, tight at the corners. "We weren't right for each other anyway."

Him confiding in me should have been a sign that he trusted me, but his whole body had gone stiff, tension radiating from him in waves. His arms hung loose at his sides, but his hands were clenched, his jaw tight.

Camden had told me that Jude had trust issues too – hardly surprising considering some of the shit he'd gone through – but though both he and Finn had experienced a sudden, meteoric rise to fame, Jude had been in his twenties when he hit the big time. Finn had only been a teenager. That was very different.

I leaned against his shoulder. "Hey," I said quietly.

He glanced at me.

"I won't ever ask to share your bed," I said.

I half-expected him to crack a joke, but he swallowed and lowered his head. "Thank you," he muttered.

We stood in silence for a few minutes, but it was a calm, comfortable silence. We'd crossed a bridge I hadn't even realised was there, and I didn't know what was on the other side, but I wanted to find out.

"You want some ice-cream?" Finn asked.

"Sure."

Finn headed into the living room, where he tugged a grey and white patterned blanket from under the sofa.

"Here," he said, and I thought he was going to playfully toss it at me, but instead he draped it around my shoulders.

My heart stuttered.

With the heating on twenty-four-seven, and the open fire spreading toasty warmth, I wasn't in any danger of getting cold, with or without my clothes, but Finn's gesture wasn't about that. Maybe he wasn't always the best with words but in his own way he was showing that he cared.

I wrapped the blanket tightly around myself.

Finn didn't bother to put his clothes back on. I followed his bare butt – the best one I'd ever seen – into the utility room where he kept his excess food stash, and stood beside him while he flipped open the freezer.

"What flavour do you want?" he said.

"Um . . ." I peered into the freezer.

Finn leaned against it, and my lips twitched. His nipples were hardening from the cold air that drifted out, and I wanted to run my tongue over them, maybe take one between my teeth to see if he liked that as much as I did.

Not now.

I wasn't sure if that was my brain telling this wasn't the right time, or my vagina informing that she really couldn't take any more right now, but I listened anyway.

"Why do you have so many?" I asked.

"I like ice-cream," Finn replied.

"That's cute."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Is it?"

"Kind of."

"Why?"

I shrugged. "It's just funny to think of muscled, tattooed rockstars having cravings for ice-cream."

"I'm sorry, have I damaged my rockstar credentials? Should I down a bottle of whisky and snort some coke to make up for it?" Finn said, his expression amused.

"As if you could drink a whole bottle of whisky in one sitting," I said, bending lower to read the ice-cream labels.

Finn laughed. "Now that's cute."

Maybe that had been a naïve thing to say, especially considering what I'd seen at a party at Jude's old London loft, before he and Camden moved.

"Okay, okay, rockstar, I believe you," I said.

I fished out a tub of strawberry ice-cream while Finn picked chocolate chip, then we returned to the living room. We settled in front of the fire, and though we weren't exactly snuggling, we sat close enough together that I could feel the warmth of Finn's body.

Having sex didn't really change anything – this wasn't a relationship, nor would it become one – but as we sat on the floor eating ice-cream together, the flames from the stove painting dancing shadows on our skin, I couldn't pretend that this hadn't gone beyond a simple crush for me.

I was developing real feelings for the guy, and I had no idea what to do about that.