Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
FINN
I rocked into Willow, a slow roll of my hips, wanting to do everything in my power to prolong the pleasure of being inside her. She traced my tattoo with her fingertips and shot sparks off under my skin, hardening my cock even more.
For years, I’d imagined this—had hoped I might one day be with her again, but I’d never actually thought it’d happen. I couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to be experiencing this with her again. That she’d not only let me inside, but welcomed me. Time and time again.
It was, quite literally, my dream come true.
On a sharp thrust, Willow curled her fingers against my side, her nails digging in as her eyelids fluttered closed and a moan slipped from her lips. I couldn’t help how my cock swelled at the proof of how much pleasure I brought her. That I was the one wringing those moans from her, the one she squeezed with that tight as hell pussy.
“Is it good, sweetness?”
“Oh Lord . So good.” She dug her nails into my side, trying to pull me closer.
I bent forward, pushing her leg toward her chest and opening her up to take me even deeper, eliciting a gasp from her. “You okay, Willowtree?” I pulled nearly all the way out before sliding inside, a slow glide of skin on skin, the tight fist of her pussy nearly driving me out of my goddamn mind.
“Don’t stop.”
“Never,” I promised, meaning it more than she could know.
I was never, ever going to stop with her. Not again. I’d made that mistake once, and it would haunt me for the rest of my life, even if she did take me back for good. And, just like my brother had pointed out to me, I’d spend every day for as long as I was breathing trying to make it up to her. Proving my love. Because it was real and true, and I wanted her to feel it. To know it. To never, ever doubt it.
“Finn—” She cut off on a moan, her eyelids fluttering closed as she pulsed an erratic beat around my cock. “I’m gonna…”
“Come all over me, I know.” I hummed low in my throat and kept up my rhythm, making sure I grazed her clit with every deep thrust. Making sure to keep her on edge, push her right where she needed to go. “You’re gonna strangle my cock, aren’t you?”
She gasped and opened her eyes just as her pussy tightened around me, staring straight at me while she started to come. Dropping her leg from my shoulder to hook over my elbow, she pulled me closer, fusing our mouths together as she reached her climax.
It didn’t take but three more thrusts into her pulsing heat before I pushed deep and spilled inside her, her name moaned between us as we kissed through it all. My heart full to bursting.
Later, we faced each other, me in my jeans and Willow wearing nothing but my shirt. Doing a damn good job of driving me crazy. She sat with her legs crisscrossed, which meant if I looked—which I was trying hard not to—I’d see all that gorgeous pink heaven between her legs. But if I went down that path, I’d be fucking her on the floor of the tree house again, and I’d be no better than my nineteen-year-old self.
I was desperately trying to be better than my nineteen-year-old self.
“I’m going to start to think this is the only thing you can make.” Willow bit into the peanut butter and banana sandwich I’d brought.
It didn’t exactly pair with her favorite red or the candy bar—also her favorite—that was waiting for dessert, but this wasn’t about an exquisite culinary experience. It was about showing Willow I knew her—then and now. I listened when she spoke, and I remembered everything about her.
I smiled over the rim of my wine glass. “I better rectify that soon, then. Name the day, Willowtree, and I’ll cook you a three-course meal.”
“Will one of those courses be these sandwiches?” She held up the sandwich in question, her brow cocked.
“I see the skepticism written all over your beautiful face, sweetness. You wound me.”
She laughed, a tinkling sound that filled up the intimate space. “Sorry, I don’t mean to tease. It’s just hard.”
I raised a brow, because, yeah, I was definitely hard. Had been even though it’d been less than half an hour since I’d come inside her.
She pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. “I have no doubt you’re hard. Honestly, are you ever not?”
“When you’re around? No.”
“What I meant was it’s hard picturing you, wearing an apron and flittin’ around the kitchen.”
“I do not flit . I stomp around like a manly man.” I finished off my sandwich as she laughed. “And if you want to know about the apron, you’ll just have to accept my invitation.”
The statement was innocent enough, but it hung between us, weighted. By the look on her face, she realized exactly what I was asking. Her inviting me here was an olive branch. That she’d share this with me again after what’d happened last time meant more than I could articulate. I just hoped it was a step toward what I wanted with her: permanence and public declarations.
“I…” She averted her gaze as she took a sip of wine, and my heart dropped. She wasn’t going to accept, and I would have to decide if I was okay with that. If I could live with taking whatever small bit she could give, whenever she could give it.
The answer, of course, was an unequivocal yes. Without doubt, I’d take whatever she was willing to give me.
“Okay.” Her soft voice filtered into the space between us, and I jerked my head up, snapping my eyes to hers. She was already staring at me, looking gorgeous as hell, even more stunning now that she’d basically said yes. Yes, to me. Yes, to us.
Unable to hold back anymore, I shoved everything between us aside, slid my hand around her neck, and brought her face to mine, claiming her mouth in a kiss.
“I won’t let you down,” I said when we finally pulled apart. I meant more than just the meal—I only hoped she realized it.
She trailed her hand down from my neck to my chest, tracing the rough sketch of a map and the coordinates that just happened to be this exact location. “Will you tell me about these?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything?” She dropped her fingers to the willow tree on my side. “It’s weird, feeling like I still know you so well but having this gaping hole in time where I know nothing.”
My chest ached, regret over costing us so much time nearly consuming me. “I know what you mean.”
“Question for a question?” she asked, reminding me of a time long ago when she’d sat in my beat-up truck and said the same thing.
“You first.” I shifted to lean back against a stack of pillows and lifted my arm, hoping she’d settle in to my side.
She didn’t disappoint. Once she’d snuggled in, she traced one of the twisted roots over my hip bone. “There are more roots here than when you left. So many more.”
I’d been waiting for this, had wondered how long it’d take her to ask about it. I pressed my lips to the crown of her head. “That’s not a question.”
She pinched my side and tilted her head back to meet my gaze. “Tell me about it?”
Reaching up, I brushed the hair back from her face, stroked my fingertip down the slope of her nose, around the outline of her lips. “That first year…” I swallowed, averted my gaze, and guided her head to rest on my chest again. Thinking it’d be easier if she wasn’t staring at me with those beseeching eyes. “On your nineteenth birthday, I was in a bad place. I fuckin’ missed you. Every day, but especially that day. I passed a tattoo parlor on my way home, and I didn’t even think—just pulled in. Hoped like hell they had an opening. I got the first root added that night. The others happened every year on your birthday.”
She was quiet for a moment, then she whispered, “Why?”
Would it be too much to tell her it was the only thing I’d had of her when I’d been gone? That I’d craved that connection, even when I’d been the one to sever it? Probably.
“Uh, uh. My turn, sweetness.”
She huffed, pinching my side again. “Well, come on, then.”
There was really no question what I wanted to ask. The same thing I’d been desperate to know since I’d found out she’d moved back to Havenbrook after college.
“Why’re you back here, Willowtree? Why didn’t you go to Nashville and do what we planned? Are you as happy here as you would’ve been there?”
“You think if you shove three questions together real fast it’ll only count as one?”
“Umm…I was sorta hopin’ it’d work like that, yeah.”
“Cheater.” She didn’t put any heat into the insult, though. “I’m here because it’s my home, and leavin’—much as I yearned for it then—felt…wrong. And, yes, I’m happy. For the most part. I have good days and bad days, same as anyone, I suppose. But I really do love what I do—or I do when I’m not doin’ the work of three people. Revitalizing the Square…” She shook her head against my chest, her deep breath brushing across my skin. “Seeing it come to life because of what I did? It’s like a living, breathing canvas.”
I waited for her to answer why she’d hadn’t gone to Nashville like we’d planned, but when she didn’t, I nudged her. “And?”
“And…it’s your turn for a question.” She turned on her side and propped herself up on her elbow, using her other hand to trace the numbers over my heart. “Coordinates?”
I swallowed, watching her as she stared at my skin. True, I’d only added to her tree on her birthday, but every other tattoo I had on me was a tribute to her in some way. The map and coordinates reminding me where my home was. The compass because she was my true north. “Yeah.”
“Of what?” She looked up at me then, her lip caught between her teeth.
Reaching out, I tugged her lip free, brushed my thumb across it. “This. Here.”
“Here?” She furrowed her brow. “The tree house ?”
“The one and only.”
Her mouth dropped open, her eyes full of something I couldn’t quite name. “Finn?—”
“My turn. Tell me about Nashville.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, wanted to press, but then she shrugged, dropping her gaze. “Nothing to tell. You left. I withdrew my admission and went to MSU instead.”
“Because?”
“Because…what I thought I wanted wasn’t the same without you there too.”
Damn, this hurt. Getting all this out in the open was good for us, but I couldn’t deny the way my stomach clenched over all the time we’d lost. All because of the decisions I’d made—decisions I hadn’t been given much choice over, but mine all the same.
“I’m sorry, Willowtree.” I cupped her neck, needing to feel her any way I could. “Even though it won’t give us back the time we lost, I want you to know I’m sorry. And not a day went by when I didn’t think about you. About coming back to you.”
She stared at me for a moment then opened her mouth, no doubt to ask why the hell I didn’t. Before she could do so, I pulled her toward me. Pressed my lips to hers and waited for her to melt into me.
Hoping with everything I had that her doing so meant maybe, just maybe, forgiveness would come eventually.