Chapter 9 Erotsy and Almost Kisses
CHAPTER NINE
EROTSY AND ALMOST KISSES
The carriage is tight quarters. A man yells at the horses, urging them forward. I say he’s a man because of the deep timbre of his voice. His head is a pumpkin. An honest to god pumpkin.
I swear the things here will never cease to blow my mind.
Finlo’s arm presses against mine as the carriage bumps along the road. There’s a palpable energy hanging in the air, but I don’t know if it’s just me who feels it.
Biting my lip, my eyes scan over his hands. He has them perched firmly on his knees, his grip unyielding, tension coiled in every delicate muscle twining his fingers.
“Where did you say we were going?” I ask, trying to slice through the thick electricity bubbling in my veins.
“Erotsy.”
With a shaky breath, I try to overlook the curt way he responded. Just looking at Hatter gives one a detailed idea of how many women he’s been close to in his life: few.
A sigh comes from Finlo as he turns toward me. “There will be lots of options. Not for hats, of course.”
Despite trying to school my expression and my bodily reaction, I grin. “I have you for that.”
His smile lifts his lips easily up his face. “You do.”
We fall into a simple conversation that makes no sense, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Before I knew it, we arrived at a small shop on a strip of endless businesses. The street looks like a city’s main street, bustling with characters that look to belong in a fairytale.
Finlo gets out of the carriage, offering his hand to me. Finding the step with my foot carefully, I hold his hand as I exit. A deep buzz curls through my arm at the contact. If he feels it, he doesn’t give any tell.
Sew Much Fun, the building’s sign reads. I smirk at the name as Fin leads me inside.
The shop’s proprietor saunters up, her thick-framed glasses rimming her eyes that appear far bigger through the high-powered lenses.
Her hair is so frizzy that it gives the illusion she was recently electrocuted.
She’s dressed head to toe in nothing but color, her dress a kaleidoscope of rainbows.
“Good day! Welcome to Sew Much Fun. We’re having a sale on anything and everything, but only on this one rack.
” She points to a rack to her right, coming to a stop, taking a deep breath after her boisterous entrance.
I fight a smirk at her expense. Just like everyone I’ve met in Wonderland so far, she’s a degree from normal. Something I’m coming to expect.
“She needs a full wardrobe. A few outfits fit to wear to the palace as well,” Fin tells her.
The woman narrows her eyes, raking her gray eyes up and down my body as if taking visual measurements. “One shouldn’t go to the palace.”
I don’t find her words alarming in the slightest. Knowing who the Red Queen is, it doesn’t surprise me that those beneath her tyrannical rule wouldn’t want to go near her.
When neither one of us responds, she huffs. “I’ll get options ready and put them into dressing room one. Peruse the floor and let me know if you find any other items you’d like to try on.” Swooshing away, she disappears into the back of the shop.
“Where is she going?”
Fin smirks. “Esmerelda is much like me. The way I know which hat is perfect for a head, she knows which pieces are perfect for you. She’ll pull what she wants to dress you in from the back.”
“Then what are all these?” I waft my hands around the store. Racks and racks of dresses, shirts, and pants litter the store.
“Her discard pile, essentially. Pieces she deems imperfect. She’s an artist, but she still needs to make money. If people want to buy her discarded work, so be it. I could never.” Hatter’s eyes roam the room in silent appreciation but also in silent judgement.
“Why could you never?” I ask him, finding a beautiful purple dress with a high slit to the hip and pulling it off the rack, tossing it over my left arm as I move to the next rack.
“You have so many hats lying around the house; you should open a store and give people the option of picking their perfect hat from your collection.”
Fin makes a disgusted noise at the back of his throat, eyeing me so intensely that it’s hard to keep my eyes on the clothes my hands work over as I continue my perusal. “I hat a person based on circumstance and personality.”
“Maybe it would be nice if you gave people an option.”
“People don’t know what they need.”
“And you do?”
When I turn toward him, I catch the anger flaring in his eyes at my words. I swallow. “I don’t mean to upset you, it’s just—”
“You haven’t,” he cuts me off as Esmerelda shows back up with armloads of clothes, eyeing my one chosen piece with judgmental eyes and a sneer.
“If you’ll follow me?” she says, turning and hefting the clothes toward the area marked as dressing rooms.
Opening my mouth to apologize to Fin, I turn to find him shaking his head. “Go. It’s fine. I’ll be here.”
His words make my stomach fuzzy, and I don’t hate it.
He sits just outside the dressing room. There’s only a thin curtain separating us as I shimmy into and out of dress after dress.
I hate that Esmerelda’s choices are sublime. She’s included dresses, underthings, pants, shirts, and even night clothes, each outfit just as perfect as the last. The last being a sleek black dress that I’m sure she included for Finlo’s benefit.
I decide I’ll take all she’s given me, but when I attempt to remove the perfect black dress, the zipper is stuck at the top, right beneath my right armpit, and I panic.
Fear and thrill crawl up my throat as I weigh my options, trying my hardest to get the zipper to budge.
Nothing.
My heart pounds. So rapidly, I can scarcely hear anything above it.
Finlo’s right outside the curtain; I know he’d help me. What I don’t know is if it’s appropriate to ask him.
Dropping my arms to my sides, I inhale a deep breath. “Fin?”
“Yes, Tiger Lily?” comes the reply, and it has my belly thrumming with an ache I really need to shut down.
Shoving the curtain aside, I lock eyes with him. “I need help. I’m stuck,” I whisper.
His eyes widen, and it takes a moment before I realize I look naked behind the curtain because the perfect black dress is strapless. The way it hangs before me gives the illusion that I’m trying to lure him into my dressing room with dark intentions.
Aren’t you?
I kick the inner thought away as I tug the curtain aside. “I can’t get the zipper down.”
“Need anything?” Esmerelda pipes up, and her appearance has Fin on his feet.
“No. We’re fine,” he says, moving toward me.
I step back into the dressing room, my heart running away at the idea that he wanted to be the one to help me. He could’ve let her help get me free, but he decided to do so himself.
I can’t help but think it means something.
Finlo shuts the curtain behind him, some of his dark hair coming from beneath his hat and curling over his forehead. “Lift your arm and turn. Let me look at the zipper.”
I do as I’m told, sighing as Fin drops to a knee and his breath skims over my side. Goosebumps pepper my flesh, and my nipples harden.
Keep your shit together!
The way his proximity affects me is madness, but this is Wonderland, and that’s the entire point of this place.
Part of me still thinks that this attraction to him is contrived and one-sided when I feel the zipper slide down past my hip, and Fin stands, hovering closely as he looks down at me. “Got it.”
“Thank you.” My breathy reply has Fin leaning down.
His hand lifts and tucks some of my fallen hair over my ear. “You’re welcome.”
“I meant nothing I said earlier,” I blurt.
“I know.”
“You do?”
“You’re the kindest person I know, Eleanor.”
The way he’s said my name…
I swallow, nodding. It’s all I can do.
I turn toward him, grasping the dress by its front. I’d forgone a bra, wanting to see the dress in all its glory and how my breasts would hold it up.
Fin backs me to the wall behind me, looming over me with an overwhelming presence that makes me feel madder by the second.
It feels damning.
Like, if this goes any further, I’ll be stuck in Wonderland because there’ll be no going back.
“You’ll save this dress for something special?” he asks, his fingertips finding the open gap and trailing along my side, doing nothing for my racing breath and hardened nipples.
“Should I?” I manage as his forehead presses to mine.
God, it’s almost too much.
As a girl who’s loved and lost, been let down and mistreated, left and betrayed, Finlo feels like the fresh start I deserve. He feels like the fairytale ending I’ve been waiting for after a lifetime of letdowns.
But do I want that?
Fin wouldn’t fit in my world; he never did. But do I fit in his?
I swallow, tightening my grip on the front of the dress as his fingers dip even lower, to where the zipper rests against my hip bone in front. Trailing circles over it, Finlo’s breathing changes as his eyes close.
“Keep this dress for just us,” he whispers.
My eyes close, my breath expelling in a quake.
His lips press to my forehead, and for a moment, I think he will move to my lips. He’s gone when I open my eyes, and the curtain blows because of his exit.
I take a few moments to get my bearings as I leave dressed in a new outfit: dark, tight-fitting pants, a flowy white top, and boots up to my knees.
Smiling up at Finlo, I hand him all the clothes. “They’re perfect.”
“All of them?” he asks, innuendo in his tone.
The black dress lies at the top of the pile, and I flick my eyes down to it, grinning. “All of them.”
He nods, walking toward the counter where Esmerelda stands. The look on Esmerelda’s face tells me she knows each pick she chose was perfect. Something also tells me she knows what happened between us in the dressing room, almost like she’d enchanted the zipper herself for dark intent.
If she did, she deserves a tip.
I bite my lip at the inner monologue, straightening when Fin grabs my bags and leads me out of the store.
I catch Esmerelda’s stare as I turn to follow. “Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.”
She smirks knowingly. “You, too.”
The cold, sweet-scented air of Wonderland wraps around me as I exit. Fin shuts the door on the carriage once done loading the seat across from where we rode, with all my purchases.
“Come.” He offers his arm. “Let’s get a rainbow cake.”
“A what?”