Chapter 25 #2
The words drop like bricks. No apology. Just that flat, gritty conviction in his voice. It should piss me off. It really should. But something strange happens inside me instead. I go weirdly floaty and warm. As if I’ve swallowed a hot-water bottle.
My fingers twitch on my knee. ‘Why?’
The hard edge of his expression drops, and the cocky, stubborn mask falls away. What remains is raw, unguarded pain. ‘Because I fucking love you, and I don’t know how to stop!’
Something in my chest fractures. Sternum? Heart? I don’t know. I just know I can’t stop shaking.
‘I had no idea love would do that to me, because I clearly have never been in love, but it does. I love you, and I will strangle anyone with my bare fucking hands if they ever say something mean about you or hurt you.’
‘What did you just say?’ I whisper.
He blinks. ‘That I’ll strangle—’
‘No. Before that.’
‘I love you, Theo.’
There it is again. Out in the open. No jokes or caveats. My heart lurches, and my vision fuzzes at the edges. Edinburgh’s lights blur beneath us. The car suddenly feels too small, too hot, too everything.
‘I love how your brain works three steps ahead of everyone else’s. I love how you fix everything without taking credit. I love your lists. And your tits. Not necessarily in that order.’
My lungs have forgotten their one job.
‘I love how you make everyone feel safe,’ he continues, each word gaining momentum. ‘That you bring shortbread to police stations at two-thirty in the morning.’ He gestures at the tin. ‘I mean, who does that?’
‘I do,’ I whisper.
‘Aye. You. I’ve never met anyone like you. And I tried so hard not to love you, I swear. But you’re…’ He runs a hand through his hair, searching for words. ‘You’re a part of my soul. And I have no idea how you got there.’
I try to laugh, but it comes out wet. My eyes sting.
‘I didn’t go to Marseille because of you,’ he continues. ‘I couldn’t.’
‘But the money, your career—’
‘Fuck the money. I’d rather be here, fighting for something real, than rich, alone, and miserable in France.’
Another tear escapes, and this time I don’t bother wiping it away. ‘You can’t make career decisions based on…on…’
‘Love? Watch me.’ The corner of his mouth lifts. ‘Say something, Theo.’
‘So you’re really staying? For good?’
‘Aye. Was always going to, baby.’
‘Finn…’ I take a shaky breath. ‘I think I love you, too?’
‘Is that a question? I thought you don’t do uncertainty.’
‘I’ve never felt something like this before, so I don’t have enough data.’ My voice wobbles. ‘The sample size is limited.’
‘Shut up, List Girl.’ He reaches across the centre console, his hands gentle as they frame my face. ‘You’re the smartest, kindest, most loyal, fucking sexy woman I’ve ever met.’ He leans in. ‘And I’m done pretending I’m not gone for you.’
His mouth is on mine before I can even respond. And it’s not a soft kiss. It’s bruising and filthy with need, messy and aching and real. The handbrake jabs my leg, but I’m long past caring about anything other than him.
I make a tiny sound in my throat. My body knows exactly what it wants.
‘I didn’t mean to fall for you, Finn. But here I am.’
‘Well, tough shite, MacMickin. Because I’m all in. You hear me? All in.’
Both of us are still breathless. My lips are tingling from the kiss. If you can call it a kiss; it felt more like a claim and detonation. I sit there, straddling the line between dizzy and starving, my thighs clenched tight, my brain glitching in multiple directions. He’s here. And he loves me.
Finn Lennox loves me.
I need him. Now. Right here.
He draws back an inch. His eyes search mine. ‘You okay, darlin’?’
I nod. Then shake my head. ‘No. Yes. Fuck.’ My hands fist in the front of his hoodie. ‘Do you even know what you do to me?’
‘Theo…’
‘I’m serious. You walk into a room, and my brain abandons all logic. I can’t help myself.’
His lips part on a chuckle, but I’m not done.
‘And sure, it might set feminism back a century, but the fact that you’d go to jail for me? That does things to me I’m not proud of.’
I’m already moving before I know I’ve made the decision. Unbuckling my seatbelt, shifting up to climb over the centre console. It’s graceless and greedy. I nearly elbow him in the throat.
He catches me by the hips. ‘Jesus, Theo. What are you—’
‘I love how you smell. I love your pink hair and your tattoos and your unicorn sleeping mask. I love how you look at me and that you drink my matcha.’
My knees sink either side of his thighs. I’m in his lap now, and I can feel exactly how this is affecting him.
‘I’ve never needed anyone the way I need you.’ I kiss the tip of his nose, his left cheek. ‘It’s infuriating. But it’s true.’
He exhales through his nose. ‘Say that again.’
‘I need you, Finn. So much that I’m dying without you.’ And then I take his face into my hands and kiss him again.
He groans, a low sound from deep in his chest, and suddenly we’re nothing but limbs and mouths and scraped-up emotion.
‘You want to fuck right here, baby? In this tiny car in a car park in February?’
‘What’s the saying again? Love finds a way?’ I mumble as I’m reaching into his joggers, pulling him free.
He hisses through his teeth as I wrap my fingers around his rigid length. ‘Dammit, Theo…’
The warmth of him fills my palm and touching him again feels like I’ve swallowed an electric shock. ‘I want you,’ I say, my nose brushing his. ‘All of you. Nothing between us.’
Finn’s breath skates harsh against my mouth. I’m trembling, actually trembling, and it’s not the cold. My skin’s burning, tight with need and desperation.
He freezes. One hand still fisted in my joggers, the other splayed low on my back. ‘Theo… Christ, darlin’, wait. You clean?’
‘Y-yes. You?’
‘Aye. Always tested, always bagged up.’ His voice is hoarse as he drags his lips down my neck, teeth grazing that spot that makes me sigh. ‘You on something?’
I nod, dragging my mouth across his cheek, tasting salt and heat and skin. ‘Pill.’
He growls. Growls. His head tips back, hits the seat with a dull thud. ‘You’re letting me in raw, Theo?’
‘Yes. Now. Or I’m going to scream so loud I’ll wake the whole of Edinburgh.’
That pulls a laugh from him. Broken and unbelieving. ‘Wee menace.’
He kisses me again, his teeth knock mine, our mouths sliding wet and open and frantic.
Then he dives his hand between us, past the waistband of my joggers.
Calluses catch, then glide. Two fingers pushing in with the same pressure as a blade sinking into softened butter, and he groans when I clench around him.
The rough texture of his skin, the exact right friction has me choking out a moan.
He curses softly, fingertips stroking gently once, twice, spreading me open, and every nerve in my body sings in response.
‘Fuck, Theo. This is how much you love me?’
‘Yes. Yes!’
There’s no plan. Just this flailing urgency to prove it. To fuse what we just said with skin. With sweat and kisses and sex and love.
I scramble back on shaking knees, as I drag one leg free of my joggers. My knickers stick to my skin, stretched to the side, useless. The windows are fogged.
He spits in his hand and rubs it on his cock, thick and waiting. He holds it, eyes locked to mine. ‘You want it slow, baby?’
‘If you go slow, I’ll bite you.’
He lets out a low laugh. One hand holds my hip, the other fists his cock. ‘Take me, then.’
I lower myself and gasp so hard my throat hurts.
Oh.
Oh my fucking god.
He’s big. Stretching me open, dragging against every nerve as I sink down. I cry out, forehead crashing to his shoulder as my body adjusts, burning and needy and alive.
He swears into my hair, both hands gripping my hips so hard I’ll wear the bruises for days. We’re not moving yet. Just breathing and trembling.
‘Jesus, Theo.’ His voice is a rasp. ‘You feel like… fuck. I’ve never—’
‘Shush.’ I shiver as I bottom out, hips flush to his. ‘Or I’ll start crying again.’
He fills every inch of me, pressure and pleasure and a feeling too big for my chest to contain.
‘Good,’ he buries his face in my neck. ‘Want you ruined for everyone else.’
I want to ruin him, too. Want him to carry this inside him like a fever. Like proof that I chose him back. That I’m not walking away.
I move. Tiny moves at first, rolling my hips. ‘You feel that?’ I whisper against his throat. ‘That’s how much I want you. That’s how much I missed you.’
His hands grip my arse, guiding me. ‘I missed you, too, baby. So much.’
Mouths open, gasping, pressed together. We can’t get close enough.
‘I love you. Theo… I love you so much it fucking hurts.’
‘I love you. I love you, Finn.’
Every time I move, there’s the sticky drag of him inside me, the whimper I can’t contain, the ragged groans he tries to muffle in my neck.
‘You feel so good, baby,’ he mutters into my skin.
‘Don’t stop talking.’
‘Why? This turning you on?’
‘Everything about you turns me on.’ I grind down again, harder this time. ‘The way you look at me. The way you… fuck, Finn!’
He thrusts up suddenly, meeting me halfway. ‘That it?’ His eyes are blown wide, locked on my face. ‘That what you need?’
‘Yes! More. Just…don’t stop…’
He’s pounding up into me now, hard and deep, and it’s everything I’ve ever wanted. The car rattles.
‘I love you,’ I gasp. ‘I think I’ve always… fuck… Ah!’
The sounds – panting, the rhythm of skin meeting skin – fill the car. I’m so close. And he knows it.
‘Good girl. Prove how much you missed me. Come on my cock.’
He drops a hand to my clit and rubs, tight circles, and I sob out a sound I don’t recognise. My body locks up and shatters, everything contracting around him. He doesn’t stop, grabs my hips, and fucks up into me like he’s chasing his last breath. I cry out, loud and raw, no filter, no shame.
‘Yes, Theo… Fuck, I love you!’
I feel him swell, pulse, throbbing inside me as he comes, filling me with heat so intense I moan again. His arms crushing me to him as if the world might split apart.
He holds me, and we stay there. One.
For a long moment, we just breathe, wrapped in heat and sweat and love. The world beyond the car doesn’t exist. It’s just us and the words we can’t take back. I’m still panting, my body wrecked, my heart wide open. This is the most reckless, feral thing I’ve ever done. And somehow, the most honest.
The most me.
Who’d have thought that Operation Dummy Pass would lead to the biggest try of my life?
‘Wow.’ I drop my head to his shoulder, heart thundering and overflowing. ‘Happy Valentine’s day, by the way… Are you okay?’
‘I’ll never be okay again without you.’ Finn cradles my face. ‘So no. I’m not okay, Theo. I’m yours.’