21. Sophie #3
His attention is fixed on me now, his face inches from mine. I don’t look up.
“That sounds like a hard way to live.” He says it carefully, almost like he feels sorry for me.
I want to tell him that how I live my life is none of his business, not when he knows nothing about what it costs. But I stop myself, because he’s here, helping me, his hands steady on the wound of a woman he barely knows at one in the morning. He just wants to help.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion on how I live,” I say, doing my best to keep my voice even.
He takes that without a word. I focus on the wound, on the rhythm of needle and thread, on anything but his fingers, steady and warm against my skin.
By the eighth stitch I’m done.
“Done,” I say, tying off the last one.
Finn leans in to look. The stitches are neat and even, the wound closed clean.
“That’s impressive,” he says. “Disturbing, but impressive.”
“I’ll take it.”
He helps me bandage the arm. When we’re done I reach for the clean shirt and pull it over my head. Soft, worn cotton that must smell like him, though my suppressants are doing their job and dulling my sense of smell to almost nothing. Thankfully.
But Finn hasn’t moved back. The arm’s bandaged, the job’s done, and he’s still close, so close. His eyes are on my arm, but I can tell he’s thinking about something else.
Then he asks softly, “Do you ever think about that night?”
He doesn’t have to say which one. There’s only ever been the one, sitting between us like a ticking time bomb since the day I walked back into his life at Synthera.
Yes, I think. More often than I’d admit to you, to anyone, even to myself.
“No,” I say softly, looking up at him.
“I do.” He moves closer, and I make the mistake of meeting his eyes. Blue and guileless and so earnest, just like that night.
I should tell him to back off. To move away and put the length of the kitchen between us. Instead I hear myself ask, “What do you remember?”
The question surprises him. It surprises me more. My heart is hammering in my throat, a heavy, insistent pounding that makes me aware of every single thing happening in my body. The heat building low in my stomach. My breath slowing down.
“All of it.” His voice drops low. “The way you looked. The way you smelled.”
His hand comes up, and slowly, so slowly, he traces the bare skin above the bandage, along the inside of my arm. Such a simple touch, and it sets off sparks that dance across my skin, every drag of his fingers electric.
Just like that night we kissed.
Stop this. Right now.
But I don’t. Nobody has ever touched me like this. I let myself feel every light drag of his fingers, a current that follows the nerve up and inward and wakes parts of me I thought were dead a long time ago.
“You know,” he murmurs, leaning in until his mouth is close to my hair, breathing me in, “sometimes I still catch it on you. That scent. Just for a second.” He draws back just enough to find my eyes. “And then it’s gone, and I tell myself I imagined it. That I imagined the whole night.”
He didn’t imagine any of it. I know, because his scent is still as vivid to me now as it was that night, and no imagination is that good.
His gaze drops to my mouth.
And for one unguarded second I’m back in that suite, his mouth on mine, my whole careful plan going up like paper, and everything low in my body pulls tight with the memory of it.
He leans in, just slightly, as if he’s waiting for me to close the last of the distance. Leaving the choice to me.
And God help me, I want to. I don’t even understand it, that’s the worst part. Finn Preston is a client, not a man I get to want. I was hired to find their traitor, and when I do, I disappear. But none of that seems relevant right now, not when I’m feeling a pull this strong.
I lean in.
Then Finn’s fingers graze my shoulder and everything changes.
He’s not Finn anymore.
Marek’s hands on me. Marek’s weight holding me down against a basement floor, the cold of it against my back, my own voice going ragged from screaming.
I’m moving on pure instinct, and in under a second I have him pinned against the wall, my forearm across his throat.
His breath leaves him in a sharp grunt, his back hitting the wall hard. For a second his eyes go wide.
“Sophie?” he asks, bewildered, his hands closing around my forearm.
“Don’t fucking touch me.” The words come out in a snarl, and I press harder against his throat.
His hands let go of me instantly. His eyes search my face, darting between mine, and I watch the confusion drain out of them.
“Sophie. Hey. It’s me.” Finn’s voice is soft, unhurried. His hands come up, open and empty, held where I can see them. “It’s Finn.”
The kitchen swims back into focus around me. The marble. The lamplight. The white first aid case open on the counter. But I can feel the tears building, burning behind my eyes, because the basement is still there and it won’t let go.
“Hey.” He doesn’t move an inch, his blue eyes fixed on me. “You’re okay. I’m not going to hurt you, Sophie. I promise. I will never hurt you.”