Chapter 14 #2
“It’s not fair to you. You didn’t choose this. You need to let me go. You need to let me let you go.” She gave him a watery smile. “You deserve to be happy, Finn. To find someone you can share your life, this life, with. Someone you can raise Beatrix with, if that’s what you want.”
Her voice was hoarse by the time she finished, unable to remember the last time she’d said so much at once.
Finn had been quiet throughout her monologue, and she wasn’t sure whether that was because he’d chosen to give her the space to get out what she needed to or if he’d simply been too shocked to contribute.
She eyed him apprehensively, bracing herself for what he’d say now that the floor was his.
His jaw shifted, then clenched, highlighting the straining tendons in his neck. “What about what you want?”
Her eyes widened in surprise.
Disapproval, disparagement, condemnation, those were the sort of reactions she might have expected after telling him she’d ruined his life. Not this.
“What I want doesn’t matter. I told you. I made my bed.”
“That’s bullshit.”
Her lips parted, but no sound came.
“You want to know what I think?” Finn turned, shifting so that he faced her. “I think you were scared, and you were trying to fix everything by yourself, just like you’re trying to fix it now. But, Effie, maybe this doesn’t need to be fixed.”
Her head was shaking before he’d even finished speaking. “It does.”
“If what you said is true, I chose to marry you. Forever was my idea. That was my choice. I wanted this. It doesn’t matter if I don’t remember now. I’m not taking a damn thing back until I do.”
Her heart squeezed painfully. “You told me you would—”
“I know what I said.” Finn reached for her hand slowly, as if he expected her to pull away.
Only, she was unable to move her limbs or utter a single word, too stunned to speak.
Why wasn’t he chastising her? Why did he want to touch her?
His fingers closed around hers, his hand dwarfing hers entirely, and another of those tingles ran through her.
His grin tightened infinitesimally and she knew he felt it, too.
“I have ten days. If you don’t think I’m going to spend every second trying to remember… ” He shook his head. “Think again.”
“You have to sleep,” she protested, but even to her own ears it sounded half-hearted.
He smiled with a hint of teeth. “Every waking moment, then.”
It was a struggle not to sigh. Not to swoon.
This was the sort of resoluteness that until now Finn had been missing, that she had been missing in him. The sort of calm conviction in the face of which her doubts vanished.
“And who knows,” he said, his thumb sweeping an arc against the thin, fragile skin of her wrist. A shiver racked her body and his gaze sharpened, suddenly keen. “Maybe I’ll dream of you.”
She huffed and shook her head. “Finn—”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” He ducked his chin, a move that brought their faces closer together.
“Crazy as it sounds, I think I’ve been dreaming of you my whole life.
As long as I can remember, I’ve felt homesick and didn’t understand why.
” He sucked in a tremulous breath. “But I think…I think I understand now. This whole time, I’ve been looking for a place, when what I was really searching for was you. ”
Finn’s eyes dropped to her mouth, and her heart did something that couldn’t be classified as normal, tripping over itself in some desperate attempt to beat its way out of her chest.
“I’m engaged.” She wasn’t sure who it was she was reminding.
Finn hummed and turned her hand over, brushing his thumb this time against the center of her palm. The sensation shot straight to her middle, causing her to shiver again. Visibly. Violently.
“Yeah, well, what’s that saying?” His voice was a gruff whisper that did terrible things to her resolve. Terrible, wonderful things. “Don’t let your fiancé stop you from finding your long-lost, reincarnated husband?”
She wasn’t sure when it had happened, when the distance between their faces had dwindled to nothing, but it felt like there was a hook anchored somewhere deep inside her, and she was being reeled toward Finn.
The pull between them was persistent, so strong she could scarcely breathe with wanting to touch him, feel him.
As if he could read her mind, Finn granted her wish, his lips slanting over hers, stealing what remained of her breath.
He could have it. She didn’t need air as much as she needed this, his mouth against her mouth, his hand in hers, the calloused fingertips of his other hand tracing her jaw, her cheek.
The edges of her mind blurred, and Effie closed her eyes, surrendering to how impossibly right this felt, kissing Finn, having his hands on her, his fingers tangling in her hair.
All too soon, much too soon, he drew back, breaking the kiss, and she swallowed a whine at the loss of his lips.
Her eyes opened reluctantly, grudgingly, finding that his eyes were already open and watching her with a quiet intensity that made her flush.
His Adam’s apple bobbed on a swallow, and she could see his heartbeat flutter there at the base of his neck, beneath his skin.
Driven by the desire to press her mouth to his throat, to feel his pulse thrum against her lips, she was unable to stop from leaning forward, from canting her head and—
She was fucked. So fucked.
Four hundred and seventy-eight years. She’d hardly known she was starving until she wasn’t.
Until she had gotten a taste of Finn. Now he was in her system, and she was going to have to deal with it.
If ignoring the pull between them had been difficult before, she could scarcely imagine what it would be like now.
“What was that for?” she breathed.
Finn arched a dark brow. “Are you really so surprised that I’d want to kiss you?”
After everything she’d just told him? “Finn.”
“Maybe I thought it would help me remember.”
Her heart stuttered. The possibility of that hadn’t crossed her mind, that something like a kiss could serve as a trigger. “Did it?”
After a moment’s pause, Finn shook his head, and she let out a breath, not sure whether she was relieved or…not.
She took in a deep breath, working to steady her heart. “You know, you talk a really big game for a guy who doesn’t even know me. Not really.”
“Then, let me,” he said. “Let me get to know you.”
She must have hesitated for too long, because he squeezed her hand. “I don’t know…”
“You’re here for the next ten days. You’re telling me you’ve got something better to do?”
“I mean, I am pretty busy negotiating peace treaties with gnomes and shitposting on Reddit,” she said loftily. “But…I guess I can try to pencil you in.”
He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and her heart did a ridiculous somersault. “That’s all I ask.”
Either Finn would remember or he wouldn’t. Either he would be unable to forgive her for the hell she’d put him through, the choices she’d made, or he wouldn’t remember but he would realize that she was more than he’d bargained for, more trouble than she was worth.
But one thing was for certain, one thing hadn’t changed. Effie was still as greedy as ever. Maybe this Finn wasn’t the same man she’d married, but he had his merits. It wouldn’t be a hardship to spend the next ten days with him. The difficult part would come after.
But there was nothing she could do about that now.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say it before, what with, you know…”