Chapter 17 #3
She came back to earth by small measures. Her muscles unclenched, her curling toes relaxing and her back melting into the mattress. Her racing heart slowed, her gasping, dizzying breaths returning to normal.
When she opened her eyes, it was to the sight of Finn smiling down at her, his own eyes a little dazed but soft, the expression on his face altogether reverent, worshipful, his smile faltering only when his cock softened and slipped from her.
“I’ve never done that before,” he confessed, running a hand through his hair, color rising in his cheeks. He sounded almost shy.
She tried to stifle her laugh, she really did, but it was useless. A giggle slipped from between her lips.
Finn rolled his eyes. “Not that.” He pinched her side, making her giggle harder and squirm. “I’ve never come inside anyone without a condom before.”
And just like that, her laughter died, her breath catching in the back of her throat, the thought of having another of his firsts satisfying the part of her that wanted to possess him—the covetous, primal part of her that made her want to snap her teeth at anyone who so much as looked his way.
It was probably not very reasonable or right-minded, but she’d never claimed to be either of those things where Finley was concerned.
“Well…not that you remember,” she said, voice sly. She spread her thighs a little farther apart, delighting in the way his eyes darkened. “Once upon a time, you were very dedicated to the pursuit of knocking me up.”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, and slipped his hand between her thighs where she was hot and swollen and wet, his fingers tracing her slit. He blew out a breath and said, “Well, there’s a new kink unlocked.” His lips twitched. “Or does it not count as a new kink if I can’t remember having it?”
She kicked a leg out and laughed. “Either way, I’m happy to have been of service.”
Finn crawled from between her thighs and settled on his back, tucking her against his side.
“I should’ve said it before, but I got tested a couple of months ago,” he told her, fingers stroking up and down her back. “Everything was negative and I haven’t been with anyone since.”
She rested her cheek on his chest. “Demons can’t carry infectious diseases.
And we can’t get pregnant, either.” She dropped her eyes.
“Not that I…not that I think I could, anyway. Not that that matters.” She fought the urge to squirm, reaching instead for the sheet, dragging it up around her. “When do you have to pick up Bea?”
At some point while she was speaking, his hand had stopped moving.
She listened to the steady beat of his heart, his chest rising and falling beneath her cheek as he took a deep breath in and released it slowly, his hand beginning to move against her once more.
“Peyton and Jeb are going to bring her by later. They took her to the county fair. Which fortunately did not get rained out.” The smile in his voice was plain and she rolled her eyes.
Very funny. “Turns out Bea really likes cows. Peyton sent me a picture.”
“Well.” She lifted her head. “Are you going to show me?”
Finn grabbed his phone off the nightstand and opened his gallery. “Here.”
She took the phone from him. On the screen was a photo of Bea, sitting in a stroller, dressed in a light pink cotton seersucker dress covered in tiny dark red hearts.
Bea had a chubby fist in her mouth, and with her other hand she pointed at a big dairy cow who had her muzzle pressed against her pen, looking as taken with Bea as Bea was with her.
Effie grinned and handed Finn back his phone. “She’s adorable.”
Finn made a bemused noise in the back of his throat, his brow crinkling. “How’d you get this?”
“How’d I get— Oh.”
He was staring at her hand, at the scar bisecting her palm.
Over the years, people had asked about it.
She’d never answered honestly, had tried her damnedest not to talk about it at all.
Silly of her, maybe, but this scar was the one reminder she had of Finn, the one reminder she couldn’t outrun, the one reminder she couldn’t escape, making it as precious as it was painful.
It was private. Or as private as something that she couldn’t hide could be; even the strongest of glamours didn’t work on it, as if it refused to be concealed.
When asked about it, she’d either lied or changed the subject. It was her business and no one else’s.
No one’s but Finn’s.
It hadn’t been a conscious decision not to tell him about it. She’d honestly forgotten to mention it. It was so much a part of her that she often forgot it was there until someone mentioned it.
“That’s…You actually had one just like it.
It was something we did. When we exchanged vows.
The second time. We didn’t have witnesses, we didn’t want them, but that meant there was no one there to bind our hands.
Which is where we get tying the knot from,” she explained.
“We decided to seal the oath we made with blood instead. Ridiculous, really. I told you we were stupid, didn’t I?
We could’ve chosen to draw blood from anywhere, and we had to pick our palms.” She rolled her eyes.
“You don’t realize how much you use your hands until you’re trying to— Finn? ”
He was propped on his elbow, rooting around inside his nightstand. He made a quiet sound of satisfaction and rolled back over, a small pocketknife in his hand. With a flick of his thumb, the blade emerged.
Her breath caught. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, with a look of fierce determination on his face, his jaw set and his brow drawn low over his eyes, he dragged the blade across the center of his palm, hissing softly through his teeth.
A gasp tore itself from her lips. “What the hell, Finley?”
She seized his hand. Blood was already welling up from the cut and spreading out along the fine lines etched into his palm, a grid of ruby against the pink of his skin. She plucked a fistful of tissues from the box on the nightstand and pressed them against the cut, trying to stanch the bleeding.
Finn still hadn’t answered her. His face was pale and his eyes clouded as he stared, unseeing, at his hand clutched in hers.
There was an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Finn?” Her voice was thin, more breath than sound. Then she said, with a little more force, “Answer me.”
“Sorry.” He blinked hard and cleared his throat. “Got a little woozy for a second.”
She bowed her head and huffed. “No shit. You cut yourself.” Carefully, she lifted the tissues, cringing.
She wasn’t squeamish, but she didn’t relish the sight of blood, especially not Finn’s, and his wound was still bleeding sluggishly.
Fortunately, it didn’t appear to be too deep.
He wouldn’t need stitches. Whether it would scar was anyone’s guess.
“What in the world would possess you to do that? I just told you it was stupid.”
A beat passed before he swallowed audibly, and, eyes fixed on her face, said, “I thought maybe it would help me remember.”
For the second time in as many minutes, her breath bottled in her lungs. “Did it?”
He looked at her for a long moment, then dropped his eyes and shook his head.
“Oh.” Something inside her deflated.
His head rose sharply, eyes searching hers. “You sound disappointed.”
A lump formed in her throat. “I’m not.”
She couldn’t tell who she was trying to convince more, him or herself.
Finley was…God, he was wonderful, a dream, so much like the man she remembered, the man she’d married, but…
no amount of telling him about their past could replace having lived it together.
This Finn, he didn’t love her. He didn’t choose her.
She wanted back the man who did, even if she only got to have him for a short time.
Of course, he’d probably hate her for what she’d put him through, so the point was moot, any disappointment she felt irrelevant.
“I got the impression you didn’t want me to remember.”
A bitter laugh escaped her. “When has what I wanted ever mattered?”
His face crumpled, his uninjured hand rising, fingers brushing her jaw. “Effie—”
She turned her head to the side and squeezed her eyes shut, the look on Finn’s face too much.
Too tender, too knowing. It threatened to crack open a Pandora’s box–worth of feelings inside her, feelings she’d never be able to tuck away once unleashed, hope perhaps the most insidious of them all.
“You told me I didn’t have to think about it right now.
I don’t want to think about it. Don’t ask me to. ”
For a minute, Finn didn’t speak. He just cradled the side of her face with his palm, his thumb gently stroking the curve of her cheek. “Come here.”
She let him shift her so that she was lying with her head tucked against his chest, his arms wrapped around her middle, their legs tangled.
His heartbeat was strong and steady beneath her ear, and she let the sound of it lull her to the borderland of sleep, where time didn’t exist and all that mattered was right here, right now.