14. Finn
FINN
I listen to classical music through the sound system in the kitchen while I prepare food to quieten my thudding heart.
Connor may have already told Aiden what happened, but that isn’t what’s making my palms sweaty, and the blood gush around my veins. It’s knowing that Tamara is soaking in my tub and I’m in the kitchen making my favorite supper to share with her like we’re a couple and this is our regular routine.
I could get used to this.
But at the same time, I know I’m walking a fine line between wanting to wrap her in cotton wool and keep her safe in my arms, and pushing her away because ‘normal’ is the last thing she wants or needs.
“Just be your fucking self, Finn, you asshole,” I mutter to myself.
She either wants me or she doesn’t. No games. No secrets. No trying to win her over by pretending to be someone I’m not.
My pulse races when I crack an egg into a bowl and glance up to find her watching me wearing my royal-blue bathrobe. Her cheeks are flushed, her hair is stringy-wet, her legs are bare, and she has never looked more beautiful.
“Hungry?” I ask, surprised when my voice doesn’t falter.
She shrugs and doesn’t move.
The bruises on her face have almost faded leaving behind patches of dirty green, but her cheeks are gaunt, and there are dark shadows under her eyes.
“Sit down, sweetheart, and watch the Irish master at work.”
Her lips curve up at the corners, but she pulls a stool out from under the breakfast counter and climbs onto it. I fill a cup with steaming black coffee and place it in front of her, trying to ignore the curve of her breasts where the robe has parted.
She sips it and visibly lowers her shoulders. “What are you making?”
“Fried sausages, scrambled eggs, and tattie scones.”
She furrows her brow. “Tattie scones?”
“It’s an Irish delicacy.” I smile. “Well, maybe delicacy isn’t the right word, but trust me, sweetheart, you’ll love them.”
I focus on the butter melting in the pan while I whisk eggs milk and grated cheese together with a pinch of salt and pepper.
I can’t remember the last time I prepared food for two people, and it feels good.
Normal. Like the journey I’ve been on since I met Seamus Kavanagh was always going to announce its final stop right here with my beautiful woman sitting across from me while I scramble eggs.
I smile at the notion of jumping ship and slowing down with her. Maybe visiting Dublin together, and Russia if her roots ever feel like tugging her backwards.
She keeps her gaze focused on my hands and the food coming together on the stovetop, and I allow the comfortable silence to settle around us with Yanni’s ‘Aria’ raising goose bumps on my arms and the back of my neck from the sound system.
“Have you ever watched the movie True Romance?” I ask her.
Her eyebrows slide upward. “You watch romance movies?”
“Ah, this is a romance movie like no other.” I stir the eggs in the pan and lower the heat to cook them slowly.
“There’s a scene in which this music plays in the background.
Dennis Hopper’s character knows he’s going to be murdered by the mafia enforcer, so he tells him a story to speed up the process without revealing the information the Sicilian wants from him.
I can’t hear this music without picturing the scene in my head. ”
I remove the eggs from the heat and set the pan aside. Then I serve the fried sausages and tattie scones onto two plates and add the eggs last.
I slide a plate across the counter to Tamara with a fork and sit opposite her.
“You hear this music and you think of a man getting killed.” She watches me closely.
I chuckle. “From now on, I’ll hear this music and think of you.”
She lowers her gaze to the plate in front of her. “In a good way?”
“Sweetheart I couldn’t think of you any other way.”
Tamara swallows hard. “I shot your brother.”
“You didn’t kill him.” I fork egg and sausage into my mouth and chew like we’re sitting here discussing the weather.
“He won’t be able to hold a gun for a while.”
“That’s his problem, sweetheart, not yours.”
She sets her fork down and raises her eyes to meet mine. “That’s not how your boss will see it.”
I swallow a mouthful of coffee and hold her gaze. “I’ve known Aiden Kavanagh most of my life. His pa introduced us after he set me the challenge of taking his wallet from his hand and I succeeded. You might think he’s the enemy, but he’s one of the good guys.”
“Even good guys have their limits.”
“Maybe so. But he’ll have already figured out that you didn’t shoot to kill.”
She looks like she has a whole suitcase full of baggage that she’s waiting to offload, but either doesn’t know where to begin or isn’t ready to share it with me yet.
“Eat, Tamara,” I say gently.
“You don’t have to take care of me, Finn.”
“I know, but I want to.”
She forks egg into her mouth, and I follow the transformation from refusal to be coddled, to the moment when the buttery eggs hit a spot and she realizes how ravenous she is.
It’s like watching a switch being flicked.
She eats as though this is her last meal, cramming fried sausage and egg into her mouth while she’s still chewing.
I wait eagerly for her to try my homemade tattie scone, but the food-spark fades from her eyes almost instantly when she tastes it.
“What is this?” Her eyes narrow like I fed her poison dressed up like supper.
“Potato, flour and—”
She swallows without chewing and washes it down with a mouthful of black coffee.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t eat potatoes.” She sets her fork down on the plate and pushes it away from her.
“Are you allergic?”
“No.” She refuses to look at me. “I’ll get my clothes and go.”
She stands up, but I’m already on my feet and circling the counter to reach her side. I try to take her hand, but she pulls it away.
“You don’t have to leave, Tamara. I want you to stay.”
She peers up at me from beneath lowered lashes, and her pupils swallow the green and amber flecks of her hazel eyes. “You don’t know anything about me.”
Isn’t that the fucking truth!
“I want to learn. I don’t care if it takes the rest of my life, but I want to know everything there is to know about you. If you’ll let me.”
“Why?” She rubs her arm as if she is cold. “Why me?”
I step closer. “You don’t get it, do you?
” I tuck a lock of her thick black hair behind her ear, tracing a line down her neck to her collarbone with my fingertip.
“I’m all yours, mo féileacán. You can push me away, and you can run and hide if it makes you feel safe, but I will always find you because I love you. ”
Tears fill her eyes, and she shakes her head. “This is why I can’t stay.”
“Because you can’t love me back?” I move closer still, so close that she has to tilt her head to look into my eyes.
“I’m not asking you to love me, sweetheart.
I’m asking you to stay. Tonight. As long as you want.
I want to be the one who catches you when you fall.
The one who holds you when you need holding. Who keeps you warm when you’re cold.”
She is silent for what feels like an eternity. Then she whispers, “Potatoes make me think of the orphanage where Ivana and I stayed,” so softly I strain to hear the words. “The food always tasted of rotten potatoes.”
The statement lands straight through my chest like a blunt spear. “I’m so sorry, Tamara. If I’d known…”
She doesn’t avert her eyes. “We were sold to Russian child traffickers. Leonid discovered us in a shipping container at the Port of Chicago and gave us a home. We were the only two left alive out of twenty women and children.”
Jesus fucking Christ. If there truly was a God, he would not allow this to happen; now I understand a little more clearly why the nuns always scared the fucking life out of me.
They were holding God’s secrets close to their chest while beating the devil out of the Catholic communities at the same time.
I fold my arms around her and kiss the top of her head, and she curls up small against my chest.
Fuck this. I’m not letting her walk away from me until she truly understands that I didn’t use her to get information about her Pakhan’s organization, and that I love her just the way she is.
Ignoring her protests, I pick her up and carry her through to my bedroom.
Her clothes are folded neatly on the nightstand beside the bed, her guns and blades on top of the pile for easy access.
I lay her down gently on top of the comforter, and stretch out alongside her, one arm still cradling her shoulders, her head tucked into my neck.
Neither of us moves. I stare at the ceiling and fill in the blanks of the horrific story she just told me until I can almost smell the stench of the rotting corpses in that container, and the fear of those two little girls.
“No potatoes,” I say finally. “I can live with that.”
I sense her smile against my neck before she twists her head to peer up at me. “What about your tattie biscuits?”
“Scones. They don’t even come close to knocking you off the top spot, sweetheart.”
She wriggles in my arms, shuffling her body up the bed so that her head is on the pillow level with mine. For the longest time, she studies my face, and then, when I can resist the urge no longer, I cup her face with my hand and kiss her.
Tamara kisses me back. The hot frantic urgency of our previous kisses is gone, replaced by something mellower, something that almost makes my heart believe that she might one day learn to love me back.
I feel her fingers tugging at my shirt buttons, and I don’t stop her. She opens the last one and then her fingers move down to my pants zipper, sliding it down and slipping her warm hand inside my boxers. My erection knocks against the palm of her hand: hello!
She smiles at me. “I want to kiss you.”
“Be my guest, sweetheart.”
Tamara shrugs my bathrobe over her shoulders and drops it onto the floor. She’s naked underneath. A smile forms on her lips as she watches me watching her appreciatively.
Then she drags my pants and boxers down my legs, and I find myself panicking to get out of my shirt so that I can touch her.
I reach for her breasts, and she shakes her head. “Not tonight.”
Straddling my legs, she grips the base of my shaft and licks the head. Softly. Her tongue leaving no part of it untouched. My balls fill up immediately and start to throb.
“Fuck, sweetheart, that feels so fucking amazing.”
Still gripping the base, she drags her tongue down my length and back up again.
Only this time when she reaches the head, she sucks gently but firmly, probing with her tongue.
I instinctively reach for her, needing to touch her too, to show her what she does to me, but she remains out of reach, squeezing my cock tighter.
Her mouth closes around the head and she takes me deeper. So deep, I can feel the back of her throat. A groan escapes my lips before I can stop it, and my legs start to shake.
“You’re going to make me come,” I grind out.
She doesn’t stop. Pushing my legs together with her thighs, she rubs her pussy over them and takes more of me.
I feel her front teeth grazing my flesh, the bend of my erection as I slide down her throat, but still, she keeps going, until her lips meet her hand at my base, and she cups my balls with her free hand.
“You’re fucking killing me, baby.” My breaths are coming quick and shallow, and that’s before she slides me all the way out of her mouth and sucks the head harder. Sucking, licking, sucking some more.
My climax blazes its way to the surface like wildfire burning out of control.
I couldn’t stop it now if I wanted to. So, I close my eyes and succumb willingly, watching the millions of tiny stars spiraling in front of my eyes, as pleasure crashes through me, causing my body to jerk and twitch while she swallows every last drop of me and leaves me wrecked in her arms.
“You’re amazing, do you know that?” I murmur, pulling her head against my chest and wrapping my arms around her. I don’t trust my legs to support me if I try to roll on top of her.
“You’re easily pleased.”
“Only with you.”
I trace a pattern with my thumb on her side where it dips at her waist and listen to her breathing as it regulates.
I can’t make her stay, but I want to spend the night with her.
I want to spend every fucking night with her for the rest of my life, but I’ll settle for tonight if that’s all she’s ready for.
So, I don’t move. My thumb keeps circling, slow and steady, until she relaxes against me in slumber, and I silently thank the universe for making me the luckiest bastard in the entire fucking world.
I wait until her eyelashes caress my chest in the throes of REM sleep before I finally close my eyes.
The instant I drift off, she moves in my arms, lifts her head from my chest, and I sense her watching me, alert.
“Finn?” she whispers.
“I’m right here, sweetheart.”
“Did you lock the bedroom door?”
It takes several beats for me to process the question. “I locked the front door.”
She sits up, raises her knees to her chest, and pulls the sheet to her chin to cover her nakedness as she stares at the door. “There’s no lock.”
I could remind her that there’s no lock on the bedroom door because I live alone and because there are enough weapons in this room to take down a small army. But like a child with an irrational fear of monsters living under the bed, it won’t be enough.
“Stay right here, mo féileacán.” I sit up, kiss her bare shoulder, and swing my legs over the side of the bed.
“Where are you going?” She follows me with her dark eyes as I stand up.
“To fix this.”
I skirt the end of the bed, drag the chair out from underneath the desk that I rarely use, and wedge it beneath the door handle, so that if anyone tried to open the door, I’d be immediately alerted to the intrusion.
Then, I go back to my side of the bed, place my weapons on the nightstand, and climb back in beside her.
“You’re with me now, and I promise that no one will get through that door.”
She eyes up the tilted chair one last time and lies down beside me.
“Finn…” she says after a while.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“I like it when you call me your butterfly.”