Chapter 16 - Andrea
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Andrea
I was happy and it was freaking me the hell out.
I’m not built for sustained happiness, never have been.
Good things in my life came with expiration dates stamped in ink you couldn’t read until it was too late.
My parents died on a highway when I was fifteen, I left Whitebrook because I needed money, every foster animal I brought home I had to give back.
I learned early to hold good things loosely because gripping too tight just meant it hurt more when they were gone.
But it had been weeks now. Weeks of Finneas driving me to work with his hand on my thigh, his palm finding the small of my back as we walked across the floor, reading in the library while the fire crackled and he pretended to work.
His kitchen had become my kitchen, his coffee machine knew my order, his mornings belonged to me.
I sat on his counter in his shirt while he stood between my knees and kissed me and neither of us rushed to get anywhere.
The other morning he’d been making eggs, shirtless because he’d just gotten out of the shower.
Apparently putting on a shirt before cooking was optional in his world.
I sat at the counter with my coffee watching the muscles in his back move while he scrambled, must have been staring pretty hard because he said “you’re burning a hole in my back” without turning around.
“Then put a shirt on,” I said. “You like it,” he said.
I didn’t argue because he was right. He slid the plate in front of me, leaned across the counter, kissed me with one hand in my hair. The eggs got cold. I didn’t care.
That was my life now. Cold eggs, warm kisses, a man who knew my coffee order, who smiled at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. It was terrifying.
I caught myself humming at my desk on a Wednesday. Humming. What the hell. I hadn’t done that since I was a kid, since before the accident, since before I learned that being happy was just the setup for losing something. I stopped the second I noticed and looked around to make sure nobody heard.
Maryjane noticed during our phone call that week.
“You sound different,” she said.
“Different how?”
“Happy. Like, annoyingly happy. Like a person in a commercial for yogurt.”
“That’s a terrible comparison.”
“You’re humming.”
“I was not humming.”
“You were humming when you picked up the phone. Peter heard it too. He said, and I quote, ‘is that Andrea? She sounds like she’s in a yogurt commercial.’”
I laughed and covered my face even though nobody could see me. “I hate both of you.”
“You love us.” She paused, her voice shifting into that careful tone she used when she was about to say the thing I didn’t want to hear. “And you love him. You can say it, you know. Out loud. To another human person.”
I went quiet. My chest did that tight warm thing it always did when someone put Finneas and the word love in the same sentence. I pulled my knees up on the couch and wrapped my free arm around them.
“You do love him, right?” Mary asked, softer now.
“Yeah.” My voice came out as a whisper, but I was sure of the answer. “I do.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that every time something good happens to me, the universe follows it up with a bus. And this is really, really good, Mary. So whatever bus is coming is going to be really goddamn big.”
“That’s not how life works, Andrea.”
“That’s exactly how my life works. Name one good thing I’ve had that didn’t come with a receipt.”
She didn’t waste a second. “Me. Peter. The shelter. Those are good things and they’re still here.”
Shit. That was a good point.
“I’m not saying your fear isn’t valid,” she continued. “But at some point you have to let yourself have the good thing without bracing for the bad thing. Otherwise you spend your whole life flinching and you miss everything in between.”
I chewed on that for a while after we hung up. Didn’t argue because Mary was probably right and I hated when Mary was right, which was most of the time, which was annoying as hell.
That night at the estate. The library. I was in one of the leather armchairs with the highland romance on my knee, a blanket over my legs, tea going cold on the side table because I always forgot about it once I started reading.
He was in the other chair with his laptop, the firelight catching the angles of his face, the sleeves of his henley pushed up to his elbows because the man was physically incapable of keeping his damn sleeves down and I was physically incapable of not staring at his forearms.
I started reading aloud with the accent, the voices, commentary between paragraphs because I couldn’t help myself. The hero in this book was being a noble self-sacrificing idiot and I had opinions.
“She’s about to forgive him,” I announced, looking up from the page. “He lied to her for three chapters and she’s about to forgive him because he showed up in the rain and said something pretty. That’s not how forgiveness works.”
“How does forgiveness work?”
“You earn it. Over time. With actions. Not by standing in the rain looking attractive and making a speech.”
“Noted.”
“You’re taking notes?”
“Mental notes. For future reference.”
I squinted at him. He looked back with an expression that was way too innocent for a man with that jawline. “I don’t trust that face.”
“Which face?”
“The one you’re making right now. The I’m-being-charming-on-purpose face.”
“I don’t have that face.”
“You absolutely have that face. You use it on clients when you want them to agree with you. I’ve seen it in meetings.”
“Is it working?”
“Go to hell.”
He almost smiled. I went back to reading because if I kept looking at his almost-smile in the firelight I was going to climb out of this chair and into his lap and the book deserved better than that. Hell, I deserved better than caving every time the man almost smiled.
I read for another hour. He closed the laptop at some point and just listened, head tilted back against the chair, eyes on me.
I could feel his attention warm on my skin.
My voice got softer as the chapters went on, the pauses stretching, the room getting quieter until it was just my voice, the fire, his breathing.
I finished a chapter, set the book down, looked at him.
He was watching me with his guard completely down, no walls, no mask, just that open expression that made my chest ache every single time.
The firelight caught the stubble on his jaw, the scar on his eyebrow, the amber flecks in his eyes that I only ever saw this close.
“Stay tonight?” he asked.
He asked every time. I always said yes. It had become a ritual inside the ritual, the asking and the answering, even though my toothbrush was already in his bathroom and three of my shirts had migrated into his closet.
I didn’t know why he kept asking when we both knew the answer.
Maybe he liked hearing it, needed the confirmation that I was choosing this, choosing him, every time.
If that was it, I’d say yes every night for the rest of my life and not get tired of it.
“Obviously.”
His mouth twitched. I caught it and my chest went warm because I knew what that twitch meant now, knew it was the closest thing to a grin he’d let himself show, and I was stupidly proud every time I earned one.
In his bedroom I stood by the bed in the dark room, the sheets still neat from the last time we’d wrecked them.
Finneas came up behind me, his hands settling on my hips like they belonged there, which after weeks of this they kind of did.
His mouth found the side of my neck, stubble scraping just right, warm breath making me tilt my head to give him more room.
God, he knew exactly how to unravel me without even trying.
His hands slid to my waist, fingers hooking under my shirt hem, and I turned around and pushed him backward onto the bed.
He went willingly, those amber eyes locked on me as I climbed on top, straddling his hips.
No rush tonight. Just this slow burn we’d built up over evenings in the library, me reading aloud while he watched me like I was the book.
“Take what you want, Andrea,” he murmured, voice rough, his hands gripping my thighs, guiding but not forcing. “I want to feel every second of you.”
I leaned down and kissed him deep but unhurried, tasting him, my hands working his shirt open, pushing it aside to run my palms over his chest. His heart thumped under my fingers, fast despite his calm face.
He didn’t grab or demand, just let me set the pace, his fingers tracing circles on my thighs, but that grip said he could flip us anytime he wanted.
We stripped slow. Me peeling off my top, him lifting his hips so I could tug his pants down.
Naked, skin to skin in the dim light filtering through the curtains, I settled over him again.
His cock was hard, thick against my pussy as I ground down once, coating him with how wet I already was.
Weeks together meant I knew every inch of him, the way he fit, the spots that made him tense.
“Look at me,” he said, voice a low growl, when my eyes flicked away for a second. “Don’t hide.”
I reached between us, guided him to my entrance, and sank down inch by inch.
No slamming home. Just this deliberate slide, feeling him stretch me open, filling me up until I was seated fully, his balls pressed against my ass.
His hands came to my hips, gripping firm, thumbs pressing into the soft skin, possessive, marking me without apology.
Those amber eyes never left mine, watching every flicker on my face as I adjusted, clenching around him.
“Fuck, you’re tight,” he breathed, jaw tightening as he held still. “Ride me. You’re mine. Every inch.”