CHAPTER 85
Emma
“What’re you doing?”
“What do you think I’m doing? I’m sneaking into your room to fuck you senseless.” Finn shuts my door behind him and takes a running leap to my bed.
He’s completely naked, half-erect already. With such a vision in front of me, I’m not looking at his face. I’m focused entirely on his body.
Finn throws the covers over us and wraps his body around mine. Thankfully, I’m naked too, and now his skin touches mine, every nerve-tingling, sense-filled inch.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I tell him, wiggling against his growing erection. “It’s midnight. I’m off limits at midnight… unless you’ve asked me the question you haven’t yet asked me.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Besides, that rule doesn’t take into account two pertinent facts.”
“What are those?”
He nuzzles my neck, driving me wild. He’s torturing me. I’m already wet and he knows it. He knows how I react to him. He takes his time answering.
“One,” he starts, finally, “Jasmine isn’t here. She’s at Tiffany’s. Thank the heavens for Tiffany. Two, I’m never spending a night without you again. Never. Never again.”
It sounds like a question, like the question, but it’s not. “That’s presumptuous, Mr. MacLaine. What if I want to go on a girls’ vacation without you? What if you have the flu? Would you want to give me the flu? Shouldn’t you stay in a separate bedroom when you have the flu?”
He’s nuzzling my neck again, and my eyes close, and I moan. “I’m going to give you the flu, Emma. Just accept that now. If I get the flu, you get the flu. It’s going to be a lifetime of shared germs.”
“Oh, a lifetime,” I moan. He’s driving me wild, and it’s all I can do to form words, let alone sentences. “A lifetime sounds like a question.”
“Nuh-uh. No question mark at the end of any of my sentences.”
“Hold on,” I say and find the strength to push away from him. “We need to be serious a minute.”
Finn sits up in bed. His lips are swollen, and hair is mussed where I’ve been running my fingers through his curls. “My beautiful Emma, I’m definitely serious. I’ve been serious since before I walked into your room.”
“Serious about other things.”
His eyes widen, and his playfulness disappears. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine. More than fine.” I touch his arm to calm him. “I want to thank you for what you did.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You are not a good liar. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Phyllis may have mentioned it.” He arches an eyebrow. “But I didn’t do anything over-the-top, if that’s what you’re implying. Just normal stuff.”
“Normal for you, maybe. For Superman and Batman and the other Avengers.”
“Avengers are Marvel. Superman and Batman are DC.”
“So you’re not going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“You promised you’d share your life with me, as long as it didn’t involve your company’s tech or your time in the—”
“Ah, that.” He sighs. “Fine. I had a meeting with my brothers, and I told them about Mr.
Sick Fuck—”
I stiffen.
“No—absolutely not, Emma. Never. I will never share your story. I just said that he has no business being a foster parent and that we needed to put the hurt on him in every way we could so that his life became a living nightmare.”
“What did you do, Finn?”
He shrugs. “First, we set up a shell company. Next, we paid way too much to purchase the wholesaler he worked for, and then immediately fired the human garbage dump that is J.R. Perkins. Then we sent anonymous complaints to the state, the county, the prosecutor’s office, the IRS, and the pastor of his church. ”
My mouth falls open.
“Listen, however intense that sounds, let me assure you that it’s nothing compared to what Special K wanted to do to the man, okay? It was the least extreme of our options.”
“You and your brothers did that for me?”
“They’re your brothers now, Emma. Remember what I said about the MacLaine motto—go big or go home.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ve thanked me plenty.”
I fiddle with his chest hair and summon the courage to put a period on this sentence. It needs to be said.
“I know you’ll never ask me, so I’m just going to tell you. He was never charged because
I was too traumatized to make a statement. I refused to talk to the prosecutors or the cops. But the statute of limitations—”
“Twenty years.”
I raise my eyes to his face in surprise. “Yes. But I may never want to. Right now, it’s enough that he won’t be around foster children anymore.”
He brings my hand to his lips and kisses it gently. “I’ll be here right by your side, no matter what you choose.”
I’m hit once again by a rush of wonder. I don’t know what I did to deserve a man like Finn. But whatever it was, I’d do it a thousand times over.
“One thing I should clarify,” he says, after we’re under the covers again and our bodies are intertwined. “You know how you did that whole slashing thing on your face?”
I wince. “Yeah.”
“I didn’t say a thing, but they’ve figured out that scar was your handiwork.”
I sigh. “I kinda figured. Sorry.”
“Not a damn thing to apologize for, not with this crowd. But you’ll never live it down.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Unfortunately, Special K’s now in love with you.”
I laugh.
Finn rolls with me so that I’m stretched out along the length of his body.
“What are you doing tomorrow? Wait.” He presses his index finger to my lips. “Never mind, don’t answer that. You’re going on a date with me. I’ll pick you up at seven tomorrow night. Wear sensible shoes.”