20. Well, Mostly A Plan… -Finn
Twenty
Well, Mostly A Plan… -Finn
We had a plan.
I moved through the kitchen, pulling food, water, and batteries, packing everything into plastic bins, and stacking them by the door in the order we’d need them.
“The storm has to be our window,” I said, glancing at Libby across the counter. “When it picks up enough to give us cover, I’ll go for the Suburban. You and the girls wait until I pull up tight to the stoop.”
She gave a sharp nod.
“You load fast,” I continued. “No talking, no hesitation. I’ll cover the street.”
Fiona stepped closer. “How long do we wait if—”
“You don’t.” I held her eyes. “Five minutes, then you lock the door and stay inside.”
Her face tightened. She nodded anyway.
Lily said nothing. She stood a little apart from the rest of them, watching with careful eyes that caught more than most adults would have expected.
The plan settled into place. Libby excused herself quietly and headed upstairs to pack.
I watched her go.
I didn’t intend to.
My eyes followed her anyway.
I reached for another bin and stopped.
I stood there with my hands on the plastic edge.
This wasn’t right.
What I’d said earlier—the way I’d pulled back and constructed the wall so fast she never saw it coming—she’d taken it wrong.
I knew she had. I’d seen it happen in real time, witnessed her build over the hurt with practiced speed and carry it back downstairs like it didn’t exist, and I’d let her because letting her had been easier than saying the truth.
The truth being that it did mean something.
That’s what had sent me to that rooftop in the first place—not to apologize, not really, but to convince myself that it could mean nothing. That I could stand in front of her and reduce what had happened between us to circumstance and proximity.
Instead, I handed her a confirmation of every lie she believed about herself.
I set the bin down.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, already moving.
I took the stairs two at a time.
The door to her room stood partially open. I pushed it the rest of the way and stopped in the frame.
Libby knelt beside a small bag on the floor, packing with quick, precise movements.
She didn’t look up.
“Hey,” I said.
She stilled for half a second. She kept packing.
“Hey.” Short. Careful.
Yeah. She’d taken it wrong.
I stepped into the room and pulled the door shut behind me.
“Look at me,” I said.
Nothing.
“Libby.”
She turned, still kneeling, and lifted her eyes to mine, and there it was—hurt, worn smooth by years of being turned over and put away until it no longer had edges anyone could grab.
“I need to clear something up,” I said, keeping my voice low.
Her expression changed—her guard coming up with the speed of long practice.
“You don’t have to,” she said quickly. “I understand, honestly, Finn. I do, and it’s fine—really.”
“No,” my voice sharp. “You don’t.”
She stopped what she was doing.
I moved further into the room.
“What I said on the roof—the distance, the apology—it really did have nothing to do with you.”
Her brows drew together slightly, and I could see her turning it over.
“It sounded like it did,” she said quietly.
“Yeah.” I exhaled. “I know. That’s on me.”
Neither of us said anything for a moment.
“My only job is keeping everyone in this house alive,” I said, the words feeling inadequate. “That requires absolute concentration. No compromises.” I met her eyes. “I felt mine shift. So I pulled back. That’s all it was.”
Her jaw tightened slightly. “So I’m a distraction.”
“No.” Immediate. Certain.
She blinked.
“That’s not what I said.”
“Then what are you saying?” Her voice had gone quiet. She held my eyes.
She deserved more than carefully constructed distance.
And I didn’t have words for more than that. I had never needed them.
But she knelt there in front of me—hurt evident in her eyes—and every justification I’d constructed on those stairs disappeared.
I moved before I could talk myself out of it.
My hands slid under her arms, and I lifted her off her knees—she gasped, her hands flying to my shoulders, fingers closing in the fabric of my shirt.
I then scooped her up completely. Her legs wrapped around me instinctively, and something deep and certain surged through my chest at the way she held on, not tentative or questioning.
I carried her the three steps to the bed and laid her down, my weight following hers onto the mattress, one hand braced beside her head and the other cradling the back of her neck. And then my mouth found hers.
Nothing like this morning. This had been building.
Not careful, not questioning. Just certain.
Not like the rooftop. Nothing held back, nothing measured.
My hand tightened at the back of her neck, and I felt her exhale against my mouth—the long, shuddering kind that meant she’d been expecting something else entirely.
Her fingers loosened on my shirt. Slowly.
Like a question being answered, one word at a time.
It said I knew exactly what I’d walked away from.
And my hands were already pulling her closer.
Her fingers dug into my shoulders and pulled me closer.
The sound she made against my mouth was small and desperate, and I kissed her harder for it—deeper, my fingers threading into the hair at her nape.
Two days collapsed into the space between one breath and the next.
All of it: the roof, the cold distance I’d constructed, every careful calculation I’d made and unmade and made again. Gone.
I pulled back just enough to see her face—eyes glassy with arousal and searching mine, cheeks flushed, lips swollen. She was transformed into something warm and openly trusting, and I fought the emotions welling up in my throat.
“I’m sorry.” My voice came out rough. “I never meant to make you think you’re nothing. You’re—” I stopped, swallowed, and tried again. “Christ, Libby. You’re everything I can’t afford to want right now.”
Her hand came up, trembling, and cupped my jaw. Her thumb moved once across my cheekbone, then stopped, as if she were deciding something.
“Then stop trying to,” she whispered. “Just be here. With me. Right now.”
I brushed my thumb across her lower lip and watched her eyes darken.
“I’m definitely here,” I said.
And I kissed her again.
Slower this time. Her lower lip was fuller than the upper—I hadn’t let myself notice that before.
My thumb traced the line of her jaw, and she turned into it slightly.
When my hand moved down the side of her neck, she drew in a breath and held it.
Her back lifted off the mattress when my fingers reached her ribs.
Small things. I filed them away in the part of me that had nothing to do with survival.
She opened it, simply by being who she was.
Her hands slid from my shoulders into my hair, and the slow drag of her fingers against my scalp sent a chill down my spine that made my arms shake.
I pressed my forehead to hers, breathing hard, neither of us moving.
The world outside continued its quiet, hostile rotation, and neither of us acknowledged it.
My hands found the hem of her shirt and slid beneath it.
She was warm—warmer than I’d expected—and when my palms moved across her back, she drew a short breath and went very still.
I eased the fabric up, and she lifted her arms without being asked.
I tossed the shirt aside and didn’t move. Just looked.
Her chest rose and fell too fast; the trust in her eyes hit harder than anything else. The scars, no longer separate from her—they’d become simply part of everything she’d survived and refused to be diminished by.
“You’re beautiful,” I said. I had never meant words more.
She blushed, but she smiled—small and real—and reached for my shirt.
I let her pull it over my head, then lowered myself again, my chest brushing hers, keeping my weight careful and deliberate above her.
I kissed down her throat. She tasted of salt.
Her pulse jumped once under my mouth, then again, and her breath caught on the second one—involuntary, as if she hadn’t meant to let it out.
I moved lower. Pressed my mouth to her inner thigh and kissed upward in slow increments, letting the heat of my breath arrive before anything else. Her legs parted on instinct, her whole body drawing taut with anticipation—then softening as I held back and let the waiting become its own thing.
“Finn.” A breath. Nothing more.
I looked up her length. Her head was tipped back against the pillow, lips parted, eyes half-closed. She watched me through dark lashes, her expression a silent plea of trust and want.
I pressed an open-mouthed kiss where her thigh met her hip, then let my tongue trace her length—slow, unhurried. She pulled in a sharp breath, her hips lifting to chase the contact.
I didn’t tease for long. She’d waited long enough—we both had.
My tongue stroked her clit in languid movements, and the unguarded sound that broke from her throat, every layer of composure stripped away, made my head swim. She tasted like salt and something entirely Libby, and I took my time with her.
Her hands threaded through my hair, something solid to hold on to as sensation moved through her in waves.
When I focused on her clit, I started soft—light pressure.
Her breathing became erratic, a sharp intake each time I changed the rhythm or pressure by the smallest degree.
I wrapped my lips around her and sucked—gently first, then with more intent when her hips jerked and my name left her mouth in pieces.
My hands slid beneath her, lifting her just enough to change the angle, and she opened for me completely. The small sounds she made, the involuntary roll of her hips, all shot straight to my cock.
One finger slid inside her, slow and careful. The tight grip of her pussy nearly destroyed my composure. I stroked until her back arched off the mattress and her thighs clamped around me.
“Finn—oh God—”
I slid a second finger in alongside the first and felt her breath leave her in a rush—her whole body registering it before she did.
Her hips tilted toward me instinctively.
I let my tongue slow in response, drawing each stroke out until she made a low sound in her throat and her fingers tightened in my hair, pulling me closer rather than away.
Her hips rocked in earnest now, moving against my hand and tongue with abandon. I encouraged it—pressed harder, sucked harder. Broken sounds. My name in pieces.
She was close. Her walls contracted around my fingers. Her thighs shook against my shoulders. She gripped my hair until it hurt, and I didn’t pull away.
I hummed against her—the vibration deliberate—and that was all it took.
Her whole body spasmed. A choked cry tore free as she came apart, pulsing hard around my fingers, her hips lifting before I pressed them back down and held her through it.
I kept going—gentler strokes through each aftershock, drawing it out until she trembled with over sensitivity and her breath came in shallow, desperate gasps.
Only when her hands pressed weakly against my head did I ease off.
I pressed soft, open-mouthed kisses to her inner thigh, unhurried, then crawled back up the full length of her body, her taste still on my tongue. My arms surrounded her as I settled my weight above her.
She looked completely undone: cheeks flushed, eyes glassy and half-focused, lips swollen from biting as she tried to stay quiet. Her hair spread across the pillow in every direction. Her chest rose and fell too fast, each breath a small, shuddering effort.
She reached for me, her hands pulling me down, and kissed me deeply without self-consciousness, chasing her own taste.
That sent heat straight through me. I groaned against her mouth and gave her everything she reached for, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other braced against the mattress, the two of us breathing the same air.
“You okay?” The words came out rough.
She nodded against my lips. Her breath was still uneven, catching on the inhale, and when she smiled, I felt it more than saw it—the slight curve of her mouth against mine, the way her fingers loosened in my hair without letting go.
It hit me somewhere I hadn’t protected.
Then her hand slid between us. Her fingers wrapped around my cock with quiet certainty, one slow, firm stroke that obliterated whatever remained of my composure in a single, unhurried motion.
“Your turn,” she whispered. Her eyes held mine: dark, steady, with the same directness she brought to everything.
Nothing else existed. Just her hands, her warmth, and that look—like the rest of the world had already been dismissed.