Chapter 15 – Finn – The Fire He Can’t Put Out
Every time I close my eyes, I am treated to the torturous sight of a door left half-open and the worst fucking soundtrack of my life.
Her laugh, soft and surprised. His stupid, careful groan. A rhythm that makes me want to empty the contents of my stomach.
I put the pillow over my face. The sounds aren’t real anymore; they’re branded into me.
My brain loops them, edits them, makes them worse.
I picture her looking up at me instead, mouth open on my name, fingers in my hair, back arching under my hands.
I can swap out the players as many times as I want. The original still exists. I saw it.
That’s the fun of reality: you don’t get to win the rerun.
Jesus Christ. When the fuck did I turn into some loser teenaged boy who obsesses endlessly over a girl? That wasn’t me when I was a fucking teenaged boy.
I throw the covers back and stand.
The mirror reflects to me the same face I’ve been stuck with for thirty-five years—though, right now, it looks meaner than it typically does.
I step out to breathe normally and feel something other than dread and regret. Eleanor came home late, brittle and hollow-eyed, clinging to control like it’s a flotation device. Julian showed up with Ariane earlier, Mr. Perfect at her elbow, the kind of “Are you okay?” that sounds good on tape.
When they came back, I stayed at the hospital until the walls started to buzz and the doctor’s voice felt like someone reading condolences off a teleprompter. Brain hemorrhage. Prepare.
Fuck that word.
I left before I started flipping tables.
The hallway is dark except for the runner lights Eleanor had a designer install. I think they’re a little ridiculous, but whatever. They make the corridor look like a runway for ghosts and it’s fine. Not like I live here year-round.
I take it slowly, the old map of creaks and soft spots still in my calves. I’m not avoiding anyone. I’m not looking for anyone either. Not on purpose.
Yet I find her.
More accurately: I turn the corner and hit her.
Literally. Shoulder to shoulder, breath to breath, two people with no business being awake colliding in a house that pretends it’s asleep.
Ariane gasps and takes one step back, then another, until her spine finds the wainscoting. My hands are already up, one catching the rail, the other catching… her. Barely. The heat of her arm burns through the thin fabric. I don’t move it. Neither does she.
She’s in a nightgown that would be illegal in any country with common sense.
Pale, almost translucent, cut simple, falling just above her knees like the designer forgot what modesty is.
There’s a robe technically involved, but it’s hanging open, belt trailing like it changed its mind.
The light along the floor throws a soft shine through the cotton and my brain—helpful bastard—fills in the rest. Curves I shouldn’t be charting.
The long line of a thigh I shouldn’t touch.
The suggestion of everything I already know I want.
Her hair’s down and messy in a way that looks like a crime scene. Her mouth is softer than it was when she said ‘We can’t’ in my car. Her eyes flick over me, T-shirt, jaw, mouth, and then back up like she didn’t just do that.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I ask. It comes out lower than I plan, rough, a drag down a stone wall.
She swallows. It’s the smallest movement, but it feels obscene. I want to fuck her. God, I want her. I want to spank that ass of hers and feel her wetness on my fingers. Make her scream my name until she’s crying, and choking, and begging for mercy.
“No.” She clears her throat. “I mean… yeah. Couldn’t.”
Her gaze skitters past me toward the arm of hallway that leads to the guest rooms. “You scared me.”
“I’ve heard that before. Though maybe it’s smart for you to be scared,” I say, and step back half an inch, a concession to the fact that if I stay where I am one of us is going to decide we can’t spin in the morning.
I can smell her. It’s not the expensive bullshit Eleanor swears by.
Spotless skin. Soap. The faintest hint of a zesty scent because this house is made of summers.
“Where’s Julian?” I ask, even though I don’t want the answer.
“In our… In the bedroom,” she says, struggling to get the words out. “I couldn’t sleep, so I was—” She raises the glass in her hand like evidence. Half the contents have been sloshed out of it. Still, she awkwardly adds, “Water.”
“That’s one way to get wet,” I scoff, tilting my head towards her. “How’s the campaign boyfriend, really? Still planning your recovery for you?”
She flinches. It’s there and gone, but I know what it looks like when something lands. “Fiancé,” she sighs. “Don’t start, Finn. Please.”
“Who says I ever stopped?” I counter.
I do need to stop. I’m exhausted and feral and there’s a part of me that wants to play nice because she’s been through enough. Unfortunately, there’s a louder part that doesn’t give a shit about nice.
“He looked really helpful at the hospital. Especially when the doctor said the quiet part out loud.”
Her fingers tighten around the glass until the tendon in her wrist shows. “Don’t do that, Finn.”
“What’s that?”
“Be cruel because you’re scared.”
I could deny it. I don’t bother. The walls have ears and she, apparently, has extremely perceptive eyes. “Fair,” I acknowledge, unwilling to lie to her.
We stand in the hush, and I can feel it building, that pressure-change thing that happens right before the storm hits town.
“You should go back to bed,” she says at last. Her voice is quiet in the hallway, private in a way that feels like a secret we’re already sharing. It isn’t an order; it’s a suggestion, and she sounds like she already knows I’m not the kind of man who follows suggestions.
“Are you sleepy?” I ask, even though the answer is written all over her face.
“No,” she says. She lifts the glass in her hand like that might prove something. “Not even close.”
“Me neither,” I say. The words land between us and settle. There’s nowhere for them to go.
I plant my palm on the rail by her hip. I do not touch her. I get close enough to feel the heat coming off her skin through the thin robe and the thinner willpower. “You came out here to see me,” I say, because I’m done pretending.
“I came out for water,” she repeats, her brows furrowing together petulantly. It’s brave and adorable, and it’s also a lie that doesn’t even try to be good.
“Right,” I say, letting my mouth tilt because I can’t help it. “And then you ended up in my arms by accident. Happens all the time, right?”
“I did not…” She stops herself, frustrated by the honesty sifting up through whatever speech she wanted to give. “I did not mean to end up anywhere near your arms.”
“I didn’t either,” I say. I lie like a professional; I lie well. But not to her and not about this. “But since we’re here, we should at least stop pretending we aren’t.”
“Finn.” My name in her mouth again, shaped like a warning that accidentally learned how to sound like a plea. “We can’t do this.”
I lean in just enough that her back registers the paneling. I still don’t touch her, but I can feel the heat radiating off of her. I let the idea of contact do all the work. “You keep saying that to me,” I remind her, because I’m a bastard who keeps score.
“And you listened,” she says, and her eyes dip to my mouth and then jerk back up like she wishes she could take the glance back. “Sort of.”
I put both hands on the wall, bracketing her shoulders, every muscle tight like a leash about to snap. If I move an inch, we won’t stop anywhere short of disaster. “Tell me to go,” I say. I make it easy for her. I give her the exit I don’t want her to take.
She wets her bottom lip, cruel little gesture, and nods once, like she’s trying the word on for size. “Go.”
I don’t move. “Look at me and tell me to go,” I say. I want the truth, not the script.
She raises her gaze and meets mine straight on. Her eyes are too bright, like she’s been arguing with herself for hours and lost.
“Go,” she repeats, clearer this time, like a good student hitting the line.
The fucking honesty of it kills me. So does the way her body leans forward by a millimeter, just enough to betray her.
The robe parts by the same measure, a soft opening and closing like something alive trying to make up its mind.
Fuck. Her tits are out now. It’s like she’s provoking me.
The lace of her white bra doesn’t leave anything to the imagination.
Her chest rises and falls as her breathing gets more intense and I just want to devour her.
I lower my head until my breath ghosts across her cheek. “Liar,” I breathe out, not unkind, but not soft either.
“Fuck you,” she whispers. She says it like a laugh that got nervous halfway out and changed its name.
“You first,” I say, because I have never been the bigger man and I am not auditioning for the role tonight. “I insist.”
And then she proves me right. Not with words but with the smallest, bravest tilt of her mouth toward mine. That’s consent enough to set the world back to true north. I still wait half a beat to watch her choose it again.
She does.
The first touch is a collision disguised as a kiss.
It’s not tidy or cautious. It’s a grabbed shirtfront and a muffled sound that makes my muscles remember exactly what they’ve been trained not to and none of that matters because it’s her, finally.
She tastes like the better version of every bad decision I’ve ever fucking made.
I keep my hands on the wall for a heartbeat because if I touch her now there won’t be anything left to explain.
Then I fail at that, and one hand drops to her jaw, thumb skimming that soft place where pulse argues with reason.
The other anchors at her waist, the thin cotton doing nothing to stop the heat of her.
She’s shaking, and the way she leans into my palm is going to be the detail that kills me at the end.