Chapter 37 – Finn – Ruin & Redemption
I pour two fingers of bourbon and stare into the glass.
Do I regret it? No. Not the truth. Not the way I put it on the table and made Eleanor choke on it. I regret one thing only: the look on Ariane’s face when the world tilted. Betrayal like a flood. Tears she tried to swallow. A sound in her throat I still hear in the goddamn drywall.
I finish the bourbon. My room’s lamp throws a coin of light across the desk; contracts sit in their folders pretending money is still interesting.
My MacBook pretends like I’m in the mood to listen to jazz.
But I keep seeing Ariane under that chandelier, hand on her cheek where Eleanor struck her, eyes on me like I was the gun and the shield, and she couldn’t pick which to hate more.
“Fuck,” I say, tipping my head back.
I don’t regret a goddamn thing. I tell myself that twice. Three times. The fourth time it sounds almost like a question.
My phone buzzes.
Eric: You good?
He means: Did you get what you wanted and is the house still standing.
I type: Yes. For now. Then put the phone face down and let the drink stare at me.
She’ll come. I know she will. Because we are a bad habit and a religion and a relapse at once.
I count to a hundred and then to two hundred to trick myself into patience.
When the door opens without a knock at three twenty-four in the morning, I’m still on my desk, waiting.
Hair loose, eyes rimmed red, mouth set in a line I want to bite. She’s shaking. If rage were electricity, she could power the estate.
“You,” she says, and the word is an indictment.
“Me,” I agree, because it’s stupid to start a fight with denial.
She slams the door behind her. The sound goes straight through my spine. “You don’t get to sit in here drinking to cope with your emotions.”
“I’m hydrating,” I say. “Self-care.”
She stares at the glass in my hand like she wants to throw it and then thinks better of giving me that kind of satisfaction. “I want to hate you.”
“You could.” I say, quietly.
“I should never speak to you again. Stay away from you and make you forget everything.”
“You won’t manage that.”
“I don’t want you to think of my mother every time I look at you.”
Is that what she thinks I see? “Ariane, I see you and only you. There is no way I would see anyone else in you. No matter how much you try to fight it, I know you’ll come back to me.”
She steps closer. “Take it off.”
I lean back in the chair, let the words unfurl. “Take what off?”
“Don’t make me say it.” Her chin tips, defiant and broken at once. “The tracker. I don’t want you to even think of me, let alone keep track of my every movement. ”
My gaze drops, traitor that it is, to the outline of metal beneath the hem of her sleep shorts. The anklet sits like a ring of claim. She’s flushed with fury; the small muscle in her throat works. She hates that she wore it to my office. She hates more that she didn’t think to hide it.
I set the bourbon down. She’s persistent. “And if I don’t?”
She laughs without humor. “Then I buy bolt cutters and do it myself. But not before I also remove your hand at the wrist.”
“That would be inconvenient,” I say. “I need it for work.”
She takes another step. “I’m serious.”
“So am I.” I keep my voice level and mean. “Ask me like you mean it.”
Her pupils flare. “You are such an asshole.”
“Correct.” I stand, slow, until we’re almost the same height. She still has to raise her chin to look me in the eye. “Ask.”
Her breath hitches. “Finnick,” she says, and my name on her tongue is blasphemy, “take it off.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked.” She’s trembling. “Because I’m not your property.”
“You’re not,” I agree. “You never were. You chose me. And you’re here to choose me again, which makes you mine. If you wanted me to never speak to you again or be with you again, you would never have come here. You would’ve gotten rid of it yourself.”
Her hand flashes out and shoves my shoulder. “My mother killed yours, Finn. We could never be together.”
I know what she’s thinking. If I was any other man, she’d probably be right. But I’ve made my peace with the truth. Eleanor killed my mother but it’s not Ariane’s fault. I already lost my mother, I’m not about to lose the only other woman I’ve ever loved too.
I catch her wrist, not to restrain, but to stop the second shove she’s planning so she won’t have to cry. “Say what you want from me, Ariane.”
“I want you to stop controlling everything,” she says. “I want you to just agree to this.”
I let her go. “No.”
“Fuck you.”
“You already did.” I step into her. “Do it again.”
Her breath saws. She hates how fast her body betrays her; she hates that I feel it. She fists my shirt, drags me down, and kisses me like penance. There’s nothing sweet in it. It is grief honed into lust because it’s the only blade that cuts accurately.
“I hate you,” she says against my mouth.
“Good,” I say into hers. There’s nothing I want more than her right now. I want her body to make me forget of the agony I’ve felt these last few days. “Hate me more.”
She snarls, actually snarls, and I smile like a fucking devil because I have wanted this honest fury since the day I understood what she could do to me.
I back her into the desk. Papers slide. A pen hits the floor and rolls, a small, stupid sound that makes her flinch like guilt.
“Look at me,” I say, because I won’t have her somewhere else while she ruins me. “Eyes on me.”
She obeys.
“Say it again,” I demand.
“I hate you,” she grits, but there’s a break in the middle of the word hate that sounds a lot like want.
I twist the anklet with two fingers, gentle, possessive. “You want this off?”
“Yes.” It’s too fast. Too loud.
“Liar,” I say, calm. “You want to hear me tell you you’re not going anywhere.”
“Fuck you.” But she doesn’t pull her leg away. She lifts it, sets her foot on the edge of the drawer, bares the metal to me like a dare and a prayer.
I take the small key from the drawer, hold it up. The lamplight glints off the teeth. Her eyes track it like a cat. I lower the key until it kisses the lock. Don’t turn it. Press just enough to make the metal click without release. Her breath stutters.
“Please,” she whispers, and it’s not a word she uses lightly.
“For what?” I murmur.
“For mercy.”
I smile. “Not tonight.”
She shivers. “I hate you.”
“Good,” I say again, because we’re done pretending love is picture-perfect. “Hate me and ask me to make you forget of everything. Just like I want to, Ariane.”
That gets her attention.
“Make me…” she says. “Make me forget.”
I pocket the key.
Her lip curls. She pushes me again because she needs the fight to justify the surrender.
I take her wrists and bring them up to the desk edge.
I don’t tie them; I just hold until I feel the fight concentrate into focus.
Consent isn’t a contract we sign once and it’s a dial I keep tuned with my own hands.
“Tell me to stop,” I say, because I’m not a fucking monster, whatever else I am.
She swallows, and the sound is obscene in the quiet of the room. “Don’t stop. Even if I beg you.”
My hands move on instinct, unbuttoning her jeans, shoving them down just enough to slip my hand inside. Her silky underwear is no barrier as I sink my middle finger into her heat. She gasps, her body jerking, fists pounding my chest, but I’m a goddamn wall, unmoved, unyielding.
“This isn’t going to be another meaningless fuck,” I growl, my voice rough with need. “I’m not. I’m in your blood, Ariane, just like you’re in mine. Those other men? Julian? He had no staying power, because he’ll never be me. I will fucking destroy everything that comes between us. ”
She rises on her toes as I slide another finger inside, pressing hard against that spot that makes her unravel.
She shrieks, shoving at me, but I lean in closer, crowding her, rendering her struggles useless.
Her sweet scent hits me like a drug, pulling me back to summers, to innocence, before I drowned it all in this reckless hunger.
“I claimed you when you were engaged,” I say, my voice harsh, cutting through the haze. “I took you and marked you. You’ll never escape me.”
She tries to shake her head, but my hand pins her against the cold tiles, holding her still. Her body betrays her, slicking my fingers, and I bury my face in her hair, groaning low. “Feel that, baby? Your body craves me. How can you fight what’s meant to be? You were made for me, Ariane. Admit it.”
“No!” Her voice is muffled against my hand, which is covering her mouth, but the denial makes me hornier.
I pull back, studying her face, lit by slivers of moonlight slicing through the window.
My own face is cloaked in shadow, but I see her, every flicker of fear, every spark of desire she’s trying to bury.
“You fight me, but you’re fighting yourself harder,” I murmur, my fingers slowing, stroking now, coaxing. Her claws dig into my wrist, but I don’t stop. “You were so scared of what people will think, you’d rather have denied us both.”
I twist my fingers just right, and she whimpers, the sound shooting straight to my core. “I’m not that selfless, Ari. I would’ve done anything to get you.”
I scissor my fingers, and she jerks like she’s tethered to me, a puppet dancing on my strings. “You play the good girl, but you love it like this. Rough and filthy. How can something this perfect be wrong? Feel me. You love it, don’t you? I taught you to need me.”
Her hands grip my wrist, her hips rocking before she catches herself and freezes. I catch the glint in her eyes, and a grin splits my face. “That’s my girl.”
I pull my hand free, ignoring her gasp, and press my palm to her chest, pinning her to the wall.
With a rough tug, I drag her jeans down, her stance widening to stop me, or at least pretending to, but I’m stronger.
God, I love that she plays along. I tip her off balance, yanking the denim off one ankle, and shuffle her toward the bathroom.