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Finn
Rage courses through me, an old friend. Last time I felt this surge, I shot an FBI agent. I’d love to shoot someone again.
Eric.
I take another bite of my burger and chew without saying a word to her. She’s eating her salad in silence, an air of grief around her causing a corresponding ache in my chest. I hate that fucking pressure bearing on me. I do pretty much everything in my power to never experience regret and longing. Since she rescued me, they’re constant fucking companions. Whenever they rear their heads, I tell myself, that’s the stab wound or that Goddamned gunshot just reopened.
I’ve never been a fixer. Lorcan is, Carys is, but me? I’m usually the guy creating the chaos. My mind churns with ways to fix this feeling in me, in her. The best I can come up with involves going upstairs and using our bodies to forget, to remember, to fucking drown in each other. There’s only one other solution which would satisfy me. Catch a plane to Chicago and take care of Eric. FBI watchlist be damned.
When I look over, she tucks the stray strand of blonde hair that’s popped out of her bun behind her ear again. In a sense, I get why she clung to him. She’s never been good at giving up on people. I didn’t think she could find a guy worse than me. I should have known better. She’s an overachiever.
I place my plate to the side. Even with a healthy dollop of mayonnaise, the french fries taste like cardboard. “Why are you still letting him touch you, Carys? Why are you allowing him to lay a single whoring hand on you?”
She sets her fork aside. “Because nothing matters anymore. The sex is good—who cares if he’s giving it out to everyone else as well? All men are Charles or Eric or—”
“Me.”
When she insinuated the comparison earlier, I didn’t feel like setting her straight.
She shrugs but doesn’t meet my gaze.
“The least you can do is look at me when you’re making shitty accusations.”
Carys crosses her arms. “Am I wrong? Let’s not bullshit each other.”
She was so guarded when we were younger. Everything between us had to be a secret, and I went along with it because from the moment she let me slide into her, I was a goner. Hell, I was probably gone long before that. I kept tabs on her throughout my teenage years, jerked off so many times with her name on my lips I sometimes wondered if I’d call out Carys at the wrong time, with the wrong person.
Once we were together, she could have asked me for anything, and I would have done it. But she never did. So I thought I was temporary—the frog she kissed before she found her prince.
Being around her, hearing her side, the reality my twenty-some-odd self couldn’t see is staring me down, impossible to ignore. My anger subsides as I catalog her face, save the tiniest details for later. This was never just lust between us.
Maybe I should tell her the truth—that I never slept with another woman in the three years we were together. Never even considered it once I had her. Or I let her continue to think the worst of me.
“Yeah,” I say. “You’ve got me pegged.”
Honesty does nothing but give her false hope. Whether I loved her then or I love her now isn’t the point. I’m not good for her; she’d never survive me. I don’t save people or fix them. I ruin them. Maybe I am like Eric, like Charles but not in the manner she thinks.
Carys shakes her head and purses her lips. “Acting offended, just to admit I’m right.” When the waiter approaches, she piles her cutlery on the plate and lets him take it. “I don’t know why everything has to be a battle with you.”
I chuckle and lean across the table toward her. “You want me to be easy?”
“Do you have any idea what easy looks like?” Carys raises an eyebrow as she pays the bill.
A surge of annoyance goes through me because she’s picking up the tab again. I need to prioritize access to my money. Or find another means to pay her.
I stare at her for a moment. I should leave her comment alone. Impulse control isn’t a strength. “I can recognize easy.” She glances up at me and our eyes lock. “Easy is me, going back to your hotel room, sliding off those shoes, pushing up your skirt, tugging your panties to the floor. Easy is me, trailing my lips from your ankles up to your inner thighs, spreading your legs and flicking my tongue across your clit until you can’t decide what you’re begging for. Do you want the release, or do you want to stay in that state forever?”
Her breathing is shallow, and I’m sure if I could put my finger on her pulse, I’d find it racing with desire. Her panties will be wet, so wet when I yank them off it’ll be all I can do to stop myself from sinking into her, the warmth and wetness surrounding me.
“Finn.” Her voice is breathy, filled with longing.
Later her breathiness will be in my ear, echoing around me, smothered by my mouth covering hers.
I should have suggested room service.
Her phone beeps.
She presses her fingers to her forehead and breaks our eye contact as though she’s remembered something important, like she’s coming out of a trance. She snatches the phone off the table with one hand while the other circles her bun and squeezes. Her cheeks are flushed a pretty shade of pink.
“Jay has news.” She braces herself against the table before stooping to grab her purse from the floor.
Before I rise, I adjust myself. My pants are so fucking tight they’re almost painful.
Her hand shakes as she swings her bag onto her shoulder. Even still, she leads the way out of the restaurant with remarkable poise. Will her pupils have returned to size when we exit?
Jay meets us in the foyer. “Here, or...?”
“Upstairs.” She gives the lobby a visual sweep. “Who knows what ears are listening.”
She’s flustered in the elevator and selects the wrong floor button. She mumbles something incoherent before hitting the right number. Jay slides an amused glance in my direction, and I smirk. He knows I caused her misstep.
We stop outside her room, and Jay enters first to sweep for bugs or anything else that might cause us trouble. While he’s gone, she stands with her legs crossed at the ankle, her phone clutched in her hand, avoiding me.
“Did you enjoy my example?” I say. “Did it seem apt?”
“Shut up.” She types a message, avoiding me. “Don’t be an ass.”
“You used to like my ass. In fact, I remember—”
Jay pops his head out the door. “All clear.”
She expels her breath in a whoosh, her shoulders dropping. She grabs the door from him and enters the room. I follow behind her and sink into the closest chair while she leans on the king-sized bed.
“Well?” she says.
“My contact said a private jet went out late last night with an incomplete passenger list. Not uncommon from this airport, as you know. Followed the flight up at the port of entry—Belfast. Any guess who was on that plane?”
“Valeriya.” She sighs.
“Bingo.”
“In Ireland.” Carys frowns. “She must have googled you, Finn.”
“You got a hotel? Firm location?” My jaw clenches in annoyance.
“Working on it,” Jay says. “I hope I’ll have something by the morning.”
“Prep our pilot. We’re probably headed to Ireland tomorrow.” She strides to the mini-bar, picking up each of the liquors and examining their label.
“All of us going?” Jay looks between us as he heads to the door to prepare.
“No.” She glances at me. “Finn will stay here.”
“Will I?”
She glares at me and snaps the lid off a bottle. “I didn’t pay a massive amount of money and risk getting a jail sentence of my own so I could drop you into the only country completely off limits. You’ll either end up dead or in prison.”
Jay ducks out saying nothing more. Smart man knows when he’s not needed or wanted. He’s growing on me. The door clicks closed behind him, which leaves us alone. I wander over to the mini-bar, feigning nonchalance. She’s not winning this argument. No fucking way.
After removing my gun from my waistband, I slide it across the counter. Then I pluck the bottle from her fingers. The vodka streams straight down my throat. When it’s empty, I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
Our gazes connect.
“I opened that for me,” she says.
“I’m a guest in your room. Shouldn’t I get served first?”
“You can’t come to Ireland.” She swallows, and the pulse at the base of her neck jumps. Without hesitating, I brush my thumb against it. She sucks in a sharp breath.
“My contacts, everyone who knows me, they live in the south,” I say. “Belfast is north. I’ll be fine.”
“The FBI—”
“Isn’t the CIA. Weren’t you the person who declared that a bright side?”
“You’ll still be on a watchlist.”
“You worried your document forger isn’t any good?” The gap between us is inching closed. I drink her in. With each breath, her flowery scent invades my senses. We’re on the cusp. Even if backing down is the right thing to do, I have no will to do it.
“I rescued you—”
“And now.” I trace my fingers across her collarbone before sliding them into the bun at the back of her head. “It’s my turn to rescue you from whatever or whoever is trying to hurt you.”
She goes onto her toes and her forehead touches mine. Her chest rises and falls as though she’s been running. We both know where this is headed. But I need a green light from her. I’m not having her tell me tonight, tomorrow, any day soon, this night was a mistake. She only gets to use those words against me once more, and that’ll be when I’m walking out the door for good.
“The only thing I care about is keeping you safe. I’m coming with you.”
“Finn,” she whispers.
My heart gallops, sure of where this tension is headed. Our lips are so close the slightest movement on either of our parts will reconnect us, send us spiraling down. I slide my free hand up her side, under her shirt and around to trace her spine. When our skin connects, an electric pulse shoots through me. She arches her back and her gaze flicks up to mine.
“Oh,” she says, as though she’s surprised, as though this wasn’t always the path with us.
“Tell me.” My voice is gruff next to her ear as I tighten my hold, letting her understand how much I want her. “Tell me what you want.”