by H M Thomas
She clamped her lips together, frightened at how quickly she wanted to agree. When she’d walked away from him two days ago, she’d been sure they were finished.
“Why?” she finally asked.
His easy smile melted away and he closed his eyes briefly before shaking away his disappointment. “Never mind.” He backed up. “I thought—”
“Don’t do that.” She stepped forward and placed her hand on his arm. Beneath her palm, his muscles tensed. “It was a question, not a refusal.”
He looked down at her hand. She squeezed his arm affectionately, rubbing her thumb lightly over the fabric of his shirt. She let her gaze wash over him then, down to the comfortable tennis shoes on his feet, and back up past his worn jeans and soft thermal to the black ball cap covering his blond hair.
When she’d first seen him, she hadn’t noticed how different he looked from the man she’d been sleeping with. This was the way she always thought of Finn. The Finn her young heart had fallen in love with. She wanted to snake her hand around his neck, pull him close and take his lips with her own, but she made herself step back.
They were in front of a building filled with people already unhappy about her sleeping with him. If any of them discovered the truth about her feelings, and how far she’d go to protect him, they’d yank her off the case before she could even attempt to lie her way out of it.
“We need to get out of here.” She looked back to the building to make sure they still hadn’t been spotted. “Now.”
He quirked a brow. “In a hurry?”
“You know how you said you prefer Gretchen?” She reminded him of their conversation weeks before.
He nodded.
“Well, I prefer Finn James.” She smiled and lifted on her toes to kiss him briefly before taking a step back.
His smile reappeared. “Does that mean you’re coming with me?”
“Where are we going?”
He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth. She felt that nip in her core.
“Trust me, Gretch.” He said it so easily, as if trusting him should be her natural inclination.
Unfortunately, it was. She nodded. “Follow me to my place, so I can drop my Jeep off and get a change of clothes.”
He pushed his full lips out into a pout.
“What?”
“I hoped you wouldn’t need clothes.” He raised his brows, sending heat climbing up her chest.
~ ~ ~
Gretchen sat up in her seat as Finn pulled his giant truck off the asphalt and into the woods. When he’d followed her to her apartment earlier, she’d expected his shiny black Porsche, not the 4 x 4 truck he’d had to help her climb into. As she looked around, trying to pick out a road in the dense undergrowth, she realized how useless the little car would’ve been.
“Are you sure you know where we’re going?” She slid him a look out of the corner of her eye.
Finn’s lips turned up. “I always know where I’m going.”
“Yeah, but we’re in the woods.” A limb screeched over the roof of the truck and she jumped.
Beside her, he laughed softly.
“What?” She slid her knee onto the bench seat as she turned.
“Nothing.” He tried unsuccessfully to bite back another snicker.
“No. Not nothing. Why are you chuckling?”
That wiped the smile from his face. “I’m not chuckling.” The grin that crept back belied his words. “I don’t chuckle.”
Her own smile bloomed, and she scooted across the seat, sliding her hand over the hard ridges of his abdomen to his ribs, where he was most ticklish.
“You, Finn James, are a chuckler.” Her fingers danced across his skin, making him squirm underneath her touch. “And I love it.”
He tensed. Before she could falsely assure him she loved his laugh and not him, he pulled the truck into a clearing.
He shifted into park and stared ahead. “So, what do you think?”
What did she think? What could she think? They were parked in a tiny clearing, encircled by towering trees. In front of them sat a small, rustic cottage. Wildflowers carpeted the ground between them and the house. It looked like something out of a fairytale, only more magical. She pushed out of the truck, almost afraid to step on the tiny buds beneath her.
“Wh . . . how?” She shook her head. How had he known she needed this? After her uncertainty over their relationship, after Neil’s disapproval, this place served as a balm for all her emotional wounds.
“It’s so tiny. So.” Words failed. “How did you find it?”
He watched her through narrowed eyes as he chewed his bottom lip. “I built it.”
She’d turned back to look at the cabin, and now her head swung to him again. “You built it?”
Woodworking had always come so easily to him. As a teen, he’d always been building something: forts, furniture. But a house?
He nodded and rubbed a large hand over his chin. The callouses made a soft scratching sound as they ran over the shadow of his beard.
Her lips quirked up, and she skipped to him, slipping her arms around his waist to pull him close. Of course, he’d built the perfect little cottage in the middle of nowhere. The man was a walking contrast. Poor boy from the wrong part of town, powerful enforcer with a sleek apartment, raw masculinity in a rustic wood cabin.
She’d convinced herself over the past few weeks that she’d fallen in love as Jay and Lilah slept together. She’d been wrong. She’d fallen in love with Finn James over a decade ago. She opened her mouth, the confession bubbling on her tongue, but he interrupted her.
“You said I hide out as Jay, that I don’t go back and forth like you.”
Heat washed over her at the reminder and she dropped her hands.
He stepped forward and cupped her cheek, sliding the tips of his fingers against her scalp. Goosebumps dotted her skin and her nipples tightened.
“This is me, Gretchen.” He spoke against her lips. “This is where I come to stop hiding, to remember who I really am.”
With his free hand, he caressed her hip and pulled her flush against him. “I’ve never brought anyone here.”
She leaned back, so she could meet his dark gaze. “You haven’t?”
He shook his head. “It’s where I’m myself. You’re the only one who knows all of me.”
She swallowed down her declaration along with her tears. There were so many things Finn would never say, so many things she’d never ask of him, but she could make this enough. This was the real Finn, and although he didn’t belong to her, no one else had ever met him. That had to count for something.
~ ~ ~
Finn lay in bed, one hand behind his head, the other on his bare chest.
Across the room, Gretchen bent over with her face close to the dresser as she inspected his handiwork. “Do you remember that dressing table you made me?”
“What?” His energy had been too focused on her naked body to hear the words coming out of her mouth.
She straightened with a crooked smile and propped her hands on her hips. Yeah, like that pose would help him concentrate on her words.
Realizing where his thoughts were, she rolled her eyes. “I said, do you remember the dressing table you made me years ago?”
“Your thirteenth birthday.” How could he forget? He’d been so damn proud of that thing. “Your dad asked me to make that.”
She strolled across the room toward him. He forced his gaze to her face and away from the curves of a body he could now draw in his sleep.
“Did he ask you to make the little jewelry chest that went with it?” She stopped beside the bed.
He shook his head. He would’ve done either without payment, but Mr. Christensen never let him do work for free. The chest, thou
gh, had been his own gift for Gretchen, one he’d spent hours carving.
She smiled. “That table’s the first thing I move into every new apartment I rent, and I’ve carried that chest to every place I’ve spent more than a week or two. They’re my most prized possessions.”
“They are?”
Gretchen had grown up in a house filled with antiques and expensive furniture. Her father had given her a pair of diamond earrings for her sixteenth birthday and another for her eighteenth. Surely, she owned more impressive things than a dressing table and carved jewelry box.
She climbed on to the bed, crawling forward to walk her fingers from his abdomen up his chest. “Well, if you were mine, they wouldn’t be.”
How did she not know she already owned every piece of him? Her gaze locked with his and she held it. He could have sworn she probed his very soul, luring confessions from him that had been buried for years. When he thought she’d ask him if he loved her, or worse yet, tell him how she felt, she turned and tumbled back on the bed.
She stared at the ceiling. A deep sigh escaped her before she mused, “I love this place. It’s just missing a few things to make it perfect.”
Disappointment was a knife edge in his gut. Gretchen had grown up with an entire five-star hotel at her disposal, of course she wouldn’t find a tiny cabin in the middle of nowhere impressive. He forced the hurt down.
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“More bedrooms.” She turned her head to the side, facing him, and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “At least two more, one for the girls and one for the boys, it’d be okay if they shared.”
Happiness bubbled in his chest, making it hard to breathe. He rolled to his side, propping himself up with one hand and sliding the other across her taut stomach. He could suddenly picture her flat stomach swollen with his child, and the thought didn’t scare him like he’d thought it would. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No. It was just a thought.” She gave her head a swift shake and pulled away, pushing herself up to kneel beside him on the bed. “Why’d you bring me here?”
The easy comfort they’d shared since their arrival vanished. He ran a finger down her neck and between her breasts. Her eyes closed, and her chest rose and fell with her deep breaths.
He sighed. “There are going to be changes at the club.”
Her body tensed, but she didn’t open her eyes. Good. His confession would come easier without her piercing green detective’s eyes on him.
Swallowing, he continued. “I want you to know this is real, Gretchen, not the club. This is the real me. Promise me you’ll remember when we’re back there.”
Slowly she opened her eyes and focused on the hands folded in her lap. “Ronnie’s coming, isn’t she?” Her voice faltered.
He didn’t allow himself to touch her as he sat up. “If she’s not already there. Gretchen, Ronnie and I, we—”
She stopped him with her lips against his. “I don’t want to know. Just let me have you tonight. Please.”
He needed to tell her he and Ronnie were done despite what she might hear to the contrary, but she shook her head slightly.
Crawling onto his lap, she wrapped her legs around his hips, and pressed her warm, moist center against him. “Make love to me, Finn.”
He couldn’t resist her soft, low voice filled with desire. So, he took her mouth with his and lifted, lying her on her back, determined to love her enough to carry her through whatever hell awaited them.
Chapter 9
It was easy to be alone in a crowd. Gretchen found that increasingly accurate the more time she spent at the packed club without Finn. She’d been back on stage the past two nights, but Finn hadn’t been there. Rumor was he’d flown out of town only hours after they’d returned from their woodland getaway. The rest of the rumor was he’d went to retrieve Ronnie Sinclair. So far, Gretchen hadn’t seen either of them.
“Care to dance?”
The familiar voice made her smile as she turned on her barstool.
“I’d love to.” She needed a distraction. She slid from her perch and let herself be led to the dancefloor. “You any good at this?” she teased.
“Not as good as you were on that pole, but I think I’ll manage.”
Heat swept over her, up her neck, across her face. “You were here for that?” She forced herself to meet Neil’s dark eyes.
Gripping her hips, he pulled her close. “Oh yeah,” he bit off a groan, and a million memories washed over her.
She was suddenly hyperaware of all the places where his body touched hers. “Why?” She cursed herself when her voice shook.
His fingers kneaded the flesh below her waistline. “I wanted to apologize for the other day.” His Adam’s Apple moved up and down the column of his throat before he continued. “And Finley arrived in town earlier today with Sinclair. I wanted to make sure you knew and that you’re still okay.”
His words struck her stomach like a fist. Although, she’d suspected, even expected, Finn to be with Ronnie, the news still twisted in her gut.
Neil bent, his mouth so close that his breath tickled the hair at her nape. “I’ve also got new information. Is there somewhere we can go?”
She nodded, scanning the room for Finn or the elusive Ronnie. “Follow me.” She slid her hand into Neil’s and pulled him toward the hallway that led to her private room.
“Excuse me.” Grant stepped in front of them, his thick arms crossed over his muscled chest.
Neil bumped into her as they came to a stop. His hand clamped onto her hip to keep her from stumbling. “Yeah, what’s up?” Neil lifted his chin.
“You need to take your hand off her.” Grant’s glare dropped to the hand in question.
Neil stepped to her side and slid his hand possessively up her body until his arm rested around her shoulders. “She doesn’t seem to mind, so why don’t you move out of our way?”
Neil turned back to Gretchen, only to have Grant reach out and spin him back around.
“Mr. Finley’s given orders for me to personally beat the shit out of anyone who touches her.” Grant’s lips turned up in a lethal smile. “I was trying to be nice.”
“Mr. Finley?” Neil lifted a shoulder as if he couldn’t care less, and he probably couldn’t. Neil’s laid-back slightly nerdy persona hid a fierce and dirty fighter. Gretchen had never seen him lose, and he’d been on his best behavior lately. Hopefully, he’d remember he’d blow her cover if he revealed his identity tonight.
She pushed her way between the two men. “You can tell Mr. Finley to go fuck himself.”
“Jay asked me to look out for you.” Grant didn’t even blink as he faced off with her.
“I’m sure he meant for you to intervene in case someone tried to drag me out by my hair.” She stopped herself from yelling in exasperation.
Grant shook his head and his eyes darted to Neil. “His exact words were ‘if anyone touches her, rip their fucking hands off’.” His narrowed eyes shifted to her for a moment before they returned to Neil.
Gretchen let out a frustrated huff, resisting the urge to stomp her stilettoed foot. “We’re going back to my room.” She grabbed Neil’s hand and pushed past Grant.
“You don’t understand.” The bouncer stepped around her, again blocking her path.
“No,” Gretchen snapped, her patience finally depleted. “You don’t understand. I can take my friend in the back and take care of him here, or I can leave this club with him and take care of him longer, but I absolutely am not sending him away because Jay-motherfucking-Finley says so.”
She could’ve sworn Grant tried to suppress a laugh.
Behind her, Neil didn’t bother. “Damn, baby.” He planted a firm kiss on her cheek. “Let’s go.”
Gretchen
shot Grant another warning glare before she led Neil to her private room.
~ ~ ~
An hour later Gretchen stepped out of her room with Neil close behind her. She ran her hands over the tiny dress she wore. Finn would be angry when he heard she’d defied Grant and took Neil to her room.
The only way to smooth it out would be to explain her relationship with Neil. The thought of exposing her partner made her stomach churn. She shouldn’t have to explain anything to Finn, she should be able to entertain anyone she wanted. If Neil’s information proved true, Finn had spent the past two nights in Ronnie’s penthouse in Miami surrounded by liquor and women. She swallowed the bile the image brought to her throat.
She walked Neil back to the bar, going to her tiptoes to kiss him briefly on the lips before he walked to a table in the back corner where Jackson and another agent sat. Jackson grinned and held up his glass. Her cheeks warmed. It was one thing to dance in front of strangers, another to do it in front of the men she worked with.
She turned back toward the dance floor without acknowledging him. It would be best if she made her way backstage and waited for her next performance. She almost tripped as she passed by Carlisle’s table and spotted the busty redhead seated beside him. If the crowd gathered at the table was any indication, Ronnie Sinclair had arrived and was holding court.
“Lilah,” Carlisle called out to her.
Gretchen took a deep breath. Here we go. She plastered a smile on her face and strolled over.
“Hello, Mr. Carlisle.” She bent and kissed him as she always did when she greeted him. She’d learned early on the more attention she gave him without prompting, the less he demanded overall.
Carlisle grinned when she pulled away, already turning to the woman next to him. He put an arm around the other woman and smiled like a proud father. “Lilah, this is Ronnie, my greatest success story. The two of you have a lot in common.” He winked at Gretchen.