I have to push Finn off of me, mindful that we are still in front of a cemetery and I take a few deep breaths, my cheeks are flushed, my heartbeat uneven. “Let’s-“ I try to compose myself and fail, “Let’s go to the park and talk. Less people around.” If we go to the diner, people will start showing up.
“Or…” Finn is watching me with a small smirk that doesn’t hide the happiness on his face, “…we could go to my new house.”
I stare at him.
* * *
Hamilton Point was named after the original owners who built this large house. It used be a grand place till it started going into ruin when the previous owners found themselves unable to maintain the place. The large driveway is surrounded but thorny bushes which have shed their leaves to the bitter cold. The place is in desperate need of a paint job but I can see that a lot of repairs are in progress.
Nick has been working hard.
I turn to look at Finn who’s standing next to me. “You bought this place? Then the call from the realtor the other day-?”
“My assistant has been handling all the details and that was just to sign the contract.” His eyes move over the proud looking house that is struggling to survive.
“But why?” My voice is low.
“Why do you think?”
For me? But this seems a little arrogant. I purse my lips. “Because you have a lot of money to throw away?”
Finn gives me a look.
I relent, looking away. “Sorry.”
He starts walking and I follow him after a beat. His voice is thoughtful as he makes his way towards the front door, “I like this town. I like the people. It reminds me of home. My first home.” He inserts the key in the lock and turns it, before looking over his shoulder, his gaze darkly possessive.
This make a sliver of thrill run down my spine.
“Plus, you’re here. Why would I go anywhere else?”
My heart stutters in my chest at his casual declaration and for a moment, my feet are rooted to the spot. Does this man just blurt out anything he wishes to say? He’s so outrageously shameless when it comes to pursuing me that he even leaves me speechless.
Finn’s lips curve in that mocking smile of his. “Aren’t you going to come in then, Darlin’?”
I wet my dry lips and hold his gaze for a few seconds before covering the distance between us and stepping past him, my chin raised in a challenging manner, as if daring him to try something.
If anyone were watching us, they would never be able to guess that we just bared our hearts to each other a short while ago.
My eyes wander over the obvious repairs, the walls that smell of fresh paint, the gleaming wooden floor that looks like it’s recently been laid out. Everything has been replaced and yet it doesn’t quite look complete. The furniture is a bare minimum.
I love through the foyer into the main living room and its empty, as if waiting to be furnished. The kitchen is in a similar state except that it’s been equipped with a top tier oven, housing small machinery that requires people to sell both kidneys, and my mouth waters at the extravagant display.
“What do you think?”
Finn’s voice is right next to my ear and I jump before turning my head slightly to look at him. “Why did you furnish the kitchen but not the living room?”
He smiles, that mysterious Sphinx smile of his that is a giveaway that he’s planning something. “I thought I’d hold off on that.”
“Why?” I blurt out without thinking.
He steps forward and then he’s crowding me against the door of the refrigerator, a model I can’t afford, and my heart is beating fast. His proximity to me is almost drugging, especially when he presses his body against mine, holding me in place.
One glimpse of his dominant side and I go weak kneed.
It’s hardly fair but I can’t help it. The man has me completely wrapped around his little finger, having addicted my body to his masterful touch. Now, one word, one look from him is all it takes to get me wet and even while it frustrates me, I can’t help but purr under his attentions.
Right now, his eyes are studying me, half amused me as if asking me how I plan to get out of this situation.
My hands reach up to curl in his shirt, giving him a mutinous look.
“Darlin’, if you keep glaring at me all the time, people will think that you don’t love me.” Finn chuckles, one hand smoothing the permanent frown on my face.
“I don’t glare at you all the time,” I defend myself, even as I feel a hint of guilt creep in. But I don’t know what else to do in the face of all these feelings I’ve never experienced before. And I honestly feel that I’ve gotten better at it.
Finn has slowly and meticulously whittled away at my reluctance, tearing down my barriers. I smile more, I’m more relaxed and I’ve started I opening up to him. To me, these are not small feats. It’s like I’m overcoming one obstacle at a time, learning how it is to fall in love with someone. It’s a powerful feeling, tinged with fear and wariness, and so much contentment. His presence soothes my worries away and when he’s around, I can’t seem to take my eyes off of him. There are so many layers to him that I keep on discovering and each layer that I uncover has me even more fascinated and entranced.
When he keeps looking at me with clearly no intention to move away, I raise my chin.
“You didn’t answer my question. Why haven’t you furnished this place?”
Finn grabs another errant curl of mine and I toys with it. “I don’t think I should be the one to furnish it.”
“Oh.” I blink, suddenly remembering something. “You interior designer?”
He raises a brow. “No.”
When he doesn’t offer anything more, I narrow my eyes. “Then who?”
He smirks, murmuring, “So bossy.”
I don’t deny it, an odd anxiousness filling my soul, and my hands clench tighter on his shirt, not wanting to betray the conflict raging inside.
Was I always this insecure?
Why does it always feel like Finn is one step closer to slipping out of my fingers?
I don’t know what he sees in my eyes, but the smirk dies from his lips, and a gentle look replaces the mischievous one on his face. “Why do you always look like you think I’m going to go and hurt you?”
It’s like he’s ripped me open and peeked into my innermost darkest thoughts.
I take a shuddering breath and confess, reluctantly, “Because I think you can.”
The joy on his face is so fierce, lighting up his already handsome features into something wildly breathtaking, and he presses himself closer to me as if he wants to sink into my body. His words are a harsh whisper as he breathes, “I think you’re very capable of hurting me, too, Clara.”
I shake my head, adamantly, unable to bear the thought. “I wouldn’t.”
He smiles and wears a weary look that is so far from the man I know. “But you could if you ever chose to. To think that I was felled by a sharp tongued, small town, little barista.”
Business owner.
The rectification is on the tip of my tongue but nothing comes out.
There is no condemnation in his tone, just bewilderment and amusement. “Say Clara?” He watches me intensely. “Did you really not cast a love spell on me? It’s not possible to love somebody so desperately like I do you.”
His words pierce through my brain and a shaky smile covers my lips. “Why would I cast a love spell on you when I could just turn you into a frog?”
“But then you’d have to kiss me to turn me back?” His smile is teasing and yet his eyes are burning with a scorching passion that has me reeling.
“You’re no prince,” I manage to get out and helpless before him, my arms entwine around his neck as I pull him down to meet my mouth. “But kissing you isn’t exactly a hardship.”
Finn smiles against my lips as he takes over the kiss.
As has become the usual, I’m left in his merciless hands to do with as he sees fit.
>
Chapter 11
There’s an odd sort of happiness in my heart every day when I wake up, encircled in the strong arms of the man who is directly responsible for it. Watching his sleeping face, it’s always so baffling how his relaxed features don’t betray the devilish countenance that lurks underneath.
Finn’s a light sleeper.
The second I move, he’s awake and dragging me back into bed despite my protests.
My aunts are thrilled. They don’t even try to hide it. As Aunt Vee explains it, ‘it’s high time I think about getting myself a proper man.’
The fact that Finn’s purchased Hamilton Point can’t be contained any longer when someone spies him walking into the house. The entire town is abuzz and Nick storms in once or twice, complaining that my ‘boyfriend’ is a tyrant who thinks he doesn’t have his own life to live.
“What do you want me to do about it?” I shrug, serving him a coffee as Lucia sits next to him, consoling him.
“Why is he in such a hurry to get the place ready by Christmas?” Nick laments.
I brew another pot of coffee and glance in the oven to check the status of the bread I’ve been working on. “I don’t know, Nick. Why don’t you ask Finn?”
“Ask Finn what?” A familiar voice rises from behind me.
My lips twitch before I maintain a nonchalant expression and turn around to pour a cup of coffee for my ‘boyfriend’. “Apparently, you’re working Nick to the bone,” I inform him. “He wants to know why you’re in such a hurry to get the place completed.”
Finn hasn’t really shared a lot with me as well, evading my questions with hot kisses that distract me. I’m starting to get an understanding that no matter how open and charming he is, Finn likes to keep his secrets and no force on earth can get him to reveal anything he isn’t ready to.
Although it’s a lot of fun trying to convince him otherwise.
“I want to move in by the New Year.” Finn sips his coffee, calmly.
I blink at that, utterly shocked. “W-What about your businesses in WestHallor and—”
“I can travel,” he cuts me off. “Besides, I’m planning something here as well and that will take up a considerable amount of time.”
I gape at him.
Lucia straightens up, asking slowly, “So, you’re going to move to Wicca Springs and start a business here?”
Finn nods.
I glance towards the empty bar across the street that has seen zero activity since it was purchased by this man. “What business?”
Finn moves his shoulders in a careless shrug. “Kind of an investment, really.”
From the look in his eyes, I know I won’t be able to pry anything more out of him and I sigh, despondently. “You’re a pain in the ass.”
The words are spoken affectionately and Finn grins, raising his mug in open acknowledgement of that fact.
Nick distracts Lucia with questions about her recent date and I watch them flirt, briefly, before turning my attention towards my own man, who’s playing with the toothpicks jar.
I slap his hand away, scolding, “Don’t do that. People have to put that in their mouths.”
He gives me an aggrieved look but stops.
There are not a lot of people inside right now so I lean forward and peck him on the lips to his surprise.
“What was that for?”
I smile, hesitantly. “For forcing me to spend the entire Saturday with you.”
His eyes darken in understanding and he turns my hand over, tracing the lines on my palm. “It was better to celebrate them rather than mourn them.”
I had wanted to spend the day alone when he had barged into my room, Saturday morning and had dragged me out of bed. My aunts had been taken aback to see me around and for some reason it had ended up with me spending the entire day with all of us together, almost like a family, if you include Finn. But the anguish in my heart has slowly ebbed away as my aunts had taken out picture books with photographs of my parents then told us stories and escapades of my Dad and my parents.
I was regaled by things I never knew about them and it was both fascinating and helped lighten the load on my heart. And I would have done none of it, if Finn hadn’t forced me into it.
“Yeah,” I say, softly. I look over at the clock and then turn to him. “Did you book your ticket?”
Finn’s going to leave in four days and I know it’s unreasonable, but I’m already feeling a little lonely. I know he’s going to be back after Christmas but it’s like a very important part of me is going to go with him. And I’m suddenly not looking forward to Christmas without him.
“Not yet,” he says, a slight tension in his eyes.
I blink as I glimpse this. “Is everything all right?”
He nods. “Yeah. Nothing you need to worry about.”
I cover his hand with mine, feeling concerned. “Hey, are you really sure that moving here wouldn’t affect your work? I don’t want you to get into trouble because of –“
Because of me.
He looks startled for a minute before an impish smile flits on his lips. “I am my own boss. And I’ll fly in every fortnight to check in on the office. Besides…” He grins, “I do most of my work while travelling around. It wouldn’t make much of a difference.”
“And your business partner? They’re okay with this?”
His smile slips from his lips before he firms it. “I don’t see how this is anyone’s business but mine.”
I know I’m digging my own grave here but I can’t help but say, “Finn, you know we’ve barely know each other for a month and yet, you say you’re moving here for me. I don’t think—”
“When a McCarthy man decides on a woman, there’s no budging him.” There’s a light smile on his lips but a dark gleam in those stunning eyes.
I swallow at the intense way he’s watching me and my heart flutters. Suddenly, this thing seems more than just a simple romance. Maybe him buying a house here should have been the first sign but I sometimes can be a little dense. “I don’t understand,” I stumble out.
Finn gives me a casual smile. “Oh, Darlin’, you didn’t think I was going to let you go, did you? That house is going to be furnished by it’s new Mistress.” He bops me on the nose.
Lucia and Nick are now staring at us but I can’t even be bothered but them, the implication in Finn’s words is seizing me by the throat.
Why does that sound like a marriage proposal?
I don’t know that I’ve said the words out loud till Finn raises a brow and responds, easily, “Because I intend to marry you.”
Lucia’s loud gasp flows by my ears and I can’t even be bothered to glance at her, frozen in my place. “What?”
Finn reaches out and taps on the ring finger on my left hand. “I plan to put a ring on here.”
I immediately cover my hand protectively, my eyes wide with shock. “That’s a little sudden, isn’t it?”
And yet why is my heart beating so wildly and my face feeling so hot?
“Is it?” Finn shrugs. “I’ve always been the type to go after something once I decide on it.”
“Well, I’m not an ‘it’,” I stammer out, cradling my hand to my chest, eyeing him with no small amount of caution.
He rakes his eyes over my body, deliberately, and I flush, as he says, “No. What you are is mine.”
“That’s – You –“ I try to say something but nothing comes out and I’m left spluttering, so stunned that I can’t even form a single sentence in my blank mind.
The way he’s claiming me so openly, it should make me angrier, right?
Yet, I can’t find a single spark of irritation inside of me, his words just feel right.
“I’m not marrying you!” I declare, feeling cornered and my defiance rearing its head. When he doesn’t say anything, I have the urge to hit him, and I snap, “Stop looking so smug. I mean it. I’m not!”
Finn moves his broad shoulders in a careless shrug that smirk still playing on his lips.
“I got you to go out with me, didn’t I?”
A giggle bursts out of Lucia’s mouth.
I glare at her.
She says, “He wore you down, eventually, you’ve got to admit.”
My jaw tightens. “That and this are two different things!”
Finn doesn’t look too concerned, reaching out to grab a menu. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is!” I nearly shout and I have to lower my tone with effort.
Finn gives me a puzzled look that is laced with hurt. “Why don’t you want to marry me? Is it something I did?” His brows draw together as he adopts an injured air. “Am I not good enough for you? Or am I just not good enough to marry?”
His wounded words make me flounder, the hurt look in his eyes, making me say, hastily, “Of course not! That’s not it! You’re good enough to marry! There’s nothing wrong with you. I just…”
He smiles in satisfaction, his entire act evaporating. “So, we’re on the same page. Good.” He stands up, not giving me a chance to get a word in edgewise. “I have to run, Darlin’.” He leans over the counter, smacks a kiss on my parted lips and gleefully escapes.
I gape after him, feeling like I’ve just lost both the battle and the war.
Nick and Lucia are staring at me.
I slowly meet their gazes, stunned. “Did that just happen?”
Nick lets out a whistle. “Well, damn. And I thought I was smooth.”
“Shut up, Nick,” I growl.
He closes his mouth obediently, his eyes dancing in merriment.
“You just got proposed to, Clara,” Lucia says in awe.
“That wasn’t a proposal,” I complain. “That was him telling me. There was no ‘proposing’ involved.” I start untying my apron, my anger rising. “I’m going to go kill him.”
My friends grab onto both my arms, halting me, as they laugh.
“Breathe first,” Lucia advises.
“I’m not going to be manipulated into marriage!” I tell them, hysterically. The hysteria comes from the fact that I’m not sure I’m strong enough to not be swayed by this devious man’s manipulations and demands. I’m discovering that despite us knowing each other for not too long, Finn has learnt exactly which buttons of mine to press and how to get his way when it comes to me.
Wintertime Love: A Christmas Billionaire Small Town Romance Page 14