by Stacey Lynn
My head spun, trying to figure out what had just gone wrong, but by the time I blinked, Finn had slammed the door to the bathroom closed, leaving me alone.
And when I heard the water to the shower start up, like he couldn’t wait to remove any trace of me, everything that had felt good in the last hour instantly soured in my mouth. Soured so bad I could taste it…like rotten cheese.
Seeing as how I had just had the best sex of my entire life with a man I barely knew, and a man who clearly regretted it as soon as he came, I wasn’t in a huge hurry to lie there, the scent of sex in the air, and the regret so thick I could taste it on my tongue.
So I hurried and dressed, throwing on my sweatshirt, but this time I made sure to throw on a pair of loose sweats that went just to my calves. Then I threw my blond hair into a ponytail and hustled out of the room right as I heard a loud crash in the bathroom, followed by the water turning off.
I didn’t stop to think what caused the noise.
I wanted to be out of the room before Finn came back.
Checking on Brayden on the way to the kitchen, I wasn’t surprised to see that he was still sleeping. The sun was just barely dawning and the kid could sleep until lunchtime if I left him to it.
Which meant I had possibly hours before I could find a good diversion from the man who had just rocked my world and figuratively punched me in the gut all at once.
13 Meg
Fortunately for me, Brayden chose that morning to not sleep in until lunchtime. Shortly after I started the coffee pot and began digging out fixin’s for breakfast, Brayden came stumbling down the hallway, sleepy-eyed and rubbing his hands down his face.
“Mom?” he asked, his voice scratchy. “Where are we?”
I laughed softly and brushed my hand through his hair. “The lake, remember?” I picked him up and carried him to the kitchen counter. He was getting bigger and sometimes I had to throw in an extra oomph to carry him, but someday he’d be too big to do it at all, so I tried to enjoy it when I could. “Want some juice?”
Plus, having Brayden on my hips when I knew Finn could walk in any minute gave me an extra buffer.
Yeah, I was a grown woman hiding behind her five-year-old, but until I could figure out a better plan, I was sticking to the one I figured would work.
I wanted to avoid looking at Finn as long as possible. I never wanted to see that look in his eyes again—that look of disgust.
I grimaced and set Brayden on the counter next to me while I poured his juice and began cracking eggs.
“Wanna help?” I asked him.
I received a pouty shrug and laughed. Reaching out to ruffle his hair, I wasn’t surprised when he pulled away and grunted. “Stop it.”
“All right, then.” I cracked a few more eggs and handed the whisk over to Brayden to let him stir once he’d woken up some.
Sipping on my coffee, I closed my eyes when I heard the door to the bedroom close and the floors creak beneath the weight of Finn walking toward us.
My pulse instantly kicked up and I smiled at Brayden, trying to ignore the emotions racing through me. “What should we do today?”
He shrugged and slid the scrambled eggs toward me. “I dunno. Fish?”
I wrinkled my nose, and he smiled. I didn’t like slimy things. Eggs were one of them but fish was another. We’d tried fishing once with Ryker, and I’d spent most of the day wiping slime off my hands with a wet wipe and cringing when the floppy little suckers were pulled onto a dock.
“I’ll take him.”
My eyes snapped up and instantly met Finn’s. The man had caught me by surprise. Then I thought of all the times he’d been a jerk to Brayden—and me, for that matter, but Brayden was different.
“That’s fine,” I clipped and poured the eggs into the pan. They sizzled from the heat. “I’ll do it.”
Keeping my head down, I turned and began searching the cupboards for salt and pepper when the heat in the room began to change.
A wall of hot biker stepped up behind me and I looked over my shoulder to see Brayden swinging his feet, tapping the cupboards, and watching the eggs cook.
Ignoring Finn when he reached around me to grab a coffee mug, my breath caught in my throat when his other hand rested on my hip. Avoiding him became impossible when his head dipped close to mine, and his lips ran against my ear. “Never had something so beautiful, Meg. Didn’t handle it well, but I wouldn’t take it back either.”
A forceful breath puffed out through my lips and I melted.
I did…I melted right back into his hand on my hip and felt my entire heart squeeze into a puddle of mush.
“Oh,” I said, and my eyes darted back to Brayden. He was looking at us, his head tilted to the side.
“Let me get breakfast for you,” Finn said, still whispering in my ear. Without waiting for me to respond, he simply pushed me out of the way with a playful shove of his hip.
I tossed him a hesitant grin over my shoulder, scooped Brayden off the counter, and then went and got his juice and my coffee while Finn finished the eggs.
The entire time, I couldn’t concentrate. Brayden began babbling about catching huge fish, or swimming in the lake, and Finn muttered occasionally. I tried to respond when appropriate.
Mostly, I kept hearing Finn’s voice in my head on a constant looped cycle.
Never had something so beautiful.
He meant…me.
Plain old, down South, Louisiana girl Meg…and he not only thought I was beautiful, he thought what we’d done was beautiful.
Even I hadn’t thought that. The way we’d been together this morning had been frantic…frenzied…powerful…and amazing…
But beautiful?
Warmth spread down my spine and my hair stood up on my arms. It left my brain foggy.
“Breakfast,” Finn said and slid plates onto the small, round, and really worn table.
I blinked, distracted from my thoughts, and when I caught Finn’s gaze, my cheeks flushed. His knowing smirk told me he knew exactly what I was thinking about.
“Thank you,” I whispered. It sounded breathy and I blushed further. The smile I received from Finn in exchange lessened my embarrassment. I’d make a fool out of myself every day forever if it meant I’d be given one of those smiles.
“So,” Finn said, once we had all dug into our food. He talked around a mouthful of eggs and didn’t care. His forearms propped on the table, he pointed his fork at Brayden. “You and me, kid. We’ll do some fishing. Maybe catch some dinner.”
Brayden’s eyes went wide. “We’ll kill it and eat it?”
“Only way men do it.” Finn nodded and winked. He winked at my kid. Nicely! I suddenly felt transported to an alternate universe. Either that, or sex made Finn magically kind and soft.
Brayden took a bite, and I watched the men banter back and forth about getting bait and finding the poles. When breakfast was done, I shooed Brayden into the small bedroom he’d slept in, telling him to get dressed and ready to go.
It left me alone with Finn for the first time since he’d cursed our morning sex and dove into the shower to wash the smell of me off his body.
Grabbing his plate, I flinched when his hand covered mine.
“Meant what I said, Meg.” I felt his eyes on me, but I couldn’t look up. I had no idea what I would see when I did.
I wanted to remember the smiling one. Or the one who rocked inside me with his jaw clenched together.
I didn’t want to see disgusted Finn.
Nodding, I mumbled a response and tried to slide the plate from him.
But Finn moved quicker and he stood from his chair, my hand still wrapped in his, and then he walked toward me, pushing me backward until my ass hit the kitchen counter with a thud.
“Are you going to look at me?” I heard the hint of humor in his tone and decided…no…no, I wasn’t.
It was too dangerous to my mental stability.
Looking at the plates on the counter, I mumbled, “I was think
ing it’d be better if I didn’t.”
At least I was honest.
Finn moved in, his hand in mine clamping down on the kitchen counter, and he pressed against me until his hips met mine. He leaned back and with his other hand, tangled it in my hair.
Then he tugged.
My lips parted and my head went back. We were inches from each other, and I saw his brown eyes darken as our gazes met before his gaze dipped to my parted lips.
His lip curled and he began to look conflicted.
I counted the seconds it took for either of us to speak. When I hit three, I said, “Lemme guess. It’s not me, it’s you, right?”
The memory of that after our last kiss…our first kiss…made me remember the soft way he’d handled me then. As if on instinct, my thighs began tingling with a dull ache.
Finn’s lip twitched. “Yeah. Something like that.” His fingers tightened in my hair and he dropped his lips to mine, brushing against them. “Never had a taste of beauty. Never wanted it. I’m the kind of man who would destroy it, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do what we did today all over again, either. Which is what makes me an asshole you should be staying away from.”
Hard to do that when my hips were pinned to the counter by his, my hand trapped under his hand.
That and the fact my nipples were hardening with each sweep of his lips over mine.
I wanted him. Again.
Destroy me? He couldn’t do anything worse than I’d already lived through…or what Moscoe was threatening to do to me when he found me.
“You don’t scare me, Finn.” I kept my eyes on him so he could see how serious I was.
“I should.” The words rolled off his perfect lips and I could have heeded his warning. Instead, this man who had taken me so roughly, yet at the same time so tenderly, this morning had me ready to go again.
I didn’t give him time to continue doubting whatever was happening between us.
I’d take sex.
If he ever gave me anything more, I’d probably want that, too. So instead of being afraid of him, I made the move and leaned forward. His hand on my neck tried to pull me back, but I slid my hand into the waistband of his athletic shorts, rolled to my toes, and pressed my lips to his.
It was heaven and sin. Danger and perfection all rolled into one kiss as I took his lips and sucked his bottom one in between my teeth. I flicked the seam of his lips with my tongue and groaned when he parted his mouth and his tongue met mine.
It sent fireworks straight to my sex and my abs tightened.
His hand left mine on the counter and went to my cheek, cupping it tenderly.
And then he devoured me.
I became liquid in his arms, my legs shook from trying to stay standing, but as our tongues tangled together, his warm skin on mine, I forgot…everything—my fear, my anger, my doubt…and I reveled in the way he tasted me.
A noise from the hallway, the sound of a door clicking, reverberated in my head over the roaring thunder in my ears.
Yanking back from the kiss, my lips were still parted and I was breathing heavily when Brayden walked into the room.
“Mom?” he asked, his brows furrowed as he took in me and Finn. Our positions hadn’t changed and I swiped a hand through my hair. “Finn?”
“Yeah, buddy?” I asked and then removed my hand from Finn’s waistband.
He looked down at me, shot me a smirk, and pushed off the counter.
I didn’t know what to say to Brayden.
But when I saw Finn turn and not-so-discreetly readjust his erection tenting his shorts, I snorted.
“Sorry,” I whispered, and then turned to face Brayden. I plastered on a fake, happy smile that he totally rolled his eyes at. Awesome. Five and he had the eye roll mastered. “Ready for fishing?”
“Yeah…” he said, somewhat hesitantly.
Next to me, Finn stood with his hip next to mine and lightly brushed a finger down my arm. “Not sorry at all, darlin’.”
Then he pushed off the counter without looking at me and headed toward the door. “Come on, Brayden. We got dinner to catch and worms to dig up first.”
I lifted a hand to say goodbye, but they were gone and the door shut behind them before I could say anything.
Apparently kissing Mom goodbye went to last place on Brayden’s priority list when it came to digging in dirt and playing with worms.
Not that I blamed him. It’s what boys did.
But as I began washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen, I couldn’t help but hope.
It was stupid.
It was incredibly pointless.
Finn had already given me enough warnings to know that whatever was happening between us wouldn’t last.
But they had come too late.
The warnings were buried under the thick roll of Finn’s voice as it washed over me, calling me beautiful, saying he wanted me, saying he wanted what had happened only hours earlier—to happen again.
And with that came a niggling of hope that somehow…some way…Brayden had just found a man who would be in his life permanently.
It would be a week later when I realized what complete and utter bullshit all that hoping had done for me.
Finn was right…he ended up destroying me more than he ever thought himself capable.
14 Finn
I never thought fishing would be fun. It was quiet and required patience, two things I generally hated because it meant I got stuck inside my own damn messed-up head.
Somehow, fishing with a kid actually made the shit fun.
And Brayden wasn’t doing as much talking as he usually did—which was probably why it was more fun.
But he smiled and giggled when a fish tried to get his hook. The kid would whip the pole out of the water faster than a croc diving for his prey, only to dump the hook back in the water.
We weren’t going to catch shit standing on the dock, but I wasn’t taking the kid out in the boat, either.
Mostly, I noticed that even in the quiet moments…the memories and voices that typically tormented me were quieter.
They had been ever since I’d jumped out of the bed, Meg’s legs still wrapped around me, a satisfied smile on her face that I’d put there.
I’d been a downright prick, but the sudden silence had scared the shit out of me. Almost as if along with shooting my load deep inside Meg, I’d also expelled all the shit that had weighed me down for the last decade.
Meg and her magic pussy sucked it all out of me.
I wanted more of it. More of her. If she could work that kind of voodoo shit on me, I wanted to be inside her at all times.
For that reason, and also because she was so damn soft yet wild when she got her hands on me.
I hadn’t even thought of ruining her. Hadn’t had to tamp down the urges that typically took over.
But with the way Meg had clawed at me, begged for me, I almost had a feeling she could take even the most depraved shit I had in mind for her.
A wicked smile twisted my lips at the thought right when my fishing rod jerked.
“Shit,” I muttered, yanking the pole and setting the hook. “Kid…check this out.”
Brayden was next to me in a second, his own pole on the dock forgotten, and I looked down to see him wearing a grin that spread from ear to ear.
“Wow,” he said, “it looks big.”
The drag pulled, causing a screeching sound, and I tugged on the pole again. It almost bent in half, and I hoped like hell the line didn’t break. Whatever I’d caught was a big fucker…and a fighter.
The best kind of fish to catch.
I pulled and reeled while Brayden cheered me on, clapping his hands.
“You can do it, Finn,” he said and my head snapped to his.
And damn it all…I actually smiled at him when he looked up at me with his wild blond hair and blue eyes.
He was as pure as Meg.
It didn’t even hurt when his hand reached out and grabbed onto the side of my shorts
so he could lean forward and watch the water.
“Gonna take a minute, kid,” I muttered, and my cheeks hurt. I was still fucking smiling. I tugged on the pole, reeled in the line, loosening the drag when the fish continued to fight.
My hands started sweating while Brayden, next to me, started jumping on the dock, bouncing me up and down.
“Go get the net in the boathouse.”
He scampered off, and I tried to shake off the feeling spreading through my chest. Something light.
Something good.
It felt like happiness.
But how in the hell would I know?
I fought, continued to reel in the fish I’d hooked until Brayden came back with the net, stomping on the dock in his hurry to get to me.
“Ready to help?” I asked him and looked down.
His eyes went wide and nervous. “You want my help catching it?”
“Sure,” I said and reeled in the pole. The fish chose that moment to jump out of the water. It was so close to the dock the water splashed onto us before I reeled it in a little more.
“Go kneel on the edge. I’ll pull it close, you just scoop it up.”
His eyes still wide, I watched as he did what I told him to and then I tugged my pole, bringing the fish in.
“Nice…Northern,” I said. Fucker was big. Had to be over thirty inches.
I tried to guide the fish over the net and watched as Brayden held onto it with two hands. They were shaking so I reached behind him and helped hold onto to the handle of the net with one hand, my pole in the other, and just when the fish moved over the net, I shouted, “Scoop it up!”
We pulled, I dropped my pole, and then Brayden yelled, “That’s the largest fish in the world!”
We stood up, and I kept the net low enough so he could see the fish. He peered into it and his eyes came to mine.
Hell if I hadn’t seen anyone as happy as this kid was over a fish. “Wow,” he said. “That’s enormous.”
“Pike,” I told him and nodded. My own lips fought a grin and lost. Damn, kid’s smile was contagious, too. “Good eating if you want to help me clean it.”