MidnightInk-epub

by MI

  Finn.

  He was warm beside her, one big, tattooed arm flung over her stomach. She wanted to curl into him with every fiber of her being. Almost….except for the one small part of her that was filled with fear.

  If she gave herself to him in the way she yearned to so much it made her stomach ache…what then? It was the unknown that made her afraid. Or maybe it was what she knew about herself.

  She looked at his sleeping form, at the strong planes of his face, the plush softness of his sleeping mouth. The delicacy of his eyelids—how had she never noticed before?—in the misty light of dawn. It made her heart ache.

  She’d spent so much of her life closed off to any real connection, other than her family—Henry Lee and Christie—and her friends. And Henry Lee’s cancer had really scared the piss out of her. Loving someone was such a tenuous thing, when it could so easily be taken away. Did she dare open herself to that possibility?

  Her heart was a thudding beat against her ribs. She was panicking, she knew. But she couldn’t stop it.

  He was too….everything. Gorgeous and commanding and sometimes so honest it tore at her. She couldn’t have him. Couldn’t have what the silly, girlish part of her hoped for too damn desperately. Not with him. And not her.

  She wanted to cry again. She bit back the tears.

  You have only known him for two weeks.

  You know him in a way you’ve never known anyone. On a soul level.

  So stupid. You are so stupid.

  She slipped out from under his arm and got out of the big bed, the air cold on her naked skin. She found her clothes on the floor, got dressed while watching him sleep. But it was too hard and she had to turn away. She found her shoes and crept through the apartment, then stopped at the front door, her hand on the old wood.

  Can’t do this.

  She swallowed down a sob as she slipped through the door and shut it behind her.

  ***

  He’d called and texted her a dozen times in the last few days. She wouldn’t answer him. She couldn’t. She knew if she did she would crumble. Beg to be with him.

  He’d begged her. To talk to him. To think things through. He hadn’t said he wanted to be with her, but she thought she understood the subtext of all his messages.

  She could not allow it. It would only end in disaster. Wouldn’t it?

  Etta had called, then called again when Rosie hadn’t answered her. When she left a late-night message on the Midnight Ink voicemail asking Sassy to cancel all her appointments for the next few days, Sassy had called and demanded to know what was going on. She hadn’t returned her calls, either.

  It was easier to stay wrapped up in her blankets on the big bed in her living room, watching old movies, pretending not to cry. But she’d gone through an entire box of tissues.

  She didn’t want to be that girl—she never had been. And it only went to prove how awful things could get if she risked allowing herself to tell Finn how she felt. If she even risked telling herself how she felt.

  Did she even fucking know?

  She grabbed another tissue and blew her nose. Fucking awful.

  There was a loud knock at her door and she hit the mute button on the remote, silencing the black and white images on the television screen.

  Could it be him?

  Please no.

  “God damn it, Rosie. Open this door or I swear I will break it down!”

  Sassy.

  She got up and went to the door, leaned her ear against it. “I’m fine. Just…please go, Sassy.”

  “You must be joking. I’m not going anywhere, girlie, You may as well let me in.”

  “Sassy…”

  “Open the fucking door, Rosie. Now. I’m not going away.”

  She blew out a breath. She knew her friend well enough to know she meant what she said. She unlocked the door and stepped back as she pulled it open.

  “Well, don’t you look like death warmed over.”

  “Thanks for that.”

  But she knew it was true. She hadn’t showered since she’d left Finn asleep in Mick’s bed. She was in the same flannel pj’s she’d gotten into when she came home the other morning and she was sure her hair was a wreck.

  Sassy grabbed her by the shoulders and looked her in the eye. “You’re going to take a shower, missy, while I make you some coffee. Then we’re going to have one hell of a talk. Don’t even think of arguing. Go!”

  “Jesus, Sassy. Yes, ma’am,” she muttered as she shook free and turned toward the bathroom.

  “You can give me all the shit you want as long as you do as I say,” Sassy called after her.

  Rosie grumbled as she got undressed, letting the water heat up. She stepped in and soaped herself, rinsed and began to wash her hair. A moment later she heard Sassy come into the bathroom.

  “Coffee is brewing. Now talk.” When Rosie hesitated, Sassy repeated herself. “Talk, girlie.”

  “Fuck, Sassy.” She ran her head under the spray of hot water, wiped her wet hair from her eyes and ran some conditioner through it. “This is so ridiculous. I know it is. But I can’t…I feel stuck here. Stuck here without him and hating it. Hating that I feel this way.”

  “What way is that?”

  Pain wrenched her stomach. “Like I can’t stand to live without him. Like I don’t want to go a day without talking to him ever again. Seeing him. Touching him. Like even the kink and the sex take a back seat to…to the rest of him. The rest of us. Except there is no us.”

  “Only if you don’t want there to be,” Sassy said.

  “What do you mean? I’m sure he’s done with me by now.”

  “Really? Because that’s not what he says.”

  “He says…?” Her pulse went hot and thready. “What are you talking about?”

  “He called me at the shop yesterday. Today he dropped by to see me, trying to find out where you were, if you were okay. He was going to come over here himself but I made him agree to let me talk to you first. See what a good friend I am?”

  “Sassy—you can’t let him come here!”

  “Not that Finn’s the kind of guy anyone has any control over—and I think you know that better than anyone—but you wanna tell me why not?”

  The tears burned her eyes. She swallowed them down. “Because if I see him I don’t think…I can turn him away. And I’ll say something idiotic and spoil my whole life, that’s why.”

  “Did that sentence sound as stupid to you as it did to me?” Sassy asked.

  Rosie sighed. “Yes.” She shut off the water. “Hand me a towel, will you?”

  She grabbed the fluffy white towel Sassy passed through the shower curtain and began to dry herself. She was trying not to think about Finn hunting down information about her but failed miserably.

  He wanted her.

  She couldn’t allow herself to want him.

  “Rosie, I have something to say and you’re not going to like it.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” she muttered as she stepped out of the shower.

  Sassy was sitting on the closed toilet. “You remember when we found out Henry Lee was going to survive? When they cleared him of the cancer? How you said it was one of the defining moments of your life?”

  “Of course.” Rosie slathered moisturizer on her face, wondering where this was going.

  “Do you remember how you said it made you realize that you’d been a closed shell most of your life? How almost losing him made you see that the only really important thing was the people you cared about?”

  Rosie dropped her hands, bracing them on the edge of the sink, her head bowed. “Yes,” she said quietly.

  “Well, I hope you do. Because I think you care a lot about Finn and he’s going to be here any minute.”

  Her head came up. “What? How could you do this to me?”

  Sassy stood and patted her cheek. “Because I’m your friend and I love you. Now get dressed. You have about two minutes before I let him in.”

  “Shit. Shit! S
assy!”

  “You can thank me later, babe,” Sassy said over her shoulder as she walked out of the bathroom.

  Her head was buzzing as she ran her hands through her wet hair, then grabbed the only piece of clothing on hand—her short, pink cotton nightie that was hanging on a the hook on the back of the door.

  “You’re on!” Sassy called from the living room.

  “Rosie?”

  Finn.

  “Go away, Finn,” she said, even though every muscle in her body wanted to wrestle with her to shut up.

  “Not happening. Come out here and talk to me.”

  “Shit,” she muttered. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror. “God damn it,” she huffed before turning to head into the living room.

  There he was—his enormous frame seeming to swallow up her small apartment. God, he was something. Beautiful man. So beautiful it felt as if the air had been sucked from her lungs. It was several moments before she noticed how haunted his eyes were.

  “I had to see you,” he said.

  She started to shake her head, to look away, but he was at her side in a moment. “Rosie, don’t. I have something to say to you. Maybe you don’t want to hear it. Maybe you won’t believe me. Hell, I hardly believe me. But I love you.”

  “Finn…”

  “I know. Insanity, right? Right. But it’s the fucking truth.”

  “Finn, no.”

  “Rosie, yes!” He took her hand, held it tight. “You can’t tell me you don’t feel something, too. Alright, maybe it’s not love, but it’s something. I’d know it even if you hadn’t run out on me the other morning. But there has to be a reason why you did it, and don’t bother trying to convince me it’s that you’re bored with my company.”

  She yanked her hand away. “I’m fucking scared, okay? It’s been two weeks and I’ve never…” She stopped, shook her head.

  “Never what?” he asked quietly.

  His face looked so torn…it tore at her chest. She couldn’t lie to him. She couldn’t lie to herself.

  “I’ve never felt this way. About anyone. I’ve never let myself. I know there’s something wrong with that…with me.”

  He took her hand again and she let him. Needed him to in a way that made her heart break.

  “Rosie, what happened to you? Really? You’ve told me some but I know it’s not the whole picture”

  She bit her lip. “Okay. Okay. You want to know? I’ll tell you.” There was fire burning in her veins. Anger. It wasn’t him she was mad at. But the realization that her past was still affecting her—determining her actions, her beliefs, her life—was not only pissing her off, but she had some understanding that Finn needed to know. Deserved to, maybe.

  “I had this perfectly fucked-up life. My parents, my sister I could never measure up to no matter how I tried. By the time I was thirteen I was done trying. And when that asshole tried to rape me in high school? Sure, I fought back. I didn’t let it happen. I testified in court and sent his ass to jail so he wouldn’t do it to anyone ever again. But I was…tainted. My parents never let me forget. They never said it.” She stopped, wiped an angry tear from her cheek. “But it was always there. Every time they looked at me.”

  “Shit, Rosie—”

  “I’m not done.” She took a step back and started to pace. “He said as much to me in court, and I know it shouldn’t matter, but it did! It does! He told me I was damaged goods, and the moment he said it I knew it was true. Oh, I’m a good person, a good friend. But to men? That’s what I am. I’ve tried to redeem myself in kink in maybe the same way you have, to cleanse myself. And it’s helped. But obviously this message is still in my head and I’m fucking mad because I didn’t know it until…” She had to stop, to bite back a sob. The God damn tears were leaking down her cheeks. “I didn’t know until I met you, until I fell for you, that it was still there, like some ugly thing inside me.”

  “Christ, Rosie,” he said approaching her and trying to put his arms around her.

  She shoved him away. “Stop it, Finn! God damn it! Stop it…because if you don’t then I’ll…” She buried her face in her hands, her throat closing up on her.

  “You’ll what?” he asked, his voice low. “You’ll have to give in? I get it. I’ve had to do it myself. It’s fucking painful. But Rosie, we’re in the same place, you and I. I need you to listen to me now. Sit down and let me get it out. Alright?”

  She looked up, saw the pleading expression in his eyes. She nodded and sat on the edge of the big curtained bed.

  Finn sat on the old chaise. “I have a lot more to be redeemed from than you do. Not that this is a pissing contest. I don’t mean to imply that. But…I came to the States to get away from my past. I married Olivia to do it. But that’s not the only reason why I need redemption. You asked about my scars? They run fucking deep.” He stopped, looked down as he twisted his hands together.

  “I haven’t told you this because…I don’t tell anyone. Even Mick doesn’t know. Kenji never did, and now I regret it. So…I was engaged to a girl named Ayla when I was twenty-two. I was too young to get married, but that’s not the point. My parents weren’t thrilled, but they were going along with things. I’d been a bit of a wild kid, and maybe they thought I’d settle down. We were on our way to dinner one night, all of us, and there was…an accident.”

  His voice went so quiet on the last words she wasn’t certain she’d heard him right. “An accident?”

  He looked up and the pain on his face made her heart hurt, a sharp, gaping pain. “I was the only one who walked away.”

  “God, Finn. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. So am I. And even though some drunk hit us and it wasn’t my fault it still was, you know? And then I fucked it up even more by making Olivia pay for it because I needed to escape so damn badly. You want to talk about the need for redemption? That’s been my whole life. And then Kenji died. He died nearly alone, and there were five fucking people at his funeral besides me. One of them was a girl he’d been playing with at the club. One of many. But she was the only one who showed, and she was sobbing the whole time. He’d barely given this girl the time of day, and there she was grieving over him. She’s a great girl. They could have had something. Instead he died with nothing because he wasn’t open to anything but a good time. I don’t want to be that. I don’t want to end up that way.” He paused, scrubbed a hand over his head.

  “So I started thinking,” he went on. “Realized I had to change my life. That wasn’t long ago, but it started things in motion. Then I came here and I met you.”

  “Finn, that doesn’t mean…I don’t know. Where do I fit into all this?”

  “I don’t believe in fate, Rosie, I believe in cause and effect. I made a conscious decision to change my life and then you were put in front of me. And I’ve let myself feel something for you. I chose to. Because you are who you are—not because of random timing, Rosie—I fell in love with you the minute I saw you.”

  “Don’t say that,” she protested, trying to absorb everything he’d been telling her. That he loved her!

  He got up and came to sit by her. “I’m going to say it, and I’ll keep saying it until you believe me. I love you. I don’t care if it’s crazy. Do you? Aren’t we rebels, you and I?” He took her face in his hands. “Tell me you don’t care for me and I’ll go away, leave you alone. But if you do…”

  “Finn…” His name came out on a sob. “I do, but—”

  “But what? You’re too afraid?”

  “Yes, damn it!”

  He was quiet a moment and she thought he’d let her go. He didn’t. “Then I’ll be brave enough for us both.”

  Her heart hammered, cracked, broke open.

  “No, Finn. I can’t. I can’t do this.”

  Chapter Nine

  Finn’s gut twisted. It was do or die now. “Rosie, you can’t let fear make you throw this away. I’ve lived too much of my life that way, and now I have too many regrets. Don’t do anything here you’ll regret
. And if I can make a case for myself, don’t do anything I’ll regret.”

  She was silent, shaking her head. It struck him suddenly that if he was going to ask her to humble herself to what she felt, then he had to do it, too.

  He slid down to the floor, knelt before her, took her hands in his. The tears crept down her cheeks. She was so damn beautiful, without a scrap of makeup on—just the true her.

  “Rosie, don’t cry. You don’t need to. Just be with me. We’ll figure it out. We’ll do it together. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here, either. We’ll make mistakes. But we can find our redemption in each other. Don’t you see how true that is?”

  He saw her expression shift, soften. “Finn…do you really think we can? Because I feel like I still have so much crap in my life to clean up. The crap I didn’t even know was there. I thought I had my shit so together.”

  “You did. You do. We all have something, don’t we? No one is perfect. Not even your sister.”

  She smiled a little at that. “Maybe.”

  “You want to know what’s fucking perfect? The way I feel about you.” He reached up and stroked her cheek, ran his fingers along her delicate jaw, across her bottom lip. “And not just because you’re beautiful, even though you are. And not just because of your talent as an artist. And not just because you are so exquisite in your submission, so perfect for me in that way. But because of who you are.”

  “We don’t even know each other that well yet.”

  “Don’t we? You know how they say people in kink relationships create these strong bonds more quickly than other folk because of how we put it all out on the table? Tell me you don’t feel it.”

  “I do,” she admitted.

  “Tell me what else you feel, Rosie,” he asked quietly, his chest wrenching, but he had to know. “Do you love me?”

  She was silent for several long moments, watching him, emotion ranging across her lovely face. Then she reached up and traced her fingertips over his jawline, her blue gaze on his. “I do. I love you, Finn. I can’t believe I’m saying it. But it’s the truth. And you make me feel like…I can do anything, as long as it’s with you.”