He grabbed her hand firmly in his and lifted it to his lips, lightly kissing her knuckles. “Give me a chance to recover.”
Laughing softly, she looked up at him. “Just exploring.”
He shifted slightly onto his side so he didn’t have to crook his neck to look into her eyes. “There’s plenty of time, Addy,” he said. “I plan to spend many hours exploring you.”
It could have been a line. By all accounts, he’d had a variety of women in his bed. Then again, she was no prude. There were a dozen or so names on her own list. But this was different for her. So much different, and unless he was a really great actor, she was pretty sure it was different for him too.
“I like the sound of that,” she said softly.
He leaned down to kiss her, and she wove her fingers into his hair. A quick, errant thought flitted through her head—any children they’d have would have curly hair. But she was getting ahead of herself, way ahead of herself, and suddenly he was pulling her closer, shifting her so she partially lay across his chest.
She lifted her head and gave him a sly smile. “I thought you needed to recover.”
“I do, but if you keep kissing me like that, I might change my mind.”
Her smile spread. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Oh, it’s anything but.” He lifted a hand and tucked a stray curl behind her ear, then turned serious. “Addy, I need to ask you about Alan. Has he been bothering you?”
She sucked in a breath, his question stealing some of her joy. The last thing she wanted to do while she was naked and still slick with sweat from their lovemaking was think about Alan, let alone talk about him. She would need to tell Finn something if she had to go to New York—she didn’t want to lie about that—but she didn’t want to let Alan taint this moment, or her relationship with Finn.
She started to pull away, but he held her close. He looked at her with entreaty in his eyes. “Adalia. You can trust me.”
That should have been reassuring, but it only made her doubts resurface. While she knew logically she could likely trust him, her heart had been so battered it refused to open up all the way. At least not here. Not now. Not when she was already so vulnerable.
“I know,” she said, breaking free. Sitting up, she scanned the room for her clothes. “I was thinking about staying so we could cook dinner together.”
He sat up too, his eyes narrowed. It had escaped neither of them that she’d avoided answering his question. “I’d love for you to stay for dinner, but you don’t have to cook. We can get something delivered. I just want to be with you.”
“I like to cook,” she said, getting out of bed and making her way to the closet. He had multiple dress shirts lined up and sorted by color, because of course, and she grabbed a light blue long-sleeved one and slipped her arms into the sleeves. “Don’t worry, you’ll be cooking too.”
He studied her with hooded eyes as she buttoned the middle two buttons, leaving the top gaping down to below her cleavage.
“You’re wearing my shirt.” His voice sounded slightly strangled.
“Is that not okay?” she asked, giving him a coquettish look.
He got off the bed, slowly advancing toward her as though she were his prey. “It’s more than okay. Do you have any idea how sexy you are right now?”
“What?” she asked, trying to sound offended. “I wasn’t sexy in my I Love New York T-shirt and fanny pack?”
“Addy, you’d look sexy in a chicken suit.” He wrapped an arm around her lower back and tugged her to his chest. “That wasn’t a challenge, by the way.”
She laughed. “Are you sure?”
“Definitely.” He lowered his mouth to her neck, kissing his way down her chest to where the shirt gaped. “In fact, if you never wore anything but this shirt, I’d be a very happy and very turned-on man.”
Closing her eyes, she released a contented sigh. Finn had a way of making her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. But when she opened her eyes, she saw her painting on the wall. She’d been caught off guard when she’d walked in and seen it hanging on the light gray wall next to the window, and then Finn had kept her distracted. But now it was there, right in front of her.
He’d found a way to repair it, and seeing it now, whole again, she was taken aback by the fury in the strokes and colors. It felt like she’d painted it years ago. Had it really only been a little over a week? She vaguely remembered telling him it was his, but she’d presumed he’d throw it away. Not piece it back together. Definitely not hang it up on his wall. His bedroom wall.
“Why did you keep it?” she asked, her voice strained.
He lifted his head, standing upright, the look in his eyes telling her he not only knew what she was talking about, but was terrified to tell her. It took him a few seconds to finally answer. “Because it’s beautiful, and it’s part of you. I couldn’t bear to throw it away.”
It was the perfect answer, only he’d barely known her then. So why had he really kept it? She started to ask him, but then Tyrion started barking and Jezebel released a screech.
“Oh crap,” she said, then bolted down the stairs.
Tyrion barked at Jezebel as she attacked one of the sofa pillows, which was now on the floor and in shreds. The cat continued to attack it with a vindictive fury, as if it were stuffed with mice, ignoring Tyrion, who was circling her like a distressed schoolteacher would a disobedient student.
Finn was seconds behind her, wearing the boxer briefs she’d stripped off him less than an hour before.
“Jezebel!” she shouted, clapping her hands at the cat, but Tyrion’s barking drowned her out.
“Maybe you should take Tyrion and I’ll take Jezebel,” he said as he stood behind her, lowering his hands onto her upper arms.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “And ruin that gorgeous body? You don’t have any clothes on! She’d skin you alive! At least I’m partially covered.”
He glanced down, looking into her eyes. “Who knows what offense that pillow caused her. No way am I risking that she takes offense to your beautiful legs. Besides, Tyrion needs you, not me.”
The cat was still attacking the pillow, batting it across the room into the kitchen. Good. There wasn’t much in there to damage.
“Let me try to settle Tyrion down first,” she said. “Then we’ll address Jezebel.”
“Okay.”
Adalia squatted next to the husky and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face into his fur. “Tyrion. You can stop barking. You’re okay, and Jezebel’s fine too.”
The dog stopped barking and licked her cheek, his eyes so soulful they almost looked human.
“Good boy,” she said, squeezing him tighter, then loosening her hold. She stood and caught Finn watching her with a lust-filled gaze. The back of her shirt had hiked up, she realized, giving him a view of most of her bare butt.
“Focus, Finn,” she teased as she leaned to the side and kept her hand on Tyrion’s head.
“You make it damn near impossible,” he said, his boxer briefs not hiding his arousal. He took a step toward her.
But Jezebel’s hissing redirected their attention.
The cat had shoved the remains of the pillow against the sliding glass door, and was now attacking her own reflection in the glass.
“What do you want to do about her?” Finn asked.
“My magic touch with beasts stops with Tyrion and you,” she teased. “Jack’s the one who’s good with Jezebel.”
Jezebel was launching into full-on attack mode on the glass, getting progressively more pissed that the other black cat was still fighting her.
“Do you want to call him?” Finn asked, his disappointment obvious.
She understood why he was disappointed. She couldn’t greet Jack at the door dressed in Finn’s shirt and nothing else, and if she got dressed again, some of the magic would be gone. “What about the sardines?”
He gave her a long look. “What’s your level of
tolerance for the smell of rotten fish?”
She cringed. So far her cat had torn up his cushion, there were two big tufts of white fur on the couch, plus about a thousand small strands, and now his house was going to stink like a barge. “I’m sorry. It’s just that you mentioned you had them…”
Was this fate’s way of trying to tell her to go home? Maybe she should. Jack had sounded off on the phone, like something else was up with him besides losing their pets.
Grinning, Finn said, “I’m willing to sacrifice my olfactory nerves if it means you’re going to cook in my kitchen wearing my shirt.”
And she was lost. “Open the can, Finn. We have some cooking to do. Maybe we can use the blindfold next time.”
The remark brought to mind what he’d said earlier. He’d wanted to look into her eyes, and he had. When had a man ever looked at her like that while he was inside her? It meant something, and it both terrified and delighted her.
He released a groan and closed the distance between them, not stopping until their chests were pressed together, his mouth hovering over hers. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
She grinned. “That’s a two-way street. Now someone needs to open the sardines.” She took a step backward. “Not it!”
He laughed. Pillow stuffing was strewn from the living room to the kitchen, and they were about to unleash an unholy stink in his immaculate house, yet he was laughing.
“Again,” Finn said, walking backward and giving her plenty of opportunity to enjoy the view of his broad shoulders and the well-sculpted chest and abs he hid under his business shirts. “It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
Sure enough, he opened a cabinet and pulled out a tin of sardines.
“Maybe I should sign Tyrion up for some dog training classes,” she said distractedly. “If he escapes, then I can train him to come when I call him.”
“Good idea,” he said as he opened the can. The smell immediately permeated the room. “And maybe we can tame Jezebel. Might be a good project.”
Something about the way he said it prodded her insecurities.
“You said you’ve fostered for Maisie before,” she said carefully. “Why did you just foster?”
“Having a dog didn’t seem to fit. I worked long hours when I owned Big Catch, and I did a lot of traveling.”
“How long did you foster?”
“A month,” he said in a tight voice. “A corgi named Kiki.”
She’d had Tyrion for less than a week, and if Maisie called and said she was on her way to pick him up, she’d take him and go into hiding.
How had he given up his dog after a month?
Seeing her painting in his room had jarred loose some of her all-too-familiar insecurities, and finding out he’d had a dog for a month and then just given her away only made it worse. She could see that he didn’t want to talk about Kiki, so he hadn’t given her up glibly. Still, her doubts had been let out of their cage, and they were no more willing to go quietly back in than Jezebel would be.
Things had been so perfect with Finn, and she couldn’t help wondering when the bottom would fall out, because it always, always did.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Finn still had groceries from the last time he’d gone shopping with Adalia, and they managed to throw together a meal that incorporated rice, pinto beans, and a suspicious jar of mint jelly that Finn’s (now-deceased) grandmother had sent him in her yearly Christmas basket five years ago. (It hadn’t expired—miraculously it wouldn’t for another two years.)
She hadn’t put on any other clothes, and neither had he, and the whole process of cooking had been like a dance, leading up to what was sure to be an epic round two. (She had loosely tied the blindfold around her neck as a tantalizing hint of what was to come.) Jezebel and Tyrion had put the whole pillow misunderstanding behind them and were having a Lady and the Tramp moment with some of the shredded chicken he’d set out for them, which was sort of gross but also kind of adorable. So he wasn’t sure why something felt off.
It had happened after they came downstairs, he knew that much. Had it been his question about Alan? Sure, he probably shouldn’t have mentioned her ex-boyfriend while they were lying together naked, but he’d felt so close to her in that moment. He’d felt like he could finally vault over the final obstacle wedged between them. But he’d thought wrong. She still hadn’t answered him. He’d tried to subtly (and not so subtly) nudge her back toward the question several times during the dinner preparations, but no dice. He’d even asked her whether she’d made up with her brother Lee. She’d said yes and promptly changed the subject.
Now, as they sat down to dinner, he thought it was probably time to adopt a more direct line of questioning. Glancing at her through the candlelight—he’d left the candleholders out after their last dinner, and sap that he’d become, he’d even bought new candles for them—he felt a strange combination of emotions. He was happy, certainly, but that happiness was tinged with the fear that it might be taken away at any moment.
Was she trying to keep him at arm’s length?
“So…” he started. Then, because there was no good way of bringing up the man who’d trampled her heart and stolen her sculptures, he took the direct approach. “What’s going on with Alan? He’s been texting you again, hasn’t he?” The look on her face made it clear that she intended to shut down this line of conversation quickly, so he said, “Please, Adalia. I want to know what’s going on. I want to help you. I think I need to.”
But it was clear he’d said the wrong thing, again, because she had an almost panicked look in her eyes now.
“There’s nothing for you to worry about,” she said. Then she took a big bite of the dinner, made a face, and set down her fork. “Turns out there’s a reason people don’t combine these particular ingredients.”
He wanted to press her, but he suspected she’d react badly. That she’d lash out or maybe leave, and he didn’t want that. But the mystery of what had happened with Alan weighed on him, like that Greek guy who’d had to carry that huge round rock around on his back. No, it was a globe, wasn’t it? Anyway, it wasn’t good. A little more of the spell from earlier lifted. The world was creeping back in, and he didn’t like it—even if he was the one who’d triggered it.
Did Alan want her back? The text Finn had seen the other week certainly suggested it. He didn’t think Adalia would ever consider that, but if not, what was going on?
“You know,” Adalia said, her voice slightly playful again, though it felt a little forced, like she was auditioning for a part. “You owe me for sending me to that stained glass artist on Monday. She’s taken it upon herself to send me daily horoscopes by text. Apparently, I’m at risk of being eaten by wolves today.” She waggled her brows up and down.
“Ha,” he said. “Thanks for meeting with them. Speaking of which, would you be interested in taking on a bigger role for the show? I know we were going to do this as co-chairs, but I’m going to have less time coming up than I originally thought, and I was wondering if you’d like to be my boss.”
She had a crestfallen look, and it occurred to him that he hadn’t offered her any compensation for her time. While he hadn’t planned on taking a salary for himself, it wasn’t rational of him to expect Adalia would continue donating her time, especially with an expanded role. He’d planned for that, but he hadn’t said anything about it to her.
“I don’t expect you to do it for nothing,” he said hurriedly. “I was thinking we’d build in a stipend for you. If you’re willing. I know you’re working on the branding stuff for Buchanan, and it’s totally fine if you don’t want to do it or don’t have time. I can find someone else to take point.”
“Why aren’t you going to have time? Did you decided to take that job in Charlotte after all?” she asked, her face unnaturally pale. She cinched the shirt closed, as if she no longer wanted to be revealed to him.
“No,” he gushed out, horrified.
He was going abou
t this all wrong. He hadn’t even told her about his idea yet, and he’d meant to do that first, before bringing up the show. Except he was nervous, and his brain was skipping around, and it had skipped right past the point.
“You see, you inspired me. You and Sean and Mo, the guys from Charlotte Robotics, and even Gretchen from Bev Corp. I realized that I don’t want to work at just one company. You told me I was a creator, and I couldn’t see it at first. But you were right.” He smiled a little. “You’re right a lot of the time. The part I’ve always liked best is creating—building a company up and helping it be all it can be. So why not do that all the time? I’m going to start a consulting company, right here in Asheville, and it looks like Charlotte Robotics is going to be my first client. Well, them and Bev Corp, I guess.”
But he didn’t see any relief or excitement in her eyes. Her expression was guarded in a way it hadn’t been since they first met.
“So you are working for them?”
“No, not in the way you’re thinking,” he rushed to say. “I’m not taking the role they offered me, but I’m going to generate a launch strategy for them. They won’t be my only clients, though. I’m going to find office space here in Asheville, and hopefully I can recruit another couple of consultants to join me.”
“So…all of that buildup for the show, everything you said to convince me to participate, and now you’re not going to have time for it anymore. Just like that?”
He didn’t miss the bite behind her tone.
“I wanted to do it for you,” he blurted out, and before the words were out, he knew he’d ripped an even bigger hole into the bubble they’d been in today. So he tried to talk fast and seam it up. “No, not just for you. I think the show is going to be really great, and I’ve loved working with you on it—I’ve never had more fun in my life—but let’s be honest, I don’t have the expertise to push it to the finish line. You’re a better fit. I think I’ve always known that on some level. But I still want to do this with you. I just won’t have as much time to meet with the artists.”
Better Luck Next Time Page 28