Weak for Him (21 page)

"I was worried," he
added.

"Bullshit. You didn't look too
worried when you were about to fuck my best friend in the basement,
did you? To me, it looked like you were having a grand time.
Completely carefree!"

His jaw clenched. Speaking of the
fucking devil, Abbie entered the room and stood next to Finnley.
Her hand met his shoulder and squeezed.

I couldn't watch it.

Watch them.

Watch her be touchy-feely with
him.

I knew her. Everything about her
and how she worked, and flirted, and…

"Go away," I said, pulling the
blanket over my body. I wanted to sleep, although I had slept for a
week.

"You're being a baby," Abbie
said.

I turned my body around and looked
at her. "You're being a whore. But then again, what else is
new?"

"And you're being a bitch, and
hypocritical," Abbie said.

"Ladies, really?"

"Get. Out!" I said. "Both of you.
Now!"

"Abbie, leave," Finnley said. She
refused until Finn spoke with that dominant
Sir
tone that
said "listen to me."

She pleaded with her eyes, asking
if she could stay, but with a slight shake of his head, she was
gone.

"Unbelievable," I whispered.
"Un-fucking-believable. How long has this been going on? Few days?
The whole time I've been lost in dreamland?"

"I'm not talking about this with
you. I owe you no answers."

I sat up in bed and crossed my
arms.

"First you decide to fuck with my
emotions? Then you allow me to get over it and then fuck with me
again. After I am on my deathbed,
my fucking deathbed
, you
decide to fuck my best fucking friend. Then you have the nerve to
stand here and tell me you don't owe me any fucking answers. Finn,
I wish you would just fuck straight off. You are a prick. An
asshole. This biggest douchebag I have ever met, and if I ask you
for a fucking answer, I expect it."

His stance loosened, and his face
softened.

"I'm sorry."

"Wait. Wait a fucking second. What
did you say?"

"I'm sorry. I was wrong. It was a
misjudgment on my part," he said.

"I'm glad that you're man enough
to apologize and admit you were wrong, but it's still
un-fucking-forgiveable."

"What more can I fucking say to
you, Jennifer? I can't take it back. All I can do is tell you that
I'm sorry and that I was fucking wrong. Either you can accept it or
not."

I didn't want to. I wanted to yell
at him, tell him to get the fuck out, and stay away from me until
my contract expired. But the look on his face pulled me from my
rage. As much as I wanted to hate him, I couldn't. Fucking weak for
him.

I sighed and swallowed. "I
shouldn't have to feel like this."

Finn kicked his shoes off, crawled
on the bed, and placed his hands behind his head. Then, he had the
audacity to laugh. Not one of those fake ones, but a deep, hearty
genuine laugh. I elbowed him in his stomach, but he didn't stop
with that contagious laugh that stood out so brilliantly when we
first met. The one that could make anyone join in, even the saddest
person in the world.

"What's so damn funny?"

"Nothing." More
laughter.

I grumbled.

He rubbed his hand across my back
and placed his chin on my shoulder and we spooned.

"You can't stay mad at me forever,
you know?"

"Yes, I fucking can."

He placed his arm around my
stomach and held me. Minutes passed, hours even, and we stayed
there, in that spot with one another. Mr. Sandman visited me, and
in my dreams, I imagined Finn and me sleeping that way forever. But
I wanted him to leave. I wanted him to get the fuck out.

When I woke, he lightly snored in
my ear. I tore his arm from my tummy and rolled over to stare at
him. Although the darkness continued to linger, strips of moonlight
stretched across the floor.

Peacefulness covered his
face.

No lifted eyebrow, no half-smile,
just beautiful lips and strong jawline. Eyelashes that seemed to go
on for days and scruffiness on the chin with messy hair made up
this fallen angel of a man. No one this picturesque really existed.
But he did.

I sucked in a deep breath as I
memorized every inch of his face. My body ached for him and hated
him all at the same time as he lay beside me in
dreamland.

Who the fuck do you think you are,
Finnley Felton?

His eyelashes fluttered, and shiny
eyes, the color of green grass in the summer, stared into mine. He
inched his body closer, removing the gap of space between our lips.
Our mouths were close, and his intoxicating breath and scent
encapsulated me. Just an inch and we would kiss, just one little
movement, and we would be as one. But I didn't dare. I couldn't
keep putting myself in the line of fire. His hand traced my
jawline, and he grabbed the bottom of my chin and
paused.

"Do you like what you see?" he
asked, softly, gently sliding his lips on the outside of mine and
then he kissed me. My mind dizzied, and I thought I might melt into
his inebriating taste. At first, I didn't kiss back and then I lost
myself in the sensation of his softness. The sensation of him,
which I missed and craved, rolled through my body and when I opened
my eyes, I thought I saw stars. Every bit of Finnley, the man that
seemed too much at times and the one that I could not get enough of
at others, melded with me.

He didn't continue, or try to
undress me and make me his whore. Instead, he lay next to me,
twirling my hair in his fingers, kissing my cheeks, rubbing his
nose against mine without saying one word. Words never could
replace emotions, no matter how powerful or well written. I'd once
heard that words could move mountains, but so could Finn's
lips.

Finnley continued to poison me
with his light touch, which caused me to instinctively part my
lips, tilt my head ever so slightly, and close my eyes. His lips
found mine again as if they were long lost lovers, and danced.
This, I thought, would be the end of me, as he nibbled on my bottom
lip between smiles.

The addictive, forbidden kisses
would be what destroyed me from the inside out. I snuggled into him
as much as I tried not to, and we fell asleep.

Smells of freshly roasted coffee
beans and sugar filled the room as Finn sipped and stood at the
window, watching the sunrise. I watched him from behind—taking in
every muscle and curve of his body in tattered jeans and a
T-shirt—as he drank. A smile crossed my face as I snuggled into the
feathery blanket. He turned around when I moved, and I closed my
eyes quickly.

I heard him set the coffee on the
little table next to the bed, then his hand touched my head, and
his lips on my forehead. I opened my eyes as he pulled
away.

"Good morning," he said. "My
mother used to say that a person could kiss away fever."

"Really?"

He nodded his head and sat on the
edge of the bed.

"Are you feeling
better?"

I sat up, and he handed me a cup
of tea. Blueberries and honey hit my lips and warmed my
soul.

"We need to talk," he said. He was
all business.

After clearing his throat, he
continued. "Luke called. He's very worried. Since you are his,
currently
, he asked if he could visit. I told him that would
be your choice whether to see him or not. My answer is…"

"Yes. That will be fine," I
said.

"All right."

Finn stood, gave a smile, and
walked down the stairs. When the door opened, Luke
appeared.

"I waited downstairs because I
knew you'd see me." Luke came to me, and hugged my neck. His jaw
clenched when he caught sight of me and he released a long
breath.

"I will kill the little bastard
who did this to you. You could have died."

"Yeah. That's what they tell me.
How did your painting go? Good I hope?"

He pulled his phone from his
pocket and showed me the picture of the finished product. Luke had
outdone himself. A huge green pasture with a nice yellow and pink
sky sunset spread behind it. On the far corner sat a farmhouse, a
barn, and various colored horses: paints, Arabians, and
palominos.

"You can scroll
through."

On the porch, a woman with golden
brown skin, and sunlight reflecting on her brown hair.

"Oh god. That's me,
again
.
You always make me look so pretty."

He had painted me in cowboy boots,
tight blue jeans, with my arms crossed, smiling while leaning
against the railing. On the bottom of the picture in a cursive
script, read
Pioneer Woman
. The grass blew in the breeze,
and the background went on for miles. I felt as if I had traveled
back to the house, and I was looking at it directly. The shadowing,
coloring, everything was perfect. He even added a few oil derricks
in the background to give it that Texas oil look.

"I tried to remember the time we
shared. The company said they wanted a picture with a country feel
to it, pioneerish. While I was gone, I couldn't stop thinking about
you and the house. Now everyone around the world can appreciate you
both."

I blushed.

"It's beautiful. I… I just don't
know what to say other than thank you. The things you can do with
paint. It's unbelievable."

I handed back his phone, and he
grabbed my neck and hugged me.

"I was really worried."

I pulled away and looked into his
eyes.

"I'm not going anywhere.
Seriously, everyone is making a big deal about it. I'm
fine."

Luke lifted his eyebrows and
shrugged his shoulders.

"If you say so."

The door cracked open, and Finn
walked in with Abbie trailing behind him like a puppy with her tail
between her legs. Sickening.

They all sat on the side of the
bed, and the silence dragged on.

Luke said his goodbyes and Finnley
walked him out, leaving me alone with the girl I once trusted with
all of my secrets. The only person still alive that knew every
detail about me, but I didn't speak first because I had nothing to
say.

"I didn't tell him, you know.
About your parents."

She knew how to get me
talking.

"I didn't think you
would."

"We didn't have sex."

The word "sex" made my blood boil.
The thought of them in the basement, her bent over the bed with her
ass in the air waiting for him to take her, made me sick. If I
wouldn't have walked in, they would have gone through with it, and
if I wouldn't have woken up, it may have went on for days. Would
she have told me she fucked my boss?

"But you would have fucked him," I
said.

"Yeah. I would still do it right
now if he came in here and asked me. But he told me no. Not sure
what happened between the two of you last night, but after that,
he's been different."

"We didn't have sex," I said in
the same tone as her.

"Would you?" she asked.

"No. And I don't want you having
sex with him, either. He's my boss, and you're my best friend, it
would put me in an awkward situation. I don't want to deal with
it."

The silence nagged on for
minutes.

"Why don't you tell me the truth?
You don't want me to fuck him because you want to."

"
No
. I do
not
."

She scooted closer to me on the
bed and grabbed my arm so tightly that it hurt.

"Tell me to my face. Look me in
the eyes and say you don't."

"
I do not want to fuck
Finnley
."

Finn opened the door, and she
whispered under her breath, just loudly enough for me to hear,
"You're lying."

Twenty-two

T
he next day, Abbie was on
an early plane back to Texas. I didn't care. I needed time away
from her to think and get over it. I would get over it,
maybe.

After I fell back into my routine,
Finn visited me in the night. He crawled into my bed and wrapped
his arm around me as I turned around. I saw nothing but sadness in
his eyes.

"Jennifer. We have to stop this.
It's bad for business. Unfair to my clients. And the Girls are
starting to talk. I can't have that."

"Then I'll quit."

"No. I can't have that, either.
I'm not worth it, trust me. Sometimes I can be a son of a bitch. I
treat women I'm in relationships with badly. I'm toxic. And I owe
that to you. To stop this before it becomes too much or something
too serious. It has to stop now."

"I understand."

He left me empty with no
promises.

No insinuations.
Nothing.