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Heat washed over her at the reminder and she dropped her hands.
He stepped forward and cupped her cheek, sliding the tips of his fingers against her scalp. Goosebumps dotted her skin and her nipples tightened.
“This is me, Gretchen.” He spoke against her lips. “This is where I come to stop hiding, to remember who I really am.”
With his free hand, he caressed her hip and pulled her flush against him. “I’ve never broughtanyonehere.”
She leaned back, so she could meet his dark gaze. “You haven’t?”
He shook his head. “It’s where I’m myself. You’re the only one who knows all of me.”
She swallowed down her declaration along with her tears. There were so many things Finn would never say, so many things she’d never ask of him, but she could make this enough. This was the real Finn, and although he didn’t belong to her, no one else had ever met him. That had to count for something.
~ ~ ~
Finn lay in bed, one hand behind his head, the other on his bare chest.
Across the room, Gretchen bent over with her face close to the dresser as she inspected his handiwork. “Do you remember that dressing table you made me?”
“What?” His energy had been too focused on her naked body to hear the words coming out of her mouth.
She straightened with a crooked smile and propped her hands on her hips. Yeah, like that pose would help him concentrate on her words.
Realizing where his thoughts were, she rolled her eyes. “I said, do you remember the dressing table you made me years ago?”
“Your thirteenth birthday.” How could he forget? He’d been so damn proud of that thing. “Your dad asked me to make that.”
She strolled across the room toward him. He forced his gaze to her face and away from the curves of a body he could now draw in his sleep.
“Did he ask you to make the little jewelry chest that went with it?” She stopped beside the bed.
He shook his head. He would’ve done either without payment, but Mr. Christensen never let him do work for free. The chest, though, had been his own gift for Gretchen, one he’d spent hours carving.
She smiled. “That table’s the first thing I move into every new apartment I rent, and I’ve carried that chest to every place I’ve spent more than a week or two. They’re my most prized possessions.”
“Theyare?”
Gretchen had grown up in a house filled with antiques and expensive furniture. Her father had given her a pair of diamond earrings for hersixteenth birthday and another for hereighteenth. Surely, she owned more impressive things than a dressing table and carved jewelry box.
She climbed on to the bed, crawling forward to walk her fingers from his abdomen up his chest. “Well, if you were mine, they wouldn’t be.”
How did she not know she already owned every piece of him? Her gaze locked with his and she held it. He could have sworn she probed his very soul, luring confessions from him that had been buried for years. When he thought she’d ask him if he loved her, or worse yet, tell him how she felt, she turned and tumbled back on the bed.
She stared at the ceiling. A deep sigh escaped her before she mused, “I love this place. It’s just missing a few things to make it perfect.”
Disappointment was a knife edge in his gut. Gretchen had grown up with an entire five-star hotel at her disposal, of course she wouldn’t find a tiny cabin in the middle of nowhere impressive. He forced the hurt down.
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“More bedrooms.” She turned her head to the side, facing him, and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “At least two more, one for the girls and one for the boys, it’d be okay if they shared.”
Happiness bubbled in his chest, making it hard to breathe. He rolled to his side, propping himself up with one hand and sliding the other across her taut stomach. He could suddenly picture her flat stomach swollen with his child, and the thought didn’t scare him like he’d thought it would. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No. It was just a thought.” She gave her head a swift shake and pulled away, pushing herself up to kneel beside him on the bed. “Why’d you bring me here?”
The easy comfort they’d shared since their arrival vanished. He ran a finger down her neck and between her breasts. Her eyes closed, and her chest rose and fell with her deep breaths.
He sighed. “There are going to be changes at the club.”
